liberal hand-wringers fight back!

I've been thinking about how some have falsely accused our work into crowd psychology as liberal hand-wringing, elitist etc, and it made me think about one area of our theories where it's especially hard to maintain such a critique. Often in coverage of rioting, much is made about how the indvidual is swept along with the 'mob mentality' and so a view has developed that people in riots are somehow less responsible for their actions. This concept has become known as 'de-individuation' and is often mentioned as a psychological effect of being in crowds. However, 30 years of research into crowd behaviour in the UK and abroad have found that that de-individuation is a flawed concept and not supported by evidence. Far from losing all sense of responsibility, people do remain in control of themselves, and so are individually responsible and accountable for their actions. Clearly, sometimes in crowds people do feel empowered to do things that they might not do if they were alone (such as joining in with others to loot a shop), but they are unlikely to do things that fundamentally clash with their own values and identities. So for example, a crowd of anti-fascists protesting against a fascist march may attack fascists and/or even the Police if they feel that either group has behaved in an illegitimate way and they also feel empowered to do so, but this does not mean that they will then start attacking passers-by from minority communities, or even each other. So the idea that 'anything goes' once you're caught up in the 'mob mentality' is quite simply, rubbish.

In the context of the recent riots, some of the more nihilistic behaviours can be explained in terms of the social identity model of crowd behaviour much better than attempts to say that people were 'deindividuated' and so less responsible for their actions. The lack of connection with society that many of the young people involved in the rioting may have been feeling, could help explain why they then engaged in seemingly nihilistic and/or anti-social acts against their local community. This rejection of the concept of de-individuation also means that the social identity model does not seek to excuse such behaviours, and instead argues that people are responsible, and so by implication, legally accountable for their actions.

However, I wouldn't be surprised if we see references made to the concept of de-individuation when defence lawyers plead mitigation for their clients who are found guilty of offences relating to the riots. While legal teams using this tactic may think they are doing the best for their clients in trying to reduce their sentences, the premises of such a tactic are based on flawed approaches not supported by evidence. So, what may seem like a good legal argument is actually rooted in bad science, and also to me shows the fallacy of writing off our approaches as bleeding heart liberals trying to excuse people's participation in the recent riots- something we don't attempt to do anyway!