Lab experiments and theory
Le Bon seems to exaggerate the violence and irrationality of the crowd and disregards any good elements. How does his theory work for peaceful, orderly marches? Also, Stephen Reicher notes how Le Bon omits the role of authority such as the police in his theory. By excluding the out-group, he doesn’t show any reason as to why the violence and confrontation occurs.
To support their theory, Festinger et al found that males in a group, who remembered the least amount of information that was individuating, were more likely to show hostile behaviour towards their parents. That is, when an individual is not individuated in a group, then given certain conditions, their inner restraints weaken against doing various things. The individual loses their identity and carries out behaviour that they cannot control. They also noted that individuals, who sat in a room with dim light, were more likely to use bad language when discussing erotic material than individuals who were not. However, their definition of deindividuation is considerably vague, especially the antecedents that lead to the state, what they’re composed of and the types of behaviours that result from it. Since the results are only a correlation, it seems deindividuation is treated like a variable of being immersed in a group rather than a consequence of it.
Zimbardo carried out a test to support his theory whereby he dressed up some of his subjects in overalls and hoods and left the others in their own clothes with large name tags so they could be identified. The results appeared to confirm his theory as when asked to administer electric shocks in a, ‘learning experiment’, participants who had been deindividuated (those in hoods and overalls), gave shocks for twice as long as those who weren’t deindividuated. Further to this, Donnerstein, Donnerstein and Evans (1972) found that white participants were more likely to give higher electric shocks to a black confederate, as long as the victim could not see or identify them. Also, Zimbardo’s classic Stanford prison experiment showed that people, when given complete control over others and act within a group, can act violently. This appears to confirm the tenets of deindividuation theory.
However, Johnson and Downing claim that Zimbardo was successful with his associations because subjects who wore Ku Klux Klan (KKK) outfits are anonymous anyway and were acting differently because they were adhering to the stereotype that the costume induced. To support such a statement, they replicated Zimbardo’s experiment but gave half the subjects KKK outfits and half a nurse’s outfit. Results showed that subjects wearing the nurses outfit reduced the amount of shocks given compared to those that remained in their own, ‘individuated’ clothing. Even Zimbardo replicated his experiment with Belgian soldiers and found that the anonymous group shocked less, the exact opposite to his predictions! So it appears as though situational norms have an impact on how people behave, and therefore problems arise for Zimbardo since he argued that deindividuation renders situational factors irrelevant.
Diener observed that there was a problem in expressing the relationship between deindividuation and behaviour. He therefore carried out a study to support his theory. There were three conditions – deindividuation, non self-aware and self-aware. Participants did activities that created the three levels of group feelings. Subjects then took part in an ‘individual’ session where evidence for behavioural disinhibition was gathered by participants choosing from inhibiting and disinhibiting tasks, as well as making statements which could be one or the other. Results showed that subjects exposed to the deindividuation manipulation scored significantly higher than the other two groups, demonstrating the validity of the deindividuation construct. There was also a high correlation between disinhibited behaviour and lack of self-awareness. However, a problem here is that we don’t know whether low self-awareness caused the disinhibited behaviour or vice versa.
In another study, participants were required to ‘test’ a so-called pacifist by hitting him with foam swords. This supposedly measured aggression for crowd behaviour. Results however were inconsistent as sometimes isolated individuals displayed higher aggression. Even still, Scheir, Fenigstein and Buss observed aggression with different states of self-awareness and found that self-aware participants adhered to norms and standards more than those that were less self-aware. Further support arises from Johnson and Downing’s KKK reinterpretation as mentioned earlier.
Prentice-Dunn and Rogers induced deindividuation by instructing participants repeatedly to focus attention outwards (private self-awareness). In addition to this, participants were seated in a dimly lit room with loud rock music playing and high verbal interaction. In contrast, participants in an internal attention focus condition (public self-awareness) did the opposite. Results showed that outward attention lead to higher levels of aggression. Therefore, it seems that, ‘accountability cues’ affect private and public self-awareness.
However, Froming, Walker and Lopyan showed, using a mirror and an evaluating audience, that what happens as a result of private and public self-awareness are moderated by the norms of the individual and what they think others norms are. Therefore, they didn’t shock more or less depending on whether they were privately or publicly aware, but did so when they felt others wanted or didn’t want them to as well as the presence or absence of the audience. Therefore, normative context seems to play a crucial role in the observed behaviour.
To sum up, all models think that only the individual can guarantee rational behaviour and regulate it. A crucial difference between them is whether we are simply uncontrolled or whether we can’t control underlying social tendencies. Either way, the lack of control is obvious. The theories assume that being anonymous to the external audience is the same as being totally anonymous, and hence by ignoring the accountability issue, anonymity becomes a trait rather than a relation. They also don’t consider norms of groups, aggression levels, role of the experimenter and the acceptability and appropriateness of the situation. Finally, the theories do not consider any notion that social norms may come from the immediate environment or group contexts, which can be the basis for controlled, meaningful behaviour.
This brings me to an alternative theory of deindividuation that opposes the ideas put forward by deindividuation theory.
Social Identity Theory of Deindividuation (SIDE)
Social identity theory uses the concept of social identification. It claims that the self is a complex construct consisting of at least two subsystems. The first is personal identity. This is all the qualities of someone that makes them who they are and different from everyone else. Secondly there’s the social identity which is the groups the individuals belong to and so when in a group, the individual has the particular social identity depending on the group their in. The theory states that in a crowd, and other ‘deindividuating’ settings, the person does not simply lose a sense of individuality, but makes a transition from a personal identity to a social identity (Reicher 1987). This is a key difference between the two approaches. Where deindividuation theory says that individuals lose their sense of self, social identity theory says that the individual shifts their sense of self. This shifting is towards the ‘social categorical level’, which is understood by the social categorisation theory. The transition isn’t a simple personal to social but has levels of self. The personal level, the categorical, and superordinate level. The level at which you operate tells you how you’ll relate to others. This ensures that individuals know about and adopt the characteristics of the in-group and so the beliefs, norms and influences of the group depend on which social category is adopted. The individual shifts from one level to another, such as personal to categorical and so personal self isn’t lost, it just changes towards an enhanced salience of social self. The result is behaviour regulated by social standards.
From this perspective, the salient self-category and details of how antecedents of deindividuation were manipulated are important. When an individual goes into a group, the salience of the identity changes. It goes from the personal to the relevant social identity. Being anonymous can either push further towards this social identity or push away depending on the social context in which its occurs. If the identity of the group is already established, then anonymity is likely to enhance even more the salience of the social identity. The individual becomes isolated with group members coinciding and the boundaries of the group being unrecognisable. The definition of categories also effects to what extent an individual will adhere to the standards of the category. For example, people will conform to different norms if say the identity of a nurse was in question compared to say a soldier.
Lab experiments and theory
Reicher et al employed science and social science students and manipulated group immersion and anonymity. In the group condition, the groups were seated separately in the same room and told they were being treated as groups. In the individual condition, all participants were mixed together and seated singularly facing the front, and were told they were being treated as individuals. Anonymity was manipulated by using baggy clothes and masks. In the group condition each group wore different colour masks, i.e. red and white to emphasise that they were still groups. In the individual condition everyone wore the same colour masks to observe distinctions.
Subjects were shown a video of arguments regarding vivisection where science students were seen as pro-vivisection and social science students as anti-vivisection. The results supported the prediction as subjects conformed to their own group norms when in a group, and that anonymity effects depended on the social context and salient identity. When the groups identity was salient and a group was clearly existent, this resulted in less differences between group members and more between groups and so more saliency and adherence to group norms. When the group’s identity wasn’t salient and so separation of individuals into groups was difficult, opposite results were observed. With subjects feeling isolated, in the individual condition, anonymity reduced the social identity salience and so reduced adherence to group norms. With the two groups behaving in different ways, it’s hard to explain the results in terms of deindividuation theory.
Similar results were also found in an experiment in computer-mediated communication, where results showed high polarisation towards norms in the deindividuated group identity condition and depolarisation in the deindividuated individual condition
However self-categorisation theory has been criticised because it’s too cognitive. It talks about the self in different contexts but it doesn’t say how social identities are used in relational aspects, therefore it’s hard to know which self of an individual is prominent at any given time.
To counter such criticisms, the theory highlights the effects seen when power comes into the equation. The existence of a group’s salient identity doesn’t mean that behaviour will be entirely norm-directed. Group members must have the power to express norms even when the out-group resists. SIDE claim that manipulating visibility and hence anonymity, affects the power that the in-group has in expressing aspects of the groups norms that the out-group may deem punishable. In relation to whom somebody is made visible will result in different types of effects being observed. They predict that when in a situation where the out-group has the power to punish, visibility of the in-group members to the out-group will enhance the out groups capacity to hold in-group members accountable for their actions, and therefore behaviours the in-group identity agree on but may be punished by the out-group are less likely to be expressed. Behaviours which are not in agreement with the in-group identity are not likely to be expressed in the first place and behaviours that are in agreement with the out-group will not be punished by the out-group if they are expressed and so nobody is affected. When the out-group has the capacity to punish, the in-group being visible to each other will enhance their capacity to resist out-group power as they can support each other more.
Reicher and Levine carried out a study where subjects were divided into two groups depending on whether they were for the British campaign for nuclear disarmament (pro-CND) or against (anti-CND). Participants watched a video of a debate between pro and anti-CND positions and were asked to give points on how good a side’s debate was. An ‘orientation to nuclear disarmament’ scale was filled in by subjects to give the impression that the out-group had control over what was to happen to the in-group. Half the participants gave their points anonymously (anonymous condition) and the other half openly (identifiable condition). Results showed that pro-CND group score were high but were low when they could be identified and that anti-CND scores were low but high when they could be identified. This was because of the power the out-group held over the in-group. As the identifiability of the group members became higher their responses that were unacceptable to the out-group decreased.
In another study involving science students, half the group’s identity was ‘scientists’ and half ‘students’. In each condition they were asked to answer questions relating to punishable and unpunishable behaviour and their willingness to participate. Here the out-group was academic staff. Results showed that ‘scientists’ were consistent with staff members for punishable items but ‘students’ weren’t. For punishable items, decreased identifiability to staff (out-group), decreased expression of academic commitment for ‘students’ but not for ‘scientists’. Also, identifiability for unpunishable items had no effect on either group as no punishment was at the receiving end. They concluded that when an in-group is less identifiable to the out-group, they can carry out behaviours that adhere to norms of their identity even though they may be punished by the out-group.
However, there still lie a few problems. Firstly, because you can’t see power in action, you can’t say that power relations are affected by anonymity. To do this, a way of measuring how participants resist the out-group is required. Even if there was a way of measuring how anonymity affects power relations, it would be hard to see what part anonymity plays. The range of possibilities are endless.
Conclusion
Studies have generally shown a lot of support for SIDE as well as for power relations and salience of identity. Although Deindividuation theory says that being in a group effects power relations, they take away these effects from a persons thinking. SIDE combines them to give a more realistic social-contextual model of human behaviour. To assume that it is the immersion of the individuals in the crowd that brings about irrational, impulsive behaviour is ridiculous. It’s important to remember that we are social beings. We may lose ourselves in crowds but we're not left not knowing what to do. Considering the enormous amounts of groups we are in every day (office, school, city), a view that anonymous groups lead to anti-normative behaviour is too simplistic. SIDE has had greater empirical findings and seems to provide a better way of understanding anonymous group behaviour.
