Social Psychological - Deindividuation

Deindividuation

a process where people lose their sense of individual identity and engage in unsocialised or anti-social behaviour

Deindividuation Can Explain Why Normally Non-Aggressive People Become Aggressive In Large Groups...

- we are normally inhibited from acting aggressively because we are easily indentifiable and fear consequences - in a group we feel part of a group rather than an individual; leads to removal of usual inhibitions
- people in groups feel faceless and anonymous, this reduces inhibition, causing people to act differently from how they would alone = less fear of retribution and guilt
- the larger the group, the greater the anonymity and greater deindividuation effect

Support From Zimbardo (1969)

- groups of 4 female students had to give electric shocks to another student to 'aid learning'
- half wore bulky lab coats and hoods that hid their faces, others wore normal clothes, were introduced by name and could see each other
- ps in the deindividuation condition (hooded) shocked for twice as long as the identifiable ps

Support From Rehm Et Al (1987)

-investigated whether wearing a uniform when part of a sports team increased aggression
-randomly assigned German schoolchildren to handball teams; half wore orange shirts and other half wore normal clothes
-children in orange (harder to tell apart) played consistenly more aggressively

Mann (1981) Used Deindividuation To Explain A 'Baiting Crowd'

-looked at 21 incidents of suicide in American newspapers in the 60's and 70's
FOUND in 10 of the 21 with a crowd, baiting had occured. These tended to occur at night, with a big crowd who were some distance from the person.
Mann claimed these features were likely to produce deindividuation in members of the crowd

Watson (1973) Looked At The Link Between Deindividuation And Intergroup Aggression

-found data from 'Human Relations Area Files', relating to 23 societies with whether they changed their appearance before going to war and how they treated victims
RESULTS showed of the 13 that killed, tortured or mutilated victims, all but one changed appearance. Of the 10 societies that were less brutal, 7/10 did not change = werent deindividuated

Deindividuation Can Explain Lynch Mobs - Mullen (1986)

-analysed 60 newspaper reports of lynching looking for number of people in the crowd and the level of violence against the victim
FOUND as the size of mob increased, the lynches became moer violent; size had led to a break-down in self-regulation processes which increased level of violence

Main Problem; Not All Crowds Become Aggressive...

Serious violence is uncommon even in crowds engaged in angry protest; even when protests do become violent, the majority of protesters do not participate

Some Studied Have Shown Deindividuation Leads To Prosocial Behaviour - Johnson And Downing (1979)

-used same experimental conditions as Zimbardo but made participants anonymous by means of Ku Klux Klan costume or a nurse's uniform. Ps shocked more than a control group in KKK uniforms, and less than a control group in nurse's uniforms

Some Studied Have Shown Deindividuation Leads To Prosocial Behaviour - Johnson And Downing (1979) - Criticism

The nurses uniform did not include a mask - they aren't really deindividuated as their whole faces are on show, unlike the other group in masks

IDA Relevant To Deindividuation - Nature v Nurture

Argues that aggression is caused by environmental factors - people who are not normally aggressive may behave aggressively due to deindividuation

IDA Relevant To Deindividuation - Implication

Could be used to reduce aggression in certain situations e.g. if schools abolished uniform children would be less likely to behave aggressively