PSY307-Deindividuation
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Section 1
Aggression is an expression that many of us experience on a daily basis. Characterized by an action inflicted upon another with the intent to harm, aggression can be perceived either through our own acts of aggression, or by the observation of the aggressive behavior of others. Whether the situation consists of someone honking their horn at you in bumper to bumper traffic on the freeway, or a child being bullied in school, aggression is a feature that seems to encompass many aspects of our society. So what causes this unscrupulous behavior? This question cannot be answered with a simple solution because there are in fact many different factors that cause aggressive behavior. One of the dynamics that has been proven to play a significant role in aggressive behavior is known as deindividuation.
Deindividuation can be defined as a situation in which anti-normative behavior is established in a group due to the fact that the individual loses his/her sense of individuality and in turn takes on the identity of the group itself. One of the key factors in deindividuation is the size of the group. Kugihara (2001) found that according to the deindividuation theory, the size of the group has a direct effect on anonymity. Therefore, the participants in a group that is larger in size will feel more “anonymous” and this characteristic will cause an increase in their antisocial response to out groups. Kugihara has also stated that the degree of aggression in the larger group will be stronger than that of the smaller group. The effect of this phenomenon on the individual is that they loses their own sense of identity and become a byproduct of what the group represents. In losing their sense of identity the individual gains a sense of anonymity. Within a group the individual begins to take on the ideologies and beliefs of the group itself and thus associates themselves primarily with the group.(p.1) Kugihara has also found that in group situations, ones own self image may be based primarily on what the group represents rather than on their own personal identity. Kugihara has stated that the individual has an alteration in their cognition from being dominated by personal identity to being dominated by social identity while in a group. This results in the individual losing their sense of responsibility and makes them more likely to do things they normally wouldn’t do while alone. This is because when a person feels “anonymous” they are more likely to disregard social norms and sometimes even morals and do certain things that they wouldn’t normally do if they were exposed.(p.2-3) The size of the group is important because the larger the group, the more likely an individual is to feel anonymous. Therefore, it can be inferred that the larger the group size, the more aggressive the individual is. A prime example of anonymity and its link to aggressive behavior is the members of the Klu Klux Klan. By being part of a very large group of followers and by wearing those white robes that completely hide their appearance, the members of this group become “anonymous”. By feel anonymous the members lose their individuality and instead take on the identity of the group. This allows the members to rid themselves of social norms and enables them to commit such horrific acts of hatred and violence. Group also comes into play with the opposite group known as the out group, which in this case would be the minority. When a member of the Klu Klux Klan is about to commit such a devious act of hatred, they do not see the individual as a unique human being. Instead, they associate them with their group (African American, Latino, Asian, etc). This allows the likelihood of aggression to be higher because associating someone as an out group sets them apart from yourself and makes them “different”.
Kugihara (2001) found that another factor that is consistent with group size and aggression is the “ego”. Members of a large group come to share a “common ego”. Through identification with this common ego, participants give up their individual super egos. The abandonment of the super ego brings about a loss of restraint and is what causes this anti-normative behavior. (p.6) When a person identifies themselves with a group they are more likely to engage in these anti-normative behaviors because they do not consider themselves responsible for their actions. The idea behind this way of thinking is that a person does not feel responsible because they are acting within the group and not as an individual.
The same concept of deindividuation is portrayed in the article by J. M. Innes (1982) that when an individual is under “the cover” of anonymity they are more likely to be aggressive then when they are unidentifiable. The effect of deindividuation weakens the restraints against aggressive behavior. These are the same restraints that normally cause individuals to maintain their internalized norms. (p.1-2) An excellent example of this is a study that was done to examine aggression. Zimbardo (1969) found that people who have this sense of anonymity are more likely to be aggressive. In this study, Zimbardo caused some of his participants to become anonymous by making them wear black coats with hoods. In contrast, the participants in the control group wore their regular clothes. Each person was told to administer shocks of different levels and severity to an unknown person in another room. What Zimbardo concluded from this experiment was that the people who were in the black coats with the hoods (the anonymous) administered longer and more sever shocks than the people who were in their normal clothes (the non-anonymous). Without them knowing it, Zimbardo manipulated the participants wearing the black coats with the hoods by causing them to become anonymous and thus unconsciously lose their identity. By losing their identity, these participants were proven to be more aggressive than the ones who were exposed. Therefore, it was concluded by this study that deindividuation causes the individual to be more aggressive.
Although deindividuation has been proven to cause aggression it is also believed by some researchers to actually reduce aggression. According to the article by Robert L. Dipboye (1977) research has indicated that the presence of a group inhibits rather than encourages aggression. There has also been reported to have more aggression among people who were alone than among those who were in groups. After doing a study, Dipboye found that people given the opportunity to aggress in groups of three aggressed more than those who were alone. (p.5) This is an example of how the presence of bystanders can reduce aggression. For instance, if you are in a public area with a lot of people you are less likely to aggress because you are being observed by others. On the contrary if you are alone and no one is watching, then you are more likely to aggress. Although this theory disproves the idea that that a larger group size will cause more aggression, it still holds true that anonymity does. With the same example given above, if you are alone and no one is watching you, you might feel anonymous and are thus more likely to do something you normally wouldn’t.
Section 2 and 3
Throughout history we have seen many cases in which deindividuation has played a significant role in acts of aggression. However, one of the most spine chilling and horrific applications of deindividuation has to be the Holocaust. From 1933 to 1945, millions of innocent people (primarily Jews) were taken from their homes and put to death in the concentration camps of Nazi Germany. Under the rule of Adolf Hitler, Nazi soldiers executed his every demand even when it came to sending innocent people (including women and children) to the gas chambers to be terminated. So what made thousands of Nazi soldiers willing to follow Hitler’s horrific orders to send millions of innocent people to death? Although no one will ever know what was going through their minds at the time of the murders expect the soldiers themselves, it is highly theoreticized that deindividuation occurred.
Lasson and Kenneth (2007) state that during the Nuremberg Trails almost every single Nazi soldier claimed that they never felt personally responsible for the deaths because they were only doing what they had been ordered to do. Being a Nazi meant that the soldiers lost their own sense of identity and took on the identity of the group. The Nazi group is associated with the ideologies of nationalism, anti-Semitism, and ethno-state. This group was so powerful that it even influenced the whole “group” of the German people. (p.227) The citizens like the soldiers lost their individuality and took on the identity of “Nazi Germany”. As previously mentioned, the degree of anonymity increases the likelihood of aggression. With there being thousands of Nazi soldiers, anonymity was easy to achieve. Another reason in which they were so aggressive had to do with obedience. Part of being associated with the “Nazi group” was being obedient to the authority figure as symbolized by the way the Nazis marched and how they held their arms straight up in the air. Mastroianni (1996) found a correlation between the Milgram studies and deindividuation. He states that the Milgram studies prove that people tend to be more obedient to an authority figure. In the studies, Milgram had a group of people be the “teacher” and ask their “students” which were men in another room, to memorize certain answers. If the student got the question wrong then the teacher was supposed to administer shocks to the student. Every time they got another one wrong they were supposed to administer stronger and stronger shocks. When a strong shock was administered the student began to yell, “stop! I have a heart condition”. What they teacher didn’t know was that the person in the other room was just acting. Milgram wanted to see who would keep going on with the experiment. The results of the study showed that 65% of the participants administered the most severe shock to a person in the other room when being told to do so by someone in a white lab coat. The participants in this study can be compared to the Nazi soldiers. The reason that such a high number of participants went all the way with the shocking were that they were anonymous to the person they were shocking and that there was a diffusion of responsibility on to the authority figures who were telling them to do this. Mastroianni states that by manipulating aspects of the social situation, ordinary people can be induced to commit terrible crimes. The Holocaust is usually discussed only briefly, and is commonly depicted as having resulted from the unthinking obedience of ordinary and unwillingly people to authority.(p.159) The idea that human beings regardless of education or morals can be manipulated into being mass murderers is a disturbing thought to anyone. Even Milgram himself once said, “On the basis of having observed a thousand people in the experiment and having my own intuition shaped and informed by these experiments…if a system of death camps were set up in the United States of the sort we had seen in Nazi Germany, one would be able to find sufficient personnel for those camps in any medium-sized American town”.(p.163)
Section 4
An example of when deindividuation has been observed to explain aggressive behavior in a case of mass murder more recently is the Columbine murders of 1999. Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were two outcasts at Columbine High School. It was known that they were constantly picked on and harassed by some of their classmates. They have also been classified by the media as being part of the “Goth” culture. The Goth culture is a group that strongly believes in the ideologies of nonconformity. According to the deindividuation theory, when a person becomes part of the Goth culture, they abandon their individuality and take on the identity of the group. This particular identity tends to cause them to dress in all black and have an “emo” type personality. Also, being part of a large group like this has been known to cause anti-social behavior. They completely lose a sense of who they are as a person when they take on these values. All societal norms are lost and the norms of the group are accepted. This has been proven to cause people in groups to display more aggression especially towards and out group. It has also been shown that being part of a group gives rise to an increased risk of partaking and anti-normative behavior. Since they believe in nonconformity, they classify anyone who is not in their group as a conformist and see them as inferior to their ideologies. This group is what undeniably sets them apart from many of their classmates, especially the ones who harassed them. On Tuesday, April 20th 1999, the two boys came to school with shotguns and shot at their fellow classmates and teachers, killing 12 and injuring 21 people. It was surprising that they did not target specific individuals such as those who were picking on them. Instead, they shot at random at anyone who was in their path. This can be due to the fact that they were not targeting individuals, but they were targeting a group that was unlike their own. Fiske, Lasana, and Cuddy (2004) wrote an article on why ordinary people torture enemy prisoners. A correlation between this article and the Columbine shootings can be made because people can do horrible things like torture to others such as enemies because they are seen as an “out group”. Viewing the prisoners as part of an out group unlike their own will exaggerate the tendency to feel prejudice towards them. In this context, oppression and discrimination are synonymous. One of the most basic principles of social psychology is that people prefer their own group and attribute bad behavior towards an out group. Social conformity and obedience themselves are neutral, but their consequences can be evil. This allows ordinary individuals to become under the influence of complex social forces and can cause them to commit evil acts. (p.1482-1483)
Harris and Klebold didn’t just see their bullies as the enemy, but instead they associated anyone that was not in the same group as them to be their enemies as well. Because of this group association, the people who were murdered or injured in this tragedy were not seen as individuals but instead as what their group represented; the conformist, the bully, and the enemy. This is the same concept that was seen in the Holocaust when all Jews were seen as inferior and disgusting beings just because they were part of a group and nothing else. It would have been a miracle if a tragedy like this could have been prevented. When it comes to the concept of deindividuation, people should be aware of their own identity and not succumb to the norms of the group. They should also not judge and characterize others by whatever group they belong to. To reduce aggression in this situation all that can really be done is to acknowledge this and see everyone including your own self as an individual. And although it might be hard, it probably would be best to not identify yourself or anyone by a group at all. This could possibly reduce aggression and might have been able to prevent the 12 killings and 21 injuries of the innocent bystanders that took place on the fateful day of April 20th, 1999.
References
Dipboye, Robert L. “Alternative Approaches to Deindividuation”. Vol. 84, No.6 . Nov, 1977.
Kugihara, Naoki. “Effects of aggressive behavior and group size on collective escape in an emergency: A test between a social identity model and deindividuation theory”. British Journal of Social Psychology (2001).
Fiske, Susan T. Harris, Lasana. Cuddy, Amy. “Why Ordinary People Torture Enemy Prisioners”. Science Vol. 306, Nov 2004. pp. 1482-1483. Innes, J. M. “A Test Between Deindividuation and Emergent
Innes, J.M. “A Test Between Deindividuation and Emergent Norm Theories if Crowd Aggression”. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 1982, Vol. 42. No. 2.
Lasson. Kenneth. “Defending Truth: Legal and Psychological aspects of Holocaust Denial”. Current Psychology Vol. 26 (3-4) Dec. 2007.
Mastroianni, George R. “Milgram and the Holocaust: A Reexamination”. Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psy. Vol. 22, No. 2, 2002.
Zimbardo, Phillip G. “The Psychology of Evil: A Situational Perspective on Recruiting good people to Engage in Anti-Social Acts. Stanford University Psychology Department 1969.
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