14. Groups Flashcards
Define social & non social group
Social - two or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence each other
Nonsocial = collection of people at the same place at the same time
Social Facilitation
The phenomenon that individuals work harder to reach their goals when they have competition
E.g. bicycle races: slower when it’s against the clock than against another cyclist
Social facilitation in animals
In the presence of others of their kind:
— dogs run faster
— chickens pick more
— ants build larger nests
Zajonc’s Theory of mere Presence
- Passive “mere” presence increases physiological arousal
- energizes the dominant response (helpful in easy and well-practiced tasks, distracting in difficult unpracticed tasks)
Social Loafing
The tendency to put in more effort to achieve a goal when alone than when part of a team (when individual effort cannot be monitored)
- especially in additive tasks
Social loafing: causes
Motivation loss
Diffusion of responsibility
Coordination loss
Steiner’s Theory of group productivity
Actual productivity = potential productivity - process loss
What is potential productivity?
— member resources: (relevant knowledge , skills, tools)
— Task demands determine how member resources translate into potential productivity
+ additive
+ conjunctive
+ disjunctive
What is meant by “process loss”?
Any aspect of group interaction that hinders problem solving
- motivation loss
- coordination loss
Additive tasks
Individual contributions are added to determine potential productivity
E.g. rope pulling
Disjunctive tasks
Task is solved if at least one member can solve it
E.g. quizzes
Conjunctive tasks
Potential productivity determined by worst performer
E.g. run as a group from A to B
Decomposing process loss in additive tasks
- Measure actual group performance
- Measure individual performance
- Measure performance of pseudo group
- participant believes he or she works in a group but
- only the participant puts out an effort
- other group members are confederates that act as though they were exerting themselves
Potential performance
N x individual performance
Motivation loss
Potential performance - pseudo group performance
