ao3 deindividuation

• supported by evidence.

  Douglas and McGarty -analysed aggressive behaviour in chatrooms and found a strong correlation between anonymity and "flaming' (posting threatening/hostile messages). The most aggressive messages were sent by those who hid their real identities.

  this shows that removal of individuality can contribute to aggressive behaviour as it perhaps removes the fear of consequences.

  Therefore, it is plausible to infer that anonymity caused by being in a crowd could also achieve this, causing aggression and increasing the validity of the theory.
• Zimbardo who conducted a lab experiment using female undergraduate students in a 'study of learning'.

  de-individuated group (who wore large laboratory coats with hoods and were never referred to by name) gave twice as many shocks as the people in the other group (who wore own clothes and were given large name tags).

  removal of individuality can lead to more aggression, as hiding the face makes people feel there will be less of a chance of facing consequences.

  increases validity of the theory as it shows why there is higher agg in crowd as peoples identities can be hidden there too.
• Johnson and Downing - female ppts to give (fake) electric shocks to a confederate.

  1. dressed in a KKK outfit;
  2. nurses
  3. control group they wore their own clothes.

  KKK- gave most electric shocks ,'nurse' gave even fewer shocks than the control group.

  it is not deindividuation itself, but the social role adopted after deindividuation which affects agg. If the adopted role is anti-social (e.g. KKK)=more agg

  prosocial (e.g. nurses) = less aggression.

  the mediating impact of social roles is unaccounted for, the theory can be considered incomplete.
• incomplete, overly focusses on loss of identity causing aggression and ignores other factors like biological.

  hormones- Dabbs ,692 criminals salivary testosterone, lower levels of testosterone= non violent crimes.

  since it doesn't take this into account it can be considered an incomplete explanation of aggression.
• real life cross-cultural evidence

  Watson collected data on the extent to which warriors from 23 societies changed appearance before going to war, and the aggression they showed in the war. It was found that societies where appearance changed the most (through costumes/paint) were most destructive towards victims compared to those who did change appearance.

  This shows that across many cultures, hiding of identity leads to aggressive tendencies which eventually facilitates violence towards others.

  Thus, validating the relationship between deindividuation and aggression