Describe and evaluate one social psychological theory of aggression?
AO1
Deindividualisation is when someone loses their sense of identity and engages themselves in immoral things.
The theory of deindividualisation suggests that when an individual is involved in a crowd they act like the crowd i.e. such as football hooligans. Just as the saying goes you are what you wear or eat can be applied here i.e. you are upon what your crowd or peers are upon.
Le Bon proposed that there were a number of factors that lead an individual to become psychologically transformed in a crowd. One being remaining anonymous in the crowd i.e. when you’re around a lot of people you are unlikely to be spotted. Zimbardo however argued with Le Bon saying that deindividualisation is a result of reduced responsibility, increased arousal, sensory overload and altered consciousness.
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Peer Reviews
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Quality of writing
As mentioned, the structure is very different to usual, and so much of the writing is in short bullet points. This immediately gives the effect of a lower standard of grammatical and structural level, however as mentioned this may have been how they were instructed to write it. In general, however, when writing essays bullet points should not be used, and paragraphs with full sentences should be followed – with a clear introduction (to set the scene) and conclusion (to synthesize all the discussion points). Unfortunately there are some spelling and grammar mistakes in this piece of work which bring the level of work down a bit (e.g. “This is because when I a crowd the norm for the crowd could be goodâ€Â). Always ensure you proof-read your work to avoid unnecessary mistakes like this.
Level of analysis
Although the layout of this piece of work is slightly different than a usual essay, this may simply of been a specific requirement of the assignment, thus, despite being in bullet points this analysis given is of a fairly high standard. The student successfully evaluates each study used to assess deindividuation (discussing both negative and positive points –which is crucial, since critical analysis should not be taken to mean just limitations!). Furthermore, the writer provides an overall analysis of the topic discussed which brings their ideas together.
Response to question
The student provides some good background information into deindividualisation, drawing upon comparisons (e.g. you are what you eat) and famous psychologists (Le Bon and Zimbardo) to reinforce these ideas – it would be nice however if these examples and theories from other psychologists were referenced to both demonstrate further knowledge and avoid plagiarism. Although the student does provide the necessary description of Zimbardo’s prison study, it is clear that they have only learnt the basics – to get higher marks more detailed description could be included (e.g. length of study, where were participants recruited from, how they were assigned to each group, particular tasks involved, etc). The findings provided for Zimbardo’s study are also far too brief, much more detail should be given here (e.g. mention the situation got so bad that the study was ended early). Similar issues arise for the description of Diener et al’s study – again the student could bulk this out by providing further information such as dates, and providing numbers in the findings (e.g. how many stole when alone vs. in a group).
