The Online Disinhibition Effect: Cyberbullying, Public Shaming and Social Norms

Before exploring the makeup and meaning of Online Disinhibition Effect it is necessary to understand it in the context of the field of cyberpsychology. This discipline is the study of the human mind in its interactions with technology¹. This field is new, necessary, and rapidly expanding. Though outpaced by technology its growth is important in monitoring and, where needed, in mitigating the effects of technology on our psychological makeup.

The Online Disinhibition Effect has been researched extensively by John Suler, Professor of Psychology at Rider University. The simplest definition is the lack of restraint felt when communicating online versus communicating in person.

The Online Disinhibition Effect and The Six Factors

Suler outlines six factors in Online Disinhibition Effect. These will be familiar to anyone who has ever overshared on Facebook or scrolled past some unfortunate YouTube comments.

1. Dissociative Anonymity

When considering Dissociative Anonymity the late aughts site Juicy Campus came immediately to mind. Juicy was a site where students at various Universities could post anonymous gossip. It quickly became aggressively toxic. Racial slurs, rampant sexism, and rumor-mongering that slid easily into harassment. Eventually, there was a protest movement at Princeton University. This saw students wearing shirts reading “anonymity equals cowardice” and writing kind messages about each other on a “love wall”. Few mourned Juicy’s demise.²

2. Invisibility

Close to Anonymity but not exactly the same, Invisibility refers to the fact that you cannot see or hear the other person. We covered this somewhat with our work article on empathy. You cannot read any cues from them. So even if you know them, your interactions online may be quite different. Think of your quite introverted classmate who seems so opinionated on social media.

3. Asynchronicity

Asynchronicity is all about timing. As much as anonymity might equal cowardice so too does asynchronicity. It amounts to adjusting behavior based on the fact that you are not facing the immediate reaction of the person online. To put it in its most base threatening terms think of the person responding to a verbal threat online by saying “you wouldn’t have the guts to say that to my face”. There’s physical violence implicit in this but, while crude, it’s also probably true that the attacker would likely not want to face immediate consequences for their statements (whatever those might be).

4. Solipsistic Introjection

Solipsistic Introjections are when you’re receiving a text or reading someone’s post and you are reading as a “voice” in your head. You choose the voice. Because of this, it’s more like you are talking to yourself than conversing with another person. You know how people often say online debates are pointless? Solipsistic Introjections would be a big reason why.

5. Dissociative Imagination

The most obvious example of this would be online gaming (where you literary choose a character to fill in for you). But it could refer to any online format where a persona is created.  For those susceptible the lines between reality and the persona may become blurred.

6. Minimization of Authority

This last element seems like it should be a positive. When people can’t see you or your surroundings they don’t know or make inferences about how “important” you are. But this environment, centered in populism, can actually be negative when combined with the other five. The most destructive example of this is public shaming. While public shaming has been present for much of human history as a way to enforce social norms the ‘free for all’ nature of the internet, combined with a sense of unity in numbers, has made many a monster. The level of public shaming involved often vastly outweighs the nature of the offence and leaves little room for recompense or growth. Jon Ronson gave an excellent Ted Talk on “When Public Shaming Goes Too Far”³ as well as writing the book “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed”.⁴

Social Animals

We have focused our last few articles on exploring the psychological ramifications of our rapidly evolving technological world. And it is a worthwhile exploration, this is new territory and it contains as many warnings as wonders. Nicholas Carr⁵ is an early and persistent tech critic and he warns in his work “The Shallows” that the price we have always paid for technology’s power is alienation. 

We are social animals. Understanding the reasons behind online behavior can help us form more consistent online social norms.

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SOURCES FOR FURTHER STUDY

1. Cyberpsychology by Collins Dictionary
2. The Death of Juicy Campus
3. When online shaming goes too far by Jon Ronson
4. “So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed” by Jon Ronson
5. “The Shallows” By Nicholas Carr
6. Virtual insanity: Cyberpsychology and online obsession
7. The Online Disinhibition Effect, in Cyberpsychology & Behavior, by John Suler
8. Image by Linus Schütz from Pixabay