A presentation on Group Influences for our subject, Social Psychology. Topic: Deindividuation

1. GROUP
INFLUENCES
Members:
Analyn Caña
Mirasol Madrid
Mark Luigi Mira
Patricia Ocampo

2. NATURE OF
GROUPS
Mirasol S. Madrid
II-9 BS Psychology

3. What is a Group?
GROUP
• two or more people who interact and influence one
another. (Shaw, 1981)
• Involves interaction of the members
• Perceives them- selves as “us” in contrast to “them”.
(Turner, 1987)
• Note: A group exists when two or more people interact
for more than a few moments, affect one another in
some way, and think of themselves as “us.”

4. DEINDIVIDUATION
Mirasol S. Madrid
II-9 BS Psychology

5. 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).

6. How?
When they are provoked by the power of the
group. Groups can generate a sense of
excitement, of being caught up in something
bigger than one’s self. In group situations, people
are more likely to abandon normal restraints, to
lose their sense of individual identity, to become
responsive to group or crowd norms—in a word, to
become what Leon Festinger, Albert Pepitone, and
Theodore Newcomb (1952) labelled deindividuated.

7. Deindividuation
Loss of self-awareness and evaluation
apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster
responsiveness to group norms, good or bad.

8. What circumstances elicits this psychological state?
 Group Size
A group has the power not only to arouse its members but
also to render them unidentifiable.

9. What circumstances elicits this psychological state?
In an analysis of 21 instances in which crowds were present
as someone threatened to jump from a building or a bridge,
Leon Mann (1981) found that 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.

10. What circumstances elicits this psychological state?
Brian Mullen reported a similar effect associated with lynch
mobs: 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.

11. What circumstances elicits this psychological state?
From these examples, we can infer that 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.
Bigger crowd > Deindividuation
Smaller crowd < Deindividuation

12. What circumstances elicits this psychological state?
 Physical Anonymity
In Philip Zimbardo’s deindividuation research, anonymous
women delivered more shock to helpless victims than did
identifiable women. Anonymous women pressed the shock
button twice as long as did women who were unconcealed and
wearing large name tags.

13. What circumstances elicits this psychological state?
The Internet also offers similar anonymity. In several recent
cases on the Internet, anonymous online bystanders have egged
on people threatening suicide, sometimes with live video feeding
the scene to scores of people.
Ed Diener’s research team cleverly demonstrated the effect
both of being in a group and of being physically anonymous.

14. What circumstances elicits this psychological state?
Halloween Experiment - 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.

15. What circumstances elicits this psychological state?

16. What circumstances elicits this psychological state?
Does being anonymous always unleash our worst impulses?
Fortunately, no. Tom Postmes and Russell Spears (1998; Reicher
& others, 1995) analysed 60 deindividuation studies and
concluded that being anonymous makes one less self-conscious,
more group-conscious, and more responsive to cues present in
the situation, whether negative or positive.

17. What circumstances elicits this psychological state?
 Arousing and Distracting Activities
Aggressive outbursts by large groups often are 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.
There is a self-reinforcing pleasure in acting impulsively while
observing others doing likewise. When we see others act as we are acting,
we think they feel as we do, which reinforces our own feelings (Orive,
1984).

18. Diminished Self-
awareness
Ed Diener (1980) and Steven Prentice-Dunn and
Ronald Rogers (1980, 1989)’s research revealed
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.

19. Diminished Self-
awareness
When a person is self-aware about his or her
actions, his or her behaviour is more calculated
and regulated. 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 & others, 1978).

20. Parting words
Enjoy being with the group, but be self-
aware; maintain your personal identity; be wary of
deindividuation.