chapter 12: groups Flashcards
what is a group?
collection of ind who have relations to one another that make them interdependent to some degree which includes three or more persons who are interacting with and/or influencing one another
what are the 4 types of groups?
intimacy groups (friend groups)
task groups (committees, sport teams)
social categories (religious groups, canadians etc.)
- large and cant interact with everyone
loose associations (beliebers, ppl who like a specific movie)
how many ppl are in most intimacy groups?
3-6 members
tend to be alike in age, sex, beliefs etc.
why should we join groups?
Forming relationships with others fulfill a lot of our basic human needs
- there is a survival advantage (baumeister and leary)
- humans have an innate need to belong
- more diff to find food and care for ppl when ppl are alone
true or false: there is more success for survival when ppl ban tg with others to form movements?
true - motivates collective action
what is social facilitation?
enhanced performance in the presence of others
- effect is either positive or
negative of the presence of others on performance
what was the was the main study of Triplett (1898) in terms of social facilitation?
- reviewed speed records and found faster times recorded when cyclists competed against one another on the same track at the same time
- slow speeds obtained when cyclist raced alone against clock
result = presence of others facilitated human performance
what was the other study he did after the initial one after it was deemed not as accurate?
Had 40 children crank reels on fishing rods as fast as they could either being alone or in a group
Results = majority of kids tested were faster at reeling in the line when they were competing as opposed to doing it alone
what were the 2 ways that extended the findings of triplett?
- same effects were obtained
when the others were not doing the same thing but were merely present as an audience of passive
observers - same effect observed in a vast number of animal species, indicating that
the phenomenon general and fundamental
what does Zajonc theory of mere presence entail (1965)?
mere presence of others, tends to facilitate performance on simple or well-learned tasks but it hinders performance on difficult or novel tasks
what were the 3 main components of this theory?
- Mere presence of others makes us more aroused (need to be alert)
- Arousal tends to make us more rigid and narrowly focused - inclined to do what we automatically do (more likely to use a dominant response)
- Increase in dominant response tendencies leads to facilitation of performance of simple tasks and inhibition of performance of complex tasks
what happened in the study of Zajonc et al.?
- placed cockroaches in the start box of one of two mazes and then shone a light at the start box in which they fed away
simple maze - used dominant response and ran away from light (led to goal)
complex maze - more challenging and needing to turn (no goal)
what happened when there was an audience?
- cockroaches running the simple maze would get to the goal box more quickly when together (facilitated)
- those running the
complex maze together would take longer to reach the chamber (hindered)
what part of zajonc theory has been criticized?
if it is the mere presence of people that increases arousal
instead it is evaluation apprehension
what is evaluation apprehension?
People’s concern about how they might appear or be evaluated in the eyes of others.
what happened in cottrell et al. in terms of evaluation apprehension?
3 conditions - alone, evaluative audience, non evaluative audience
- ps given list of 10 words and asked them to pronounce them a certain amount of times
- more practised words became dominant response
- told words were going to be flashed on a screen and they had to identify each word
- had to guess if cant identify (guess on every trial)
- wanted to see how many times ps gave dominant response in each condition
what were the results of the cottrell study?
- ps in front of evaluative audience made more DR then performing alone
- non evaluative audience comparable to alone group
what does it mean when participants might not feel psychologically alone?
might feel apprehensive about performing a strange task that was going to be recorded
- they also knew they were in an experiment knowing they were being evaluated
need a condition where ps feel that they are truly alone
what was the purpose of markus (1978)?
mere presence of another person in the absence of any concern about that person being evaluative is sufficient to create arousal that facilitates performance on an easy task and
impairs performance on a difficult task
what happened in Markus (1978)?
- ps sat in room to wait for other ps
had to dress for exp. which they had to make own shoes off and put lab socks over own socks, oversized lab shoes and lab coat - did all this and acc waited for no one (experimenter came 10 mins later and said they were not coming)
- observed and timed through one way mirror
- interested in how quickly they performed well learned tasks (taking off and putting on own shoes)
