I even have a name for it!
From an article from Australia:
A new study has found that anonymity gives people the same feeling of abandon as power and alcohol intoxication. Researchers at Northwestern University in the US found that all three states led to extreme behaviour — both good and bad.
"Although these pathways appear to be unrelated on the surface, they all lead to disinhibited states through a common psychological and neurological mechanism," said Jacob Hirsh of the university's Kellogg School of Management. Dr Hirsh's colleague Professor Adam Galinsky said the loss of inhibition led to "significant behavioural consequences".
Well, I should say so!
When people lose their inhibitions, they often behave in a manner more consistent with their true motives or character. At the same time, they also tend to be more easily influenced by their environment.
"In effect, disinhibition can both reveal and shape the person, as contradictory as that may sound," Professor Galinsky said.
The end result is that power, alcohol and anonymity can all inspire either strong pro- or anti-social sentiments in people.
The study may help explain why anonymous commentators on the web often appear to hold extreme views.
Dr Darryl Cross, a psychologist at Crossways Consulting, said many people believed there were no repercussions for their actions online.
"It's the fact that they're not confronted visually with another person," he told news.com.au.
"People believe the myth that they can say things that ordinarily they wouldn't be able to say just because they are online."
Oh yeah. Who hasn't noticed that?
Dr Cross said the vitriolic nature of internet comments was a symptom of something similar to a split personality.
"I think what we have is, people have two personas," he said.
"The first is an in built human instinctual personality and that’s always there for all of us, it's an animal instinctual personality.
"And then there's always the second personality which is the more conservative, the more guarded, the personality is more in perspective.
"What you've got (online) is people who are prepared to let their instinctual personality out rather than really taking a second perspective, looking at it in a different way, and then saying the second thing that comes into their mind instead of the first."
My (ungrammatical) word! I like this guy!
I invite Ms McCartney to come here and post her astute critical analysis of Not Low Maintenance so we all may benefit from her literary wisdom. I won't change a word. How can I? She's clearly my superior in both intelligence and writing skills. She might also explain why the grammar checker in Microsoft Word 2007 is a mess and I'll forward that to the company so they can make all the repairs Ms McCartney deems necessary.
All correspondence will be spectacularly public because this is the internet after all and if you can say it to the world, you can say it to my face.
Don't we all feel better now? I feel so good I may raise the price of NLM from $1.99 to $2.99.
No comments:
Post a Comment