De-individuation

• De-individuation is the loss of personal identity and inhibitions about violence when people join crowds or larger groups
• People normally refrain from acting aggressively because of social norms against such behaviour because they are easily identifiable. Accoriding to Zimbardo, being in a large group gives people a cloak of anonymity which diminshes personal consequences from their actions.

  Responsibility becomes shared throughout the crowd and we experience less personal guilt at harmful aggression directed at others.
• Role of self awareness:

  • de individuation creates a greater likelihood of aggression, not due to anonymity directly but due to the consequences of anonymity
  • -reduced private self awareness : we pay less attention to our own feelings and behaviour
  • -reduced public self awareness : we care less about what others thikn of us
• Haney et al

  • Standford prison study
  • Ps who played roles of guards acted aggressively towards Ps who were in the role of prisoners
  • guards wore mirrored sunglasses to feel greater anonymity
• Zimbardo et al

  • re use social influence study
  • conclusion : people will act more aggressively when de individuated, Stanford Prison
• Supporting Evidence

  DEINER ET AL

  • on Halloween night they observed 1300 trick or treating American children
  • they found that those who wore masks and went from house to house in large groups were more likely to steal money and sweets (engage in anti social behaviour)
  • this supports the de indivuation theory because the children were not identifiable as they wore masks
• Anthropological support for de individuation comes from Watson, who collected data on warriors in 23 societies and whether they changed their appearance before going to war, and whether they killed, tortured or mutilated their victims. Warriors who significantly changed their appearance were more destructive towards their victims.
• Real world application

  • it can be used to explain the behaviour of a baiting crowd on suicide jumps
  • in 21 instances, it was found that 10/21 in a crowd a baiting has occured (telling them to jump and go on with the suicide)
  • baiting also tends to happen at night and at a distance from the jumper
  • these features are likely to produce de individuated state suggesting that de-individuation does occur in real life settings
• Other factors

  • contrast it with SLT, biology
• Gergen et al

  • studied groups of 6 men and 6 women who did now know each other
  • they were compared to a control group in a lit room
  • they were told that there was nothing special that the experimenter wanted them to do
  • in the final 15 minutes, some began to get physical, over half hugged, some became intimate, and some reported feeling sexually aroused
  • this suggests that de individuation does not always result in anti social behaviour