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'Psychology of
looting' explained
(November
2005 Issue)
In Hurricane Katrina's wake, following the initial broadcasts of
flooded streets, blown-out office windows and ruined homes, the
media started to tell a different story. Moving from the overall
effects of a city under siege by the weather to the smaller tales,
the nation's television screens filled with images of victims being
rescued from rooftops or searching for lost loved ones.
The media also showed the other side of the situation: someone
shooting at rescue helicopters, reports of violence and rape in
the Superdome…and an endless loop of people carrying stolen goods
through knee deep water in the streets.
Looting in New Orleans. While thousands of displaced victims of
the tragedy scramble to put their lives back together, stories of
what actually happened in the desperate times after the water filled
the city continue to be told.
Questions still remain as more information is revealed.
What happened down there? Was the response by the government too
little and too slow? Why, in the midst of all this tragedy and loss,
would people resort to such behavior?
New England Psychologist's Catherine Robertson Souter spoke
with Jason Nier, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Connecticut
College, about a possible explanation. Nier is an expert in social
psychology and has spoken to several media outlets about something
called the "psychology of looting."
Q: How did you become an expert in this area?
A: There is a lot of literature in social psychology about how
people behave in groups. There's obviously a lot more to looting
than just group dynamics, but that is a part of it. People behave
a certain way in groups in comparison to how they would if they
were alone.
Q: Do you think that's what happened in New Orleans?
A: I would imagine that is certainly a part of it. There are lots
of other factors at play as well. There are some explanations that
don't require group dynamics in order to understand. There's the
obvious material need that people have: food and water in an emergency
situation. At this point, it's just speculation, but I think that
many of the incidences that we hear about would involve some sort
of group dynamic.
Q: Many people see the images of looting on television and chalk
it up to that "type" of person - "any excuse to steal something."
From what we know about group dynamics, are you saying that people
who would not normally do something like this would succumb to that
temptation? We're in picking up diapers and would say, "hey, grab
that DVD player while we're here. It's going to get ruined anyway?"
A: I don't want to say there are no individual differences in people's
own internal motivations or personalities that would influence their
behavior but I would also say that social situations could powerfully
influence behavior. That's really the great lesson of social psychology.
People can act in a given situation in a way that they might not
normally act, that they could never imagine that they could act.
We don't really know what would happen and even how people in our
own communities would act.
One concept that comes from social psychology that might be relevant
here is called "deindividuation." That's the idea that people's
sense of self and their individuality becomes submerged in the group
and people engage in non-normative behaviors. They do things that
run contrary to prevailing social norms when they act as a member
of a group, things like taking things that don't belong to them.
A group gives people a certain amount of anonymity. People feel
like they are not going to be held individually accountable when
they are in a group compared to if they did something by themselves.
The corollary is that there are also diminished feelings of personal
responsibility. The responsibility for an act becomes diffused over
the entire group rather than being pinned on a certain specific
individual.
Q: In the aftermath of the hurricane, have you seen other things
that could be explained by social psychology?
A: Well, one thing that struck me was near the beginning of
the situation. I saw that law enforcement officials were sort of
sitting by while people were looting things. You can understand
why those decisions were made [because of the need to focus efforts
elsewhere or to allow people to gather supplies for survival] so
I'm not necessarily criticizing that decision but the fact that
law enforcement didn't act to stop it sent a pretty clear message
to everyone that rules were different in this situation and that
norms about what constitutes appropriate behavior were changed.
It's possible that when it became clear that that norm no longer
applied, maybe there were a lot of other norms that didn't apply
as well. So, maybe that's why you saw other seemingly bizarre behavior
at times, like people shooting at helicopters trying to save people,
that sort of thing.
Q: The behavior of people after this tragedy has been compared
to what happened in New York City after September 11. Is that a
fair comparison?
A: It's a really interesting point: 9/11 seemed to bring out the
best in everyone yet Katrina seemed to bring out the worst. But
that's an exaggeration because, of course, there are plenty of positive
stories about Katrina and there were negative stories about 9/11.
When a radio station in Pittsburgh interviewed me, they posed that
very question. "Maybe it's something about people in New Orleans
and if this had happened in Pittsburgh you'd never see that kind
of reaction." You'll never know for sure until it actually happens.
The situation influences people's behavior. If you put people in
a desperate situation, it shouldn't be surprising to see desperate
behavior.
Q: Sort of like the book, "Lord of the Flies."
A: Yes, exactly. That idea goes back a long way in the history of
social psychology. Early social psychologists argued that groups
bring out our basest instincts.
Q: What about the question of race? How does that play into
this situation?
A: Obviously, economic factors played a huge role in what happened.
Most of the people who were stranded in the city were African American.
Whether race influenced people's response to the looting is an open
question. There is certainly some anecdotal evidence. Media reports
about the looting behavior was described differently when it was
an image of two white people versus a black person looting. They
described the two white people as "finding" food at a grocery store.
The image of the African American man said he was "looting" a grocery
store.
That is anecdotal, it's just two pictures, but still, it is consistent
with the idea that race is playing a factor in how people reacted.
Q: Are there any other situations that we can we compare this
one to, to understand better?
A: There is a comparison you could make to something like the race
riots in L.A. You do see some of same dynamics in that people are
doing things in extreme situations that they would never have done
alone or under normal circumstances. But there are also so many
differences that it's hard to draw exact parallels. Some of the
same things are going on psychologically but there are many things
that are very different about the situations.
Q: Do you think that social psychology will have a role in going
forward with research about how better to deal with a tragedy of
this magnitude?
A: I would certainly hope so. I know there's a big push for Katrina-related
research to go forward with lots of grant money becoming available.
They are trying to cut through red tape to make those grants more
accessible and to make research progress at a faster pace.
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