Deindividuation

Question 1

What is deindividuation?

Answer 1

Losing your identity, usually in a large crowd

Question 2

Why does deindividuation in crowds affect behaviour?

Answer 2

Loss of identity frees you to behave how you wish and go against social norms because responsibility is shared with the crowd.

Question 3

What emotion are we less likely to feel while part of a deindividuated crowd?

Answer 3

Personal guilt

Question 4

What was behaviour like in Zimbardo’s study when PPTs were in an individuated state?

Answer 4

Rational and normative

Question 5

What was behaviour of deindividuated PPTs in Zimbardo’s study like?

Answer 5

Emotional. impulsive, irrational

Question 6

Describe some environmental conditions that lead to deindividuation.
Why do these deindividuate us?

Answer 6

Darkness, drugs, alcohol, masks, crowds.
They provide anonymity so we fear the consequences of our actions less

Question 7

What did Le Bon say about why deindivuation changes behaviour and leads to aggression?

Answer 7

Anonymity leads to a loss of internal restraints, self identity and responsibility for personal behaviour. Diffusion of responsibility leads to less feelings of personal guilt when being aggressive.

Question 8

Describe how reduced self awareness leads to aggression.

Answer 8

Anonymity leads to a loss of internal restraints, self identity and responsibility for personal behaviour. Diffusion of responsibility leads to less feelings of personal guilt when being aggressive.

Question 9

What is private self awareness?

Answer 9

How we pay attention to our own feelings and behaviours. Attention becomes focused to outward events to we pay less attention to our own thoughts and feelings.

Question 10

What is public self awareness?

Answer 10

How much we care about what other people think of our behaviour, which becomes reduced in crowds. We feel anonymous so we care less about what people think of us.

Question 11

Describe the procedure of Dodd’s research.

Answer 11

Asked PPTs ‘if you could do anything humanly possible with complete assurance that you would not be detected or held responsible, what would you do?. Students knew their responses were completely anonymous. 3 independent raters who did not know the hypothesis decided which categories of antisocial behaviour the responses belonged to.

Question 12

What % of responses in Dodd’s study were antisocial?

Answer 12

36%

Question 13

What % of responses to Dodd’s study were criminal?
Give example of crimes some people wished to commit.

Answer 13

26%. Included murder and rape.

Question 14

What % of responses to Dodd’s study were prosocial?
What does this finding tell us about anonymity and aggression?

Answer 14

9%
Demonstrates that anonymity increases aggression

Question 15

Explain the strength of support for deindividuation.
What did Douglas find a correlation between when studying ‘roasting’ in online chatrooms?
The more aggressive the message…
Deindividuation online has lead to more self ____ and s__________

Answer 15

Douglas looked at aggressive online behaviour in chatrooms and the use of instant messaging. They found a strong correlation between anonymity and ‘roasting’. They found that the most aggressive messages were sent by those who choose to hide their real identities. This is a common behaviour of online trolls. It has been implicated in high profile cases of self harm and suicide. This support a key element of deindividuation.

Question 16

Explain the strength os support for deindividuation from Zimbardo and Dodd.
What % of Dodd’s PPTs were willing to commit antisocial behaviours provided they were anonymous?
Describe how Zimbardo created anonymity within his PPTs.
What do these findings support

Answer 16

Dodd’s research found that 36% of PPTs wished to commit anti social acts provided that they had full anonymity. In Zimbardo’s prison experiment, prison guards were provided with anonymity by being given the same khaki uniform and mirrored sunglasses to hide emotion. Because they all looked the same, this freed them to behave aggressively towards prisoners without feeling bad. Prisoners were also deindividuated by being forced to wear stocking caps, being referred to by numbers etc. This supports how loss of identity leads to violent behaviour.

Question 17

Explain the limitation that there is contradictory evidence suggesting that deindividuation may lead to prosocial behaviour.
Spivey and Prentice-Dunn found this when a model performing what types of behaviour was present?
Give an example of one of these behaviours seen during earthquakes.
How might this affect moral behaviour of crowds?

Answer 17

Spivey and Prentice-Dunn found that deindividuation can lead to prosocial behaviour when environmental cues such as a pro social model were present. Examples of increased conformity within a deindividuated crowd included helping behaviour during earthquakes and altruistic acts such as giving money. This can explain how crowds often act on high moral principles and not in unrestrained, irrational ways.

Question 18

Explain the limitation that males and females can respond differently to deindividuation.
Increased aggression in was found in which gender for deindividuation?
What is disinhibition of aggression and which gender was it greater in when deindividuated?
Which type of bias does research therefore show?

Answer 18

Cannavale found that an increase in aggression was only obtained in the male groups tested. Diener also found greater disinhibition of aggression (removal of normal inhibitions concerning aggression) in males when deindividuated. Research therefore demonstrates beta bias a s the differences between males and females are ignored and similarities are exaggerated.