DEINDIVIDUATION WHEN DO PEOPLE LOSE THEIR SENSE OF SELF IN GROUPS

DEINDIVIDUATION: WHEN DO PEOPLE LOSE THEIR
SENSE OF SELF IN GROUPS?
Define “deindividuation” and identify circumstances that trigger
it.
In April 2003, in the wake of American troops entering Iraq’s
cities, looters—“liberated” from the scrutiny of police—ran
rampant. Hospitals lost beds. The National Library lost tens of
thousands of old manuscripts and lay in smoldering ruins.
Universities lost computers, Page 212chairs, even lightbulbs.
The National Museum in Baghdad lost 15,000 precious objects
(Burns, 2003a, 2003b; Lawler, 2003c; Polk & Schuster, 2005).
“Not since the Spanish conquistadors ravaged the Aztec and
Inca cultures has so much been lost so quickly,” reported
Science (Lawler, 2003a). “They came in mobs: A group of 50
would come, then would go, and another would come,”
explained one university dean (Lawler, 2003b).
Such reports—and those of the 2011 arson and looting that
occurred in London, the 2014 looting in Ferguson, Missouri,
and the mob sexual assaults in Germany as 2016 dawned—had
the rest of the world wondering: What happened to people’s
sense of morality? Why did such behavior erupt? And why was
it not anticipated?
Deindividuation: During England’s 2011 riots and looting,
rioters were disinhibited by social arousal and by the anonymity
provided by darkness and their hoods and masks. Later, some of
those arrested expressed bewilderment over their own behavior.
©Lewis Whyld/AP Images
Their behavior even left many of the rioters later wondering
what had possessed them. In court, some of the arrested London
rioters seemed bewildered by their behavior (Smith, 2011). The

mother of one of them, a recent university graduate, explained
that her daughter had been sobbing in her bedroom since her
arrest over a stolen television. “She doesn’t even know why she
took it. She doesn’t need a telly.” An engineering student,
arrested after looting a supermarket while he was walking home,
was said by his lawyer to having “got caught up in the moment”
and was now “incredibly ashamed” (Somaiya, 2011).
Doing Together What We Would Not Do Alone
Social facilitation experiments show that groups can arouse
people, and social loafing experiments show that groups can
diffuse responsibility. When arousal and diffused responsibility
combine, and normal inhibitions diminish, the results may be
startling. People may commit acts that range from a mild
lessening of restraint (throwing food in the dining hall, snarling
at a referee, screaming during a rock concert) to impulsive self-
gratification (group vandalism, orgies, thefts) to destructive
social explosions (police brutality, riots, lynchings).
These unrestrained behaviors have something in common: They
are provoked by the power of being in a group. Groups can
generate a sense of excitement, of being caught up in something
bigger than one’s self. It is hard to imagine a single rock fan
screaming deliriously at a private rock concert, or a single
rioter setting a car on fire. It’s in group situations that people
are more likely to abandon normal restraints, to forget their
individual identity, to become responsive to group or crowd
norms—in a word, to become what Leon Festinger, Albert
Pepitone, and Theodore Newcomb (1952) labeled
deindividuated. What circumstances elicit this psychological
state?
GROUP SIZE
A group has the power not only to arouse its members but also
to render them unidentifiable. The snarling crowd hides the
snarling basketball fan. A lynch mob enables its members to

believe they will not be prosecuted; they perceive the action as
the group’s. Looters, made faceless by the mob, are freed to
loot. One researcher analyzed 21 instances in which crowds
were present as someone threatened to jump from a building or
a bridge (Mann, 1981). When the crowd was small and exposed
by daylight, people usually did not try to bait the person with
cries of “Jump!” But when a large crowd or the cover of night
gave people anonymity, the crowd usually did bait and jeer.
Lynch mobs produce a similar effect: The bigger the mob, the
more its members lose self-awareness and become willing to
commit atrocities, such as burning, lacerating, or dismembering
the victim (Leader et al., 2007; Mullen, 1986a).
In each of these examples, from sports crowds to lynch mobs,
evaluation apprehension plummets. People’s attention is
focused on the situation, not on themselves. And because
“everyone is doing it,” all can attribute their behavior to the
situation rather than to their own choices.
Page 213
ANONYMITY
How can we be sure that crowds offer anonymity? We can’t. But
we can experiment with anonymity to see if it actually lessens
inhibitions. Philip Zimbardo (1970, 2002) got the idea for such
an experiment from his undergraduate students, who questioned
how good boys in William Golding’s Lord of the Flies could so
suddenly become monsters after painting their faces. To
experiment with such anonymity, he dressed New York
University women in identical white coats and hoods, rather
like Ku Klux Klan members (Figure 5). Asked to deliver
electric shocks to a woman, they pressed the shock button twice
as long as did women who were unconcealed and wearing large
name tags. Even dimmed lighting or wearing sunglasses
increases people’s perceived anonymity, and thus their
willingness to cheat or behave selfishly (Zhong et al., 2010).

FIGURE 5
In Philip Zimbardo’s deindividuation research, anonymous
women delivered more shock to helpless victims than did
identifiable women.
©Philip Zimbardo
The Internet offers similar anonymity. Millions of those who
were aghast at the looting by the Baghdad mobs were on those
very days anonymously pirating music tracks using file-sharing
software. With so many doing it, and with so little concern
about being caught, downloading someone’s copyrighted
property and then offloading it to an MP3 player just didn’t
seem terribly immoral. Internet bullies who would never say,
“Get a life, you phony,” to someone’s face will hide behind
their anonymity online. Most social media sites, to their credit,
require people to use their real names, which constrains hate-
filled comments.
On several occasions, anonymous online bystanders have egged
on people threatening suicide, sometimes with live video
feeding the scene to scores of people. Online communities “are
like the crowd outside the building with the guy on the ledge,”
noted one analyst of technology’s social effects (quoted by
Stelter, 2008). Sometimes a caring person tried to talk the
person down, while others, in effect, chanted, “Jump, jump.”
“The anonymous nature of these communities only emboldens
the meanness or callousness of the people on these sites.”
Testing deindividuation on the streets, Patricia Ellison, John
Govern, and their colleagues (1995) had a driver stop at a red
light and wait for 12 seconds whenever she was followed by a
convertible or a 4 × 4 vehicle. During the wait, she recorded
horn-honking (a mild aggressive act) by the car behind.
Compared with drivers of convertibles and 4 × 4s with the car
tops down, those who were relatively anonymous (with the tops

up) honked one-third sooner, twice as often, and for nearly
twice as long. Anonymity feeds incivility.
A research team led by Ed Diener (1976) cleverly demonstrated
the effect both of being in a group and of being physically
anonymous. At Halloween, they observed 1,352 Seattle children
trick-or-treating. As the children, either alone or in groups,
approached 1 of 27 homes scattered throughout the city, an
experimenter greeted them warmly, invited them to “take one of
the candies,” and then left the candy unattended. Hidden
observers noted that children in groups were more than twice as
likely to take extra candy than were solo children. Also,
children who had been asked their names and where they lived
were less than half as likely to transgress as those who were left
anonymous. As Figure 6 shows, when they were deindividuated
both by group immersion and by anonymity, most children stole
extra candy.
FIGURE 6
Children were more likely to transgress by taking extra
Halloween candy when in a group, when anonymous, and,
especially, when deindividuated by the combination of group
immersion and anonymity.
Source: Data from Diener et al., 1976.
Page 214Those studies make us wonder about the effect of
wearing uniforms. Preparing for battle, warriors in some tribal
cultures (like some rabid sports fans) depersonalize themselves
with body and face paints or special masks. Robert Watson
(1973) scrutinized anthropological files and discovered this:
The cultures with depersonalized warriors were also the cultures
that brutalized their enemies. In Northern Ireland, 206 of 500
violent attacks studied by Andrew Silke (2003) were conducted
by attackers who wore masks, hoods, or other face disguises.
Compared with undisguised attackers, these anonymous
attackers inflicted more serious injuries, attacked more people,

and committed more vandalism.
Does becoming physically anonymous always unleash our worst
impulses? Fortunately, no. In all these situations, people were
responding to clear antisocial cues. Robert Johnson and Leslie
Downing (1979) point out that the Klan-like outfits worn by
Zimbardo’s participants may have been stimulus cues for
hostility. In an experiment at the University of Georgia, women
put on nurses’ uniforms before deciding how much shock
someone should receive. When those wearing the nurses’
uniforms were made anonymous, they became less aggressive in
administering shocks. From their analysis of 60 deindividuation
studies, Tom Postmes and Russell Spears (1998; Reicher et al.,
1995) concluded that being anonymous makes one less self-
conscious, more group-conscious, and more responsive to
situational cues, whether negative (Klan uniforms) or positive
(nurses’ uniforms).
AROUSING AND DISTRACTING ACTIVITIES
Aggressive outbursts by large groups are often preceded by
minor actions that arouse and divert people’s attention. Group
shouting, chanting, clapping, or dancing serve both to hype
people up and to reduce self-consciousness.
Experiments have shown that activities such as throwing rocks
and group singing can set the stage for more disinhibited
behavior (Diener, 1976, 1979). There is a self-reinforcing
pleasure in acting impulsively while seeing others do likewise.
When we see others act as we are acting, we think they feel as
we do, which reinforces our own feelings (Orive, 1984).
Moreover, impulsive group action absorbs our attention. When
we yell at the referee, we are not thinking about our values; we
are reacting to the immediate situation. Later, when we stop to
think about what we have done or said, we sometimes feel
chagrined. Sometimes. At other times we seek deindividuating
group experiences—dances, worship experiences, team sports—

where we enjoy intense positive feelings and closeness to
others.
“Attending a service in the Gothic cathedral, we have the
sensation of being enclosed and steeped in an integral universe,
and of losing a prickly sense of self in the community of
worshipers.”
—Yi-Fu Tuan, Segmented Worlds and Self, 1982
Diminished Self-Awareness
Group experiences that diminish self-consciousness tend to
disconnect behavior from attitudes. Research by Ed Diener
(1980) and Steven Prentice-Dunn and Ronald Rogers (1980,
1989) Page 215revealed that unself-conscious, deindividuated
people are less restrained, less self-regulated, more likely to act
without thinking about their own values, and more responsive to
the situation. These findings complement and reinforce the
experiments on self-awareness.
Self-awareness is the opposite of deindividuation. Those made
self-aware, by acting in front of a mirror or a TV camera,
exhibit increased self-control, and their actions more clearly
reflect their attitudes. In front of a mirror, people taste-testing
cream cheese varieties ate less of the high-fat variety (Sentyrz
& Bushman, 1998).
Looking in a mirror or being on camera increases self-
awareness, making us think about our individual actions more
carefully.
©Syda Productions/Shutterstock
People made self-aware are also less likely to cheat (Beaman et
al., 1979; Diener & Wallbom, 1976). So are those who generally
have a strong sense of themselves as distinct and independent
(Nadler et al., 1982). In Japan, where people more often

imagine how they might look to others, the presence of a mirror
had no effect on cheating (Heine et al., 2008). The principle:
People who are self-conscious, or who are temporarily made so,
exhibit greater consistency between their words outside a
situation and their deeds in it.
We can apply those findings to many situations in everyday life.
Circumstances that decrease self-awareness, as alcohol
consumption does, increase deindividuation (Hull et al., 1983).
Deindividuation decreases in circumstances that increase self-
awareness: mirrors and cameras, small towns, bright lights,
large name tags, undistracted quiet, individual clothes and
houses (Ickes et al., 1978). When a teenager leaves for a party,
a parent’s parting advice could well be “Have fun, and
remember who you are.” In other words, enjoy being with the
group, but be self-aware; maintain your personal identity; be
wary of deindividuation.
SUMMING UP: Deindividuation: When Do People Lose Their
Sense of Self in Groups?
When high levels of social arousal combine with diffused
responsibility, people may abandon their normal restraints and
lose their sense of individuality.
Such deindividuation is especially likely when people are in a
large group, are physically anonymous, and are aroused and
distracted.
The resulting diminished self-awareness and self-restraint tend
to increase people’s responsiveness to the immediate situation,
be it negative or positive. Deindividuation is less likely when
self-awareness is high.
GROUP POLARIZATION: DO GROUPS INTENSIFY OUR
OPINIONS?
Describe and explain how interaction with like-minded people

tends to amplify preexisting attitudes.
Do group interactions more often have good or bad outcomes?
Police brutality and mob violence demonstrate the destructive
potential of groups. Yet support-group leaders, work-group
consultants, and educational theorists proclaim the beneficial
effects of group interaction. And self-help group members and
religious adherents strengthen their identities by fellowship
with like-minded others.
Studies of small groups have produced a principle that helps
explain both bad and good outcomes: Group discussion often
strengthens members’ initial inclinations. The unfolding Page
216of this research on group polarization illustrates the process
of inquiry—how an interesting discovery often leads researchers
to hasty and erroneous conclusions, which get replaced with
more accurate conclusions. This is a scientific mystery I [DM]
can discuss firsthand, having been one of the detectives.
The Case of the “Risky Shift”
More than 300 studies began with a surprising finding by James
Stoner (1961), then an MIT graduate student. For his master’s
thesis in management, Stoner tested the commonly held belief
that groups are more cautious than individuals. He posed
decision dilemmas in which the participant’s task was to advise
imagined characters how much risk to take. Put yourself in the
participant’s shoes: What advice would you give the character
in this situation?1
Helen is a writer who is said to have considerable creative
talent but who so far has been earning a comfortable living by
writing cheap westerns. Recently she has come up with an idea
for a potentially significant novel. If it could be written and
accepted, it might have considerable literary impact and be a
big boost to her career. On the other hand, if she cannot work
out her idea or if the novel is a flop, she will have expended

considerable time and energy without remuneration.
Imagine that you are advising Helen. Please check the lowest
probability that you would consider acceptable for Helen to
attempt to write the novel.
Helen should attempt to write the novel if the chances that the
novel will be a success are at least
_____ 1 in 10
_____ 2 in 10
_____ 3 in 10
_____ 4 in 10
_____ 5 in 10
_____ 6 in 10
_____ 7 in 10
_____ 8 in 10
_____ 9 in 10
_____ 10 in 10 (Place a check here if you think Helen should
attempt the novel only if it is certain that the novel will be a
success.)
After making your decision, guess what this book’s average
reader would advise.
Having marked their advice on a dozen items, five or so
individuals would then discuss and reach agreement on each

item. How do you think the group decisions compared with the
average decision before the discussions? Would the groups be
likely to take greater risks, be more cautious, or stay the same?
To everyone’s amazement, the group decisions were usually
riskier. This “risky shift phenomenon” set off a wave of group
risk-taking studies. These revealed that risky shift occurs not
only when a group decides by consensus; after a brief
discussion, individuals, too, will alter their decisions. What is
more, researchers successfully repeated Stoner’s finding with
people of varying ages and occupations in a dozen nations.
The risky shift: Groups of people, like these teens in a car
together, may make more risky decisions than individuals alone.
©Big Cheese Photo/Superstock
During discussion, opinions converged. Curiously, however, the
point toward which they converged was usually a lower (riskier)
number than their initial average. Here was an intriguing
puzzle. The small risky shift effect was reliable, unexpected,
and without any immediatel y obvious explanation. What group
influences produce such an effect? And how widespread is it?
Do discussions in juries, business committees, and military
organizations also promote risk taking? Does this explain why
teenage reckless driving, as measured by death rates, nearly
doubles when a 16- or 17-year-old driver has two teenage Page
217passengers rather than none (Chen et al., 2000)? Does it
explain stock bubbles, as people discuss why stocks are rising,
thus creating an informational cascade that drives stocks even
higher (Sunstein, 2009)?
After several years of study, my [DM’s] colleagues and I
discovered that the risky shift was not universal. We could write
decision dilemmas on which people became more cautious after
discussion. One of these featured “Roger,” a young married man
with two school-age children and a secure but low-paying job.

Roger can afford life’s necessities but few of its luxuries. He
hears that the stock of a relatively unknown company may soon
triple in value if its new product is favorably received or
decline considerably if it does not sell. Roger has no savings.
To invest in the company, he is considering selling his life
insurance policy.
Can you see a general principle that predicts both the tendency
to give riskier advice after discussing Helen’s situation and
more cautious advice after discussing Roger’s? If you are like
most people, you would advise Helen to take a greater risk than
Roger, even before talking with others. It turns out there is a
strong tendency for discussion to accentuate these initial
leanings. Thus, groups discussing the “Roger” dilemma became
more risk-averse than they were before discussion (Myers,
2010).
Do Groups Intensify Opinions?
Realizing that this group phenomenon was not a consistent shift
toward increased risk, we reconceived the phenomenon as a
tendency for group discussion to enhance group members’
initial leanings. Similar minds polarize. This idea led
investigators to propose what French researchers Serge
Moscovici and Marisa Zavalloni (1969) called group
polarization: Discussion typically strengthens the average
inclination of group members.
GROUP POLARIZATION EXPERIMENTS
This new view of the group-induced changes prompted
experimenters to have people discuss attitude statements that
most of them favored, or that most of them opposed. Would
talking in groups enhance their shared initial inclinations? In
groups, would risk takers take bigger risks, bigots become more
hostile, and givers become more generous? That’s what the
group polarization hypothesis predicts (Figure 7).

FIGURE 7
Group Polarization
The group polarization hypothesis predicts that discussion will
strengthen an attitude shared by group members.
Dozens of studies confirm group polarization. Three examples:
Moscovici and Zavalloni (1969) observed that discussion
enhanced French students’ initially positive attitude toward
their president and negative attitude toward Americans.
Mititoshi Isozaki (1984) found that Japanese university students
gave more pronounced judgments of “guilty” after discussing a
traffic case. When jury members are inclined to award damages,
the group award tends to exceed that preferred by the median
jury member (Sunstein, 2007a).
When people believed they were watching an online video of a
political speech at the same time as many other viewers (vs.
with no other viewers), their judgments of the speech were more
extreme (Shteynberg et al., 2016).
Markus Brauer and co-workers (2001) found that French
students were more adamant in their dislike of someone after
discussing their shared negative impressions with others. If
some individuals dislike you, together they may dislike you
more.
Another research strategy has been to pick issues on which
opinions are divided and then isolate people who hold the s ame
view. Does discussion with like-minded people strengthen
shared views? Does it magnify the attitude gap that separates
the two sides?
George Bishop and I [DM] wondered. So we set up groups of
relatively prejudiced and unprejudiced high school students and

asked them to respond—before and after discussion—to issues
involving racial attitudes (Myers & Bishop, 1970). Page 218For
example, they responded to a case involving the property right
to rent only to one’s race versus the civil right to not face
discrimination. We found that the discussions among like-
minded students did indeed increase the initial gap between the
two groups (Figure 8). Moreover, Jessica Keating and her
collaborators (2016) report that people are unaware of the
phenomenon in their own lives. When small groups of like-
minded people discussed whether Barack Obama or George W.
Bush was the better president, participants underestimated how
much the discussion polarized their attitudes, misremembering
their earlier attitudes as less extreme than they actually were.
FIGURE 8
Discussion increased polarization between homogeneous groups
of high- and low-prejudice high school students. Talking over
racial issues increased prejudice in a high-prejudice group and
decreased it in a low-prejudice group.
Source: Data from Myers & Bishop, 1970.
Studies in Britain and Australia confirm that group discussion
can magnify both negative and positive tendencies. When
people share negative impressions of a group, such as an
immigrant group, discussion supports their negative views and
increases their willingness to discriminate (Smith & Postmes,
2011). And when people share concern about an injustice,
discussion amplifies their moral concern (Thomas & McGarty,
2009). Like hot coals together, like minds strengthen one
another.
GROUP POLARIZATION IN EVERYDAY LIFE
In everyday life, people associate mostly with others whose
attitudes are similar to their own. (See the Attraction chapter, or
just look at your own circle of friends.) So, outside the
laboratory, do everyday group interactions with like-minded

friends intensify shared attitudes? Do the nerds become nerdier,
the jocks jockier, and the rebels more rebellious?
It happens. The self-segregation of boys into all-male groups
and of girls into all-female groups increases their initially
modest gender differences, noted Eleanor Maccoby (2002).
Boys with boys become gradually more competitive and action
oriented in their play and fictional fare. Girls with girls become
more relationally oriented.
On U.S. federal appellate court cases, judges appointed by
Republican presidents tend to vote like Republicans and judges
appointed by Democratic presidents tend to vote like
Democrats. No surprise there. But such tendencies are
accentuated when among like-minded judges, report David
Schkade and Cass Sunstein (2003): “A Republican appointee
sitting with two other Republicans votes far more
conservatively than when the same judge sits with at least one
Democratic appointee. A Democratic appointee, meanwhile,
shows the same tendency in the opposite ideological direction.”
“What explains the rise of fascism in the 1930s? The emergence
of student radicalism in the 1960s? The growth of Islamic
terrorism in the 1990s? . . . The unifying theme is simple: When
people find themselves in groups of like-minded types, they are
especially likely to move to extremes. [This] is the phenomenon
of group polarization.”
—Cass Sunstein, Going to Extremes, 2009
GROUP POLARIZATION IN SCHOOLS Another real-life
parallel to the laboratory phenomenon is what education
researchers have called the “accentuation” effect: Over time,
initial differences among groups of college students become
accentuated. If the first-year students at Big Brain College are
initially more intellectual than the students at Party School

College, that gap is likely to increase by the time they graduate.
Likewise, compared with fraternity and sorority members,
nonmembers have tended to have more liberal political
attitudes, a difference that grows with time in college
(Pascarella & Terenzini, 1991). Researchers believe this results
partly from group members reinforcing shared inclinations.
GROUP POLARIZATION IN COMMUNITIES Polarization also
occurs in communities, as people self-segregate. “Crunchy
places . . . attract crunchy types and become crunchier,”
observes David Brooks (2005). “Conservative places . . . attract
conservatives and become more so.” Neighborhoods can become
echo chambers, with opinions ricocheting off kindred-spirited
friends.
Show social psychologists a like-minded group that interacts
mostly among themselves and they will show you a group that
may become more extreme. While diversity moderates us, like
minds polarize.
One experiment assembled small groups of Coloradoans in
liberal Boulder and conservative Colorado Springs. The
discussions increased agreement within small groups about
global warming, affirmative action, and same-sex unions.
Nevertheless, those in Boulder generally converged further left
and those in Colorado Springs further right (Schkade et al.,
2007).
Page 219In laboratory studies, the competitive relationships and
mistrust that individuals often display when playing games with
one another often worsen when the players are groups (Winquist
& Larson, 2004). During actual community conflicts, like-
minded people associate increasingly with one another,
amplifying their shared tendencies. Gang delinquency emerges
from a process of mutual reinforcement within neighborhood
gangs, whose members share attributes and hostilities

(Cartwright, 1975). If “a second out-of-control 15-year-old
moves in [on your block],” surmises David Lykken (1997), “the
mischief they get into as a team is likely to be more than merely
double what the first would do on his own. . . . A gang is more
dangerous than the sum of its individual parts.” (Or, as one
friend of mine [JT] put it when we were in college and had
witnessed a few too many drunken antics, “Boys do dumb things
when they get together in groups.”) Indeed, “unsupervised peer
groups” are “the strongest predictor” of a neighborhood’s crime
victimization rate, report Bonita Veysey and Steven Messner
(1999). Moreover, experimental interventions that take
delinquent adolescents and group them with other delinquents —
no surprise to any group polarization researcher—increase the
rate of problem behavior (Dishion et al., 1999).
In two trials, South African courts reduced sentences after
learning how social psychological phenomena, including
deindividuation and group polarization, led crowd members to
commit murderous acts (Colman, 1991). What do you think:
Should courts consider social psychological phenomena as
possible extenuating circumstances?
GROUP POLARIZATION IN POLITICS With like-minded
communities serving as political echo chambers, the United
States offers a case example of an urgent social problem—
political polarization. As more and more people view their party
as morally superior and the opposition as corrupt, cooperation
and shared goals get replaced by gridlock. Consider:
Like-minded counties. The percentage of Americans living in
“landslide counties”—those in which 60% or more voted for the
same Presidential candidate—rose from 38% in 1992 to 60% in
2016 (Aisch et al., 2016).
Minimized middle ground. The percentage of entering
collegians declaring themselves as politically “middle of the

road” dropped from 60% in 1983 to 42% in 2016, and those
identifying as “far left” or “far right” has increased (Eagan et
al., 2017; Twenge et al., 2016).
Increasing partisan divide. The gap between Republicans and
Democrats, as expressed in congressional speeches and in
citizen attitudes, has never been greater (Figure 9) (Gentzkow et
al., 2017; Pew, 2017).
Antagonism. In 2016, most Republicans and Democrats for the
first time acknowledged having “very unfavorable” views of the
other party (Doherty & Kiley, 2016). In 1960, just 5% of
Republicans and 4% of Democrats said they would be upset if
their son or daughter was going to marry someone from the
other political party. By 2010, 49% of Republicans and 33% of
Democrats said they would be upset (Iyengar et al., 2012).
Persistent partisanship. The rate of Americans’ voting for the
same party across successive presidential elections has never
been higher (Smidt, 2017).
FIGURE 9
A polarizing society. Democrats have increasingly agreed that
“Racial discrimination is the main reason why many Black
people can’t get ahead these days” (Pew, 2017). Republicans
have become less likely to agree.
This worsening divide is increasingly apparent to all, with a
record 77% of Americans perceiving their nation as divided
(Jones, 2016).
Groups often exceed individuals. A gang is more dangerous than
the sum of its parts, much as “the pack is greater than the wolf.”
©Raimund Linke/Getty Images
GROUP POLARIZATION ON THE INTERNET From the long-

ago invention of the printing press to today’s Internet, the
amount of available information has mushroomed. Where once
people shared the same information from a few networks and
national news magazines, today we choose from a myriad of
sources. With so many choices, we naturally “selectively
expose” ourselves to like-minded media (Dylko et al., 2017).
Page 220We embrace media feeds that support our views and
slam those we despise. (Tell us which media you consume and
we’ll guess your political ideology.)
As people selectively read blogs and visit chat rooms, does the
Internet herd them into “tribes of common thought” (or do we
have more—and more diverse—friends on Facebook than in
daily life)? Do people (do you?) tend to click on content they
(you?) agree with and block what’s disagreeable? Do
progressives tend to friend progressives and share links with
them, and likewise conservatives? Do the Internet’s segregated
communities, with news feeds catering to their interests,
amplify social fragmentation and political polarization?
The Internet’s countless virtual groups enable peacemakers and
neo-Nazis, geeks and goths, conspiracy schemers and cancer
survivors to isolate themselves with like-minded others and find
support for their shared concerns, interests, and suspicions
(Gerstenfeld et al., 2003; McKenna & Bargh, 1998, 2000;
Sunstein, 2009, 2016). With retweets, customized news feeds,
and self-selections from the news buffet, like minds feed one
another valuable information—and toxic misinformation:
untruths that, after many retellings, get accepted as fact
(Barberá et al., 2015). Thus, disagreements become
demonization and suspicions escalate to paranoia.
Research confirms that most of us read blogs that reinforce
rather than challenge our views, and those blogs link mostly to
like-minded blogs—connecting liberals with liberals,
conservatives with conservatives—like having conversations

with the bathroom mirror (Lazer et al., 2009). The net result is
that in today’s world, political polarization—despising people
of opposing political views—has become considerably more
intense than racial polarization (Iyengar & Westwood, 2014).
More information deepens rather than moderates partisan
divisions. E-mail, Google, and chat rooms “make it much easier
for small groups to rally like-minded people, crystallize diffuse
hatreds, and mobilize lethal force,” observed Robert Wright
(2003). Peacemakers become more pacifistic and militia
members more terror prone. According to one analysis, terrorist
websites—which grew from a dozen in 1997 to some 4,700 at
the end of 2005—increased more than four times faster than the
total number of websites (Ariza, 2006). Moreover, the longer
people spend in segregated “Dark Web” forums, the more
violent their messages (Chen, 2012). The Boston Marathon
bombers Tamerland and Dozhokhar Tsarnaev reportedly were
“self-radicalized” through their Internet exposure (Wilson et al.,
2013).
“We thought Internet would give us access to ppl w different
points of view. Instead it gives us access to many ppl w the
same point of view.”
Comedian Kumail Nanjiani, 2016 tweet
The bottom line: On our list of the future’s great challenges,
somewhere not far below restraining climate change, is learning
how to harness the great benefits of the digital future and its
more connected world, but without exacerbating group
polarization.
GROUP POLARIZATION IN TERRORIST ORGANIZATIONS
From their analysis of terrorist organizations throughout the
world, Clark McCauley and his colleagues (2002; McCauley &
Moskalenko, 2017) note that terrorism does not erupt suddenly:
“Lone-wolf terrorists are rare.” Rather, it arises among people

whose shared grievances bring them together and fan their fire.
As they interact in isolation from moderating influences, they
become progressively more extreme. The social amplifier brings
the signal in more strongly. The result is violent acts that the
individuals, apart from the group, would never have committed
(see Focus On: Group Polarization).
For example, the September 11, 2001, terrorists were bred by a
long process that engaged the polarizing effect of interaction
among the like-minded. The process of becoming a terrorist,
noted a National Research Council panel, isolates individuals
from other belief systems, dehumanizes potential targets, and
tolerates no dissent (Smelser & Mitchell, 2002). Group members
come to categorize the world as “us” and “them” (Moghaddam,
2005; Qirko, 2004). Ariel Merari (2002), an investigator of
Middle Eastern and Sri Lankan suicide terrorism, believes the
key to creating a terrorist suicide is the group process. “To the
best of my knowledge, there has not been a single case of
suicide terrorism which was done on a personal whim.”
Page 221
focus ON
Group Polarization
Shakespeare portrayed the polarizing power of the like-minded
group in this dialogue of Julius Caesar’s followers:
Antony: Kind souls, what weep you when you but behold Our
Caesar’s vesture wounded? Look you here. Here is himself,
marr’d, as you see, with traitors.
First Citizen: O piteous spectacle!
Second Citizen: O noble Caesar!
Third Citizen: O woeful day!

Fourth Citizen: O traitors, villains!
First Citizen: O most bloody sight!
Second Citizen: We will be revenged!
All: Revenge! About! Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay! Let not a
traitor live!
Source: From Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare, Act III,
Scene ii, lines 199–209.
According to one analysis of terrorists who were members of
the Salafi Jihad—an Islamic fundamentalist movement,
including al Qaeda—70% joined while living as expatriates.
After moving to foreign places in search of jobs or education,
they became keenly mindful of their Muslim identity and often
gravitated to mosques and moved in with other expatriate
Muslims, who sometimes recruited them into cell groups that
provided “mutual emotional and social support” and
“development of a common identity” (Reicher & Haslam, 2016;
Sageman, 2004). One of the Islamic State’s senior militants
reported that his movement was born inside an American prison
in Iraq: “If there was no American prison in Iraq, there would
be no IS now. [The prison] was a factory. It made us all. It built
our ideology. . . . We had so much time to sit and plan. It was
the perfect environment” (quoted by Chulov, 2014).
Massacres, similarly, are group phenomena. The violence is
enabled and escalated by the killers egging one another on,
noted Robert Zajonc (2000), who knew violence as a survivor of
a World War II Warsaw air raid that killed both his parents
(Burnstein, 2009). It is difficult to influence someone once “in
the pressure cooker of the terrorist group,” noted Jerrold Post
(2005) after interviewing many accused terrorists. “In the long
run, the most effective antiterrorist policy is one that inhibits

potential recruits from joining in the first place.”
Explaining Group Polarization
Why do groups adopt stances that are more exaggerated than
that of their average individual member? Researchers hoped that
solving the mystery of group polarization might provide some
insights into group influence. Solving small puzzles sometimes
provides clues for solving larger ones.
Among several proposed theories of group polarization, two
have survived scientific scrutiny. One deals with the arguments
presented during a discussion and is an example of
informational influence (influence that results from accepting
evidence about reality). The other concerns how members of a
group view themselves vis-à-vis the other members, an example
of normative influence (influence based on a person’s desire to
be accepted or admired by others).
“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange
apples, then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you
have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas,
then each of us will have two ideas.”
—Charles F. Brannan, Secretary of Agriculture, NBC broadcast,
April 3, 1949
INFORMATIONAL INFLUENCE
According to the best-supported explanation, group discussion
elicits a pooling of ideas, most of which favor the dominant
viewpoint. Some discussed ideas are common knowledge to
group members (Gigone & Hastie, 1993; Larson et al., 1994;
Stasser, 1991). Other ideas may include persuasive arguments
that some group members had not previously considered. When
discussing Helen the writer, someone may say, “Helen should
go for it, because she

Group and Organizational Behavior.html
Group and Organizational Behavior
A group can be defined as individual interacting together for a
purpose.
When discussing organizational group behavior, the first
question that arises is, what is the purpose of a work group,
especially a group related to product development, quality
improvement, or management? The probable answer to this
question is, "The fundamental activity of groups is to integrate
individual knowledge into collective knowledge" (Okhuysen &
Eisenhardt, 2002, p. 370). Therefore, most work groups entail
some sort of change (in the product line, delivery of services,
quality of work, work or task design, marketing strategy, or
organizational mission or values). These changes enhance group
participation and therefore improve group performance and the
quality of products. However, sometimes, significant changes in
the work process of a group or an organization evoke increased
negative job stress, resulting in poor overall performance (Seel,
2001).
See the linked document for an example of group dynamics.
Okhuysen, G., & Eisenhardt, K. (2002). Integrating knowledge
in groups: How formal interventions enable flexibility.
Organizational Science, 13(4), 370–386.Additional Materials
View the PDF transcript for Stages of Group Development
media/week6/SUO_PSY3011 Stages of Group Development.pdf
Stages of Group Development

PSY3011 Social Psychology lab
©2016 South University
2
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love
the Bomb (1964) was a unique movie
demonstrating the various aspects of group dynamics, especially
dysfunctional group dynamics. The
movie was based on a novel written by Peter George and was
produced and codirected by Stanley
Kubrick.
The story begins with U.S. Air Force Base Commander Jack D.
Ripper (played by Sterling Hayden) going
mad and sending bombers to drop nuclear warheads over the
Soviet Union. This leads to a threat of an
accidental nuclear war. The star of the movie is Peter Sellers,
who portrays three of the main characters:
Dr. Strangelove, Lionel Mandrake (an ex-World War II German
scientist with a unique outlook on war and
missiles), and President Merkin Muffey.

Lionel Mandrake, after confirming the news of no attack being
made on the United States, wants to recall
the bombers. However, Ripper refuses to reveal the three-letter
code required to recall the bombers.
Desperate to avoid World War III, President Muffley summons
Soviet Ambassador Alexander de Sadesky
(played by Peter Bull) into the Pentagon war room. Muffley also
speaks to the Soviet premiere over the
telephone. After a humorous exchange, Muffley agrees to
provide the Soviets with data on the flight
paths of the errant bombers so that Soviet air defenses can shoot
them down, if necessary.
President Muffley becomes aware of a secret weapon, the
doomsday device, developed by the Soviets,
which has the ability to destroy all life on earth. The Soviets
plan to use the weapon in case of any attack
on the Soviet Union. When Dr. Strangelove, the president’s
advisor, is asked about the weapon’s effect,
he admits its obvious flaws.
Thinking about the ways to survive, Dr. Strangelove estimates
that U.S. society can survive if a few
handpicked individuals remain in underground shelters for 100
years, waiting for the fallout to dissipate.
Finally, a full-scale attack on the Soviet Union is planned. The
movie ends with one bomber hitting its
target and the Soviet Union releasing its doomsday device,
which destroys the world.

The main focus of the movie was the lack of group development
to resolve this potentially apocalyptic
scenario. In this movie, group development seemed to fluctuate
between the forming and storming
stages of Tuckman's (1965) model. The characters in the movie
represented strong personalities who had
more influence in their own groups (their direct control) than in
the newly formed (war room group). In
addition, President Muffley, who was considered the leader of
this group, did not have an effective
leadership style, which, in this case, should have been an
authoritative style.
3
© 2016 South University

2
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love
the Bomb (1964) was a unique movie
demonstrating the various aspects of group dynamics, especially
dysfunctional group dynamics. The
movie was based on a novel written by Peter George and was
produced and codirected by Stanley
Kubrick.
The story begins with U.S. Air Force Base Commander Jack D.
Ripper (played by Sterling Hayden) going

mad and sending bombers to drop nuclear warheads over the
Soviet Union. This leads to a threat of an
accidental nuclear war. The star of the movie is Peter Sellers,
who portrays three of the main characters:
Dr. Strangelove, Lionel Mandrake (an ex-World War II German
scientist with a unique outlook on war and
missiles), and President Merkin Muffey.
Lionel Mandrake, after confirming the news of no attack being
made on the United States, wants to recall
the bombers. However, Ripper refuses to reveal the three-letter
code required to recall the bombers.
Desperate to avoid World War III, President Muffley summons
Soviet Ambassador Alexander de Sadesky
(played by Peter Bull) into the Pentagon war room. Muffley also
speaks to the Soviet premiere over the
telephone. After a humorous exchange, Muffley agrees to
provide the Soviets with data on the flight
paths of the errant bombers so that Soviet air defenses can shoot
them down, if necessary.
President Muffley becomes aware of a secret weapon, the
doomsday device, developed by the Soviets,
which has the ability to destroy all life on earth. The Soviets
plan to use the weapon in case of any attack
on the Soviet Union. When Dr. Strangelove, the president’s
advisor, is asked about the weapon’s effect,
he admits its obvious flaws.
Thinking about the ways to survive, Dr. Strangelove estimates
that U.S. society can survive if a few

handpicked individuals remain in underground shelters for 100
years, waiting for the fallout to dissipate.
Finally, a full-scale attack on the Soviet Union is planned. The
movie ends with one bomber hitting its
target and the Soviet Union releasing its doomsday device,
which destroys the world.
The main focus of the movie was the lack of group development
to resolve this potentially apocalyptic
scenario. In this movie, group development seemed to fluctuate
between the forming and storming
stages of Tuckman's (1965) model. The characters in the movie
represented strong personalities who had
more influence in their own groups (their direct control) than in
the newly formed (war room group). In
addition, President Muffley, who was considered the leader of
this group, did not have an effective
leadership style, which, in this case, should have been an
authoritative style.
3

© 2016 South University
Group Development.html
Group Development
The process of group development is dynamic and structured. In
the previous example, a problem-solving group was formed to
determine what went wrong in the process. The war room group
of Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love the Bomb is a good depiction of what happens to a group
whose members cannot function in sync with each other. In the
movie, the group members did not want to relinquish their own
interests and control for the benefit of the group.
There are other real-life examples of similar nuances of group
development as in the movie; however, they do not have simi lar
outcomes. For instance, during the early 1960s, tension between
the Soviet Union and the United States was high, especially
during the Cuban missile crisis and the Bay of Pigs invasion by
the United States. However, the invasion was a failure, in part,
because the planning was laden with misinformation and
groupthink (Janis, 1982).
Several studies have been conducted to determine the influence
of groupthink on the decision-making process and the quality of
outcomes (Schafer & Crichlow, 2002; Postmes, Spears, &
Cihangir, 2001). Although in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned
to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, the dysfunctional process
did not allow the group to really become cohesive, it did
demonstrate the potential for flawed decisions.

Janis, I. (1982). Groupthink: Psychological studies of policy
decisions and fiascoes (2nd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Postmes, T., Spears, R., & Cihangir, S. (2001). Quality of
decision making and group norms. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 80(6), 918–930.
Schafer, M., & Crichlow, S. (2002). The process-outcome
connection in foreign policy decision making: A quantitative
study building on groupthink. International Studies Quarterly,
46, 45–68.

DEINDIVIDUATION WHEN DO PEOPLE LOSE THEIR SENSE OF SELF IN GROUPS

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