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In contemporary social psychology, deindividuation refers to a diminishing of one's sense of individuality that occurs with behavior disjointed from personal or social standards of conduct. For example, someone who is an anonymous member of a mob will be more likely to act violently toward a police officer than a known individual. In one sense ...
For example, deindividuation has been found to foster group identification and to induce greater opinion polarization in small groups communicating online. [20] In order to understand effects of factors such as anonymity and reduced cues on group behavior, one needs to take the social and inter-group context into account.
Deindividuation involves a loss of self-awareness, resulting in comparisons against meaningful standards. When spectators become deindividuated, their self-awareness decreases and they cease to compare their behavior against these social norms.
Examples include: deindividuation, bystander apathy, and conformity. In the case of S. vs. Sibisi and Others (1989) eight members of the South African Railways and Harbours Union were involved in the murder of four workers who chose not to join in the SARHWU strike.
The size of the group also has an effect on how susceptible the group will be to polarization. The greater the number of people in a group, the greater the tendency toward deindividuation. In other words, deindividuation is a group-size-effect. As groups get larger, trends in risk-taking are amplified. [3]
Figure 1. The explanatory profiles of social identity and self-categorization theories. "Social identity approach" is an umbrella term designed to show that there are two methods used by academics to describe certain complex social phenomena- namely the dynamics between groups and individuals.
Three psychological concepts that led to the development of the Proteus effect are behavioral confirmation, self-perception theory, and deindividuation, [6] although since then further explanatory approaches and influencing factors such as priming and feedback loops through communication have been identified or proposed.
The idea of a "group mind" or "mob behavior" was first put forward by 19th-century social psychologists Gabriel Tarde and Gustave Le Bon.Herd behavior in human societies has also been studied by Sigmund Freud and Wilfred Trotter, whose book Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War is a classic in the field of social psychology.