Costs of Group Membership

Belonging to groups has its price, however; as discussed at length by Christian
Buys, one’s very membership in a group may carry with it hidden costs,
risks, or sacrifices. A more complete understanding of groups requires a
consideration of this aspect of membership in a group. Attaining certain
types of rewards may be incompatible with belonging to a group. For example,
the goal of completing a difficult and complicated task may be facilitated
by belonging to a group of coworkers who bring the varied skills and
knowledge required for successful task completion. Yet one group member’s goal of always being the center of attention, or of needing to feel special
and unique, may have to be subverted if the group is to performthe task
for which it formed. What the individual wants or needs may sometimes be
displaced by what the group needs.
Moreover, the deindividuation (an individual’s loss of self-awareness, resulting
in a breakdown in the capacity to self-regulate) fostered by groups
breaks down the individual’s ability to self-regulate. Research has demonstrated
the state of deindividuation to increase the (simulated) electric
shocks people will deliver to other people in experiments, to increase the
use of profanity, and to increase stealing among Halloween trick-or-treaters.
The paradigmatic illustration of the negative effects of deindividuation is
the lynch mob. An analysis of newspaper accounts, conducted by Brian
Mullen, of lynch mob atrocities committed in the United States over a sixtyyear
period showed that the savagery and atrocity of the mob toward its victim(
s) increased as the size of the mob increased relative to the number of
its victims.