Deindividuation
Encyclopedia
Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology
regarding the loosening of social norms in groups. Sociologists also study the phenomenon of deindividuation, but the level of analysis is somewhat different. For the social psychologist, the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation. As such, social psychologists emphasize the role of internal psychological processes. Other social sciences, such as sociology
, are more concerned with broad social, economic, political, and historical factors that influence events in a given society
.
. Deindividuation theory seeks to provide an explanation for a variety of antinormative collective behavior, such as violent crowd
s, lynch mobs
, etc. Deindividuation theory has also been applied to genocide
and been posited as an explanation for antinormative behavior online and in computer-mediated communications.
Although generally analised in the context of negative behaviors, such as mob violence and genocide, deindividuation has also been found to play a role in positive behaviors and experiences. There still exists some variation as to understanding the role of deindividuation in producing anti-normative behaviors, as well as understanding how contextual cues affect the rules of the deindividuation construct.
, deindividuation refers to a diminishing of one's sense of individuality that occurs with behavior disjointed from personal or social standards of conduct. For example, someone who is an anonymous
member of a mob will be more likely to act violently toward a police officer than a known individual
. In one sense, a deindividuated state may be considered appealing if someone is affected such that he or she feels free to behave impulsively without mind to potential consequences. However, deindividuation has also been linked to "violent and antisocial behavior
".
was an early explorer of this phenomenon as a function of crowds. Le Bon introduced his crowd psychology theory in his 1895 publication The Crowd: A study of the Popular Mind. The French psychologist characterized his posited effect of crowd mentality, whereby individual personalities become dominated by the collective mindset of the crowd. Le Bon viewed crowd behavior as "unanimous, emotional, and intellectually weak". He theorized that a loss of personal responsibility
in crowds leads to an inclination to behave primitively and hedonistically by the entire group. This resulting mentality, according to Le Bon, belongs more to the collective than any individual, so that individual traits are submerged. The idea of a "group mind" is comparable to the shared autism theory, which holds that individuals within a group may develop shared beliefs that have no basis in reality ("delusions"). Already, Le Bon was tending toward the conception of deindividuation as a state brought on by a lowering of accountability
, resulting from a degree of anonymity
due to membership within a crowd, where attention is shifted from the self to the more stimulating, external qualities of the group’s action (which may be extreme).
Essentially, individuals of Le Bon's
crowd are enslaved to the group's mindset and are capable of conducting the most violent
and heroic acts. Le Bon's group-level explanation of behavioral phenomena in crowds inspired further theories
regarding collective psychology from Freud
, McDougall, Blumer
, and Allport
. Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcomb revisited Le Bon's
ideas in 1952, coining the term deindividuation to describe what happens when persons within a group are not treated as individuals. According to these theorists, whatever attracts each member to a particular group causes them to put more emphasis on the group than on individuals.
This unaccountability inside a group has the effect of "reducing inner restraints and increasing behavior that is usually inhibited". Festinger et al., agreed with Le Bon’s perception of behavior in a crowd in the sense that they believed individuals do become submerged into the crowd leading to their reduced accountability
. However, these relatively modern theorists distinguished deindividuation from crowd theory by reforming the idea that the loss of individuality within a crowd is replaced by the group’s mindset. Instead, Festinger et al., argued that the loss of individuality leads to loss of control over internal or moral constraints.
Alternatively, R. C. Ziller (1964) argued that individuals are subject to deindividuation under more specific situational conditions. For instance, he suggested that under rewarding conditions, individuals have the learned incentive to exhibit individualized qualities in order to absorb credit for themselves; whereas, under punishing conditions, individuals have the learned tendency to become deindividuated through submergence into the group as a means of diffusing responsibility
.
P. G. Zimbardo
(1969) suggested "the expression of normally inhibited behavior" may have both positive and negative consequences. He expanded the proposed realm of factors that contribute to deindividuation, beyond anonymity and loss of personal responsibility, to include: "arousal, sensory overload, a lack of contextual structure or predictability, and altered consciousness due to drugs or alcohol", as well as "altered time perspectives...and degree of involvement in group functioning" Zimbardo postulated that these factors lead to "loss of identity or loss of self-consciousness
", which result in unresponsiveness to external stimuli by the individual and the loss of "cognitive control over motivations and emotions". Consequently, individuals reduce their compliance to good and bad sanctions held by influences outside the group.
Zimbardo
was consistent with Festinger et al. in his suggestion that loss of individuality leads to a loss of control, causing affected persons to behave intensely and impulsively, having let go of internal restraints. However, he developed this model by specifying the "input variables" (situational factors) that lead to this loss of individuality, as well as the nature of behaviors that result (emotional, impulsive, and regressive). Zimbardo further developed existing deindividuation theory by suggesting these outcome behaviors are "self-reinforcing" and therefore difficult to cease. Moreover, Zimbardo did not restrict his application to group situations; he also applied deindividuation theory to "suicide, murder, and interpersonal hostility".
While Diener was able to take the focus away from anonymity in the theoretical evolution of deindividuation, he was unable to empirically clarify the function of reduced self-awareness in causing disinhbited
behavior. In response to this ambiguity, Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982, 1989) extended Diener's model by distinguishing public self-awareness from private self-awareness. Public self-awareness they theorized to be reduced by "accountability cues", like diffusion of responsibility
or anonymity
. Such factors, according to these theorists, cause members of a crowd to lose a sense of consequences for their actions; thus, they worry less about being evaluated and do not anticipate punishment. Private self-awareness (where attention
is shifted away from the self), however, was reduced by "attentional cues", e.g. group cohesiveness and physiological arousal. This reduction leads to "an internal deindividuated state" (comprising decreased private self-awareness and altered thinking as a natural by-product) that causes "decreased self-regulation and attention to internalized standards for appropriate behavior". The "differential self-awareness" theorists suggested both forms of self-awareness could lead to "antinormative and disinhibited behavior" but only the decreased private self-awareness process was in their definition of deindividuation.
This model attempts to make sense of a range of deindividuation effects which were derived from situational factors such as group immersion, anonymity
, and reduced identifiability. Therefore, deindividuation is the increased salience of a group identity that can result from the manipulation of such factors. The SIDE model is in contrast to other deindividuation explanations which involve the reduced impact of the self. Further explanations by Reicher and colleagues state that deindividuation manipulations affect norm endorsement through not only their impact on self-definition, but also their influence on power relations between group members and their audience.
Classical and contemporary approaches agree on the main component of deindividuation theory, that deindividuation leads to "anti-normative and disinhibited behavior".
The model is used today in the exploration of various arenas, including computer-mediated communication. The composite of input variables theorized to contribute to deindividuation suggest none of us is exempt from falling under its influence, however simply being aware of deindividuation may help prevent one from losing oneself to the group.
Milgram
Stanley Milgram's study
is a classic study of blind obedience
, however, many aspects of this study explicitly illustrate characteristics of situations in which deindividuation is likely to occur. Participants were taken into a room and sat in front of a board of fake controls. They were then told by the experimenter that they were completing a task on learning and that they were to read a list of word pairs to the “learner” and then test the learner on accuracy. The participant then read a word and four possible matches. If the confederate got the match wrong, they were to administer a shock (which was not real, unbeknownst to the participant) from the fake control panel they were sitting in front of. After each wrong answer, the intensity of the shock increased. The participant was instructed by the experimenter to continue to administer the shocks, stating that it was their duty in the experiment
. As the voltage increased, the confederate began to complain of pain, yelled out discomfort, and eventually screamed the pain was too much and sometimes they even began to bang on the wall. At the greatest amount of voltage administered, the confederate stopped speaking at all. The results of the study showed that 65 percent of experiment participants administered the experiment’s final, and most severe, 450-volt shock. Only 1 participant refused to administer shocks past the 300- volt level. The participants, covered by a veil of anonymity, were able to be more aggressive in this situation than they possibly would have in a normal setting. Additionally, this is a classic example of diffusion of responsibility in that participants looked to an authority figure (the experimenter) instead of being self-aware of the pain they were causing or engaging in self-evaluation which may have caused them to adhere to societal norms
.
Philip Zimbardo
This study prompted Zimbardo to write his initial theory and model of deindividuation based on the results of his research. In one study, participants in the experimental condition were made to be anonymous by being issued large coats and hoods which largely concealed their identity. These New York University
women were dressed up like Ku Klux Klan
members. In contrast, the participants in the control condition wore normal clothes and name tags. Each participant was brought into a room and given the task of “shocking” a confederate in another room at different levels of severity ranging from mild to dangerous (similar to Stanley Milgram’s study
in 1963.) Zimbardo noted that participants who were in the anonymous condition “shocked” the confederates longer, which would have caused more pain in a real situation, than those in the non-anonymous control group. This study motivated Zimbardo to examine this deindividuation and aggression
in a prison setting, which is discussed in the next study listed.
Philip Zimbardo
Now a more widely recognized study since the publication of his book, The Lucifer Effect, the Stanford Prison Experiment
is infamous for its blatant display of aggression
in deindividuated situations. Zimbardo created a mock prison environment in the basement of Stanford University
’s psychology building in which he randomly assigned
24 men to undertake the role of either guard or prisoner. These men were specifically chosen because they had no abnormal personality traits (e.g.: narcissistic
, authoritarian
, antisocial
, etc.) The experiment, originally planned to span over two weeks, ended after only six days because of the sadistic treatment of the prisoners from the guards. Zimbardo attributed this behavior to deindividuation due to immersion within the group and creation of a strong group dynamic
. Several elements added to the deindividuation of both guards and prisoners. Prisoners were made to dress alike, wearing stocking caps and hospital dressing gowns, and also were identified only by a number assigned to them rather than by their name. Guards were also given uniforms and reflective glasses which hid their faces. The dress of guards and prisoners led to a type of anonymity
on both sides because the individual identifying characteristics of the men were taken out of the equation. Additionally, the guards had the added element of diffusion of responsibility
which gave them the opportunity to remove personal responsibility and place it on a higher power. Several guards commented that they all believed that someone else would have stopped them if they were truly crossing the line, so they continued with their behavior. Zimbardo's prison study would have not been stopped if Christina Maslach had not pointed it out to him. She was one of Zimbardo's graduate students, and was also intimate with him.
. The observer also recorded whether children came individually or in a group. In each condition, the woman invited the children in, claimed she had something in the kitchen she had to tend to so she had to leave the room, and then instructed each child to take only one piece of candy. The anonymous group condition far outnumbered the other conditions in terms of how many times they took more than one piece of candy. In 60% of cases, the anonymous group of children took more than one piece, sometimes even the entire bowl of candy. The anonymous individual and the identified group condition tied for second, taking more than one piece of candy 20% of the time. The condition which broke the rule the least amount of times was the identified individual condition, which took more than one piece of candy only in 10% of cases.
vs. identifiable) had on two subject conditions (self-differentiated vs. undifferentiated individuals). The self-differentiated individual is said to have definite boundaries between inner characteristics identified as self and the social environment. In the undifferentiated individual, such a distinction is less marked. Subjects who were preselected as being self-differentiated or undifferentiated were observed under conditions of high or low anonymity. Each subject was exposed to transgressions and donations made by confederates, and then their own transgressive and prosocial
actions were measured. Also, measures of verbal aggression
directed toward the experimenter and measures of internal state of deindividuation were taken. Major findings of the study:
Overall, the study supports the hypothesis that deindividuating conditions cause behavioral changes in undifferentiated individuals but have relatively little effect on the behavior of self-differentiated individuals.
, antisocial, nonnormative, and neutral. Results of his study yielded that 36% of the responses were antisocial, 19% nonnormative, 36% neutral and only 9% prosocial. The most frequent responses recorded were criminal acts
.
This study on deindividuation exhibits the importance of situational factors, in this case anonymity, when reporting antisocial behavior. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that personal traits and characteristics are not much of predictor when predicting the behavior. Overall, this study is supportive of the concept of deindividuation as Dodd found that behavior changes from what would be normal of a certain individual, to a behavior that is not representative of normal behavioral decisions.
. Group polarization refers to the finding that following group discussion, individuals tend to endorse a more extreme position in the direction already favored by the group. In Lee’s study subjects were either assigned to a deindividuation or individuation condition. Next, each subject answered questions and provided an argument about a given dilemma. They were then shown their partners’ decisions and the subjects were asked to indicate how convincing and valid the overall arguments were. In analyzing his results, Lee came to several conclusions:
Overall, this study provides solid research for which the previous findings regarding deindividuation can be solidified. The finding that deindividuation was associated with stronger group polarization and identification corresponds with the basis of deindividuation: individuals that are more polarized and identified with a group will be more apt to act out of character and display anti-normative behavior.
s, cult
s, and social organizations. Although they may seem very different on the surface, these groups share many traits that make them conducive to, and even contingent on, deindividuation. All of the examples share the strong drive towards group cohesiveness
. Police officers, soldiers, and sports teams all wear uniforms that create a distinct in-group while eliminating the individual differences of personal style. Men in the military are even required to shave their heads in order to better unify their appearance. Although gangs, cults, and fraternities and sororities do not require the same degree of physical uniformity, they also display this tendency towards unifying the exterior in order to unify their group. For example, gangs may have a symbol that they tattoo on their bodies in order to identify themselves as part of the in-group of their gang. Members of fraternities and sororities
often wear clothing marked with their “letters” so that they can quickly be identified as part of their specific group. By reducing individual differences, these various groups become more cohesive. The cohesiveness of a group can make its members lose their sense of self in the overwhelming identity of the group. For example, a young man in the military might identify himself through a variety of individual constructs, however while in uniform with a shaved head and dog tags around his neck, he might suddenly only identify himself as a soldier. Likewise, a girl wearing the letters of her sorority on her shirt, and standing in a crowd of her sorority sisters, may feel less like herself, and more like a “Chi-Oh” or “Tridelt.” Physically normalized to the standards of their respective groups, these various group members are all at risk to feel deindividuized. They may begin to think of themselves as a mere part of the group, and lose the awareness that they are an individual with the capacity to think and act completely separately from their group. They could do things they might not usually do out of shyness, individual morality, self-consciousness, or other factors. Due to reduced feelings of accountability, and increased feelings of group cohesion
and conformity
, these group members could act in a manor of non-normative ways. From buying drinks for an entire bar of strangers, to committing violence as dire as murder or rape, deindividuation can lead a variety of people to act in ways they may have thought impossible.
prison in Baghdad may have been a result of deindividuation. There were many elements about the situation making it conducive to deindividuation. As seen above, the military setting is implicitly favorable to deindividuation due to its focus on group cohesiveness and a reduction of individualism
. Moreover, due to the circumstances, the prison lacked many resource
s, including translators and enough clothing, which made it easy to dehumanize the prisoners as “the enemy.” Furthermore, the prison was poorly organized, with ambiguous leadership and purpose. As the soldiers stood on trial for their crimes, most claimed that if they had crossed the line, they would have expected a ranking officer to tell them it was wrong or stop them rather than self-evaluating their own behaviors.
My Lai Massacre
On March 16, 1968 during the Vietnam War
, American soldiers were responsible for murdering and sexually assaulting hundreds of civilian men, women, and children, believing that they were sheltering Vietnamese enemy in their homes or in secret hiding places. Similar to the situation at Abu Ghraib, these soldiers experienced deindividuation by the same elements of diffused responsibility
and a strong group cohesion
. Pressed by fear, paranoia, and the drive to maintain group cohesion, they found themselves acting against societal norms and capable of killing innocent civilians.
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan
demonstrates characterizes the perfect situation for deindividuation. Members wear white robes and hoods that completely unify their appearance and mask their identity. They form as a clear in-group with a clear out-group, and extol the superiority of their group against all others. Fearing violence from other members, any potential dissenters would probably squash their views out of self-preservation. It is therefore unsurprising that the Klan committed many lynchings and other violent attacks.
of deindividuation research. As deindividuation has evolved as a theory, some researchers feel that the theory has lost sight of the dynamic group intergroup context of collective behavior
that it attempts to model. Some propose that deindividuation effects may actually be a product of group norms; crowd behavior is guided by norms that emerge in a specific context. More generally, it seems odd that while deindividuation theory argues that group immersion causes antinormative behavior, research in social psychology
has also shown that the presence of a group produces conformity
to group norms and standards. Certain experiments, such as Milgram’s obedience
studies (1974) demonstrate conformity to the experimenter’s demands; however the research paradigm in this experiment is very similar to some employ in deindividuation studies, except the role of the experimenter is usually not taken into account in such instances.
A larger criticism is that our conception of the antinormative behaviors which deindividuation causes is based on social norms
, which is problematic because norms by nature are variable and situation specific. For instance, Johnson and Downing (1979) demonstrated that group behaviors vary greatly depending on the situation. Participants who dressed in Ku Klux Klan
robes shocked a research confederate more, but participants dressed as nurses actually shocked less regardless of whether they were identifiable or anonymous. They explained these results as a product of contextual cues
, namely the costumes. This explanation runs counter to Zimbardo’s
initial theory of deindividuation which states that deindividuation increases antinormative behavior regardless of external cues. Researchers who examine deindividuation effects within the context of situational norms support a social identity model of deindividuation effects.
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
regarding the loosening of social norms in groups. Sociologists also study the phenomenon of deindividuation, but the level of analysis is somewhat different. For the social psychologist, the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation. As such, social psychologists emphasize the role of internal psychological processes. Other social sciences, such as sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
, are more concerned with broad social, economic, political, and historical factors that influence events in a given society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...
.
Overview
Theories of deindividuation propose that it is a psychological state of decreased self-evaluation and decreased evaluation apprehension causing antinormative and disinhibited behaviorDisinhibition
Disinhibition is a term in psychology used to describe a lack of restraint manifested in several ways, including disregard for social conventions, impulsivity, and poor risk assessment. Disinhibition affects motor, instinctual, emotional, cognitive and perceptual aspects with signs and symptoms...
. Deindividuation theory seeks to provide an explanation for a variety of antinormative collective behavior, such as violent crowd
Crowd
A crowd is a large and definable group of people, while "the crowd" is referred to as the so-called lower orders of people in general...
s, lynch mobs
Lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial execution carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake or shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people. It is related to other means of social control that...
, etc. Deindividuation theory has also been applied to genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
and been posited as an explanation for antinormative behavior online and in computer-mediated communications.
Although generally analised in the context of negative behaviors, such as mob violence and genocide, deindividuation has also been found to play a role in positive behaviors and experiences. There still exists some variation as to understanding the role of deindividuation in producing anti-normative behaviors, as well as understanding how contextual cues affect the rules of the deindividuation construct.
Major theoretical approaches/history
In contemporary social psychologySocial psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
, deindividuation refers to a diminishing of one's sense of individuality that occurs with behavior disjointed from personal or social standards of conduct. For example, someone who is an anonymous
Anonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
member of a mob will be more likely to act violently toward a police officer than a known individual
Individual
An individual is a person or any specific object or thing in a collection. Individuality is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires. Being self expressive...
. In one sense, a deindividuated state may be considered appealing if someone is affected such that he or she feels free to behave impulsively without mind to potential consequences. However, deindividuation has also been linked to "violent and antisocial behavior
Anti-social behaviour
Anti-social behaviour is behaviour that lacks consideration for others and that may cause damage to society, whether intentionally or through negligence, as opposed to pro-social behaviour, behaviour that helps or benefits society...
".
Classic theories
Gustave Le BonGustave Le Bon
Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist...
was an early explorer of this phenomenon as a function of crowds. Le Bon introduced his crowd psychology theory in his 1895 publication The Crowd: A study of the Popular Mind. The French psychologist characterized his posited effect of crowd mentality, whereby individual personalities become dominated by the collective mindset of the crowd. Le Bon viewed crowd behavior as "unanimous, emotional, and intellectually weak". He theorized that a loss of personal responsibility
Moral responsibility
Moral responsibility usually refers to the idea that a person has moral obligations in certain situations. Disobeying moral obligations, then, becomes grounds for justified punishment. Deciding what justifies punishment, if anything, is a principle concern of ethics.People who have moral...
in crowds leads to an inclination to behave primitively and hedonistically by the entire group. This resulting mentality, according to Le Bon, belongs more to the collective than any individual, so that individual traits are submerged. The idea of a "group mind" is comparable to the shared autism theory, which holds that individuals within a group may develop shared beliefs that have no basis in reality ("delusions"). Already, Le Bon was tending toward the conception of deindividuation as a state brought on by a lowering of accountability
Accountability
Accountability is a concept in ethics and governance with several meanings. It is often used synonymously with such concepts as responsibility, answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and other terms associated with the expectation of account-giving...
, resulting from a degree of anonymity
Anonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
due to membership within a crowd, where attention is shifted from the self to the more stimulating, external qualities of the group’s action (which may be extreme).
Essentially, individuals of Le Bon's
Gustave Le Bon
Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist...
crowd are enslaved to the group's mindset and are capable of conducting the most violent
Violence
Violence is the use of physical force to apply a state to others contrary to their wishes. violence, while often a stand-alone issue, is often the culmination of other kinds of conflict, e.g...
and heroic acts. Le Bon's group-level explanation of behavioral phenomena in crowds inspired further theories
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
regarding collective psychology from Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
, McDougall, Blumer
Herbert Blumer
Herbert George Blumer was an American sociologist. Continuing the work of George Herbert Mead, he named and developed the topic of symbolic interactionism. According to Blumer himself, his main post-graduate scholarly interests were symbolic interactionism and methodological problems...
, and Allport
Gordon Allport
Gordon Willard Allport was an American psychologist. Allport was one of the first psychologists to focus on the study of the personality, and is often referred to as one of the founding figures of personality psychology...
. Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcomb revisited Le Bon's
Gustave Le Bon
Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist...
ideas in 1952, coining the term deindividuation to describe what happens when persons within a group are not treated as individuals. According to these theorists, whatever attracts each member to a particular group causes them to put more emphasis on the group than on individuals.
This unaccountability inside a group has the effect of "reducing inner restraints and increasing behavior that is usually inhibited". Festinger et al., agreed with Le Bon’s perception of behavior in a crowd in the sense that they believed individuals do become submerged into the crowd leading to their reduced accountability
Accountability
Accountability is a concept in ethics and governance with several meanings. It is often used synonymously with such concepts as responsibility, answerability, blameworthiness, liability, and other terms associated with the expectation of account-giving...
. However, these relatively modern theorists distinguished deindividuation from crowd theory by reforming the idea that the loss of individuality within a crowd is replaced by the group’s mindset. Instead, Festinger et al., argued that the loss of individuality leads to loss of control over internal or moral constraints.
Alternatively, R. C. Ziller (1964) argued that individuals are subject to deindividuation under more specific situational conditions. For instance, he suggested that under rewarding conditions, individuals have the learned incentive to exhibit individualized qualities in order to absorb credit for themselves; whereas, under punishing conditions, individuals have the learned tendency to become deindividuated through submergence into the group as a means of diffusing responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon. It refers to the tendency of any individual person to avoid taking action, or refraining from action, when others are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that either others are responsible for taking...
.
P. G. Zimbardo
Philip Zimbardo
Philip George Zimbardo is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is president of the Heroic Imagination Project...
(1969) suggested "the expression of normally inhibited behavior" may have both positive and negative consequences. He expanded the proposed realm of factors that contribute to deindividuation, beyond anonymity and loss of personal responsibility, to include: "arousal, sensory overload, a lack of contextual structure or predictability, and altered consciousness due to drugs or alcohol", as well as "altered time perspectives...and degree of involvement in group functioning" Zimbardo postulated that these factors lead to "loss of identity or loss of self-consciousness
Self-consciousness
Self-consciousness is an acute sense of self-awareness. It is a preoccupation with oneself, as opposed to the philosophical state of self-awareness, which is the awareness that one exists as an individual being; although some writers use both terms interchangeably or synonymously...
", which result in unresponsiveness to external stimuli by the individual and the loss of "cognitive control over motivations and emotions". Consequently, individuals reduce their compliance to good and bad sanctions held by influences outside the group.
Zimbardo
Philip Zimbardo
Philip George Zimbardo is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is president of the Heroic Imagination Project...
was consistent with Festinger et al. in his suggestion that loss of individuality leads to a loss of control, causing affected persons to behave intensely and impulsively, having let go of internal restraints. However, he developed this model by specifying the "input variables" (situational factors) that lead to this loss of individuality, as well as the nature of behaviors that result (emotional, impulsive, and regressive). Zimbardo further developed existing deindividuation theory by suggesting these outcome behaviors are "self-reinforcing" and therefore difficult to cease. Moreover, Zimbardo did not restrict his application to group situations; he also applied deindividuation theory to "suicide, murder, and interpersonal hostility".
Contemporary theories
In the late seventies, Diener began to express dissatisfaction with the current deindividuation hypothesis, which he deemed invalid without specific focus on the psychological processes that yield a deindividuated state. Not only was Zimbardo's model deficient in that respect, but the role of his input variables in causing antinormative behaviors was not uniform. Consequently, Diener took it upon himself to refine Zimbardo's model by specifying further the internal processes which lead to deindividuation. In 1980, he argued that paying attention to one's personal values through self-awareness increases the ability of that person to self-regulate. In a group context, when attention is distributed outward (in line with this model) away from the self, the individual loses the ability to plan his actions rationally and substitutes planned behaviors with a heightened responsiveness to environmental cues. Thus, according to Diener, the reduction of self-awareness is the "defining feature of deindividuation". Diener proposed that the strict focus on anonymity as the primary factor of deindividuation had created an empirical obstacle, calling for a redirection of empirical research on the topic.While Diener was able to take the focus away from anonymity in the theoretical evolution of deindividuation, he was unable to empirically clarify the function of reduced self-awareness in causing disinhbited
Disinhibition
Disinhibition is a term in psychology used to describe a lack of restraint manifested in several ways, including disregard for social conventions, impulsivity, and poor risk assessment. Disinhibition affects motor, instinctual, emotional, cognitive and perceptual aspects with signs and symptoms...
behavior. In response to this ambiguity, Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982, 1989) extended Diener's model by distinguishing public self-awareness from private self-awareness. Public self-awareness they theorized to be reduced by "accountability cues", like diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon. It refers to the tendency of any individual person to avoid taking action, or refraining from action, when others are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that either others are responsible for taking...
or anonymity
Anonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
. Such factors, according to these theorists, cause members of a crowd to lose a sense of consequences for their actions; thus, they worry less about being evaluated and do not anticipate punishment. Private self-awareness (where attention
Attention
Attention is the cognitive process of paying attention to one aspect of the environment while ignoring others. Attention is one of the most intensely studied topics within psychology and cognitive neuroscience....
is shifted away from the self), however, was reduced by "attentional cues", e.g. group cohesiveness and physiological arousal. This reduction leads to "an internal deindividuated state" (comprising decreased private self-awareness and altered thinking as a natural by-product) that causes "decreased self-regulation and attention to internalized standards for appropriate behavior". The "differential self-awareness" theorists suggested both forms of self-awareness could lead to "antinormative and disinhibited behavior" but only the decreased private self-awareness process was in their definition of deindividuation.
SIDE
The most recent model of deindividuation, the SIDE, was developed by Russell Spears and Martin Lea in 1995. They outlined their model by explaining that social identity performance can fulfill two general functions:- Affirming, conformingConformityConformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people.Conformity may also refer to:*Conformity: A Tale, a novel by Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna...
, or strengthening individual or group identities. - PersuadingPersuasionPersuasion is a form of social influence. It is the process of guiding or bringing oneself or another toward the adoption of an idea, attitude, or action by rational and symbolic means.- Methods :...
audiences into adopting specific behaviors.
This model attempts to make sense of a range of deindividuation effects which were derived from situational factors such as group immersion, anonymity
Anonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
, and reduced identifiability. Therefore, deindividuation is the increased salience of a group identity that can result from the manipulation of such factors. The SIDE model is in contrast to other deindividuation explanations which involve the reduced impact of the self. Further explanations by Reicher and colleagues state that deindividuation manipulations affect norm endorsement through not only their impact on self-definition, but also their influence on power relations between group members and their audience.
Classical and contemporary approaches agree on the main component of deindividuation theory, that deindividuation leads to "anti-normative and disinhibited behavior".
The model is used today in the exploration of various arenas, including computer-mediated communication. The composite of input variables theorized to contribute to deindividuation suggest none of us is exempt from falling under its influence, however simply being aware of deindividuation may help prevent one from losing oneself to the group.
MilgramStanley MilgramStanley Milgram was an American social psychologist most notable for his controversial study known as the Milgram Experiment. The study was conducted in the 1960s during Milgram's professorship at Yale...
(1963)
Stanley Milgram's studyMilgram experiment
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of notable social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that...
is a classic study of blind obedience
Obedience (human behavior)
In human behavior, obedience is the quality of being obedient, which describes the act of carrying-out commands or being actuated. Obedience differs from compliance, which is behavior influenced by peers, and from conformity, which is behavior intended to match that of the majority. Obedience can...
, however, many aspects of this study explicitly illustrate characteristics of situations in which deindividuation is likely to occur. Participants were taken into a room and sat in front of a board of fake controls. They were then told by the experimenter that they were completing a task on learning and that they were to read a list of word pairs to the “learner” and then test the learner on accuracy. The participant then read a word and four possible matches. If the confederate got the match wrong, they were to administer a shock (which was not real, unbeknownst to the participant) from the fake control panel they were sitting in front of. After each wrong answer, the intensity of the shock increased. The participant was instructed by the experimenter to continue to administer the shocks, stating that it was their duty in the experiment
Experiment
An experiment is a methodical procedure carried out with the goal of verifying, falsifying, or establishing the validity of a hypothesis. Experiments vary greatly in their goal and scale, but always rely on repeatable procedure and logical analysis of the results...
. As the voltage increased, the confederate began to complain of pain, yelled out discomfort, and eventually screamed the pain was too much and sometimes they even began to bang on the wall. At the greatest amount of voltage administered, the confederate stopped speaking at all. The results of the study showed that 65 percent of experiment participants administered the experiment’s final, and most severe, 450-volt shock. Only 1 participant refused to administer shocks past the 300- volt level. The participants, covered by a veil of anonymity, were able to be more aggressive in this situation than they possibly would have in a normal setting. Additionally, this is a classic example of diffusion of responsibility in that participants looked to an authority figure (the experimenter) instead of being self-aware of the pain they were causing or engaging in self-evaluation which may have caused them to adhere to societal norms
Norm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
.
Philip ZimbardoPhilip ZimbardoPhilip George Zimbardo is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is president of the Heroic Imagination Project...
(1969)
This study prompted Zimbardo to write his initial theory and model of deindividuation based on the results of his research. In one study, participants in the experimental condition were made to be anonymous by being issued large coats and hoods which largely concealed their identity. These New York UniversityNew York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
women were dressed up like Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
members. In contrast, the participants in the control condition wore normal clothes and name tags. Each participant was brought into a room and given the task of “shocking” a confederate in another room at different levels of severity ranging from mild to dangerous (similar to Stanley Milgram’s study
Milgram experiment
The Milgram experiment on obedience to authority figures was a series of notable social psychology experiments conducted by Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which measured the willingness of study participants to obey an authority figure who instructed them to perform acts that...
in 1963.) Zimbardo noted that participants who were in the anonymous condition “shocked” the confederates longer, which would have caused more pain in a real situation, than those in the non-anonymous control group. This study motivated Zimbardo to examine this deindividuation and aggression
Aggression
In psychology, as well as other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior between members of the same species that is intended to cause humiliation, pain, or harm. Ferguson and Beaver defined aggressive behavior as "Behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of...
in a prison setting, which is discussed in the next study listed.
Philip ZimbardoPhilip ZimbardoPhilip George Zimbardo is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is president of the Heroic Imagination Project...
(1971)
Now a more widely recognized study since the publication of his book, The Lucifer Effect, the Stanford Prison ExperimentStanford prison experiment
The Stanford prison experiment was a study of the psychological effects of becoming a prisoner or prison guard. The experiment was conducted from August 14th-20th, 1971, by a team of researchers led by psychology professor Philip Zimbardo at Stanford University...
is infamous for its blatant display of aggression
Aggression
In psychology, as well as other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior between members of the same species that is intended to cause humiliation, pain, or harm. Ferguson and Beaver defined aggressive behavior as "Behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of...
in deindividuated situations. Zimbardo created a mock prison environment in the basement of Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
’s psychology building in which he randomly assigned
Random assignment
Random assignment or random placement is an experimental technique for assigning subjects to different treatments . The thinking behind random assignment is that by randomizing treatment assignment, then the group attributes for the different treatments will be roughly equivalent and therefore any...
24 men to undertake the role of either guard or prisoner. These men were specifically chosen because they had no abnormal personality traits (e.g.: narcissistic
Narcissism
Narcissism is a term with a wide range of meanings, depending on whether it is used to describe a central concept of psychoanalytic theory, a mental illness, a social or cultural problem, or simply a personality trait...
, authoritarian
Authoritarian personality
-Historical Origins:Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswick, Levinson and Sanford compiled a large body of research and theory , which attempted to characterize a personality type that described the “potentially fascistic individual”...
, antisocial
Antisocial personality disorder
Antisocial personality disorder is described by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition , as an Axis II personality disorder characterized by "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood...
, etc.) The experiment, originally planned to span over two weeks, ended after only six days because of the sadistic treatment of the prisoners from the guards. Zimbardo attributed this behavior to deindividuation due to immersion within the group and creation of a strong group dynamic
Group dynamics
Group dynamics refers to a system of behaviors and psychological processes that occur within a social group , or between social groups...
. Several elements added to the deindividuation of both guards and prisoners. Prisoners were made to dress alike, wearing stocking caps and hospital dressing gowns, and also were identified only by a number assigned to them rather than by their name. Guards were also given uniforms and reflective glasses which hid their faces. The dress of guards and prisoners led to a type of anonymity
Anonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
on both sides because the individual identifying characteristics of the men were taken out of the equation. Additionally, the guards had the added element of diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon. It refers to the tendency of any individual person to avoid taking action, or refraining from action, when others are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that either others are responsible for taking...
which gave them the opportunity to remove personal responsibility and place it on a higher power. Several guards commented that they all believed that someone else would have stopped them if they were truly crossing the line, so they continued with their behavior. Zimbardo's prison study would have not been stopped if Christina Maslach had not pointed it out to him. She was one of Zimbardo's graduate students, and was also intimate with him.
Diener, Fraser, Beaman, and Kelem (1976)
In this classic study, Diener and colleagues had a woman place a bowl of candy in her living room for trick-or-treaters. An observer was placed out of sight from the children in order to record the behaviors of the trick-or-treaters. In one condition, the woman asked the children identification questions such as where they lived, who their parents were, what their name was, etc. In the other condition, children were completely anonymousAnonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
. The observer also recorded whether children came individually or in a group. In each condition, the woman invited the children in, claimed she had something in the kitchen she had to tend to so she had to leave the room, and then instructed each child to take only one piece of candy. The anonymous group condition far outnumbered the other conditions in terms of how many times they took more than one piece of candy. In 60% of cases, the anonymous group of children took more than one piece, sometimes even the entire bowl of candy. The anonymous individual and the identified group condition tied for second, taking more than one piece of candy 20% of the time. The condition which broke the rule the least amount of times was the identified individual condition, which took more than one piece of candy only in 10% of cases.
Nadler, A., Goldberg, M., Jaffe, Y. (1982)
This study by Nadler, Goldberg, and Jaffe measured the effects that deindividuating conditions (anonymityAnonymity
Anonymity is derived from the Greek word ἀνωνυμία, anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown.There are many reasons why a...
vs. identifiable) had on two subject conditions (self-differentiated vs. undifferentiated individuals). The self-differentiated individual is said to have definite boundaries between inner characteristics identified as self and the social environment. In the undifferentiated individual, such a distinction is less marked. Subjects who were preselected as being self-differentiated or undifferentiated were observed under conditions of high or low anonymity. Each subject was exposed to transgressions and donations made by confederates, and then their own transgressive and prosocial
Prosocial behavior
Prosocial behavior, or "voluntary behavior intended to benefit another", consists of actions which "benefit other people or society as a whole," "such as helping, sharing, donating, co- operating, and volunteering." These actions may be motivated by empathy and by concern about the welfare and...
actions were measured. Also, measures of verbal aggression
Aggression
In psychology, as well as other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior between members of the same species that is intended to cause humiliation, pain, or harm. Ferguson and Beaver defined aggressive behavior as "Behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of...
directed toward the experimenter and measures of internal state of deindividuation were taken. Major findings of the study:
- Within the undifferentiated groups, a greater frequency of subsequent subject transgressive behavior occurred in the anonymity more than in the identifiability conditions.
- Undifferentiated individuals are affected by deindividuating circumstances and they tend to transgress more after observing the model in the experiment.
- In terms of verbal aggressionAggressionIn psychology, as well as other social and behavioral sciences, aggression refers to behavior between members of the same species that is intended to cause humiliation, pain, or harm. Ferguson and Beaver defined aggressive behavior as "Behavior which is intended to increase the social dominance of...
, self-differentiated individuals' level of verbal aggression was equal under anonymity and identifiability conditions. However, undifferentiated individuals tended to model the confederates' aggression and were more verbally aggressive when anonymous than when identifiable. - The study found that undifferentiated individuals were less self-conscious and less inhibited in the anonymity condition.
Overall, the study supports the hypothesis that deindividuating conditions cause behavioral changes in undifferentiated individuals but have relatively little effect on the behavior of self-differentiated individuals.
Dodd, D. (1985)
Dodd’s experiment evaluates the association between deindividuation and anonymity. Dodd measured his subjects by asking them what they would do (within the realm of reality) if their identity were kept anonymous and they would receive no repercussions. The responses were grouped into four categories: prosocialProsocial behavior
Prosocial behavior, or "voluntary behavior intended to benefit another", consists of actions which "benefit other people or society as a whole," "such as helping, sharing, donating, co- operating, and volunteering." These actions may be motivated by empathy and by concern about the welfare and...
, antisocial, nonnormative, and neutral. Results of his study yielded that 36% of the responses were antisocial, 19% nonnormative, 36% neutral and only 9% prosocial. The most frequent responses recorded were criminal acts
Crime
Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction...
.
This study on deindividuation exhibits the importance of situational factors, in this case anonymity, when reporting antisocial behavior. Furthermore, this study demonstrates that personal traits and characteristics are not much of predictor when predicting the behavior. Overall, this study is supportive of the concept of deindividuation as Dodd found that behavior changes from what would be normal of a certain individual, to a behavior that is not representative of normal behavioral decisions.
Lee, E.J. (2007)
This study conducted by Lee investigates the effects of deindividuation on group polarizationGroup polarization
In social psychology, group polarization refers to the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members. These more extreme decisions are towards greater risk if individual's initial tendency is to be risky and towards greater caution if...
. Group polarization refers to the finding that following group discussion, individuals tend to endorse a more extreme position in the direction already favored by the group. In Lee’s study subjects were either assigned to a deindividuation or individuation condition. Next, each subject answered questions and provided an argument about a given dilemma. They were then shown their partners’ decisions and the subjects were asked to indicate how convincing and valid the overall arguments were. In analyzing his results, Lee came to several conclusions:
- Group identificationCollective identityThe term collective identity may refer to a variety of concepts. In general however, these concepts generally pertain to phenomena where an individuals' perceived membership in a social group impacts upon their own identity in some way. The idea of a collective identity has received attention in a...
was positively correlated with group polarizationGroup polarizationIn social psychology, group polarization refers to the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members. These more extreme decisions are towards greater risk if individual's initial tendency is to be risky and towards greater caution if...
. - He confirmed his hypothesisHypothesisA hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon. The term derives from the Greek, ὑποτιθέναι – hypotithenai meaning "to put under" or "to suppose". For a hypothesis to be put forward as a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it...
that the subjects would show stronger group identification and greater opinion polarization when deindividuated than when individuated. - Lee found that the more the participants identified with their partners, the more positive their evaluations of the partners’ arguments were, manifesting in-group favoritism.
- His findings suggest that both higher group identification and deindividuated subjects reported a significantly higher level of public-self-awareness.
Overall, this study provides solid research for which the previous findings regarding deindividuation can be solidified. The finding that deindividuation was associated with stronger group polarization and identification corresponds with the basis of deindividuation: individuals that are more polarized and identified with a group will be more apt to act out of character and display anti-normative behavior.
Applications
Deindividuation is the perceived loss of individuality and personal responsibility that can occur when someone participates as part of a group. It can cause a person to be more likely to donate a large amount of money to charity, but also cause them to be more likely to engage in mob violence. There are many instances in which the effects of deindividuation can be seen in real-world instances. Deindividuation can occur in as varied instances as in the police force, the military, sports teams, gangGang
A gang is a group of people who, through the organization, formation, and establishment of an assemblage, share a common identity. In current usage it typically denotes a criminal organization or else a criminal affiliation. In early usage, the word gang referred to a group of workmen...
s, cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
s, and social organizations. Although they may seem very different on the surface, these groups share many traits that make them conducive to, and even contingent on, deindividuation. All of the examples share the strong drive towards group cohesiveness
Group cohesiveness
In general terms, a group is said to be in a state of cohesion when its members possess bonds linking them to one another and to the group as a whole. According to Festinger, Schachter, and Back , group cohesion was believed to develop from a field of binding social forces that act on members to...
. Police officers, soldiers, and sports teams all wear uniforms that create a distinct in-group while eliminating the individual differences of personal style. Men in the military are even required to shave their heads in order to better unify their appearance. Although gangs, cults, and fraternities and sororities do not require the same degree of physical uniformity, they also display this tendency towards unifying the exterior in order to unify their group. For example, gangs may have a symbol that they tattoo on their bodies in order to identify themselves as part of the in-group of their gang. Members of fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities
Fraternities and sororities are fraternal social organizations for undergraduate students. In Latin, the term refers mainly to such organizations at colleges and universities in the United States, although it is also applied to analogous European groups also known as corporations...
often wear clothing marked with their “letters” so that they can quickly be identified as part of their specific group. By reducing individual differences, these various groups become more cohesive. The cohesiveness of a group can make its members lose their sense of self in the overwhelming identity of the group. For example, a young man in the military might identify himself through a variety of individual constructs, however while in uniform with a shaved head and dog tags around his neck, he might suddenly only identify himself as a soldier. Likewise, a girl wearing the letters of her sorority on her shirt, and standing in a crowd of her sorority sisters, may feel less like herself, and more like a “Chi-Oh” or “Tridelt.” Physically normalized to the standards of their respective groups, these various group members are all at risk to feel deindividuized. They may begin to think of themselves as a mere part of the group, and lose the awareness that they are an individual with the capacity to think and act completely separately from their group. They could do things they might not usually do out of shyness, individual morality, self-consciousness, or other factors. Due to reduced feelings of accountability, and increased feelings of group cohesion
Group cohesiveness
In general terms, a group is said to be in a state of cohesion when its members possess bonds linking them to one another and to the group as a whole. According to Festinger, Schachter, and Back , group cohesion was believed to develop from a field of binding social forces that act on members to...
and conformity
Conformity
Conformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people.Conformity may also refer to:*Conformity: A Tale, a novel by Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna...
, these group members could act in a manor of non-normative ways. From buying drinks for an entire bar of strangers, to committing violence as dire as murder or rape, deindividuation can lead a variety of people to act in ways they may have thought impossible.
Abu Ghraib
It is thought that the abuse and torture in the Abu Ghraib prisonAbu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse
Beginning in 2004, human rights violations in the form of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse, including torture, rape, sodomy, and homicide of prisoners held in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq came to public attention...
prison in Baghdad may have been a result of deindividuation. There were many elements about the situation making it conducive to deindividuation. As seen above, the military setting is implicitly favorable to deindividuation due to its focus on group cohesiveness and a reduction of individualism
Individualism
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
. Moreover, due to the circumstances, the prison lacked many resource
Resource
A resource is a source or supply from which benefit is produced, typically of limited availability.Resource may also refer to:* Resource , substances or objects required by a biological organism for normal maintenance, growth, and reproduction...
s, including translators and enough clothing, which made it easy to dehumanize the prisoners as “the enemy.” Furthermore, the prison was poorly organized, with ambiguous leadership and purpose. As the soldiers stood on trial for their crimes, most claimed that if they had crossed the line, they would have expected a ranking officer to tell them it was wrong or stop them rather than self-evaluating their own behaviors.
My Lai MassacreMy Lai MassacreThe My Lai Massacre was the Vietnam War mass murder of 347–504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968, by United States Army soldiers of "Charlie" Company of 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the Americal Division. Most of the victims were women, children , and...
On March 16, 1968 during the Vietnam WarVietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, American soldiers were responsible for murdering and sexually assaulting hundreds of civilian men, women, and children, believing that they were sheltering Vietnamese enemy in their homes or in secret hiding places. Similar to the situation at Abu Ghraib, these soldiers experienced deindividuation by the same elements of diffused responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility
Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon. It refers to the tendency of any individual person to avoid taking action, or refraining from action, when others are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that either others are responsible for taking...
and a strong group cohesion
Group cohesiveness
In general terms, a group is said to be in a state of cohesion when its members possess bonds linking them to one another and to the group as a whole. According to Festinger, Schachter, and Back , group cohesion was believed to develop from a field of binding social forces that act on members to...
. Pressed by fear, paranoia, and the drive to maintain group cohesion, they found themselves acting against societal norms and capable of killing innocent civilians.
Ku Klux KlanKu Klux KlanKu Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
The Ku Klux KlanKu Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
demonstrates characterizes the perfect situation for deindividuation. Members wear white robes and hoods that completely unify their appearance and mask their identity. They form as a clear in-group with a clear out-group, and extol the superiority of their group against all others. Fearing violence from other members, any potential dissenters would probably squash their views out of self-preservation. It is therefore unsurprising that the Klan committed many lynchings and other violent attacks.
Nazis during the Holocaust
Aside from the distinct group cohesion in this example, there was also the emergence of hostile group norms that lead to violence at the hands of the Nazis. Because of the size of the group in question, these group norms were almost like societal norms, and thus made violence towards certain groups easy and “normal.” Moreover, during the Nuremberg Trials, almost every Nazi official stated that they never felt personally responsible for the death and destruction caused by the Nazi regime because there was always someone above them who gave them orders and was in charge of their actions - an explicit definition of diffusion of responsibility.To Kill a Mocking Bird
In To Kill a Mocking Bird, the protagonist, a young girl named Scout, happens upon a mob about to lynch an innocent man. The members of the mob are undergoing deindividuation, their feelings of individuality and personal responsibility diminished by the overbearing presence of the group. However, Scout recognizes one of the members and calls him by his name, thereby reminding him of his identity and breaking his feelings of deindividuation. Suddenly self-aware, he and the other mob members decide not to complete their violent act.Controversies
Questions have been raised about the external validityExternal validity
External validity is the validity of generalized inferences in scientific studies, usually based on experiments as experimental validity....
of deindividuation research. As deindividuation has evolved as a theory, some researchers feel that the theory has lost sight of the dynamic group intergroup context of collective behavior
Collective behavior
The expression collective behaviour was first used by Robert E. Park, and employed definitively by Herbert Blumer, to refer to social processes and events which do not reflect existing social structure , but which emerge in a "spontaneous" way.Collective behavior might also be defined as action...
that it attempts to model. Some propose that deindividuation effects may actually be a product of group norms; crowd behavior is guided by norms that emerge in a specific context. More generally, it seems odd that while deindividuation theory argues that group immersion causes antinormative behavior, research in social psychology
Social psychology
Social psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
has also shown that the presence of a group produces conformity
Conformity
Conformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people.Conformity may also refer to:*Conformity: A Tale, a novel by Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna...
to group norms and standards. Certain experiments, such as Milgram’s obedience
Obedience (human behavior)
In human behavior, obedience is the quality of being obedient, which describes the act of carrying-out commands or being actuated. Obedience differs from compliance, which is behavior influenced by peers, and from conformity, which is behavior intended to match that of the majority. Obedience can...
studies (1974) demonstrate conformity to the experimenter’s demands; however the research paradigm in this experiment is very similar to some employ in deindividuation studies, except the role of the experimenter is usually not taken into account in such instances.
A larger criticism is that our conception of the antinormative behaviors which deindividuation causes is based on social norms
Norm (sociology)
Social norms are the accepted behaviors within a society or group. This sociological and social psychological term has been defined as "the rules that a group uses for appropriate and inappropriate values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. These rules may be explicit or implicit...
, which is problematic because norms by nature are variable and situation specific. For instance, Johnson and Downing (1979) demonstrated that group behaviors vary greatly depending on the situation. Participants who dressed in Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
robes shocked a research confederate more, but participants dressed as nurses actually shocked less regardless of whether they were identifiable or anonymous. They explained these results as a product of contextual cues
Contextual cueing
Contextual cueing is a concept in psychology that refers to the manner in which the human brain gathers information from visual elements and their surroundings. The term was coined by Drs...
, namely the costumes. This explanation runs counter to Zimbardo’s
Philip Zimbardo
Philip George Zimbardo is an American psychologist and a professor emeritus at Stanford University. He is president of the Heroic Imagination Project...
initial theory of deindividuation which states that deindividuation increases antinormative behavior regardless of external cues. Researchers who examine deindividuation effects within the context of situational norms support a social identity model of deindividuation effects.
See also
- Group DynamicsGroup dynamicsGroup dynamics refers to a system of behaviors and psychological processes that occur within a social group , or between social groups...
- GroupthinkGroupthinkGroupthink is a psychological phenomenon that occurs within groups of people. It is the mode of thinking that happens when the desire for harmony in a decision-making group overrides a realistic appraisal of alternatives. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without...
- GroupshiftGroupshiftWhen people are in groups, they make decisions about risk differently from when they are alone. In the group, they are likely to make riskier decisions, as the shared risk makes the individual risk less.-Overview:...
- In-group
- ConformityConformityConformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people.Conformity may also refer to:*Conformity: A Tale, a novel by Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna...
- Social facilitationSocial facilitationSocial facilitation is the tendency for people to do better on simple tasks when in the presence of other people. This implies that whenever people are being watched by others, they will do well on things that they are already good at doing...
- Social LoafingSocial loafingIn the social psychology of groups, social loafing is the phenomenon of people exerting less effort to achieve a goal when they work in a group than when they work alone...
- Social PsychologySocial psychologySocial psychology is the scientific study of how people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others. By this definition, scientific refers to the empirical method of investigation. The terms thoughts, feelings, and behaviors include all...
- Norm (social)