Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects - Background

Background

SIDE developed as a critique of deindividuation theory. Deindividuation theory was developed to explain the phenomenon that in crowds, people become capable of acts that rational individuals would not normally endorse (see also Crowd psychology). In the crowd, so it would seem, humans become disinhibited and behave anti-normatively. Early versions of deindividuation theory (e.g., Zimbardo, 1969) saw this as a consequence of reduced self-awareness and accountability. Diener (1980) and others later focused more exclusively on loss of self as the core psychological process underlying deindividuation.

Reicher (1982) criticized deindividuation theory for several reasons. Among others, historical evidence and case studies strongly suggested that the psychological process proposed by deindividuation theory (a loss of self) did not occur in the crowd (McPhail, 1991). A meta-analysis of empirical deindividuation research confirmed there was no consistent empirical evidence for the processes it proposed (Postmes & Spears, 1998). To the contrary: anonymity and reduced self-awareness enhanced sensitivity to local norms. SIDE researchers concluded that there is no good empirical support for the process of deindividuation, and factors that should produce deindividuation have highly variable effects on behavior (Reicher, Spears, & Postmes, 1995). To account for this, SIDE proposes that there are no blanket indiscriminate effects of anonymity, but that anonymity effects are influenced by, and can only be understood through, their interaction with the social context.

Reicher (1982, 1987) also challenged the conceptualization of deindividuation as a loss of self. This process assumes that individuals have a unitary self-concept that they can be more or less aware of. Reicher and others argued that individuals do not have a unitary sense of self. Social identity theory, for instance, points out that one's sense of self is made up of personal identity and multiple social identities, all of which combine to shape one's personality. Social identities are likely to become the basis for self-definition when that social identity is salient, such as when making comparisons between “them” and “us.” One consequence of salience is “depersonalization.” Note that in research on social identity, depersonalization is not the same as deindividuation or a loss of self (cf. the entry on Depersonalization to read up on what it is not). In social identity research, the term depersonalization refers to a switch to a group level of self-categorization in which self and others are seen in terms of their group identities.

According to Self-categorization theory (Turner et al., 1987), depersonalization makes perceptions of the outgroup more stereotypical. Self-perceptions also shift: self and other ingroup members become interchangeable, and the individual self-stereotypes in terms of group attributes. Depersonalization thus transforms individuals into group members who regulate their behavior according to in-group norms. Importantly, and in contrast to deindividuation, the psychological state of depersonalization does not imply a loss of rationality or behavioural disinhibition; rather, the individual behaves rationally and regulates behaviour according to ingroup standards. These ideas from social identity theory and self-categorisation theory provided not only key ingredients for Reicher's critique of deindividuation theory, they are also the foundations upon which SIDE was modelled.