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Strategic SIDE

References

SIDE

IN CLASS ACTIVITY

Asch, S. E. (1956). Studies of independence and conformity. A minority of one against a unanimous majority. Psychological Monographs, 70(9, Whole No. 416

Chan, M. (2010). The impact of email on collective action: A field application of the SIDE model. New Media & Society, 12(8), 1313-1330.

Lea, M., Rogers, P., & Postmes, T. (2002). SIDE-VIEW: Evaluation of a system to develop team players and improve productivity in internet collaborative learning groups. British Journal of Educational Technology, 33(1), 54-64.

Lea, M., & Spears, R. (1991). Computer-mediated communication, de-individuation and group decision-making. International Journal of Man Machine Studies, 34, 283–301.

Le Bon, G. (1897). The crowd: A study of the popular mind. Fischer.

Milgram, S. (1963). Behavioral Study of obedience. The Journal of abnormal and social psychology, 67(4), 371.

Postmes, T., Spears, R., & Lea, M. (1998). Breaching or building social boundaries? SIDE-effects of computer-mediated communication. Communication Research, 25, 689–715.

Reicher, S., Spears, R., & Postmes, T. (1995). A social identity model of deindividuation phenomena. European Review of Social Psychology, 6, 161–198.

Spears, R., Postmes, T., Lea, M., & Wolbert, A. (2002). The power of influence and the influence of power in virtual groups: A SIDE look at CMC and the Internet. The Journal of Social Issues, 58, 91–108.

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. The social psychology of intergroup relations, 33(47), 74.

Zimbardo, P. G. (1969). The human choice: Individuation, reason, and order vs. Deindividuation, impulse and chaos. In W. J. Arnold & D. Levine (Eds.), Nebraska symposium on motivation (Vol. 17, pp. 237–307). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Weaknesses of SIDE

Each group is to list as many reasons as it can think of as to why the members of the other group did or did not wear *blank item* today

The observers role is to be outside the group and observe the group interaction. Use the bottom chart to indicate the statements being made in the group about their own group

You only have three minutes to complete this task, the group with the most reasons wins!

  • Anonymity also has strategic consequences: it affects the ability to express personal and social identities.

  • Strategic concerns come into play when an outgroup 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 outgroup standards and values, and which are punishable or otherwise sanctionable.

  • The strategic SIDE 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, a loss of accountability does not result in the disinhibited or random anti-normative behavior 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 behavior, thereby changing power relations between groups.

  • Originally proposed by Lea and Spears in 1991

  • Was first expressed in a concrete statement in the works of Reicher, Spears and Postmes (1995).

  • The SIDE model argues that as opposed to the deindividuation theory’s proposition where the anonymity lend by Social Networking Sites (SNS) and other CMC leads to the loss of self-awareness among individuals, it is that very anonymity which help individuals to identify, affirm and strengthen their individual as well as group identities (Postmes, Spears, & Lea, 1998,2000).

  • Key to this are the social cues transmitted through the social media.

  • "For example: I always wanted to play the Cello, but it’s a knowledge kept to myself. I come across a Cello playing online friend, who introduces me to a Facebook group of people who play Cello as a hobby. I join in. Through discussions, exchange of music, notes on how to play, where to buy a cello, and finally acting upon it I realize I ‘can’ play the Cello. I discover a new in-group, a new identity, a new part to my individual self. I am a Cello player"

  • Group immersion and anonymity have cognitive and strategic consequences
  • Not very easy to test empirically outside a controlled laboratory setting

  • Limited experiments applying SIDE to CMC

  • Some researchers feel SIDE is an outdated model for examining CMC and SNS

A History Continued

Strengths of SIDE

  • SIDE model answers a lot of critical reviews of CMC, particularly with respect to social identity and social media .

  • Answers a lot of critical reviews of Deindividuation theory

  • Grounded heavily in theoretical and empirical work
  • For Le Bon, becoming submerged in a crowd causes individuals to lose both external and internal constraints of their behavior.

  • The sense of power derived from strength in numbers leads individuals to express instincts that would otherwise be kept under restraint.

  • Being indistinguishable from others in the crowd leads individuals to lose all sense of individuality and hence the sense of individual responsibility.

Modern

Deindividuation

Cognitive SIDE

  • The term ‘deindividuation’ was introduced by Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcomb in their 1952 study

  • They found that males in a group who remembered less individuating information were more likely to express hostility towards their parents.

  • They explained these results as being due to the fact that ‘under conditions where the member is not individuated in the group, there is likely to occur for the member a reduction of inner restraints against doing various things’ (p 382).

  • It was Phillip G. Zimbardo, who lead to a flourishing of deindividuation research by providing more exact conceptual specification

  • Writing during the 1960's, like Le Bon, Zimbardo was witnessing an upsurge of urban disturbances and mass protests and felt that society was in the grips of 'Dionysiac forces' leading to 'motiveless murders, senseless destruction, and uncontrolled mob violence' (1969, p.248)

Computer Mediated Communication

(CMC) Theory

  • Group immersion and anonymity DO NOT produce a loss of self as proposed by deindividuation theory. Rather, anonymity and immersion in the group can enhance the salience of social identity and thereby depersonalize social perceptions of others and the self. ex. Cello Facebook group

  • SIDE argues this occurs principally because (visual) anonymity obscures individual features and interpersonal differences.

  • As a result of the decreased visibility of the individual within anonymous groups, the process of depersonalization is accentuated, and cognitive efforts to perceive the group as an entity are amplified.

  • Provided that there is some basis to perceive self and others as members of one group, anonymity therefore enhances the salience of the shared social identity. The net result is that people will tend to perceive self and others in terms of stereotypic group features, and are influenced accordingly.

  • It is important to note that this process can only operate to the extent that some sense of groupness exists from the outset. If individuals interact anonymously in the absence of any specific social identity or group boundaries, anonymity would have the reverse effects of accentuating one’s isolation from the group or by further obscuring group boundaries.

  • Two possibilities, anonymity in the group either has the effects of amplifying a shared social identity that, however rudimentary, is already in place, OR it can amplify the individual independence which exists in contexts in which no shared identity is available.

  • The latter process, whereby anonymity provides the opportunities for people to express and develop identities independent of the social influence of the group, is further elaborated in the Strategic SIDE.

Social Identity Theory

Deindividuation:

A History

  • Gustave Le Bon,
  • French Sociologist
  • The Psychology of Crowds, 1895
  • "Crowds are only powerful for destruction and the individual who enters the crowd descends several runs on the ladder of civilization"

Henri Tajfel, 1979

Current Application

The Social Identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE)

By: Samantha lebouef

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