How Might Deindividuation Theory Explain the Looting Behaviour That Sometimes Accompanies Crowd Riots? What Are the Strengths and Limitations of This Kind of Approach to Understanding Collective Behaviour?

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The Deindividuation theory was developed to attempt to explain the processes that take place once people have joined together to form a crowd. It posits that the structural features of a crowd, antecedent variables such as anonymity (Zimbardo cited in Dixon & Mahendran 2012), arousal, external focus and group cohesion (Deiner, Prentice-Dunn & Rogers) results in a diffusion of responsibility which in turn results in: a loss of a sense of personal identity, a reduced sense of personal responsibility that ultimately leads to increased aggression and irrational, anti-normative behaviour. To critically evaluate this theory and to seek whether it can explain looting behaviour, specifically of 2011, one must ask the question, does the structure of a crowd result in members losing a sense of ‘self’ or does it produce a change in identity salience; producing a shift to a more ‘social self’ (Dixon & Mahendran 2012), that is regulated by group norms? (Social Identity theory) One also has to evaluate the evidence that has been used to support the theory. This essay will argue that by considering individuals have a single personal identity that has to be present for controlled behaviour, a loss of which will lead to anti-normative behaviour is to ignore a social sense of self. It will show research that suggests that there may be a transition from individual identity to a social dimension of self that can produce conformity to, as supposed to the suggested chaos, the socials norms and standards particular to the crowd. By stating that a crowd produces a loss of rationality and an eradication of personal identity suggests’ the crowd doesn’t have a voice, and just produces mindless and meaningless action that would render understanding futile. The essay will conclude by suggesting that by divorcing the crowd from context in which it was formulated, renders any possibility of

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