Chapter 8 Flashcards
A set of individuals who interact over time
Groups
What are the key features of groups?
- Roles
- Norms
- Cohesiveness
What is the criteria that form groups?
- Similar fate, goals, or identity
- Collectives (engaging in similar activities)
- Social categories (race, gender, etc.)
Set of expected behaviors within the group
Group roles
Rules of conduct within the group
Group norms
The extent to which forces push group members closer together
Group cohesiveness
Presence of others facilitates improvements in performance on easy tasks but impairs performance on difficult tasks
Social facilitation
Triplett’s bicycle racing study is an example of what?
Examples of social facilitation
The proposition that the mere presence of others is sufficient to produce social facilitation effects.
Mere presence
A theory that the presence of others will produce social facilitation effects only when others are seen as potential evaluators
Evaluation apprehension theory
A theory that the presence of others will produce social facilitation effects only when those others distract from the task and create attentional conflict
Distraction-conflict theory
Group-produced reduction in individual output on tasks where members’ contributions are pooled together
Social Loafing
- Group projects
- Tug-of-war
- Clapping in a crowd
Examples of social loafing
Loss of one’s sense of self-identity within group & reduction of normal constraints opposing deviant behaviors
Deindividuation
- The phrase “mob mentality”
- Crowds engaging in destructive behavior after winning national championship basketball tournament
examples of deindividualization
An environmental cue that affects the individuals cost-reward calculations.
Accountability Cues
An environmental cue that focuses a person’s attention away from the self.
“getting caught up in the moment”
Attentional Cues
Diener et al Halloween method & findings
Demonstrates how accountability and attentional cues can affect behavior on a night when many otherwise well-behaved individuals act in antisocial ways: Halloween
Children are usually masked, travel in groups, and are highly aroused
Method:
1. Observed 1,300 children
2. Condition 1 - researcher asked names and where they live
3. Condition 2 - researcher did not ask any identifying questions
4. Children were invited to take one item from the candy bowl and were left alone.
5. Hidden observers watched to see how many pieces of candy each child took.
Findings:
1. Children who were in a group were more likely to break the rule and take extra candy than were children who were alone.
2. Add anonymity to the presence of a group, and children were even more likely to do so.
A three step process that shows the presence of others increases arousal, which strengthens the dominant response to a stimulus.
Zajonc’s Solution
What are the implications of Zajonc’s solution
- On a easy task, the dominant response is usually correct, and thus the presence of others enhances performance
- On a difficult task, the dominant response is usually incorrect, and thus the presence of others impairs performance
Research with roaches & their effects on performance
- When the track was a simple one, with a straight runway between the start box and the goal box, cockroaches running in pairs ran more quickly toward the goal box than did those running alone.
- In a more complex maze that required a right turn to reach the goal box, solitary cockroaches outraced pairs.
Karau & Williams (2001) - implications of the collective effort model
- If the outcome is important to individual members of the group and if they believe they can help achieve the desired outcome, they are less likely to socially loaf.
- In fact, in these cases they may even engage in social compensation by increasing their efforts on collective tasks to try to compensate for the anticipated social loafing or poor performance of other group members.
The theory that individuals will exert effort on a collective task to the degree that they think their individual efforts will be important, relevant, and meaningful for achieving outcomes that they value.
Collective Effort Model
The reduction in group performance due to obstacles created by group processes, such as problems of coordination and motivation
Process Loss
Group product is a sum of all members’ contributions
Additive task
- PowerPoint Presentations
- Group Project
- Team Events
Are all examples of what type of task?
Examples of an additive task
Group product is determined by individual with poorest performance
Conjunctive task
Group product is determined by individual with best performance
disjunctive task
The increase in group performance so that the group outperforms the individuals who make up the group
Process gain
“Only as strong as your weakest link”
Examples of a conjunctive task
- Problem Solving
- Trivia
- Land navigation in the military
Only need one person that knows, not multiple group members
Examples of a disjunctive task
A technique that attempts to increase the production of creative ideas by encouraging group members to speak freely without criticizing their own or others’ contributions
Brainstorming
The exaggeration of initial tendencies in the thinking of group members through group discussion
Group Polarization
How does brainstorming effect group performance/decision making?
Individuals are more creative by themselves than in a group
Lack of ideas may be due to
1. Evaluation apprehension (easiest and quickest decision)
2. Social Loafing (free riding - some don’t brainstorm)
3. Disinterest while waiting to speak (production blocking)
4. Performance matching (group members work only as hard as they see others work)
How does group polarization effect group performance/decision making
Which ever way the group is leaning, discussion pushes group further in that direction
risk-taking vs exercising caution
A group decision-making style characterized by an excessive tendency among group members to seek concurrence
Group Think
How does Group Think effect group performance/decision making
- Highly cohesive group are more likely to reject minority opinion (deviant)
- Homogeneity combined with absent systematic means to analyze decisions
- Stressful situations produce urgency at expense of accuracy (sometimes we only come up with a viable solution, not the best solution)
Janis (1982) - criteria for groupthink
- Highly cohesive groups (more likely to reject members with deviant opinions)
- Group structure (Groups that are composed of people from similar backgrounds, isolated from other people, directed by a strong leader, and lacking in systematic procedures for making and reviewing decisions)
- Stressful situations (under stress, urgency can overrule accuracy and the reassuring support of other group members becomes highly desirable)
According to Janis (1982), why does groupthink occur?
Groupthink emerges when the need for agreement takes priority over the motivation to obtain accurate information and make decisions
Expertise Memory
A shared system for remembering information that enables multiple people to remember information together more efficiently than they could do so alone
Transactive memory
A situation in which a self-interested choice by everyone will create the worst outcome for everyone
Social Dilemma
A type of dilemma in which one party must make either cooperative or competitive moves in relation to another party.
Prisoner’s dilemma
Social dilemmas involving how two or more people will share a limited resource
Resource Dilemma
A dilemma that occurs when people take as much as they want of a limited resource that does not replenish itself, nothing will be left for anyone
Common Dilemma
A dilemma that occurs when all of the individuals are supposed to contribute resources to a common pool.
What are some examples?
Public Goods Dilemma
- Blood supply
- Broadcasting
- Schools
- Libraries
- Roads
- Parks
What are the four factors for resolving dilemmas?
- Individual differences
- Situational factors
- Group Dynamics
- Structural arrangements
What are the different choices and outcomes of the prisoner’s dilemma?
The dilemma is typically designed so that the competitive move appears to be in one’s self-interest, but if both sides make this move, they both suffer more than if they had both cooperated.
- Prisoner A, no confession, 1 year; Prisoner B, no confession, 1 year
- Prisoner A, confession, 0 year; Prisoner B, no confession, 10 years
- Prisoner A, no confession, 10 years; Prisoner B, confession, 0 year
- Prisoner A, confession, 5 years; Prisoner B, confession, 5 years
What are the two types of resource dilemmas?
- Commons dilemma
- Public goods dilemma
