Social Identity Model of Deindividuation Effects - Strategic SIDE

Strategic SIDE

Anonymity also has strategic consequences: it affects the ability to express personal and social identities (Spears & Lea, 1994). Strategic concerns come into play when an out-group has more power than the ingroup, and where the norms of both groups are at odds with each other. In such cases, the identifiability of ingroup members towards the outgroup will shift the power balance between groups: identifiability towards a more powerful outgroup limits the degree to which the ingroup's identity can be expressed freely and without sanction on those dimensions where ingroup norms conflict with out-group standards and values, and which are punishable or otherwise sanctionable. Conversely, anonymity towards a more powerful outgroup may be a convenient instrument for the ingroup to express itself on those same dimensions.

The strategic SIDE thus proposes that anonymity may be “used” by less powerful groups to express aspects of their identity. This may appear to be similar to the effects that anonymity has for accountability in classic deindividuation theory. However, unlike deindividuation theory, SIDE takes account of the inter-group context within which identifiability and anonymity occur. By implication, a loss of accountability does not result in the disinhibited or random anti-normative behaviour of individuals that deindividuation theory is concerned with. Rather, according to SIDE, anonymity affects the ability for a group to express its identity, and thus to engage in targeted and ingroup normative behaviour, thereby changing power relations between groups. The close connection between identity expression and power proposed by SIDE may explain the patterned and targeted behaviour of crowds whose violent actions (if they occur) are very often symbolic, not random (Reicher, Spears, & Postmes, 1995).

In addition to anonymity between groups, SIDE also considers strategic effects of anonymity within groups. Here, SIDE has particularly explored the consequences of anonymity (as well as isolation) from other ingroup members: On the one hand this deprives individual group members of social support from their fellows, and this may hinder their ability to express their ingroup identity in the face of a powerful and unsympathetic outgroup. On the other hand, the knowledge that other ingroup members are unable to identify the self may have consequences for (in particular) low identifiers to feel less committed to ingroup norms.