Chapter 12

Question 1

Group

Answer 1

A collection of individuals who have relations to one another that make them interdependent to some significant degree

Question 2

Benefits of groups

Answer 2

• Protection from predators
• Specialized jobs
• Defense against other groups
• Assistance in need
• Psychological support
• Efficiency
• Idea generation

Question 3

Social facilitation

Answer 3

The presence of others improves performance

Question 4

What does the Fishing study (Triplett 1898) illustrate?

Answer 4

• Social Facilitation
• The children turned the reels faster when they were around other kids doing the same thing

Question 5

What does the Undergraduate philosophy study (Allport 1920) illustrate

Answer 5

• Participants asked to refute philosophical arguments in five minutes
• Participants provided better refutations if they were alone
  *Other instances where presence inhibits learning: Math, Memory, Maze learning

Question 6

Mere Presence Theory

Answer 6

Presence of others facilitates performance on well-learned tasks but hinders performance on novel or difficult tasks

Question 7

Dominant response

Answer 7

Response that the person is most likely or used to make

Question 8

What does the Cockroach Study illustrate?

Answer 8

Cockroaches were placed in simple/complex maze and were shone light to facilitate an escape response. When cockroaches was with others, they did better on the simple maze but worse on complex maze.
*Same results when other cockroaches were just observing in the plexiglass container.

Question 9

Evaluation Apprehension

Answer 9

People’s concern about how they might appear in the eyes of others

Question 10

What does the True Alone Changing Study (Markus 1978) Illustrate?

Answer 10

Participants were divided into 3 groups to wait for other participants to arrive: Alone, with experimenter watching, and with a repairman not watching but present.
- The MERE PRESENCE of others is enough for social facilitation — Evaluation apprehension enhances this even further

Question 11

Why do we do better as a group?

Answer 11

• Leaders and expertise
• Pooled experience
• Idea generation

Question 12

Social loafing

Answer 12

The tendency to exert less effort when working on a group task in which individual contributions cannot be monitored
- Masked distribution of effort
- Cost vs. Benefit

Question 13

Groupthink

Answer 13

Faulty thinking that arises when members of cohesive groups are pressured to come to a consensus

Question 14

Reasons for group think

Answer 14

• Conformity
• Leadership
• Self-censorship
• Pluralistic ignorance

Question 15

How can we avoid group think?

Answer 15

• Leader impartiality
• Encouraging dissension
• Creating subgroups
• Anonymity
• Devil’s advocate
• Review
• Outside opinions

Question 16

People tend to make better decisions as a group when:

Answer 16

• The question has a precise, factual answer
• Social loafing can be avoided
• Groupthink is avoided (applies to all types of group decision making, factual or subjective)

Question 17

Group polarization

Answer 17

Tendency for group decisions to be more extreme than those made by individuals

Question 18

Why group polarization?

Answer 18

• Persuasive Arguments Account
• Social Comparison Interpretation

Question 19

What is the Persuasive Arguments Account for group polarization?

Answer 19

• People exposed to new arguments in favor of their position
• Face-to-face conversation unnecessary for polarization

Question 20

What is the social comparison interpretation of group polarization?

Answer 20

• Comparison with others — wanting to be the most correct
• Desire to stand out; to one-up everyone else
• “If everyone in a group agrees that men are jerks, then someone in the group is bound to argue that they’re asshols” — Kolbert

Question 21

Characteristics of leaders

Answer 21

• Skills and expertise
• Socially skilled
• Emotionally intelligent
• Provide rewards

Question 22

Power

Answer 22

The ability to control one’s own and other’s outcomes
- Hierarchies make group interactions run smoothly
- Determines how resources will be divided

Question 23

Status

Answer 23

Respect and prominence from others (e.g. celebrity)

Question 24

Authority

Answer 24

Control over others that comes from institutionalized roles/arrangements (e.g. a boss)

Question 25

Dominance

Answer 25

Behavior enacted with the goal of acquiring or demonstrating control over others

Question 26

Approach-Inhibition Theory of Power

Answer 26

High power individuals are likely to go after goals and make quick judgements
- High power: Action, approach, touching, doing stuff
- Low power: Inaction, inhibition, retreating

Question 27

Core elements of high power individuals

Answer 27

• Less careful and systematic in how they assess others (perceptions)
• More focused on their own goals (behavior)

Question 28

What are some typical behaviors of powerful people?

Answer 28

• More likely to touch others and approach them closely
• To think of others in a sexualized way
• To forwardly flirt with others
• Are more likely to violate politeness-related norms of communication and act rudely towards others

Question 29

What are some typical behaviors of low-power people?

Answer 29

• Less likely to speak up and more likely to inhibit their speech
• Restrict their body posture

Question 30

When asked to come up with nicknames and stories of their peers, high powered individuals…

Answer 30

Were more likely to tease others & tell degrading stories

Question 31

What does the Armchair study illustrate?

Answer 31

After sitting in a leather professional chair (high-power) or plain chair (low power), participants were asked to complete part of questionnaire and leave rest for next participant who was late
- Low-power individuals completed roughly equal amounts of self-interest levels
- High-power individuals completed more if they were low on self-interest and less if they were high on self-interest

Question 32

Deindividuation

Answer 32

Reduced sense of individual identity when people are in a large group
- Lower chance of any one person being singled out
- People feel less accountable for actions
- More compliance to group norms

Question 33

How does deindividuation happen? (Zimbardo 1970)

Answer 33

Antecedent conditions -> Internal state -> Behavioral effects

Question 34

Suicide baiting

Answer 34

When observers urge suicidal individuals to commit suicide
- Increases dramatically in crowds over 300 and after 6pm

Question 35

80% of cultures that deindividuated before battle were labeled as ____ ____, meaning……

Answer 35

High ferocity: Engaged in head-hunting, torture, or killing civillians

Question 36

What does the Halloween Study (Diener et al., 1976) illustrate?

Answer 36

• Deindividuation
• Anonymous kids in group took more candy — deindividuation encourages transgressive behavior

Question 37

Self-Awareness Theory

Answer 37

When people focus attention on themselves, they become concerned with self0evaluation and how their current behavior conforms to internal standards and values

Question 38

Individuation

Answer 38

Enhanced sense of individual identity produced by focusing attention on the self
*Generally causes people to act carefully, deliberately, and in accordance with their values

Question 39

Spotlight effect

Answer 39

The assumption that our own appearance and behaviors are being carefully scrutinized by others at all times, when in fact, they typically are not

Question 40

What does the Mirror study illustrate?

Answer 40

• Self-awareness
• 75% of those at the typical desk kept working past the bell, but only 10% of those by the mirror kept working past the bell.

Question 41

What were the results of the spotlight effect study?

Answer 41

Participants were given a T-shirt with a large image of Barry Manilow and then put into another room with a group of students filling out questionnaires; left the room shortly after.
- The participants thought 50% of students would remember Barry Manilow on the shirt, while in reality only 25% remembered that.