Baiting crowd is a form of collective aggression; this is a situation where a group of individuals unify their aggression, while they may not even know each other, towards another individual or group. [1]
Baiting crowd is a form of collective aggression; this is a situation where a group of individuals unify their aggression, while they may not even know each other, towards another individual or group. [1]
It is a typical situation where a person is about to jump from a high building while there are people standing below, whereas some people begin to shout that the person has to jump off.
Leon Mann (born 12 December 1937) is an Australian psychologist.[ citation needed ] He is currently Director of the Research Leadership Program and coordinator of the University of Melbourne's Mentoring Program for Research Leaders. [2]
In the late 20th century, Leon Mann became interested in the idea of deindividuation. More specifically, he wanted to investigate how aggression of a group of people towards another individual or group, could influence one’s own behaviour. [1] In the attempt to investigate this matter, Mann analysed 166 cases of suicide or suicide attempt, in which in 21 cases a crowd was involved. He wanted to find out when collective aggression towards an individual, who was about to commit suicide (e.g. encouraging to jump of a large building), would cause an outsider to join the baiting crowd in this process of deindividuation. In ten of these 21 cases several factors may have led to deindividuation where baiting occurred. [3]
He found out that when the crowd was small and during daytime, people would usually not shout that the person should jump. However, when the crowd was large and it was late at night it caused people to be anonymous, therefore they would more quickly shout that the person had to jump from the building. [1]
This is caused through deindividuation which is a process whereby people lose their sense of socialized individual identity and often show unsocialized and even antisocial behavior. [1] In this situation people often blur their normal behaviors, leading to an increase in impulsive and deviant behavior. One becomes less an individual and more part of the mass.
Deindividuation theory predicts that under the cover of anonymity, crowd members will be more aggressive than when identifiable. Emergent norm theory predicts that the most aggressive behavior will occur when an aggressive norm prevails in a crowd in which participants are identifiable to each other.
In his article "The Baiting Crowd in Episodes of Threatened Suicide", Leon Mann classified several factors that influence the baiting crowd. [3]
Leon Mann's research shows that a sense of anonymity increases sharply as a group grows, resulting in a reduced self-awareness. Moreover, in larger groups the chances increase of a person in the crowd encouraging the victim's act. This encouragement could form a model for the rest of the group to follow.
The degree of lighting appears to be a factor that also plays a part in some of the cases. Because little lighting strengthens anonymity, most incidents occur when it is dark outside.
An increase in the physical distance between the observer and the victim increases the dehumanization of the observer in relation to the victim. Because the victim is too far away from the observer, the victim can no longer be recognized or heard, which can result in him being seen less as a person.
When a crowd has to wait a long time before something happens, this crowd can get bored or annoyed. A possible explanation behind this is that the crowd gets the feeling that the situation is a big act, which leads to increased frustrations. They may wonder whether the person really wants to commit suicide or he is just in it to get some publicity.
Most cases of baiting crowd appear in the hottest months of the year, an increase in temperature causes an increase in frustrations among the crowd. Those frustrations lead to less patience and the raise of deindividualisation.
In large cities baiting appears to be more common than in smaller cities or villages. This may be because a large city leads to more anonymity. Furthermore, there is often a large amount of high buildings that are easily available to the person.
A crowd can see the victim as a crazy person. They do not see someone with the need to commit suicide as a fellow human being, but view them as inferior. This feeling can be enhanced when a form of discrimination takes place.
Leon Mann states that through the presence of a crowd and the loss of individuality (deindividuation) crowd baiting is taking place. He supports this phenomenon by relying on his 21 single case studies using the archival research method. Although Mann discovered the phenomenon, he himself states that “Because of the sampling method, the small number of cases, and the nature of the data (journalistic accounts), no strong conclusions can be drawn, but leads for further research can be adduced [3] ”. Many more studies will be required to discover the different facets of crowd baiting such as “Who are the baiters and their individual circumstances and characteristics?” and “What are the conditions for crowd members to encourage the victim to jump?”
Flaming, also known as roasting, is the act of posting insults, often including profanity or other offensive language, on the internet. This term should not be confused with the term trolling, which is the act of someone causing discord online or in person. Flaming emerged from the anonymity that Internet forums provide cover for users to act more aggressively. Anonymity can lead to disinhibition, which results in the swearing, offensive, and hostile language characteristic of flaming. Lack of social cues, less accountability of face-to-face communications, textual mediation and deindividualization are also likely factors. Deliberate flaming is carried out by individuals known as flamers, which are specifically motivated to incite flaming. These users specialize in flaming and target specific aspects of a controversial conversation.
Social psychology is the scientific study of how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people or by social norms. Social psychologists typically explain human behavior as a result of the relationship between mental states and social situations, studying the social conditions under which thoughts, feelings, and behaviors occur, and how these variables influence social interactions.
Aggression is hostile and antagonistic behavior, often with the intent to cause harm, although it can be channeled into creative and practical outlets for some. It may occur either reactively or without provocation. In humans, aggression can be caused by various triggers, from frustration due to blocked goals to feeling disrespected. Human aggression can be classified into direct and indirect aggression; whilst the former is characterized by physical or verbal behavior intended to cause harm to someone, the latter is characterized by behavior intended to harm the social relations of an individual or group.
Anger, also known as wrath or rage, is an intense emotional state involving a strong uncomfortable and non-cooperative response to a perceived provocation, hurt or threat.
Crowd psychology is a branch of social psychology that deals with the ways in which the psychology of a crowd is different from the psychology of the individual persons who are the crowd. The field of crowd psychology enquires into the behaviors and thought processes of both the individual members of the crowd and the crowd as a collective social entity. The behavior of a crowd is much influenced by deindividuation, a person's loss of responsibility, and the person's impression of the universality of behavior, both of which conditions increase in magnitude with size of the crowd. Notable theorists in crowd psychology include Gustave Le Bon, Gabriel Tarde, and Sigmund Freud.
The bystander effect, or bystander apathy, is a social psychological theory that states that individuals are less likely to offer help to a victim in presence of other people. First proposed in 1964 after the murder of Kitty Genovese, much research, mostly in psychology research laboratories, has focused on increasingly varied factors, such as the number of bystanders, ambiguity, group cohesiveness, and diffusion of responsibility that reinforces mutual denial. If a single individual is asked to complete the task alone, the sense of responsibility will be strong, and there will be a positive response; however, if a group is required to complete the task together, each individual in the group will have a weak sense of responsibility, and will often shrink back in the face of difficulties or responsibilities. The theory was prompted by the murder of Kitty Genovese about which it was wrongly reported that 38 bystanders watched passively.
Civil disorder, also known as civil disturbance, civil unrest, or social unrest, is a situation arising from a mass act of civil disobedience in which law enforcement has difficulty maintaining their authority.
Bullying is the use of force, coercion, hurtful teasing or threat, to abuse, aggressively dominate or intimidate. The behavior is often repeated and habitual. One essential prerequisite is the perception of an imbalance of physical or social power. This imbalance distinguishes bullying from conflict. Bullying is a subcategory of aggressive behavior characterized by hostile intent, imbalance of power and repetition over a period of time.
Anger management is a psycho-therapeutic program for anger prevention and control. It has been described as deploying anger successfully. Anger is frequently a result of frustration, or of feeling blocked or thwarted from something the subject feels is important. Anger can also be a defensive response to underlying fear or feelings of vulnerability or powerlessness. Anger management programs consider anger to be a motivation caused by an identifiable reason which can be logically analyzed and addressed.
Diffusion of responsibility is a sociopsychological phenomenon whereby a person is less likely to take responsibility for action or inaction when other bystanders or witnesses are present. Considered a form of attribution, the individual assumes that others either are responsible for taking action or have already done so.
Political psychology is an interdisciplinary academic field, dedicated to understanding politics, politicians and political behavior from a psychological perspective, and psychological processes using socio-political perspectives. The relationship between politics and psychology is considered bidirectional, with psychology being used as a lens for understanding politics and politics being used as a lens for understanding psychology. As an interdisciplinary field, political psychology borrows from a wide range of disciplines, including: anthropology, economics, history, international relations, journalism, media, philosophy, political science, psychology, and sociology.
Deindividuation is a concept in social psychology that is generally thought of as the loss of self-awareness in groups, although this is a matter of contention. For the social psychologist, the level of analysis is the individual in the context of a social situation. As such, social psychologists emphasize the role of internal psychological processes. Other social scientists, such as sociologists, are more concerned with broad social, economic, political, and historical factors that influence events in a given society.
Relational aggression, alternative aggression, or relational bullying is a type of aggression in which harm is caused by damaging someone's relationships or social status.
Workplace violence (WPV), violence in the workplace (VIW), or occupational violence refers to violence, usually in the form of physical abuse or threat, that creates a risk to the health and safety of an employee or multiple employees. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health defines worker on worker, personal relationship, customer/client, and criminal intent all as categories of violence in the workplace. These four categories are further broken down into three levels: Level one displays early warning signs of violence, Level two is slightly more violent, and level three is significantly violent. Many workplaces have initiated programs and protocols to protect their workers as the Occupational Health Act of 1970 states that employers must provide an environment in which employees are free of harm or harmful conditions.
Online Disinhibition Effect is the lack of restraint one feels when communicating online in comparison to communicating in-person. People feel safer saying things online which they would not say in real life because they have the ability to remain completely anonymous and invisible behind the computer screen. Apart from anonymity, other factors such as asynchronous communication, empathy deficit, or individual personality and cultural factors also contribute to online disinhibition. The manifestations of such an effect could be in both positive and negative directions. Thus online disinhibition could be classified as either benign disinhibition or toxic disinhibition.
The social identity model of deindividuation effects is a theory developed in social psychology and communication studies. SIDE explains the effects of anonymity and identifiability on group behavior. It has become one of several theories of technology that describe social effects of computer-mediated communication.
Behavioral contagion is a form of social contagion involving the spread of behavior through a group. It refers to the propensity for a person to copy a certain behavior of others who are either in the vicinity, or whom they have been exposed to. The term was originally used by Gustave Le Bon in his 1895 work The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind to explain undesirable aspects of behavior of people in crowds. In the digital age, behavioral contagion is also concerned with the spread of online behavior and information. A variety of behavioral contagion mechanisms were incorporated in models of collective human behavior.
Workplace aggression is a specific type of aggression which occurs in the workplace. Workplace aggression is any type of hostile behavior that occurs in the workplace. It can range from verbal insults and threats to physical violence, and it can occur between coworkers, supervisors, and subordinates. Common examples of workplace aggression include gossiping, bullying, intimidation, sabotage, sexual harassment, and physical violence. These behaviors can have serious consequences, including reduced productivity, increased stress, and decreased morale.
In psychology, frustration is a common emotional response to opposition, related to anger, annoyance and disappointment. Frustration arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of an individual's will or goal and is likely to increase when a will or goal is denied or blocked. There are two types of frustration: internal and external. Internal frustration may arise from challenges in fulfilling personal goals, desires, instinctual drives and needs, or dealing with perceived deficiencies, such as a lack of confidence or fear of social situations. Conflict, such as when one has competing goals that interfere with one another, can also be an internal source of frustration or annoyance and can create cognitive dissonance. External causes of frustration involve conditions outside an individual's control, such as a physical roadblock, a difficult task, or the perception of wasting time. There are multiple ways individuals cope with frustration such as passive–aggressive behavior, anger, or violence, although frustration may also propel positive processes via enhanced effort and strive. This broad range of potential outcomes makes it difficult to identify the original cause(s) of frustration, as the responses may be indirect. However, a more direct and common response is a propensity towards aggression.
The frustration–aggression hypothesis, also known as the frustration–aggression–displacement theory, is a theory of aggression proposed by John Dollard, Neal Miller, Leonard Doob, Orval Mowrer, and Robert Sears in 1939, and further developed by Neal Miller in 1941 and Leonard Berkowitz in 1969. The theory says that aggression is the result of blocking, or frustrating, a person's efforts to attain a goal.