Transcript Group displays of aggression

Group displays of aggression
Sports events
• 2 or more teams and their spectators
• Aggression may be in group display – e.g.
chanting, taunting, throwing
• Little serious violence BUT heavy police
presence
• Football clubs have ‘firms’ (highly
organised and discrete)
Lynch mobs
• Mob administers death penalty
independently of law
• Common after abolition of slavery after
World War I
• Lynching ends in murder but associated
with larger display if group aggression
• Lynching of black Americans attracted
crowds of thousands with party
atmosphere
Group display of aggression in
humans
Deindividuation
Description of
theory
Sports events
Lynch mobs
Evaluation
SDT
Name the theory
1.
People cannot be identified within a lynch mob and do not have the
ability to judge their own behaviour.
2. Hierarchies of groups within society are kept in place by legitimising
beliefs that justify our attitudes.
3. It is based on evolutionary theory.
4. We are more conformist to group norms in a crowd and less able to
regulate our individual behaviour.
5. This is measured using a scale.
6. The theory predicts that social change in favour of a low status group
can lead to lynching.
7. Lynching is normally carried out by a dominant group against a group
lower in the hierarchy.
8. This theory can help development of police practices at football matches.
9. Large crowds produce more aggression than small crowds, especially if a
crowd has a collective mind.
10. The bigger the difference between groups, the more difference will be
seen between the status, so the more aggression will occur.
Synoptic evaluation points:
• Perhaps one single theory alone is too
simplistic in explaining aggression at a
group level at sports events/lynch mobs
• Guttman (1986) – no single theory can
explain behaviour and aggression of
sports crowds; an explanation comprising
ideas from all theories seems most logical
(introduce biological explanations here as
dispositional theory)
• The explanations focus on a ‘Western
industrialised’ view of humans behaviour
and so may not account for cultural
differences (ethnocentrism)
• Groups of humans are not always
aggressive: crowds do not always lead to
aggression; Cassidy et al (2007)
investigated Mela (large Hindu festival)
with 50 million people. Crowds behaved
well and showed increased pro-social
behaviour, showing crowd behaviour and
collective living promote non-aggressive
behaviour
• Practical applications of theories
explaining aggression in groups to help
understanding of real life situations – give
examples from real life events
• Compare and contrast the two theories –
one is situational and one dispositional