Deindividuation is the process whereby people lose their sense of individual identity and engage in unsociable, often antisocial behavior. Anonymity is a key concept, where people are likely to behave aggressively because of the loss of sense of individuality. Deiner stated it occurs when; self-awareness is blocked by environmental factors, there is a reduced need for social approval, there is a reduction in rational thinking and a decrease in inhibition. This suggests that collective behavior of violent crowds, mindless hooligans and social atrocities such as genocide can be explained by the deindividuation theory.
To a large extent, deindividuation theory is based on the classic crowd theory of Le Bon (1895), were he recognized how behavior changed in a crowded situation. Le Bon suggested that a collective mind-set takes over and people start to act as one, as individual submerge and lose self-control. This suggests that the individual reduces its own morals and takes aboard morals of the group. Zimbardo further developed this idea, by emphasizing the importance of anonymity, as the release from internal restrains, produces emotional, impulsive and irrational behavior. Zimbardo supported his argument by carrying out an experiment on groups of four female undergraduates, where they were required to deliver electric shocks to another student to ‘aid learning’. Half of the ps wore hoods over there face and were never referred to by name, whereas the other half wore normal clothes and had large name tags. It was discovered that ps in the deindividuation condition shocked ‘the learner’ for twice as long as did identifiable ps. This shows that anonymity is a key component of the deindividuation process as it increases aggressiveness, due to diminishing the fear of negative evaluation of actions and reduces the sense of guilt. Although, Zimbardo also stresses that the