How do crowds change behaviour, and what makes behaviour prosocial or antisocial?
Collective behaviour: deindividuation in crowds, prosocial and antisocial behaviour, and how social influence can lead to both helping and harmful crowd behaviour.
A focused answer to Edexcel GCSE Psychology Topic 5, covering collective behaviour: deindividuation in crowds, prosocial and antisocial behaviour, and how social influence leads to helping or harm.
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What this dot point is asking
Edexcel wants you to explain collective behaviour: how being in a crowd can change behaviour through deindividuation, and the difference between prosocial (helping) and antisocial (harmful) behaviour, including how social influence can lead to both. This links to the Zimbardo prison study and to criminal psychology.
Collective behaviour and deindividuation
In a crowd, two things change behaviour. Anonymity: being one of many makes a person feel less identifiable and so less accountable for their actions. Arousal and shared focus: the emotional energy of a group can sweep individuals along. Together these reduce self-awareness and personal responsibility, so people may do things in a crowd they would never do alone, including antisocial acts such as aggression or vandalism. This is why crowd events can sometimes turn destructive even when most individuals are ordinarily law-abiding.
Prosocial and antisocial behaviour
This matters for understanding real situations: a crowd can become a rescue effort or a riot depending on the norms it follows and the models people copy. It also links to criminal psychology, where learning from antisocial models helps explain how criminal behaviour develops.
Try this
Q1. Define prosocial behaviour. [1 mark]
- Cue. Behaviour intended to help or benefit others.
Q2. Name one factor that increases deindividuation in a crowd. [1 mark]
- Cue. Anonymity (being less identifiable among many people) or group arousal.
Q3. Explain how social influence can lead to prosocial behaviour. [2 marks]
- Cue. People copy prosocial models and follow helping norms, so seeing others help makes them more likely to help too.
Exam-style practice questions
Practice questions written in the style of Pearson Edexcel exam questions on this dot point, with worked answer explainers. The year tag is the paper they imitate, not the source.
Edexcel 20193 marksDescribe what is meant by deindividuation. (Paper 1)Show worked answer →
A 3-mark Describe item rewards an accurate account of deindividuation and its effect.
Deindividuation is a state, often experienced in a large crowd or group, in which a person loses their sense of individual identity and personal responsibility. Being anonymous in a crowd, and the emotional arousal of being in a group, can make people feel less identifiable and less accountable, so they are more likely to act on impulse and go along with the behaviour of the crowd, which can be antisocial.
Markers reward the loss of individual identity and personal responsibility, the role of anonymity in a crowd, and the link to acting on impulse or following the crowd.
Edexcel 20214 marksExplain the difference between prosocial and antisocial behaviour, and how social influence can lead to each. (Paper 1)Show worked answer →
A 4-mark Explain item rewards defining each type and linking social influence to both.
Prosocial behaviour is acting to help or benefit others, such as helping in an emergency. Antisocial behaviour is acting in ways that harm or disregard others, such as aggression or vandalism. Social influence can lead to either: people may copy prosocial models and norms (for example helping because others help), or they may be drawn into antisocial behaviour through conformity, obedience or deindividuation in a crowd, where reduced responsibility makes harmful acts more likely.
Markers reward clear definitions of both behaviours and an explanation that social influence (modelling, conformity, deindividuation) can produce both helping and harm.
Related dot points
- Social influence concepts: conformity and the factors affecting it, obedience to authority and the factors affecting it (including Milgram's work and the agentic state).
A focused answer to Edexcel GCSE Psychology Topic 5, covering conformity and the factors affecting it, and obedience to authority and the factors affecting it (Milgram and the agentic state).
- Factors affecting bystander intervention: the bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, and situational and personal factors that affect whether people help.
A focused answer to Edexcel GCSE Psychology Topic 5, covering factors affecting bystander intervention: the bystander effect, diffusion of responsibility, and situational and personal factors.
- Core studies: Piliavin et al. (1969) subway study of helping behaviour and Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973) Stanford prison study, including their aims, methods, results, conclusions and evaluation.
A focused answer to the Edexcel GCSE Psychology Topic 5 core studies: Piliavin et al. (1969) subway study and Haney, Banks and Zimbardo (1973) Stanford prison study, with aim, method, results, conclusion and evaluation.
- Learning theories of criminality: social learning theory (observation, imitation and vicarious reinforcement) and operant conditioning, applied to how criminal and antisocial behaviour is learned.
A focused answer to Edexcel GCSE Psychology Topic 6, covering learning theories of criminality: social learning theory (observation, imitation, vicarious reinforcement) and operant conditioning.
- The effect of punishment on recidivism and treatments to reduce antisocial behaviour (such as anger management and token economies), with an evaluation.
A focused answer to Edexcel GCSE Psychology Topic 6, covering the effect of punishment on recidivism and treatments to reduce antisocial behaviour (anger management and token economies), with an evaluation.
Sources & how we know this
- Pearson Edexcel GCSE (9-1) Psychology (1PS0) specification — Pearson Edexcel (2017)