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Deindividuation Essay

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We are all social beings. We need to interact to share our views to influence each other and so we associate ourselves to a group. People try to protect their self-esteem and self-concept. But sometimes in larger groups, people do not get their due recognition for their actions. They gradually lose their identity in the group and identifies themselves by their group. This leads to the lack of responsibility and moral values. Deindividuation : A phenomenon that occurs in large-groups (crowd) situations in which individual identity is lost within the anonymity of the large group, perhaps leading to a lowering of inhibitions against negative behaviors (Bordens & Horowitz, 2017, p.311). Due to deindividuation, people lose their individual identity …show more content…

The loss of self- identity makes them less responsible for their actions and when they strongly associate themselves with the group.
There are factors that are related to the level of violence by a group due to deindividuation. Firstly the loss of self-identity leads to anonymity and it might lower a person’s moral values. For example, we have seen some of the most violent crimes are often carried out in disguise to hide the identities of the persons performing the those acts. Secondly, as the people gets absorbed with group’s activities, the responsibilities becomes shared and any of the immoral or violent act performed does not affect the individual as he now thinks that it is the group doing such acts. Lastly, the size of the group, say if it is more will lead to more violence. For example, Insurgent groups killing innocent people even children without mercy.
As we see that deindividuation can lead to destructive group behavior. Deindividuation has a powerful effect on us and one way to reduce it is to be more self-aware and maintaining our individuality as much possible by maybe calling each other with our

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