Chapter 7: Group Influence

Question 1

What is the textbook definition of a group?

Answer 1

• Two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as “us”
• If you’re merely there, you’re not really interacting with the group
• Passive and interactive groups

Question 2

What’s the main feature of passive groups?

Answer 2

• Involves being in the mere presence of others
• Can effect how we perform in front of others

Question 3

What factors contribute to social arousal when participating in a passive group?

Answer 3

• Evaluation apprehension - consciously aware of how we’re being perceived by others; wanting to perform well
• Distraction
• Mere presence - this is observed across other species as well. The mere presence of others affects our performance
• Energy - both negative and positive energy

Question 4

When do we perform best when completing “difficult” tasks in front of others?

Answer 4

• When we maintain low arousal to avoid stress and complete it in the least amount of time as possible
• Difficult tasks require more cognitive energy, so don’t want to be overly stressed which can distract us from the task at hand

Question 5

When do we perform best when completing “easy” tasks in front of others?

Answer 5

• Can perform well with high arousal since this can act as a motivator
• Ex. Olympians competing in front of a large crowd

Question 6

T/F: The arousal induced by others’ presence strengthens the dominant response which, depending on the proficiency of the skill, can either enhance or impair the behaviour.

Answer 6

• TRUE

Question 7

What are examples of interactive groups?

Answer 7

• Group projects at school/work

Question 8

What’s social loafing?

Answer 8

• The tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable

Question 9

Who are free-riders?

Answer 9

• Those who use social loafing to their benefit
• They benefit from the group but give little in return

Question 10

What’s the general trend observed with social loafing?

Answer 10

• As group size increases, individual efforts decrease.

Question 11

What differentiates social loafing from social facilitation?

Answer 11

• Social loafing - Individual efforts are not being evaluated, so the individual is not stressed about evaluation apprehension, therefore they feel less arousal (ex. tug-of-war)
• Social facilitation - individual efforts are being evaluated, so the individual is stressed about evaluation apprehension, causing their arousal to increase (ex. a swin meet)

Question 12

When is social loafing less likely to occur?

Answer 12

• When the task is challenging, appealing, or involving
• When the group members are friends, or otherwise, highly committed to one another
• Ex. A high-stakes military mission with a specific goal (no one’s going to loaf)

Question 13

What are some of the major causes of social loafing?

Answer 13

• Diffusion of responsibility
• Unclear roles and responsibilities
• Lack of accountability (i.e., no repercussions for not completing work)
• Lack of motivation
• Witness others loafing

Question 14

What are some solutions for social loafing?

Answer 14

• Clarify who does what
• Clarify deadlines
• Make expected outcomes of individuals known to all group members
• Break down group into smaller teams (makes it easier to catch social loafing)
• Appreciate contributions (positive reinforcements)
• 360 degree evaluations (harks back to social facilitation)

Question 15

What are the benefits of making decisions with a group?

Answer 15

• Access to more info
• Generate more ideas and solutions
• More likely to notice errors
• Collective memory is more expansive (members facilitate each other’s memory)
• Note: group must be cooperative

Question 16

What did the experiment involving students asked to convict a criminal based on the provided evidence of guilt?

Answer 16

• Those who were in the strong evidence of guilt group found themselves having increased judgements of guilt compared to when they evaluated the evidence on their own
• Those who were in the weak evidence of guilt group found themselves having lower judgements of guilt after the group discussion compared to when they were evaluating the evidence on their own.

Question 17

What’s the group polarization effect in group discussions?

Answer 17

• Effect whereby, after discussion, the attitudes held by individual group members become more extreme than they were before the group began discussing the topic
• Initially believed to be a shift towards risk, but now confirmed to be an enhancement of members’ pre-existing tendencies
• Outcome is strengthening of the members’ average tendency, not a split within the group

Question 18

What’s the risky shift phenomenon?

Answer 18

• Group’s decisions are often riskier than individual risk evaluation.
• A form of group polarization
• Ex. The Challenger Space shuttle disaster

Question 19

What are some reasons for group polarization?

Answer 19

• Informational influence
• Normative influence

Question 20

What are the three major components of informational influence?

Answer 20

1) Confirming arguments
2) New persuasive arguments
3) Group members considered credible sources/people important to you

Question 21

What’s normative influence?

Answer 21

• The desire to be like everyone else in the group, often involves compliance to the groups beliefs
• Want to maintain membership

Question 22

What’s groupthink?

Answer 22

• The mode of thinking where concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action
• May value group harmony more than good decision making (ex. agreeing with shareholders bad decisions to maintain their good favours). This is what concurrence-seeking implies.

Question 23

According to Janis’s 1983 Groupthink model, what are the antecedents that contribute to this model?

Answer 23

• A: Decision Makers (cohesive group)
• B1: Structural Faults (insulation of group; lack of tradition of impartial leadership; lack of norms for methodological procedures; homogeneity of group)
• B2: Provocative context (high stress from external threats; low self-esteem from recent failures, excessive complexity, moral dilemmas etc.) - company wants to prove themselves

Question 24

According to Janis’s 1983 model, what are some of the symptoms of groupthink?

Answer 24

1) Overestimation of group (illusion of invulnerability; belief in morality)
2) Closed-mindedness (collective rationalization; stereotypes of outgroups)
3) Uniformity pressures (self-censorship; direct pressure; mindguards - big problems)

Question 25

According to Janis’s 1983 model, what are some of the symptoms of defective decisionmaking?

Answer 25

1) Incomplete survey of alternatives
2) Incomplete survey of objectives
3) Failure to examine risks of preferred choices
4) Failure to reappraise rejected choices
5) Poor information search
6) Selective information bias
7) Failure to contigency plan

Question 26

T/F: Friendships are very susceptible to grooupthink.

Answer 26

• FALSE
• We have the others best interest in mind

Question 27

How can groupthink be prevented?

Answer 27

• Be impartial
• Assign “devil’s advocate” (i.e., a disharmonious voice)
• Subdivide the group
• Invite critiques from outside experts
• Call a “second-chance” meeting to air lingering doubts

Question 28

Who does a home field advantage mainly benefit?

Answer 28

• Will greatly benefit good teams rather than poorly performing teams.

Question 29

T/F: The effect of others’ presence increases with their number

Answer 29

• TRUE

Question 30

What’s the goal of large, open workspaces in office buildings?

Answer 30

• Believed to help promote social facilitation

Question 31

T/F: Social loafing is restricted to western countries.

Answer 31

• FALSE, it has been observed across all cultures
• Does occur to a lesser degree in collectivist cultures

Question 32

Which sex tends to exhibit less social loafing?

Answer 32

• Women
• Also tend to be less individualistic

Question 33

T/F: Group experiences that diminish self-consciousness tend to disconnect behaviour from attitudes.

Answer 33

• TRUE
• We feel less restrained and regulated

Question 34

What’s pluralistic ignorance?

Answer 34

• Don’t realize how strongly others support the socially preferred tendency
• Why it’s important to have someone break the ice

Question 34

What type of group is groupthink most common?

Answer 34

• Amiable and cohesive groups are most susceptible to groupthink.

Question 35

What are mindgaurds?

Answer 35

• Protecting members from info that would call into question the effectiveness and morality of decisions

Question 36

What are the different types of leadership?

Answer 36

• Task leadership - organizing work, setting standards, focusing on goal attainment
• Social leadership - building teamwork, mediating conflicts, and being supportive
• Transactional leadership - focus on getting to know subordinates, listening carefully
• Transformational leaders - charismatic leaders with a vision, very inspirational

Question 37

What determinants are involved in the influence of the minority?

Answer 37

• Consistency in beliefs
• Self-confidence
• Defection from the majority (constantly doubting the majority’s wisdom)