Deindividuation

• What is deindividuation?

  A psychological state of lost personal identity
• How did Le Bon (1895) use deindividuation in his research?

  To explain crowd behavior of individuals
• What are the effects of becoming part of a crowd?

  • Losing restraint
  • Losing sense of individual self
  • Losing regard for norms and laws
  • Shared responsibility in the crowd
  • Reduced personal guilt for aggression
• What did Zimbardo (1969) distinguish between?

  Individuated and deindividuated behavior
• How does behavior differ in individuated and deindividuated states?

  Individuated is rational; deindividuated is emotional
• What conditions promote aggressive behavior in deindividuation?

  Drugs, alcohol, uniform, and anonymity
• What did Dixon & Mahendran (2012) claim about anonymity?

  Anonymity shapes crowd behavior significantly
• Why is there less fear of retribution in a crowd?

  Because individuals are unidentifiable
• How does anonymity affect self-judgment?

  It provides fewer opportunities for negative judgment
• What is private self-awareness?

  Attention to one's own feelings and behavior
• How is private self-awareness affected in crowds?

  It is reduced in crowds
• What happens to our attention in crowds?

  It focuses outwardly, reducing self-reflection
• What is public self-awareness?

  How much we care about others' opinions
• How is public self-awareness affected in crowds?

  It is reduced in crowds
• What did Dodd (1985) aim to demonstrate?

  A technique to demonstrate deindividuation
• What was the sample size in Dodd's study?

  229 undergraduate psychology students
• What percentage of responses in Dodd's study involved antisocial behavior?

  36%
• What did Mann (1981) investigate?

  Crowd behavior during suicidal jumpers
• What conditions did Mann find associated with crowd behavior?

  Darkness, large crowds, and distance
• What did Douglas & McGarty (2001) find about online behavior?

  High correlation between anonymity and hostility
• What did Gergen et al. (1973) study about behavior in darkness?

  Intimate behavior among strangers in darkness
• How did the follow-up study of Gergen et al. (1973) affect interactions?

  Led to less intimate interactions
• What does deindividuation theory argue about behavior and social norms?

  • Behave contrary to social norms when less aware of private identity
  • Spears & Lea (1992) argue it leads to conformity to group norms
  • Anonymity shifts attention to social identity as a group member
• How does anonymity influence behavior according to Spears & Lea (1992)?

  It shifts attention to social identity and norms
• What is a strength for Deindividuation?

  Real-World Deindividuation

  • Mann (1981) investigated instances of suicidal jumpers and identified 21 cases in US newspapers of a crowd gathering to bait a jumper
  • These incidents tended to occur in darkness, with large crowds and the jumpers at far distances from the crowd, which are conditions predicted by the individuation theory to lead to a state of deindividuation in crowds
  • Therefore, there is some validity to the idea that a large group can become aggressive in a deindividuated faceless crowd
• What is a strength for Deindividuation?

  Research Support

  • Douglas & McGarty (2001) looked at aggressive online behaviour in which they found a high correlation between anonymity and posting hostile messages
  • They found that most aggressive messages were sent by those who chose to hide their real identities, which has been implicated in high-profile cases of self-harm and suicide
  • This supports a link between aggressive behaviour and anonymity, a key element of deindividuation