Deindividuation – Module 54 General Psych 2 March 4, 2004 Class # 12.

Deindividuation – Module 54

General Psych 2March 4, 2004

Class # 12

Deindividuation Theory

• Deindividuation theory is a social psychological account of the individual in the crowd

• Deindividuation is a psychological state of decreased self-evaluation, causing anti-normative and disinhibited behavior

Haney, Banks, & Zimbardo (1973)

• One of the all-time great sociology/psychology experiments– Illustrates deindividuation– As we watch this video, think of the person

vs. situation debate– Also, imagine yourself as participants in this

ethically troublesome experiment

Stanford Prison Experiment

• Thirty years ago, a group of young men were rounded up by Palo Alto police and dropped off at a new jail -- in the Stanford Psychology Department

These were just like real arrests…

• On a quiet Sunday morning... each was arrested for violation of Penal Codes 211, Armed Robbery or Burglary, a 459 PC

• Some arrested still vividly remember the shock of having neighbors come out to watch the commotion as TV cameras recorded the hand-cuffing for the “nightly news”

Treated poorly from the start…

• Strip searched, sprayed for lice and locked up with chains around their ankles, the "prisoners" were part of an experiment to test people's reactions to power dynamics in social situations

Don’t mess with us…

• Other college student volunteers -- the "guards" -- were given authority to dictate 24-hour-a-day rules

Soon, they were humiliating the prisoners

And it got worse and worse…

It didn’t take long…

• Less than 36 hours into the experiment, Prisoner #8612 began suffering from acute emotional disturbance, disorganized thinking, uncontrollable crying, and rage…he was released

You want us to do what???

• Upon hearing of a rumored break-out Zimbardo panicked…– Instead of sitting back and observing what

was to occur next, like the good experimental psychologist that he was…• He went back to the Palo Alto Police

Department and asked the sergeant if “we could have our prisoners transferred to your jail for at least one night”

• Zimbardo had also totally fallen into his role

Parole Board

• During the parole hearings they also witnessed an unexpected metamorphosis of the prison consultant as he adopted the role of head of the Parole Board

• He literally became the most hated authoritarian official imaginable, so much so that when the experiment was over he felt sick at who he had become…– He acted no different than his own tormentor

who had previously rejected his annual parole requests for 16 years when he was a prisoner

“I think it is terrible what you are doing to those boys”

• Christina Maslach was a recent PhD graduate at Stanford and in a romantic relationship with Zimbardo

• She almost got physically ill when seeing the cruelty

Her reactions convinced Zimbardo it was time to call it off…

• Maslach realized that the experiment was becoming very ugly…she couldn’t believe some of the transformations…– Upon her arrival, she had a pleasant

conversation with a "charming, funny, smart" young man waiting to start his guard shift

– Other researchers had told her there was a particularly sadistic guard, whom both prisoners and other guards had nicknamed John Wayne

Which one is “John Wayne”? • Later, when she

looked at the monitor of the prison yard again, she asked someone to point out John Wayne and was shocked to discover it was the young man she had talked with earlier…

Jekyll and Hyde experience

• He was talking in a different accent a Southern accent, which she hadn't recalled at all– He moved differently, and the

way he talked was different, not just in the accent, but in the way he was interacting with the prisoners

– “It was like seeing Jekyll and Hyde”

Interesting note…

• Christina Maslach was one of about 50 visitors who had arrived after the experiment had began…– She was the only one who complained

about it– The only one who suggested that it be

stopped

Full debriefing…

• Zimbardo: On the last day, we held a series of encounter sessions, first with all the guards, then with all the prisoners (including those who had been released earlier), and finally with the guards, prisoners, and staff together. We did this in order to get everyone's feelings out in the open…

Zimbardo gave his rationale for conducting the experiment…

• Zimbardo: – “We also tried to make this a time for

moral reeducation by discussing the conflicts posed by this simulation and our behavior. For example, we reviewed the moral alternatives that had been available to us, so that we would be better equipped to behave morally in future real-life situations, avoiding or opposing situations that might transform ordinary individuals into willing perpetrators or victims of evil”

Zimbardo had hoped his experiment would lead to positive changes in our prison system…

• Zimbardo: – “Sadly, in the decades since this

experiment took place, prison conditions and correctional policies in the United States have become even more punitive and destructive”

Who am I ?

• None of the guards left the experiment – most seemed to enjoy it

• The prisoners were abused – some sobbed their way out

• What would you have done differently had you been a guard? A prisoner?

How about in the real world?

• This naturalistic observation type of experiment seems to illustrate this effect…

• In 1969, the Chief of Police of the California community of Menlo Park, in the interest of improving community relations, embarked on a program whose most apparent feature was a change in the style of police attire

• The police of Menlo Park shifted from the typical blue, military style uniform to a civilian green blazer

It’s all in the uniform?

• Does the traditional police uniform bring about a sense of deindividuation?– If so, what effect do you think the

“green blazer” had?

Crowds and Deindividuation: The Halloween Studies

• Dierner et al. (1976)– Trick-or-treaters in groups more likely to

steal extra candy than individual kids, unless they were individuated by being asked their names

• Beaman et al. (1979)– Anonymous children in Halloween costumes

stole more from a candy jar than kids asked their first names

– Even less likely to steal if a mirror was put behind the candy bowl

Back to the real world…

• Mullen (1986)– Bigger the mob, the greater the

atrocities

Zimbardo (1970):The abandoned car study

• Palo Alto, California vs. NYC