Hooliganism is a problem that can pervade football crowds. History does not look back fondly on riots and hooliganism occurring during football games, with many worst-case scenarios resulting in death and injury. In 1985, the European Cup Final saw Liverpool fans breaching the section holding Juventus fans after kick-off, where 39 people died after they attempted to move away from the attackers and the stand collapsed.
When it is hard to identify individuals, some are lost in the sense of anonymity and commit acts they would not commit if they were easily identifiable. Why is this the case? Why do people follow the crowd? And is it true that we behave differently when part of a group? As part of the crowd, individuals gain power and lose their identity. In psychology, we call this change in behaviour deindividuation. What are the causes of deindividuation?
- We are going to explore the concept of deindividuation.
- First, we will provide a deindividuation definition in psychology.
- Then, we will discuss the causes of deindividuation, exploring the deindividuation theory of aggression.
- Throughout, we will highlight various deindividuation examples to illustrate our points.
- Finally, we will discuss a few pertinent cases of deindividuation experiments exploring deindividuation.
Fig. 1 - Deindividuation explores how anonymity affects our behaviour.
Deindividuation Definition: Psychology
Deindividuation is a phenomenon in which people exhibit antisocial and sometimes violent behaviour in situations where they believe they cannot be personally identified because they are part of a group.
Deindividuation occurs in situations that reduce accountability because people are hidden in a group.
American social psychologist Leon Festinger et al. (1952) coined the term ‘deindividuation’ to describe situations in which people cannot be individuated or isolated from others.
Deindividuation Examples
Let’s look at some examples of individuation.
Mass looting, gangs, hooliganism and riots can include deindividuation. It can also occur in organisations such as the military.
Le Bon explained that deindividuated behaviour occurs in three ways:
Anonymity causes people to be unidentifiable, leading to a sense of untouchability and a loss of personal responsibility (private self-perception decreases).
This loss of personal responsibility leads to contagion.
People in crowds are more prone to antisocial behaviour.
Contagion in the context of crowds is when feelings and ideas spread through the group, and everyone starts to think and act the same way (reduced public self-awareness).
Causes of Deindividuation: Origins of Deindividuation
The concept of deindividuation can be traced back to theories of crowd behaviour. In particular, the French polymath Gustave Le Bon (a person of excellent knowledge) explored and described group behaviours amidst unrest in the French community.
Le Bon’s work published a politically motivated critique of crowd behaviour. French society was unstable at the time, with many protests and riots. Le Bon described the behaviour of groups as irrational and changeable. Being in a crowd, he said, allowed people to act in ways they usually would not.
In the 1920s, psychologist William McDougall argued that crowds evoke people’s basic instinctual emotions, such as anger and fear. These basic emotions spread quickly through a crowd.
Deindividuation: Theory of Aggression
Under normal circumstances, an understanding of social norms prevents aggressive behaviour. In public, people generally constantly evaluate their behaviour to ensure that it conforms to social norms.
However, when a person becomes part of a crowd, they become anonymous and lose their sense of identity, thus, loosening normal inhibitions. Constant self-assessment is weakened. People in groups do not see the consequences of aggression.
However, social learning influences deindividuation. Some sporting events, such as football, draw huge crowds and have a long history of aggression and violence on the pitch and from fans. Conversely, other sporting events, such as cricket and rugby, attract huge crowds but do not have the same problems.
Johnson and Downing’s (1979) experiment found that participants dressed similarly to the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) gave more shocks to a confederate, while participants dressed as nurses gave fewer shocks to a confederate than a control group. This finding shows that social learning and group norms influence behaviours. The nurse group delivered fewer shocks because nurses are typically symbolised as caring.
Deindividuation Experiments
Deindividuation has been a research subject of many well-known experiments within the field of psychology. The loss of personal responsibility that comes with anonymity was particularly interesting post-war.
Philip Zimbardo
Zimbardo is an influential psychologist best known for his Stanford Prison Experiment, which we will look at later. In 1969, Zimbardo conducted a study with two groups of participants.
- One group was anonymised by wearing large coats and hoods that concealed their identities.
- The other group was a control group; they wore regular clothing and name tags.
Each participant was taken to a room and given the task of ‘shocking’ a confederate in another room at various levels, from mild to dangerous. Participants in the anonymous group shocked their partners longer than participants in the control group. This shows deindividuation because the anonymised group (deindividuated) showed more aggression.
Stanford Prison Experiment (1971)
Zimbardo conducted the Stanford prison experiment in 1971. Zimbardo set up a prison mock-up in the basement of Stanford University’s psychology building.
- He assigned 24 men to play the guard or prisoner role. These men had no abnormal traits such as narcissism or an authoritarian personality.
- The guards were given uniforms and reflective goggles that obscured their faces.
The prisoners dressed alike and wore stocking caps and hospital dressing gowns; they also had a chain around one leg. They were identified and referred to only by a number assigned to them.
Fig. 2 - The Stanford Prison Experiment is famous in the world of psychology.
The guards were instructed to do whatever they deemed necessary to maintain order in prison and gain the prisoners' respect. Physical violence was not allowed. The guards then worked out a system of rewards and punishments for the prisoners.
The guards became more and more abusive towards the prisoners, who became more and more passive. Five prisoners were so traumatised that they were released.
The experiment was supposed to run for two weeks but stopped early because the guards distressed the prisoners.
The Role of Individuation in the Prison study
The guards experienced deindividuation through immersion in the group and the strong group dynamic. The clothing of the guards and prisoners led to anonymity on both sides.
The guards did not feel responsible; this allowed them to shift personal responsibility and attribute it to a higher power (study conductor, research team). Subsequently, the guards said they felt someone official would stop them if they were being too cruel.
The guards had an altered temporal perspective (they focused more on the here and now than on the past and present). However, one aspect to consider in this experiment is that they spent a few days together. The degree of deindividuation could therefore be lower, affecting the results' validity.
Diener et al. (1976)
Ed Diener suggested that deindividuation also involves an aspect of objective self-perception. Objective self-awareness is high when attention is focused inward on the self and people monitor their behaviour. It is low when attention is directed outward, and behaviour is not observed. This decrease in objective self-awareness leads to deindividuation.
Diener and his colleagues studied more than 1300 children on Halloween in 1976. The study focused on 27 households where researchers placed a bowl of sweets on a table.
An observer was out of sight to record the children’s behaviour. Those who were anonymous in some form, be it through costumes or being in larger groups, were more likely to steal items (such as sweets and money) than those who were identifiable.
Can Deindividuation Lead to Positive Outcomes?
Although deindividuation is associated with negative behaviour, there are cases in which group norms can have a positive influence.
For instance, those in groups for good causes often engage in prosocial behaviours, showing kindness and charitable behaviours.
An important aspect is that deindividuation need not always lead to aggression. It can also lead to lowered inhibitions with other emotions and behaviours.
Deindividuation - Key takeaways
Deindividuation is a phenomenon in which people exhibit antisocial and sometimes violent behaviour in situations where they believe they cannot be personally identified because they are part of a group.
American social psychologist Leon Festinger et al. (1952) developed the term ‘deindividuation’ to describe situations in which people cannot be isolated individually or from others.
Under normal circumstances, an understanding of social norms prevents aggressive behaviours.
Zimbardo demonstrated how deindividuation affects behaviours in an experiment manipulating participants' clothes. Those with concealed identities shocked confederates more than those who were identifiable.
However, there are also cases where group norms can have a positive effect.
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