Deindividuation vs. peer pressure/assimilation

[basophilic]

An adolescent is arrested for heroin use and prostitution. In defending herself, she claims that she was part of a group of female heroin users who used sex to obtain money. She seems to have lost a sense of identity and does not assume any responsibility for her actions. This is an example of:

A. Groupthink
B. Assimilation
C. Peer pressure
D. Deindividuation

The last sentence of question stem obviously points to choice D; however, I'm having trouble eliminating choices B and C. Assimilation I guess refers to a cultural rather than individual process and doesn't involve abandoning responsibility. Is that fair? And why does peer pressure not fit the description in the question stem?

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[MCATforsale1]

Assimilation is replacing your values with a groups values. In this case, there's no "change" in the defendant. Assimilation necessarily involves a shift from one perspective to another.

Peer pressure is essentially coercion. There's no mention of coercive behaviour on the part of the group.

Therefore, those answer choices can be eliminated.

 

[shefv]

This is how I thought through this:

B. Assimilation = she would assimilate into the group and start thinking like the group but she would still be aware of herself and her actions.
C. Peer pressure = yes, this may have caused her to start using heroine and get into prostitution but this does not imply that she is no longer aware of her actions and has all of a sudden become ignorant to the consequences.

Deindividuation meets both criteria in the questions = she started doing things like the group AND lost a sense of herself/her actions and thus does not think that she is responsible.

 

[basophilic]

This is how I thought through this:

B. Assimilation = she would assimilate into the group and start thinking like the group but she would still be aware of herself and her actions.
C. Peer pressure = yes, this may have caused her to start using heroine and get into prostitution but this does not imply that she is no longer aware of her actions and has all of a sudden become ignorant to the consequences.

Deindividuation meets both criteria in the questions = she started doing things like the group AND lost a sense of herself/her actions and thus does not think that she is responsible.

For B, wouldn't the definition you gave mean amalgamation?

For C, so the difference between peer pressure and deindividuation is that you maintain your values for the former but ACT different.
A common example of peer pressure would be "I got drunk because my friends were doing so and they pressured me into it" - so in this case I'd still maintain my value of not drinking, but I temporarily ACTED in a way different from my values?
And deindividuation would be acting alongside the mob as well as changing my values during that period of action?