chapter 5 Flashcards
Almost everyone wants a sense of belonging, which is the essence of group life.
A social group is two or more people who identify with and interact with one another. Human beings come together in couples, families, circles of friends, sports teams, churches, clubs, businesses, neighborhoods, and large organizations.
Not every collection of individuals forms a group.
People all over the country with a status in common, such as women, homeowners, soldiers, millionaires, university graduates, and Roman Catholics, are not a group but a category.
Students sitting in a large lecture hall interact to a very limited extent.
Such a loosely formed collection of people in one place is a crowd rather than a group. However, the right circumstances can quickly turn a crowd into a group. Events from terrorist attacks to a policeman at Osgoode Law School in Toronto saying that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” can make people bond quickly with strangers.
Define primary group, according to Charles Horton Cooley.
A small social group whose members share personal and lasting relationships.
What is every society’s most important primary group?
Family.
Cooley called personal and tightly integrated groups “primary” because…
They are among the first groups we experience in life.
Define secondary group.
A large and impersonal social group whose members pursue a specific goal or activity.
In most respects, secondary groups have characteristics opposite those of primary groups.
Secondary relationships involve weak emotional ties and little personal knowledge of one another. Many secondary groups exist for only a short time, beginning and ending without particular significance. Students enrolled in the same course at a large university or people walking together as part of a social movement - people who may or may not see one another again after the semester or the walk ends - are examples of secondary groups. Secondary groups include many more people than primary groups. In some cases, time may transform a group from secondary to primary, as with co-workers who share an office for many years and develop closer relationships. Generally, members of a secondary group do not think of themselves as “we.”
Unlike members of primary groups, who display a personal orientation, people in secondary groups have a goal orientation.
Primary groups define each other according to who they are in terms of family ties or personal qualities, but people in secondary groups look to one another for what they are - that is, what they can do for each other. In secondary groups, we tend to “keep score,” aware of what we give others and what we receive in return.
Summing up: Primary Groups and Secondary Groups #1.
Quality of relationships.
Primary group - personal orientation.
Secondary group - goal orientation.
Summing up: Primary Groups and Secondary Groups #2.
Duration of relationships.
Primary group - usually long term.
Secondary group - variable; often short term.
Summing up: Primary Groups and Secondary Groups #3.
Breadth of relationships.
Primary group - broad; usually involving many activites.
Secondary group - narrow; usually involving few activities.
Summing up: Primary Groups and Secondary Groups #4.
Perception of relationships.
Primary group - ends in themselves.
Secondary group - means to an end.
Summing up: Primary Groups and Secondary Groups #5.
Examples.
Primary group - families, circles of friends.
Secondary group - co-workers, political organization.
Group Leadership.
One important element of group dynamics is leadership.
Define instrumental leadership.
Group leadership that focuses on the completion of tasks. Because they concentrate on performance, instrumental leaders usually have formal, secondary relationships with other members.
Define expressive leadership.
Group leadership that focuses on the group’s well-being. Expressive leaders build more personal, primary times.
Three Leadership Styles.
Sociologists also describe leadership in terms of decision-making style. Authoritarian leadership focuses on instrumental concerns, takes personal charge of decision making, and demands that group members obey orders. Democratic leadership is more expressive and makes a point of including everyone in the decision-making process. Laissez-faire leadership allows the group to function more or less on its own.
Group Conformity.
Groups influence the behavior of their members by promoting conformity. “Fitting in” provides a secure feeling of belonging, but at the extreme, group pressure can be unpleasant and even dangerous. As experiments by Solomon Asch and Stanely Milgram showed, even strangers can encourage conformity.
Asch’s Research.
Solomon Asch recruited students for what he told them was a study of visual perception. Before the experiment began, he explained to all but one member in a small group that their real purpose was to put pressure on the remaining person. Arranging six to eight students around a table, Asch showed them a “standard” line, and asked them to match it to one of three lines. Anyone with clear vision could easily see the correct choice. But then Asch’s secret accomplices began answering incorrectly, leaving the uninformed student bewildered and uncomfortable. Asch found that one-third of all subjects chose to conform by answering inccorently.
In Milgram’s Milgram’s Research.
In Milgram’s study, a researcher explained to male recruits that they would be taking part in a study of how punishment affects learning. One by one, he assigned subjects to the role of teacher and placed another person - actually an accomplice of Milgram’s - in a connecting room to pose as a learner. The teacher watched as the learner was seated in what looked like an electric chair. The researcher applied electrode paste to one of the learner’s wrists, explaining that this would “prevent blisters and burns.” The researcher then attached an electrode to the wrist and secured leather straps, explaining that these would “prevent excessive movement while the learner was being shocked.” The researcher assured the teacher that although the shocks would be painful, they would cause “no permanent tissue damage.” The researcher then led the teacher back to the next room explaining that the “electric chair” was connected to a “shock generator,” actually a phony but realistic-looking piece of equipment with a label that read “Shock Generator, Type ZLB, Dyson Intrusment Company, Waltham, Mass.” On the front was a dial that appeared to regulate electric shock from 15 volts (labeled “Slight Shock”) to 300 volts (marked “Intense Shock”) to 450 volts (marked “Danger: Severe Shock”). Seated in front of the “shock generator,” the teacher was told to read aloud pairs of words. Then the teacher was to repeat the first word of each pair and wait for the learner to recall the second word. Whenever the learner failed to answer correctly, the teacher was told to apply an electric shock. The researcher directed the teacher to begin at the lowest level and to increase the shock by another 15 volts every time the learner made a mistake. And so the teacher did. At 75, 90, and 105 volts, the teacher heard moans from the learner; at 120 volts, shouts of pain; at 270 volts, screams; at 315 volts, pounding on the wall; after that, dead silence. None of the 40 subjects assigned to the role of teacher during the initial research even questioned the procedure before reaching 300 volts, and 26 of the subjects went all the way to 450 volts. Even Milgram was surprised at home readily people obeyed authority figures.
Milgram then modified his research to see if groups of ordinary people - not authority figures - could pressure people to administer electrical shocks, as Asch’s groups had pressured individuals to match lines incorrectly.
This time, Milgram formed a group of three teachers, two of whom were his accomplices. Each of the three teachers was to suggest a shock level when the learner made an error; the rule was that the group would then administer the lowest of the three suggested levels. This arrangement gave the person not “in” on the experiment the power to deliver a lesser shock regardless of what the others said. The accomplices suggested increasing the shock level with each error, putting pressure on the third member to do the same. The subjects in these groups applied voltages three to four times higher than the levels applied by subjects acting alone. In this way, Milgram showed that people are likely to follow the lead not only of legitimate authority figures but also of groups of ordinary individuals, even when it means harming another person.
Janis’s “Groupthink.”
Experts also cave in to group pressure, saying Irving L. Janis. Janis argues that a number of U.S. foreign policy errors, including the failure to foresee Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II and the country’s ill-fated involvement in the Vietnam War, resulted from group conformity among the highest-ranking U.S. political leaders. A Canadian example of group conformity among political leaders happened in 2010, when provincial and federal politicians spent over one billion dollars, allegedly for the G20 meeting in Toronto even though the expenditures on infrastructure, art, and “specialized” security equipment were questionable. Common sense tells us that group discussion improves decision-making. Janis counters that group members often seek agreement that closes off other points of view. Janis called this process groupthink, the tendency of group memebrs to conform, resulting in a narrow view of some issue.
A classic example of groupthink…
Led to the failed U.S invasion of the Bay of Pigs in Cuba in 1961. Looking back, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., an adviser to President John F. Kennedy, confessed to feeling guilty for “having kept so quiet during those crucial discussions in the Cabinet Room,” adding that the group discouraged anyone from challenging what, in hindsight, Schlesinger considered “nonsense”.
When is group thinking more likely to occur?
Groupthink is more likely to occur when members of a group have similar attitudes.
How do we assess our own attitudes and behavior?
Frequently, we use a reference group, a social group that serves as a point of reference in making evaluations and decisions.
Example.
A young man who imagines his family’s response to someone he is dating is using his family as a reference group. A supervisor who tries to predict her employees’ reaction to a new vacation policy is using them in the same way. As these examples suggest, reference groups can be primary or secondary. In either case, our need to conform shows how others’ attitudes affect us.
