Chapter 8 Flashcards

1
Q

What is a group?

A

o A collection of two or more people who interact with each other and are interdependent

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2
Q

Why do we belong to groups?

A
  • Innate need
    • Proof: isolation/confinement in prisons
    • Fundamental need for social interaction; physical and mental well-being
  • Self-identity
    • How do we know if we’re nice, funny, clever etc…
    • Interactions with people help formulate identity
  • Textbook: belonging to groups important for social change; advancing society (ex: bringing attention to things that we find important)
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3
Q

Group Characteristics

A
  • Social norms (expectations on what is normal behaviour; can be explicit or unspoken)
  • Similarity (background, sexual orientation…)
  • Social roles (norms are what’s expected from everyone; roles are what’s expected from an individual, ex: clown, leader)
  • Cohesion (how close knit the group is); measured by:
    • Willingness to stay in the group
    • How often you take part in group activities
    • Try to recruit like-minded members (do this more when we’re high in cohesion)
    • Task cohesion: how well we work together
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4
Q

Group influences - social facilitation

A

Social facilitation
• Tendency to do better on simple tasks, but worse on complex tasks, when in presence of others and individual performance can be evaluated
• Ex: how we cook for ourselves vs how we cook when we have guests
• STUDY: cockroaches; start at one end and food at other end; test it by itself, then test it with others around it (in view); cockroaches get faster when others are there; THEN more complex; same task but a bend in the path to the food  when observed by other roaches they’re actually so much slower
• Zajonc (1965) – presence of others + evaluation
- Increases psychological arousal
- Makes us more alert
- Makes us concerned for what others think of us (evaluation apprehension)
- Distracts us

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5
Q

Group influences - social loafing

A

Social Loafing
• Tendency to perform poorly on simple tasks, but better on complex tasks, when in the presence of others and are not being evaluated
• More present in men than women
• Blend in with the rest of the group
• Ringelmann effect: as you increase the number of people in the group, the individual input is less (too many people = inefficient)
• Cultural difference:
- Social loafing more likely to happen in individualistic cultures

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6
Q

Behaviour in Groups - Deindividuation

A
  • Loosening of normal constraints on behaviour when people are in a crowd (ex: rioting, looting, partying, flash mobs)
  • How does it work?
    • Accountability
    • Self-awareness
    • Group norms
    • Uniforms/anonymity/savagery
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7
Q

Group Decisions

A

o Are two (or more) heads better than one?
o Members should be:
- Stimulated by each other’s comments
- Attentive to person with most expertise
o Unique information vs. process loss
- All have unique information: one’s own unique opinion, but often fail to share this (leads to process loss)
o Couples – transactive memory
- Each person is responsible for knowing about certain things (ex: wife deals with paying hydro bill, husband deals with phone bill)
o Groups are more likely to share unique information when:
- Information is diagnostic
- Discussions lasts a long time
- People have assigned roles; information they are responsible for

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8
Q

Groupthink

A

o Mode of thinking people engage in when they are deeply involved in cohesive in-group
o Strivings for unanimity override the motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action
o Maintaining group cohesiveness becomes more important than uncovering the facts

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9
Q

When is groupthink most likely to happen?

A
  • Highly cohesive
  • Isolated from contrary opinions
  • Ruled by a directive leader
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10
Q

Symptoms of groupthink

A
  • Illusions of invulnerability creating excessive optimism and encouraging risk taking
  • Rationalizing warnings that might challenge the group’s assumptions
  • Unquestioned belief in the morality of the group = ignore the consequences of their actions
  • Stereotyping those opposed to the group as weak, incompetent, or stupid
  • Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group, couched in terms of “disloyalty”
  • Self censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus
  • Illusions of unanimity among group members, silence is viewed as agreement
  • Mindguards – self-appointed members who shield the group from dissenting information
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11
Q

How to avoid groupthink:

A
  • Leader remaining impartial
  • Invite outside opinion
  • Divide group into independent sub-groups
  • Each member acting as critical evaluator
  • Using secret voting
  • Having a devil’s advocate
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12
Q

Group polarization

A
  • Tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinatinon of their members
  • Start as risky; riskier in group
  • OR Conservative; more conservative in group
  • Depending on what others are saying we will be swayed to one or the other
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13
Q

Great person theory

A
  • Key personality traits regardless of situation
    • Intelligence
    • Charisma
    • Motivation
    • Self-confidence
    • Dominance
    But; STUDY: most successful presidents
    • Tall, small family, published many books
    • Good leadership: integrative complexity
  • Ability to be able to integrate various perspectives
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14
Q

Fielder’s Contingency theory

A
  • Right person at the right time in the right situation
    • Person: task vs. relationship-oriented (recognize you need to connect with ppl. to motivate them)
    • Situation: high vs. low control (low: leader doesn’t have respect; people don’t listen…)
  • Relationships with subordinates, leader’s position, nature of task
  • Task-oriented leaders better in very high or very low control
  • Relationship-oriented leaders better in moderate control
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15
Q

Gender differences in leadership

A
  • Women
    • Expected to be more “communal” (helpful, kind, warm, affectionate)
    • More effective when interpersonal skills are important
  • Men
    • Expected to be more “agentic” (assertive, controlling, dominant, self-confident)
    • More effective when the need is to direct and control
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16
Q

Glass cliff effect

A
  • women are put in crisis situations where the chance of failure is high
  • STUDY: transformational (long-term) female leaders were given low scores by male subordinates but high scores by female subordinates; but male leaders were rated equally in either (transformational/transactional) category
17
Q

Groups and Conflict

A

o Social dilemma
- Own interests are pitted against those of the group
- Most beneficial action for an individual can have harmful effects for the group
- Ex: Stephen King website
• He started writing a book and posted 2 installments that were free to access; but he said if 75% of the visitors pay 1$ then I will continue to upload installments; but if less than 75% donates then I will stop writing
- Prisoner’s Dilemma
• Usually more favourable to cooperate
• More likely to cooperate if you have a healthy relationship with the other person
• Collectivist cultures tend to make more cooperative moves than individualistic

18
Q

Resolving Conflict - Tit-for-tat strategy:

A
  • Begin with cooperative move and then respond with whatever the opponent does
  • Shows willingness to cooperate but unwillingness to be exploited
19
Q

Resolving Conflict - Threats

A

• Often cause conflict to escalate

20
Q

Resolving Conflict - Negotiation

A

• Communication between opposing sides in a conflict involving offers and counteroffers aimed at arriving a solution
• Integrative solution
- Each side concedes the most on issues that are least important to them, but most important to the opponent
- Mediators can be very helpful in outlining the issues

21
Q

Transformational leaders

A
  • long term goals, want to transform what is currently happening into something better; want you to be innovative (higher job satisfaction) = intrinsic motivation
22
Q

Transactional leaders

A
  • Leader establishes clear short term goals and reward people who meet them; gets job done smoothly (Ex: working on commission) = extrinsic motivation