de-individuation Flashcards
what is de-individuation?
a psychological state in which an individual loses their personal identity and takes on the identity of a social group when, for example, in a crowd or wearing a uniform. the result may be decreased concern about the evaluation of others.
who proposed the concept of deindividuation?
Le Bob
how does deindividuation occur in crowd behaviour?
when we become part of a crowd, we lose restraint and have the freedom to behave in ways which we wouldn’t otherwise. we lose our senses of individual self- identity and responsibility for our behaviour. we disregard norms and even laws.
responsibility becomes shared throught the crowd, so we experience less personal guilt about directing harmful aggression at others.
what did Zimbardo say our behaviour was like in an individuated state?
rational and normative (it conforms to social norms)
what are our behaviours like in a de-individualised state?
they are emotional, impulsive, irrational, disinhibited and anti-normative.
we lose awareness, stop monitoring and regulating our own behaviour as well as ignoring social norms
what are the conditions of de-individuating which promote aggressive behaviour?
•darkness
•drugs
•alcohol
•uniforms
•masks and disguises
-anonymity (larger crowd, more anonymous we are)
who proposed the types of self awareness?
Prentice-Dunn and Rogers
what are the two types of self awareness?
-private self awareness
-public self awareness
what is private self awareness?
concerns how we pay attention to our own feelings and behaviour. this is reduced when we are part of a crowd. our attention becomes focused outwardly to the events around us, so we pay less attention to our own beliefs and feelings. we are less self critical and less thoughtful, which promotes a de-individuated state.
what is public self awareness?
refers to how much we care about what other people think of our behaviour. this is also reduced in crowds. we realise that we are just one individual amongst many, we are anonymous and our behaviour is less likely to be judged by others. we no longer care how others see us, so we become less accountable for our aggressive actions
what was Dodd’s procedure?
•asked 229 undergraduate psychology students ‘if you could do anything humanly possible with with complete assurance that you would not be detected or held responsible what would you do?’
•the subtends knew their responses were completely anonymous.
•the independent raters who did not know the hypotheses decided which categories of antisocial behaviour the responses belonged to
what were Dodd’s findings?
•he found that 36% of the responses involved some form of antisocial behaviour
•26% were actual criminal acts, the most common of which was to rob a bank
•only 9% were prosocial behaviours (such as helping people)
•this study demonstrates a link between anonymity, de-individuating and aggressive behaviour
4 evaluation points
+ research support
(-counteracting research)
+ real world examples
- role of norms
- nurture and nature
what was Douglas and McGarty’s study?
•they looked at aggressive online behaviour in chatrooms
•they found a strong correlation between anonymity and posting hostile messages
•they found that the most aggressive messages were sent by those who chose to hide their real identities
strength: research support
•Douglas and McGarty
•supports a link between aggressive behaviour and anonymity, a key element of deindividuation