Chapter 8
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Chapter 8 Group Processes
Individuals in Groups The Presence of Others
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What is a Group? • A set of individuals who have at least one of the following characteristics: – Direct interactions with each other over a period of time – Joint membership in a social category based on sex, race, or other attributes – A shared, common fate, identity, or set of goals
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What Is a Collective? • An assembly of people engaging in a common activity but having little direct interaction with each other. – Not a real group
• Some social psychological processes are unique to real groups. – However, others affect both groups and collectives
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Social Facilitation: When Others Arouse Us • How does the presence of others affect our behavior? • Triplett’s (1897-1898) fishing reel studies. • Later research found conflicting findings. – Sometimes the presence of others enhanced performance. – At other times, performance declined.
• What was going on???
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Figure 8.1: Social
Facilitation: The Zajonc Solution
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Why Does Social Facilitation Occur? • Zajonc’s Mere Presence Theory • Evaluation Apprehension Theory – Someone must be in position to evaluate performance. – Stereotype threat revisited.
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Why Does Social Facilitation Occur? (cont.) • Distraction Conflict Theory – Attentional conflict between focusing on task and inspecting the distracting stimulus creates arousal. – Maintains there is nothing uniquely social about “social” facilitation.
• Which theory is correct?
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Putting Common Sense to the Test…
People will cheer louder when they cheer as part of a group than when they cheer alone. Answer: False… Let’s see why!
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Social Loafing: When Others Relax Us • Ringelmann (1880s): Individual output declines on pooled tasks. • Social Loafing: A group-produced reduction in individual output on easy tasks in which contributions are pooled.
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Figure 8.2: Social Loafing: When Many Produce Less
Adapted from Jackson & Williams, 1985; Sanna, 1992.
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When Is Social Loafing Less Likely to Occur? • People believe that their own performances can be identified and thus evaluated, by themselves or by others. • The task is important or meaningful to those performing it. • People believe that their own efforts are necessary for a successful outcome.
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When Is Social Loafing Less Likely to Occur? (cont.) • The group expects to be punished for poor performance. • The group is small. • The group is cohesive.
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Why Does Social Loafing Occur? • Collective Effort Model: Individuals try hard on a collective task when they think their efforts will help them achieve outcomes they personally value.
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Figure 8.3: Unifying the Paradigms: Presence and Evaluation
Adapted from Jackson & Williams, 1985; Sanna, 1992.
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Deindividuation • The loss of a person’s sense of individuality and the reduction of normal constraints against deviant behavior. – A collective phenomenon that only occurs in the presence of others
• What can lead to deindividuation?
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Environmental Cues • Accountability cues affect the person’s costreward calculations. • Attentional cues focus a person’s attention away from the self.
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Figure 8.4: Deindividuation and Social Identity
From Johnsson, R.D., and Downing, L. L. (1979). "Deindividuation and valance of cues: Effects on prosocial and antisocial behavior."
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Group Dynamics Interacting with Others
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Why Join a Group? • We may have an innate need to belong to groups. • Groups help us to accomplish things we cannot accomplish as individuals. • Groups offer social status and identity. • We like the members and want to have the opportunity to interact with them.
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Table 8.1: Stages of Group Development
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Group Roles • People’s roles in a group can be formal or informal. • Two fundamental types of roles: – An instrumental role to help the group achieve its tasks – An expressive role to provide emotional support and maintain morale
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Group Norms • Groups establish norms or rules of conduct for members. • Norms may be either formal or informal.
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Group Cohesiveness • The forces exerted on a group that push its members closer together. • Cohesiveness and group performance are causally related. – But relationship is complex
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Putting Common Sense to the Test…
Group members’ attitudes about a course of action usually become more moderate after group discussion. Answer: False… Let’s see why!
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Group Polarization • Conflicting findings about the types of decisions groups make: – Sometimes riskier, other times more cautious
• Group Polarization: The exaggeration through group discussion of initial tendencies in the thinking of group members.
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What Creates Group Polarization? • Persuasive arguments theory • Social comparison • Social categorization
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Groupthink • Excessive tendency to seek concurrence among group members. • Emerges when the need for agreement takes priority over the motivation to obtain accurate information and make appropriate decisions.
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Antecedents of Groupthink • Highly cohesive groups • Group structure – – – –
Homogeneous members Isolation Directive leadership Unsystematic procedures
• Stressful situations
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Symptoms of Groupthink • Overestimation of the group • Closed-mindedness • Increased pressures toward uniformity – Mindguards and pressures towards uniformity – Self-censorship – Illusion of unanimity
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Consequences of Groupthink • Defective decision making – – – – – –
Incomplete survey of alternatives Incomplete survey of objectives Failure to reappraise initially rejected alternatives Poor information search Selective bias in processing information at hand Failure to work out contingency plans
• High probability of a bad decision
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Figure 8.5: Charting the Course of Groupthink
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Preventing Groupthink • Avoid isolation by consulting widely with outsiders. • Leaders should reduce conformity pressures. • Establish a strong norm of critical review.
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Table 8.2: How Computerized Group Support Systems Help Groups Avoid Groupthink
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Group Performance: Are More Heads Better than One? • Additive Tasks: Groups usually outperform single individuals. • Conjunctive Tasks: Group performance tends to be worse than the performance of a single, average individual. • Disjunctive Tasks: Process loss can occur.
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Setting Goals • Better if group has specific, challenging, and reachable goals. • Goals selected by groups tend to be less ambitious. – But still typically perform better than groups without goals. – As gain more experience, begin to set more challenging goals.
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Putting Common Sense to the Test…
People brainstorming as a group come up with a greater number of better ideas than the same number of people working individually. Answer: False… Let’s see why!
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Brainstorming: Coming Up with Ideas • A technique that attempts to increase the production of creative ideas by encouraging group members to speak freely without criticizing their own or others’ contributions.
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Table 8.3: Brainstorming in Groups: Problems and Solutions
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Table 8.3: Why Electronic Brainstorming is Effective
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Biased Sampling and Communication • On some tasks, simply sharing information is crucial for good performance. • But all the information available to individual members may not be brought before the group. – Biased sampling
• If inadequately informed, the group may make a bad decision.
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When Is Biased Sampling Less Likely to Occur? • When group members are aware that not everyone has access to the same information. • Leaders encourage group participation. • At least two group members know the uncommon information.
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Figure 8.6: Sharing Information in a Group: The Role of Group Norms
From T. Postmes, R. Spears, and S. Cihagir, "Quality of Decision Making and Group Norms," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 918-930, 2001. Copyright © 2001 by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.
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Putting Common Sense to the Test…
Groups are less likely than individuals to invest more and more resources in a project that is failing. Answer: False… Let’s see why!
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Escalation Effects • Occurs when commitment to a failing course of action is increased to justify previous investments. • Groups more likely to escalate commitment. – Also likely to do it in more extreme ways.
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Information Processing • How well do group members process information compared with individuals? • Groups are also susceptible to information processing biases. • Through transactive memory, groups remember information more efficiently than individuals. – But process loss can still occur.
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Diversity and Group Performance • Diversity often associated with negative group dynamics. – But diversity can have positive effects.
• Diversity can enhance a group’s performance if the group is integrated.
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Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict
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Social Dilemmas • Situations in which a self-interested choice by everyone creates the worst outcome for everyone. – What is good for one is bad for all.
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Figure 8.7: The Prisoner’s Dilemma
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Strategies Used When Facing Mixed-Motive Situations • Tit-for-Tat • Win-Stay, Lose-Shift
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Putting Common Sense to the Test…
Large groups are more likely than small groups to exploit a scarce resource that the members collectively depend on. Answer: True… Let’s see why!
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Resource Dilemmas • Social dilemmas concerning how two or more people share a limited resource. • Two types of resource dilemmas: – Commons dilemma (“take-some dilemma”) – Public goods dilemma
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Table 8.4: Solving Social Dilemmas
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Figure 8.8: Culture and the Prisoner's Dilemma
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Table 8.5: Factors that Promote and Sustain the Escalation of Between-Group Conflict
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Reducing Conflict: Through GRIT • Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction (GRIT) – A strategy for unilateral, persistent efforts to establish trust and cooperation between opposing parties.
• GRIT is a reciprocal, tit-for-tat strategy.
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Negotiation • Integrative agreement is a negotiated resolution where all parties obtain outcomes that are superior to a 50-50 split. • Key elements in successful negotiating include: – Flexibility and strength – Communicating and trying to understand the point of view of the other person
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Table 8.6: Cultural Assumptions About Negotiating
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Finding A Common Ground • Recognition of a superordinate identity. • Superordinate goals can elicit cooperation by appealing to people’s self-interest. – These goals can also produce a superordinate identity.
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