Chapter 11 - Working Groups: Performance and Decision Making Flashcards
Social group
A set of individuals with a shared purpose and who normally share a positive social identity
Entitatvity
“groupiness”– the perception, either by the group members themselves or by others, that the people together are a group
Social facilitation
The tendency to perform tasks better or faster in the presence of others
Social inhibition
The tendency to perform tasks more poorly or slower in the presence of others
Dominant response
The action that we are most likely to emit in any given situation
Process gain
When groups work better than we would expect, given the individuals who form them
Process loss
Groups perform more poorly than we would expect, given the characteristics of the members of the group
Group process
The events that occur while the group is working together on the task
Member characteristics
The relevant traits, skills, or abilities of the individual group members
Divisibile task
Each of the group members working on the job can do a separate part of the job at the same time
Unitary task
A task that has to be done all at once and cannot be divided up
Additive task
The inputs of each group member are added together to create the group performance
Compensatory (averaging) task
The group input is combined such that the performance of the individuals is averaged rather than added
Disjunctive task
When the group’s performance is determined by the best group member
Conjunctive task
group performance determined by the ability of the group member who performs most poorly
Intellective task
The ability of the group to make a decision or a judgement
Maximizing task
A task that involves performance that is measured by how rapidly the group works or how much of a product they are able to make
Criterion task
The group can see that there is a clearly correct answer to the problem that is being posed
Judgemental task
No clearly correct answer to the problem
Social loafing
A group process loss that occurs when people do not work as hard in a group as they do when they are alone
Groupthink
when a group that is made up of members who may actually be very competent
and thus quite capable of making excellent decisions nevertheless ends up making a poor one as a result of a
flawed group process and strong conformity pressures
