Agression - Deindividuation

The Nature of deindiciduation
1. is a psychological state characterised by lowered self-evaluation and decreased concerns about evaluation by others. This leads to an increase in behaviour that would normally be inhibited by personal or social norms.
  1. The psychological state of deindividuation is aroused when individuals join crowds or large groups. Factors that contribute to deindividuation include anonymity and altered consciousness due to drugs or alcohol (ZIMBARDO). Although ZIMBARDO has stressed that these are the same conditions may also lead to an increase in prosocial behaviours (for example crowds at music festivals and large religious gatherings), the focus of deindividuation theory has been almost exclusively on anti social behaviour.
The process of deindividuation
1. People normally refrain from acting in an aggressive manner partly because there are social norms inhibiting such 'uncivilised' behaviour and partly because they are easily identifiable. Being anonymous (and therefore unaccountable) in a crowd has the psychological consequence of reducing their restraints and increasing behaviours that are usually inhibited.
  1. According to ZIMBARDO, being part of a crowd an diminish awareness of our own idividuality. In a large crowd, each person is faceless and anonymous - the larger the group, the greater the anonymity. There is diminished fear of negative evaluation of actions and a reduced sene of guilt. Conditions that increase anonymity also minimise concerns about evaluation by others, and so weaken the normal barriers to antisocial behaviour that are based on guilt or shame.
Research on deindividuation
1. Anonymity - ZIMBARDO carried out a series of experiments that were instrumental in the development of deindiviiduation theory.
  1. Groups of four female undergraduates were required to deliver electric shocks to another student to 'aid learning'. Half of the ppts wore bulky lab coats and hoods that hid their faces, sat in separate cubicles and were never referred to by name. The other ppts wore their normal clothes, were given large name tags to wear and were introduced to each other by name. They were also able to see each other when seated at the shock machines. Both sets of ppts were told they could see the persons being shocked. Ppts in the deindividuation conditions shocked the 'learner' for twice as long as identifiable ppts.
    1. This study led to the suggestion that anonymity, a key component of the deindividuation process, increased aggressiveness.
2. REHM et al investigated whether wearing a uniform when part of a sports team also increased aggressive behaviour. They randomly assigned German schoolchildren to handball teams of five people, half of the teams wearing the same orange shirts, and the other hand their normal street clothes. The children wearing orange (who were harder to tell apart) played the game consistently more aggressively than the children in their everyday clothes.
3. The Faceless Crowd - Mullen analysed newspaper cuttings of 60 lynchings in the US between 1899 and 1946. He found that the more people there were in the mob, the greater the savagery with which they killed their victims.
Reduced private self awareness
1. PRENTICE-DUNN et al offer an alternative perspective to Zimbardo's conclusion that anonymity is an important determinant of deindividuation. They claim that it is reduced self-awareness, rather than simply anonymity, that leads ti deindividuation. If an individual is self -focused, they tend to focus on and act according to, their internalised attitudes and moral standards, thus reducing the likelihood of antisocial behaviour. If the individual submerges themselves within a group, they may lose this focus, becoming less privately self aware and therefore less able to regulate their own behaviour.
Evaluation
1. Importance of local group norms
  1. JOHNSON & DOWNING explored the idea that rather than deindividuation automatically increasing row incidence of aggression, any behaviour produced could be a product of local group norms. They used the same experimental conditions as Zimbardo, but this time ppts were made anonymous by means of a mask and overall (reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan) or by means of nurses' uniforms. Participants shocked more than a control condition when dressed in the Ku Klux Klan uniforms, but actually shocked less than the control when dressed as nurses. This finding illustrates that, as was the case in Zimbardo et al's stanford prison experiment, people respond to normative cues associated with the social context in which they find themselbes. In this study, ppts dressed as Ku Klux Klansmen clearly felt that aggressive behaviour was more appropriate than did the participants dressed as nurses.
2. Lack of support for deindividuation
  1. Evidence for deindividuation theory is mixed. A meta-analysis of 60 studies of deindividuation (POSTMES & SPEARS) concludes that there is significant support for the major claims of deindividuation theory. For example, POSTMES & SPEARS found that disinhibition and antisocial behaviours are not more common in large groups and anonymous settings. Nor was there much evidence that deindividuation is associated with reduced self-awareness, or that reduced self-awareness increases aggressive behaviour.
3. Prosocial consequences of deindividuation
  1. Deindividuation can increase prosocial behaviour
    1. Although most of the research has attempted to find a relationship between deindividuation and antisocial behaviour, some studies have shown that deindividuation may also increase the incidence of prosocial behaviour. SPIVEY & PRENTICE-DUNN found that deindividuation could lead to either proocial or anti social behaviour depending on situational factors. When prosocial environmental cues were present (such as a prosocial model), deindividuated ppts performed significantly more alturistic acts (giving money) and significantly fewer antisocial acts (giving electric shocks) compared to a control group.
4. Online deindividuation
  1. The desirable effects of deindividuation can also be found in cyberspace. Adolescents reported feeling aignificantly more comfortable seeking help with mental health problems under the deindividuated circumstances of a personal appointment with a health professional (FRANCIS)
IDA's
1. Gender Bias - CANNAVALE et almond that male and female groups responded differently under deindividuation conditions reflecting a gender bias in the theory. An increase in aggression was obtained only in the all male groups. This was also the finding of DINER, who found greater disinhibition of aggression (i.e removal of the normal inhibitions concerning aggression) in males. Thus, evidence indicates that males may be more prone to disinhibition of aggressive behaviours when deindividuated, than females.
2. Real world application - the baiting crowd and suicide jumpers
  1. Mann used the concept of deindividuation to explain a bizarre aspect of collective behaviour - the 'baiting crowd' - this lends support to the notion of the crowd as a deindividuated 'mob'. Mann analysed 21 suicide leaps reported in US newspapers in the 1960s and 70s. He found that in 10 of the 21 cases where a crowd had gathered to watch, baiting had occurred (i.e the crowd had urged the potential suicide to jump). These incidents tended to occur at night, when the crowd was large and some distance from the person being taunted (particularly when the 'jumper' was high above them). All these features were more likely to produces a state of deindividuation in the members of the crowd.
Evaluation - Cultural Differences
1. Dramatic support for the deadly influence of deindividuation comes from a study by anthropologist ROBERT WATSON. He collected data on the extent to which warriors in 23 societies changed their appearance prior to going to war and the extent to which they killed, tortured or mutilated their victims. Those societies where warriors changed their appearance (e.g tribal costumes and war paint) were more destructive toward their victims compared to those who did not change their appearance. As Zimbardp comments, when we want'....usually peaceful young men to harm and kill other young men...it is easier to do so if they first change their appearance to alter their usual external facade.

Next up

Agression - Deindividuation

Description

Resource summary

Similar

	Created by grace51296 over 10 years ago