Deindividuation Reasoning and Evidence

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Critical Analysis:
Dixon and Mahenran wrote a chapter name Crowd in the book Social Psychology Matters
2012. In this chapter they discuss a psychological phenomenon termed as deindividuation. The
deindividuation is a psychological process which accords an individual to drop the sense of his
or her individuality and become a completely anonymous identity who is not recognised by
anyone but by him/herself only. The idea of deindividuation was picked out by reviewing Le
Bons work of Crowd by (Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcomb, 1952) when the term was coined.
The modern psychological researchs foundation for Crowd behaviour has positioned by Le
Bon. The concept of individuation has been monitored through various studies, researches and
experiments and then concluded various different results. Some of those experiments and
researches are communicated below as well. The statement was given that The concept of
deindividuation allows us to make sense of crowd behavior which can be interpreted in a way
that when a person start to partake the effects of deindividuation it allows him or her to
understand the behavior of the crowd which means people when surrounded by another set of
individuals tend to act differently for many reasons such as to hide their identity, to counterfeit
someone they desire to be or other things. This interchange would allow them to do things they
dont and cannot, or even desire to do while in their active state. The effect of losing ones self
while surrounded by a crowd is referred as Deindividuation. Further is a detailed analysis of this
aspect and the reasoning of its event with evidence that supports and oppose this claim.

Multiple studies have been written over the deindividuation, most of which stands parallel with
Le Bons work. As they ultimately describe that people in crowd behave differently and
regressively and they lose their individual rationality which is not good for the society at large.
When in the crowd, their thought process begins to work as a group mind and not as their own.
A study suggests that, if there is no chance of getting caught the approximately every one in
three male university students in America would attempt a Rape (Malamuth, 1981). It is also
included in a book Social Psychology Matters (Hollway, Lucey, and Phoenix, 2006) where in
chapter 1 Dixon and Mahendran stated that while people are around crowd they behave with an
impulsive approach. This backs Le Bons work and suggests that the situation can take a hold
over individual thought process and can make them lose their individuation. Other studies also
found similar results for similar activities. The factor that causes social deindividuation is majorly
caused by the sense of anonymity among an individual (Chang, 2008). This result has also
been backed by (Hogg and Vaughan, 2009) in their book Essentials of Social Psychology.
When they feel that they are not being monitored or recognised they lose their individuation, an

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example of army troops is given that they painted their face they act more aggressively and
when they consider themselves under camouflage they move and deal with situations quietly.

Likewise, when surrounded by crowd people behave otherwise, sometimes it is because they
are following crowd ritual for example attending a live rock concert every attendant act
according to the situation and respond to each other. Another example of a sports event can be
taken for a football match in which supporters are encouraging their team and mocking their
rivals which are a combined behaviour of an individual with another crowd (Leeson, Smith, and
Snow, 2012). Also, it is studied that under the influence of surrounding people, individuals
behaviour changes (Lea, Spears, and De Groot, 2001). There is also a neutral study conducted
which suggests that this theory of Deindividuation started by Le Bon is still young and needs
more study to prove that its creating or causing either positive or negative impact (Li, 2010) .
Some believe that people are just constantly ruminating facts that disturb them in any way and
use it as a disguise for their deindividuation (Nolen-Hoeksema, Wisco, and Lyubomirsky, 2008).

While there are favours for his researches and findings there are some contradictory studies
over this topic as well. There are views which argue that group of people or crowds are not
necessarily behaving negatively but some do show heroism and promoted positivity in social
lives, additionally, there are arguments that suggest that not everyone is being affected by
deindividuation and people in the crowd not always loses their conscious individuality but
remain and retain their moral codes. Even in chapter Crowd of the book Social Psychology
Matter (Hollway, Lucey, and Phoenix, 2006), it has briefed that Le Bons work was biased
through political aspect and the fact that he provides the almost same amount of psychology
over Mob then psychology over the crowd proves this point. It can also be said that the
behaviour of deindividuation must not always derive from the presence of crowd it could have
multiple other reasons as well, it is just a personal opinion made by Le Bon from distant (Dixon,
and Mahendran, 2012, p.5).

As we can determine by now that a loss of self is not necessarily happened because of the
result of crowd presence but there are possibilities that people are developing a sense of
deindividuation because of the crowd around them. But not all crowd start acting in a negatively
responsive way there are some other factors that suggest why crowd are causing and creating
negative influence over individual in group/crowd, as mentioned in the example (Dixon, and
Mahendran, 2012, p.2) the person does commit suicide because of the crowds encouragement
but there could be any kind of influence over that encourage for instance, he can be assaulted
illegitimately by police and were eager to make anyone break the law again. A similar discussion

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has been made over the St. Pauls riot where people were treated violently and the results
afterwards were not suitable for anyone (Reicher, 1984) people presented in the rioting crowd
behaves as every other rioter were behaving and all members presented in police side were
behaving as every other policeman were behaving. A lot is based on normative behaviour as
well. There are situations where person involves in a situation where he or she have to behave
according to the situation or according to the people he or she is surrounded with for instance a
concert example discussed above. Other reason behind the unfamiliar nature of persons can be
their influence of culture, or their related or studies history. How things are playing out are a lot
depends on its social psychological effect as examined by Prof. Zimbardo. Out of a lot of other
reasons, one could be the innate spirit that a person already acquire from his or her birth which
was also the concluding evidence provided by the experiment conducted by Stanley Milgram.

Apart from the discussions made through the theories and studies over Deindividuation, there
are some strengths and weaknesses that deindividuation carries in the process of its
researchers and conduction of its experiments. An individual mostly feel comfortable and safe
when he or she is surrounded by a number of people. This could contain many reasons like
hiding guilt, or maintain a self-image, etc. people who dont want to hold responsible for their
actions are others who like the state of deindividuation because through this the fear of
punishment has eliminated. They tend to feel more relaxed and calm with the increase in a
number of people around them. For example (Diener et al., 1976) conducted a research over
children during Halloween which tested that whether kids pick money after being told otherwise
when they have the opportunity or not, results shows that they avail the opportunities and they
tend to pick each others approaches effortlessly of picking up treats. There are weaknesses
related to the deindividuation as well that carries a negative impact over respondent. If an
individual is being pleasured by the sense of deindividuation then he or she would stick to the
thought process they are carrying as long as they are being pleased which could be a lifetime.
Because facing the fear of being punished behind deindividuation and getting away from the
punishment would not let a person understand their mistakes and that would hinder in the
process of his or her performance development. If they wont learn, they wont grow. Le Bon
also refers it as a disease that transfers from people to people in the surrounding and he named
it as contagion. Another weakness deindividuation carry is that they way its study has always
been operated. The studies conducted for its course are mostly unethical and the respondents
related to those experiments end up behaving aggressively, after which studying those subjects
or respondents became difficult. The prime example regarding this explanation is Zimbados
Prison Guard experiment.

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Latterly, the statement can be made that if a person does possess contagion, and attributes that
supports them to get influenced by the crowd then there are significant chances that the
individual would suffer deindividuation. Otherwise, there are also studies that indicates that its
up to an individual his/herself to enter the phase of deindividuation or not.

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References:
Chang, J. (2008) The role of anonymity in Deindividuated behaviour: A comparison of
Deindividuation theory and the social identity model of Deindividuation effects (SIDE). Available
at: http://www.baylor.edu/content/services/document.php?id=77099 (Accessed: 19 October
2016).

Diener, E., Fraser, S.C., Beaman, A.L. and Kelem, R.T. (1976) Effects of deindividuation
variables on stealing among Halloween trick-or-treaters, Journal of Personality and Social
Psychology, 33(2), pp. 178183. Doi: 10.1037//0022-3514.33.2.178.

Hogg, M.A. and Vaughan, G.M. (2009) Essentials of social psychology. Harlow, England:
Prentice Hall.

Hollway, W., Lucey, H. and Phoenix, A. (2006) Social psychology matters. Maidenhead: Open
University Press.

Lea, M., Spears, R. and De Groot, D. (2001) PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
BULLETIN Lea et al. / ANONYMITY AND SOCIAL IDENTITY PROCESSES knowing me,
knowing you: Anonymity effects on social identity processes within groups. Available at:
https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/cctp-752-fall2008/files/leaspearsdegroot_2001.pdf
(Accessed: 19 October 2016).

Leeson, P.T., Smith, D.J. and Snow, N.A. (2012) Hooligans, Revue dconomie politique,
122(2), p. 213. Doi: 10.3917/redp.218.0213.

Li, B. (2010) Claremont colleges scholarship @ Claremont the theories of Deindividuation.

Available at: http://scholarship.claremont.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?
article=1018&context=cmc_theses (Accessed: 19 October 2016).

Malamuth, N.M. (1981) Rape Proclivity among males, Journal of Social Issues, 37(4), pp. 138
157. Doi: 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1981.tb01075.x.

Nolen-Hoeksema, S., Wisco, B.E. and Lyubomirsky, S. (2008) Rethinking rumination,

Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(5), pp. 400424. Doi: 10.1111/j.1745-
6924.2008.00088.x.

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Reicher, S.D. (1984) The st. Pauls riot: An explanation of the limits of crowd action in terms of a
social identity model, European Journal of Social Psychology, 14(1), pp. 121. Doi:
10.1002/ejsp.2420140102.

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