De-individuation (social psychological explanations)

What is the role of crowd behaviour?

1. DI used by Le Bon (1895) to explain behaviour of individuals in crowds

2. As usually easily identified by others, our behaviour constrained by social norms - live in a society where most forms of agg = discouraged

3. But when we become part of crowd, lose restraint/have freedom to behave in ways we wouldn’t otherwise

4. Lose our senses of individual self-identity/responsibility for our behaviour - disregard norms/even laws

5. Responsibility becomes shared throughout crowd, so we experience less personal guilt about directing harmful agg at others

What is the link between DI and aggression?

1. Zimbardo (1969) distinguished between individuated/de-individuated behaviour

2. Individuated state - behaviour rational/normative

3. DI state - behaviour emotional, impulsive, irrational, disinhibited/anti-normative (DIE AI)

4. In a DI state; lose self-awareness, stop monitoring/regulating our own behaviour, ignore social norms/’live for the moment’, failing to form longer-term plans

What are the conditions of DI which promote agg behaviour?

1. Darkness, drugs, alcohol, uniforms, masks/disguises

2. Anonymity

According to Dixon/Mahendran (2012), how does anonymity shape crowd behaviour?

1. We have less fear of retribution as we’re a small/unidentifiable part of faceless crowd

2. Bigger the crowd, more anonymous we are

3. Anonymity provides fewer opportunities for others to judge us negatively

What is the role of reduced self-awareness?

1. Experience of DI as part of faceless crowd increases likelihood of agg

2. According to Rogers (1982), not due to anonymity directly but to consequences of anonymity

Which 2 types of self-awareness explain the process of the consequences of anonymity?

1. Private self-awareness

2. Public self-awareness

What is private self-awareness?

1. How we pay attention to own feelings/behaviour; reduced when part of crowd

2. Attention becomes focused outwardly to events around us

3. Pay less attention to own beliefs/feelings

4. Less self-critical/thoughtful

5. Promotes DI state

What is public self-awareness?

1. How much we care about what other people think of our behaviour; reduced in crowds

2. Realise we’re just one individual amongst many

3. We’re anonymous/our behaviour less likely to be judged by others

4. No longer care how others see us

5. Become less accountable for our agg actions

How did Dodd (1985) research DI?

Developed classroom exercise to illustrate DI

What was the procedure of Dodd’s (1985) research?

1. Asked question to 229 undergraduate psych students in 13 classes

2. “If you could do anything humanly possible with complete assurance that you would not be detected/held responsible, what would you do?”

3. Students knew their responses were completely anonymous

4. 3 independent rater who didn’t know the hypothesis decided which categories of antisocial behaviour the responses belonged to

What were the findings of Dodd’s (1985) research?

1. 36% responses involved some form of antisocial behaviour

2. 26% actual criminal acts, most common of which was to ‘rob a bank’

3. Few students opted for rape/murder/assassination of political figure

4. 9% responses prosocial behaviours (e.g. helping people)

5. Study demonstrates link between anonymity, DI/agg behaviour

AO3: Research support

1. Strength; research support for DI

2. Douglas/McGarty (2001) looked at agg online behaviour in chatrooms/uses of instant messaging

3. Found strong correlation between anonymity/’flaming’ (posting hostile messages)

4. Found that most agg messages sent by those who chose to hide their real identities

5. Common behaviour of online ‘trolls’; implicated in high-profile cases of self-harm/even suicide

6. Supports link between agg behaviour/anonymity, key element of DI

AO3: R-W DI

1. Strength; DI can explain agg behaviour of ‘baiting crowds’

2. Mann (1981) investigated instances of suicidal ‘jumpers’

3. Identified 21 cases reported in US newspapers of crowd gathering to ‘bait’ a jumper (encourage)

4. Incidents tended to occur in darkness; crowd large/jumpers relatively distant from crowd

5. Conditions predicted by DI theory to lead to state of DI in crowds, which lead to agg ‘baiting’

6. TMT some validity to idea that large group can become agg in DI ‘faceless’ crowd

AO3: Nature/nurture

1. DI highlights factors related to nuture in agg behaviour; anything that reduces private/public self-awareness

2. People who wouldn’t usually behave agg do so when part of crowd

3. Perhaps ultimate example; online behaviour

4. However, nature plays important role in causing agg behaviour; genetic, ethol/evol

5. Approach suggests that people agg in crowds as situation makes you feel stressed