Deindividuation

Q: Anonymity and Self-Awareness

A major factor of deindividuation is anonymity. __Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982)__ suggest that aggression as a consequence of anonymity is due to two types of self-awareness.

Q: Aggression and Anonymity

__Dodd (1985)__ was a psychology teacher who developed a classroom exercise to illustrate deindividuation. __Douglas and McGarty (2001)__ looked at aggressive online behaviour in chat rooms.

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Deindividuation

Deindividuation is part of the social psychological theory of aggression. It is a psychological state in which individuals lose their personal identity and take on the identity of the social group.

Gustave Le Bon (1895)

Deindividuation was originally conceived by Gustave Le Bon (1895) to explain the behaviour of the individual in crowds.
It can also occur when people are wearing a uniform.
It can result in individuals feeling free from the constraints of social norms.
Under normal circumstances our behaviour is restrained by social norms, and we live in a society where most forms of aggressive behaviour are discouraged.

Crowd mentality

But when we become part of a crowd, we lose restraint and have the freedom to behave in ways we wouldn’t otherwise contemplate.
We lose our sense of both individual self-identity and responsibility for our behaviour, and we have a greater disregard for norms and even laws.
Responsibility becomes shared throughout the crowd, so we experience less personal guilt at harmful aggression directed at others.

Individuated and deindividuated behaviour

Zimbardo distinguished between individuated and deindividuated behaviour.
- In an individuated state, our behaviour is generally rational and normative.
- Deindividuated behaviours are emotional, impulsive and irrational. Most importantly, they are anti-normative and disinhibited.

Deindividuated behaviour

When we are in deindividuated state:
- We lose our self-awareness.
- We stop monitoring and regulating our own behaviour.
- We ignore social norms and live for the moment, failing to form longer term plans.
The conditions of deindividuation which promote aggressive behaviour include:
- Darkness, drugs, alcohol, uniforms, masks and disguises.

Anonymity and Self-Awareness

A major factor of deindividuation is anonymity. Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982) suggest that aggression as a consequence of anonymity is due to two types of self-awareness.

Dixon and Mahendran (2012)

According to Dixon and Mahendran (2012), it is anonymity that shapes crowd behaviour.
Anonymity means that we have less fear of retribution because we’re small and unidentifiable within a faceless crowd.
- The bigger the crowd, the more anonymous we are.
Anonymity also provides fewer opportunities for others to judge us negatively.

Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982)

The experience of deindividuation as part of a faceless crowd creates a greater likelihood of aggression.
Prentice-Dunn and Rogers (1982), suggest that this is not due to anonymity directly but to the consequences of anonymity.
They explained this process in terms of two types of self-awareness.

Private self-awareness

Private self-awareness concerns how we pay attention to our own feelings and behaviour.
This is reduced when we are part of the crowd.
Our attention becomes focused outwardly to the events around us, so we pay less attention to our own beliefs and feelings.
We are less self-critical, less thoughtful and less evaluative, all of which foster a deindividuated state.

Public self-awareness

Public self-awareness refers to how much we care about what other people think about our behaviour.
This is also reduced in crowds.
We realise that we are just one individual amongst many; we are anonymous and our behaviour is less likely to be judged by others.
We no longer care how others see us, so we become less accountable for our aggression and destructive actions.

Aggression and Anonymity

Dodd (1985) was a psychology teacher who developed a classroom exercise to illustrate deindividuation. Douglas and McGarty (2001) looked at aggressive online behaviour in chat rooms.

Question

Dodd (1985) asked 229 undergraduate psychology students in 13 classes this question:
- ‘If you could do anything humanly possible with complete assurance that you would not be detected or held responsible, what would you do?’

Method

The students were aware that their responses were completely anonymous.
Three independent directors who did not know the hypothesis decided which categories of antisocial behaviour the responses belong to.

Findings

Dodd found that:
- 36% of the responses involved some form of antisocial behaviour.
- 26% were actual crimes.
  - The most common of which was rob a bank.
  - A few students opted for murder, rape and an assassination of a political figure.
- Only 9% of responses were prosocial behaviours, such as helping people.

Conclusions

In terms of how people imagine they would behave, this study demonstrates a link between anonymity, deindividuation and aggressive behaviour.

Douglas and McGarty (2001)

Douglas and McGarty (2001) looked at aggressive online behaviour in chat rooms and uses of instant messages.
They found a strong correlation between anonymity and ‘flaming’, (sending or posting threatening and/or hostile messages.)
The most aggressive messages were sent by those who chose to hide their real identities.

Conclusions

This suggests the existence of the link between anonymity, deindividuation and aggressive behaviour in a context that has even greater relevance today because of the increase in social media use, and the activities of online trolls.