Chapter 7 - group influence Flashcards
group
Two or more people who, for
longer than a few moments, interact
with and influence one another and
perceive one another as “us.”
co-actors
A group of people working
simultaneously and individually on
a noncompetitive task.
social facilitation
(1) Original meaning: the tendency of people to perform simple or well-learned tasks better when others are
present. (2) Current meaning: the
strengthening of dominant (prevalent, likely) responses owing to the presence of others.
Others inhibiting our abilities
Peter Hunt and Joseph Hillery (1973) found that in the presence of others, students took less time to learn a simple maze and more time to learn a complex one
Other’s presence -> Arousal -> Strengthens dominant responses -> (1)Enhancing easy behaviours -> (2) Impairing difficult behaviours
novice drivers more often
fail driving tests when tested with another to-be-tested person in the car rather than alone
Crowding: the presence of others
The effect of others’ presence increases with their number (Jackson & Latané, 1981; Knowles, 1983). Sometimes, the arousal and self-conscious attention created by a large audience interferes even
with well-learned, automatic behaviours, such as speaking.
Being in a crowd also intensifies posi-
tive or negative reactions. When they sit close together, friendly people are liked even more, and unfriendly people are disliked even more
What you do well, you will be energized to do best in front of others (unless you become hyper-aroused and self-conscious). What you find difficult may seem impossible in the same circumstances.
Evaluation apprehension
Concern for how others are evaluating us
- Cottrell’s conclusion: The enhancement of dominant
responses is strongest when people think they are being evaluated. In one experiment, joggers on a jogging path sped up as they came upon a woman seated on the grass—if she
was facing them rather than sitting with her back turned
Distraction
when people wonder how co-actors are doing or how an audience is reacting, they get distracted. This conflict between paying attention to
others and paying attention to the task overloads our cognitive system, causing arousal
- even can come from random distractions such as bursts of light
Mere presence
Zajonc, however, believed that the mere presence of others produces some arousal even without evaluation apprehension or arousing distraction.
social facilitation
improvement of a task when others are present - usually occurs when people work toward individual goals and when their efforts, whether winding fishing reels or solving math problems, can be individually
evaluated.
Many Hands Make Light Work
French engineer Max Ringelmann (reported by Kravitz & Martin,
1986) found that the collective effort of tug-of-war teams was but half the sum of the individual efforts.
- group members may actually be less motivated when performing additive tasks.
- people were given the task tug of war, some knew they were pulling alone, some were told they were pulling in a group
- results: when they knew they were pulling alone, they pulled 18% harder than when they were pulling in a group
social loafing
The tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable.
- They observed that the noise produced by six people shouting or clapping “as loud as you can” was less than three times that produced by one person alone.
free-ride
Benefiting from the group, but giving little in return.
evaluation apprehension
In the social loafing experiments, individuals believe they are evaluated only when they act alone. The group situation (rope pulling, shouting, and so forth) decreases evaluation apprehension. When people are not accountable and cannot evaluate their own efforts, responsibility is diffused across all group members
the social facilitation experiments increased exposure to evaluation. When made the centre of attention, people self-consciously monitor their behaviour. So, when being observed increases evaluation concerns, social facilitation occurs; when being lost in a crowd decreases evaluation concerns, social loafing occurs
deindividuation
Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in
group situations that foster
anonymity and draw attention
away from the individual.
Physical anonymity
To experiment with such anonymity,
he dressed women in identical white coats and hoods, rather like Ku Klux
Klan members (Figure 7–5). Asked to deliver electric shocks to a woman,
anonymous hooded women pressed the shock button twice as long as did
women who were visible and wearing large name tags.
group polarization
Group-produced enhancement of members’ pre-existing tendencies; a strengthening of the members’ average tendency, not a split within the group.
pluralistic ignorance
A false impression of how other people are thinking, feeling, or responding.
When we ask people (as we asked you earlier in the Rehtaeh Parsons
case) to predict how others would respond to social dilemmas, they typically exhibit pluralistic ignorance: They don’t realize how strongly others support the socially preferred tendency. Typically, people will say that they would never act the way those teenagers did. (This finding is reminiscent of the self-serving bias: People tend to view themselves as a better-than-average embodiment of socially desirable traits and attitudes.)
groupthink
The tendency for groups, in the process of decision making, to suppress dissenting cognitions in the interest of ensuring harmony within the group.
Symptoms of group think - overestimation of groups might
illusion of invulnerability - can lead group members to overestimate their group’s might and right - eg. people believing that the titanic was unsinkable
Unquestioned belief in the group’s morality - can lead group members to overestimate their group’s might and right - Group members assume the inherent morality of their group and ignore ethical and moral issues.
Symptoms of group think - Group members also become closed-minded
Rationalization - The group discounts challenges by collectively justifying its decisions - the officers in the titanic knew that there would be icebergs in the water
Stereotyped view of opponent - One of the most controversial stories surrounding the Titanic is whether the ship was trying to break a speed record in crossing the Atlantic. - the conductor denied it - but it is believable because the shipping business was intensely competitive
Symptoms of group think - the group suffers from pressures toward uniformity
Conformity pressure - Group members rebuff those who raise doubts about the group’s assumptions and plans, at times not by argument but by ridicule.
Self-censorship - Since disagreements are often uncomfortable and the group seems to be in consensus,
members often withhold or discount their misgivings
Illusion of unanimity - Self-censorship and pressure not to puncture the consensus create an illusion of unanimity. What is more, the apparent consensus confirms
the group’s decision.
Mindguards - Some members protect the group from information that would call into question the effectiveness or the morality of its decisions.
Consequence of group think
Groupthink symptoms can produce a failure to seek and discuss contrary information and alternative possibilities.
Critiquing group thinking
- Directive leadership is indeed associated with poorer decisions because subordinates sometimes feel too weak or insecure to speak up
- Groups that make smart decisions have widely distributed conversation
- Groups do prefer supporting over challenging information
- When members look to a group for acceptance, approval, and social identity, they may suppress disagreeable thoughts
- Groups that have broad discussions, and take turns speaking, make better decisions
- Groups with diverse perspectives outperform groups of like-minded experts
- In discussion, information that is shared by group members does tend to dominate and crowd out unshared information, meaning that groups often do not benefit from all that their members know
Preventing group think
- Be impartial; do not endorse any position. Don’t start group discussions by having people state their positions; doing so suppresses information sharing and degrades
the quality of decisions - Encourage critical evaluation; assign a “devil’s advocate.” Better yet, welcome the input of a genuine critic, which does even more to stimulate original thinking and to open a group to opposing views
- Occasionally subdivide the group, and then reunite to air differences
- Welcome critiques from outside experts and associates.
- Before implementing a decision, call a “second-chance” meeting to air any lingering doubts
Group Problem Solving
Not every group decision is flawed
by groupthink. Under some conditions, two or more heads are better than one.
Most university students miss this question when answering alone but choose the correct answer (thwarted) after discussion
- Several heads critiquing each other can also allow the group to avoid some forms of cognitive bias and produce some higher-quality ideas
how groups are better than individuals sometimes
Weather forecasting - two people create a more accurate forecast than one
Google. Google has become the dominant search engine by harnessing what James Surowiecki (2004) called “the wisdom of crowds.”
Game shows. For a befuddled contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, a valuable lifeline was to “ask the audience,” which usually offered wisdom superior to the contestant’s intuition.
The “crowd within.” Likewise, the average of different guesses from the same person tends to surpass the person’s individual guesses
Prediction markets. In U.S. presidential elections since 1988, the final public opinion polls have provided a good gauge to the election result
leadership
The process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group
transactional leadership
British social psychologists Peter Smith and Monir Tayeb (1989) reported that studies done in India, Taiwan, and Iran found that the most effective supervisors in coal mines, banks, and government offices score high on tests of both task and social
leadership. They are actively concerned with how work is progressing and sensitive to the
needs of their subordinates. These transactional leaders (Hollander, 1958) focus on getting to know their subordinates and listening carefully.
transformational leadership
Studies also reveal that many effective leaders of laboratory groups, work teams, and large corporations exhibit behaviours that help make a minority view persuasive. Such leaders engender trust by consistently sticking to their goals.
self-confidence
Consistency and persistence convey self-confidence. Furthermore, Nemeth and Joel Wachtler (1974) reported that any behaviour by a minority that conveys self-confidence— for example, taking the head seat at the table—tends to raise self-doubts among the majority.
