The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil

Anonymity is often caused by deindividuation and the use of masks. Anonymity causes people to feel as if they cannot be identified; this lack of accountability permits people to act in ways they would not otherwise.

Deindividuation is the loss of self-awareness in groups. Deindividuation can be heightened, as in the case of the Stanford Prison Experiment, by the manipulation of an environment. Manipulation can take place in a variety of ways: being made to dress alike, being identified by an assigned number, and other conditions which increase a person’s anonymity all contribute to deindividuation. Deindividuation can influence people to engage in deviant and sometimes violent acts because they believe they cannot be identified.

Dehumanization is the behavior or process of depriving a person or group of their humanity. Dehumanization takes place when the ‘in’ group removes the human qualities of the ‘outer’ group and no longer associates the ‘outer’ group with human qualities. The consequence of dehumanization is a psychological mindset which permits abusive treatment of the dehumanized group by the dehumanizing group. Dehumanization often has racial or religious elements; the dehumanized group is often depicted as animalistic, which often leads to abusive treatment.