Deindividuation Explanations

Question 1

What is deindividuation?

Answer 1

When one loses their sense of individuality and identity.

Question 2

What are the two main ways in which deindividuation can occur?

Answer 2

Becoming part of a crowd.

Identifying with a particular role (often aided by wearing uniform or mask).

Question 3

Deindividuation may be used to explain aggression when someone is in what?

Answer 3

A group.

Question 4

When are individuals more likely to be aggressive? Why?

(Le Bon, 1896)

Answer 4

When part of a large anonymous group, as we are less constrained by social norms.

Question 5

What does a ‘loss of self-awareness’ mean?

Answer 5

Losing the factors that make you yourself, (morals).

Question 6

When individuals behave aggressively in a group, what can be created?

Answer 6

A collective mindset is created and the group can become a ‘mob’.

Question 7

Why are people generally more aggressive when in groups?

Answer 7

Individuals feel less identifiable in a group, so the normal constraints that prevent aggressive behaviour may be lost.

Question 8

What is lost, as a result of deindividuation?

Answer 8

Individual self-identity.

Responsibility for our behaviour.

Question 9

What is diffusion of responsibility?

Answer 9

When responsibility becomes shared so we experience less personal guilt at harmful aggression directed at others.

Question 10

What did Diener state in 1980?

Answer 10

Stated that deindividuation occurs when self-awareness is blocked by environmental events.

Question 11

What were the 4 critical factors proposed by Diener in 1980?

Answer 11

Strong feelings of group membership.

Increased levels of arousal.

Focus on external events.

Feeling of anonymity.

Question 12

Diener stated that a deindividuated individual is trapped in the moment. As a results of this, what becomes distorted? What are they unable to do?

Answer 12

Perception of time is distorted.

They are unable to consider consequences.

Question 13

Diener proposed 4 critical factors, what did they mean?

Answer 13

The 4 critical factors were examples of environmental events that resulted in deindividuation.

Question 14

What did Zimbardo say about an individuated state and a deindividuated state, (1969)?

Answer 14

In an individuated state our behaviour is rational and normative.

In a deindividuated individual, we act emotionally, impulsively and irrationally.

Most importantly, we can become anti-normative and disinhibited.

We lose self-awareness, stop monitoring and regulating our behaviour and ignore social norms.

Question 15

Name 4 factors that may cause someone to become deindividuated? (Other than Diener’s factors).

Answer 15

Anonymity.

Confidence and personality: low confidence may result in a greater wanting to be liked. Impressionable personalities make people more susceptible to group behaviour e.g. aggression.

Fear/ nerves: increased arousal.

Agency theory: if someone is told to do something it may make them feel less responsible for their actions, e.g. Army - (also wearing uniform, increasing sense of anonymity).

Time of day: e.g. darkness may increase deindividuation - less identifiable.

Taking of drugs and alcohol: make reduce someone’s self-awareness.

Masks and disguises: e.g. looting and rioting with balaclavas.

Question 16

What did Dixon and Mahendran state in 2012?

Answer 16

“Anonymity shapes crowd behaviour”.

Question 17

What did Dixon and Mahendran state about anonymity and crowd aggression, in 2012?

Answer 17

We have less fear of retribution because we are a small and unidentifiable part of a faceless crowd; the bigger the crowd, the more anonymous we are.

Crucially, anonymity provides fewer opportunities for others to judge us negatively.

Question 18

What did Prentice-Dunn and Rogers do in 1982?

Answer 18

Modified Diener’s theory to distinguish between public and private self-awareness.

Question 19

According to Prentice-Dunn and Rogers, what is public self-awareness?

Answer 19

Concern over the impression of yourself you are presenting to others when you are aware of being judged.

Question 20

According to Prentice-Dunn and Rogers, what is private self-awareness?

Answer 20

Your sense of self, consisting of thoughts, feelings, values and internal standards of behaviour.

Question 21

Public and private self-awareness can be affected by crowds. How?

(Prentice-Dunn and Rogers, 1982)

Answer 21

Public self-awareness:
We are just one of many, so we become less accountable of our aggressive and destructive actions.

Private self-awareness:
We become focused on external events so become less focusses on our own beliefs and feelings. Less self-critical.

Question 22

Outline Zhong et al’s study from 2010?

Answer 22

Stated that deindividuation can also occur when the identity of the individual is hidden in some way.

When identity is hidden, their behaviour becomes less moral and they are more likely to cheat and act selfishly at the expense of others.

Question 23

When may loss of identity lead to aggression?

(Zhong et al, 2010)

Answer 23

Indigenous tribes, such as the ‘Fierce People’.

People in the army.

Question 24

Apply deindividuation to Zimbardo’s prison experiment.

Answer 24

Guards wore reflective glasses: lack of eye contact reduces the identity and increases their anonymity.

Both prisoners and guards wore uniforms: increasing their identification to their roles as well as reducing anonymity - they become more of a unified whole than individuals.

Question 25

Outline Zimbardo's study from 1970.

Answer 25

Supports deindividuation as an explanation for aggression. This is because they found that when two groups of female students, with one set wearing hoods over their faces and the other wearing large name tags. Both groups observed a woman being interviewed (either by an obnoxious or pleasant interviewer) and evaluated her performance by administering electric shocks. They found that those with hoods shocked both interviewees equally, whereas the nametag PPs shocked the obnoxious more than pleasant interviewer. This suggests that deindividuation increased aggression, making it indiscriminate and not at all influenced by individual characteristics. This is socially sensitive, as indiscriminate aggression with anonymity is very dangerous.

Question 26

Outline Dodd's 1985 study.

Answer 26

Supports deindividuation as an explanation for aggression. This is because when they asked 229 psychology students "If you could do anything humanely possible with complete assurance that you would not be detected or held responsible, what would you do?", 36% involved some form of antisocial behaviour, and 26% were criminal acts (most common was financial gain), and around 9% were prosocial behaviour. This suggests that there is a link between anonymity and aggression. However, this research is very hypothetical and extremely unfalsifiable

Question 27

Outline the study completed by Johnson and Downing in 1979.

Answer 27

Supports deindividuation as an explanation for aggression. This is because they found that when PPs were dressed with masks and overalls or nurses uniforms, compared to controls - participants shocked more when wearing KKK outfits, but shocked less when in nurses uniforms. Nurses also more compassionate towards their victims, in line with the prosocial role associated with a nurses uniform. This suggests that the reduction in identity allowed the PPs to behave with more aggression. However, it could be argued that this is explained more by identification to social roles, rather than deindividuation; both KKK outfits and nurse outfits are uniforms, so this challenges the idea that uniforms increase aggression.

Question 28

Outline Rehm et al's 1987 study.

Answer 28

Supports gender differences within the deindividuation explanation for aggression. In handball, deindividuation was created by giving one team orange shirts, whilst other team wore own clothes. They found that in boy teams, uniformed teams were more aggressive than non-uniform, but in the girl teams, no differences found. This suggests that uniforms created a loss of individuality, in turn causing deindividuation and higher levels of aggression. However, there are issues of confounding variables of puberty, boys more prone to testosterone.

Question 29

Outline Watson's 1973 study.

Answer 29

Supports cultural differences within the deindividuation explanation for aggression. This is because they studied 24 cultures, finding that warriors in face and body paint more likely to kill, mutilate and torture captured prisoners. This suggests that in some tribal cultures, aggression is bought about by individuation common in certain cultures.

Question 30

Outline Silke's study from 2003.

Answer 30

Supports deindividuation as an explanation for aggression. This is because they studied violent assaults in Northern Ireland, finding that 206 out of 500 cases were carried out by offenders wearing masks or disguises. Anonymous attackers were more prolific and inflicted more serious physical injuries than identifiable attackers. However, under half wore disguises, so the majority did not; this challenges the research. However, violence was more severe when anonymity was increased (masks worn).

Question 31

Outline the 'Darkened Room Arousal Study'.

Answer 31

Challenges deindividuation as an explanation for aggression. This is because both male and female students were asked to interact for an hour in a padded room, they were told they were allowed to do anything; after the experiment the participants knew that they would leave alone and not see each other again; condition one was in a darkened room and condition two was in a brightly lit room. They found that 90% of PPs engaged in purposeful touching in the dark room, with none in the light room. No aggression was seen at all. This suggests that a loss of identity does not always lead to aggressive actions.

Question 32

Outline Douglas and McGarty's 2001 study on online deindividuation.

Answer 32

Supports deindividuation as an explanation for aggression in modern society. This is because when they looked at aggressive online behaviour in chatrooms and Ims, they found a strong correlation between anonymity and posting threatening/hostile messages; the most aggressive messages were sent by those who chose to hide their identities. This suggests there is a link between anonymity, deindividuation and aggressive behaviour in a context that has so much relevance today.