![]() When members join the queue, they accept its rules, and even though the group will disband as soon as the event begins, members conform to its norms and enforce them as needed (Miller, 2001). ![]() People in many cultures implicitly recognize the basic fairness of the principle “first come, first served” (or “first in, first out,”) which the queue protects (Zhou & Soman, 2008). Milgram noted that in addition to environmental supports, such as ushers and ropes, queues are also protected by norms of civility and justice. Second, queues are procedural preferences in many situations, and so are sustained by social norms of fairness and orderliness (Dold & Khadjavi, 2017). Every queue-jumper inflicts a cost-the loss of time-on all those who are pushed further back in line by their incursion. What prevents the queue from breaking down into a disorderly crowd? First, self-interest motivates the queue members to protect their advantaged place in the line against intruders. The queue thus constitutes a classic illustration of how individuals create social order, on the basis of a rudimentary principle of equity, in a situation that could otherwise degenerate into chaos. As in the case of most social arrangements, people defer to the restraints of the form, but they are also its beneficiary.Queues are an interference, for they prevent people from immediately achieving their goal of acquiring tickets, services, or other commodities, but they also protect people from late-arriving competitors for these commodities. But like the members of an audience Opens in new window, those in queue have joined deliberately to achieve a particular goal, and thus, as members of the collective Opens in new window, they are bound by certain norms of behavior (Mann, 1969, 1970). Like the common crowd, the queue includes strangers who will probably never meet again. Some queues, too, are not at all linear, as when those awaiting to board a bus (or to enter a crowded concert venue) move in a relatively unregulated way toward the entryway. Queues can also be segmented into subgroups that are permitted to enter together, as when passengers board a plane in groups based on seat assignment. Other establishments create dispersed queues by assigning queuers a number and then summoning them through a beeper or announcement when it is their turn. ![]() But some settings, such as theme parks, lobbies, and registration offices, shape the queue into a zigzag pattern through the use of stanchions and ropes. Queue comes from the French word for a braid of hair and so pays etymological homage to the queue’s most common shape-a relatively straight line. By definition, queue is a line, file, or set of people who are waiting for some service, commodity, or opportunity. Queue, a group of persons awaiting their turn, is a unique type of crowd Opens in new window.
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