CHAPTER 8: PEOPLE IN GROUPS

Question 1

Two or more people who share a common definition and evaluation of themselves and behave in accordance with such a definition.

Answer 1

Group

Question 2

The property of a group that makes it seem like a coherent, distinct and unitary entity.

Answer 2

entitativity

Question 3

Although there are almost as many definitions of the social group as there are social psychologists who research social groups, David Johnson and Frank Johnson (1987) have identif ied seven major emphases. The group is:

Answer 3

1 a collection of individuals who are interacting with one another;

2 a social unit of two or more individuals who perceive themselves as belonging to a group;

3 a collection of individuals who are interdependent;

4 a collection of individuals who join together to achieve a goal;

5 a collection of individuals who are trying to satisfy a need through their joint association;

6 a collection of individuals whose interactions are structured by a set of roles and norms;

7 a collection of individuals who influence each other.

Question 4

An improvement in the performance of well-learnt/ easy tasks and a deterioration in the performance of poorly learnt/difficult tasks in the mere presence of members of the same species.

Answer 4

Social facilitation

Question 5

Refers to an entirely passive and unresponsive audience that is only physically present.

Answer 5

Mere presence

Question 6

Impact of the presence of others on individual task performance

Answer 6

audience effects

Question 7

Zajonc’s theory that the physical presence of members of the same species instinctively causes arousal that motivates performance of habitual behaviour patterns.

Answer 7

Drive theory

Question 8

The argument that the physical presence of members of the same species causes drive because people have learnt to be apprehensive about being evaluated.

Answer 8

evaluation apprehension model

Question 9

The physical presence of members of the same species is distracting and produces conflict between attending to the task and attending to the audience.

Answer 9

Distraction–conflict theory

Question 10

Statistical procedure that combines data from different studies to measure the overall reliability and strength of specific effects.

Answer 10

Meta-analysis

Question 11

Group tasks can be classified according to whether a division of labour is possible; whether there is a predetermined standard to be met; and how an individual’s inputs can contribute.

Answer 11

task taxonomy

Question 12

one that benefits from a division of labour, where different people perform different subtasks.

Answer 12

divisible task

Question 13

cannot sensibly be broken into subtasks. Building a house is a divisible task and pulling a rope a unitary task.

Answer 13

unitary task

Question 14

an open-ended task that stresses quantity: the objective is to do as much as possible.

Answer 14

maximising task

Question 15

one that has a set standard: the objective is to meet the standard, neither to exceed nor fall short of it.

Answer 15

optimising task

Question 16

one where the group’s product is the sum of all the individual inputs (e.g. a group of people planting trees).

Answer 16

additive task

Question 17

one where the group’s product is the average of the individuals’ inputs (e.g. a group of people estimating the number of bars in Amsterdam).

Answer 17

compensatory task

Question 18

one where the group selects as its adopted product one individual’s input (e.g. a group of people proposing different things to do over the weekend will adopt one person’s suggestion).

Answer 18

disjunctive task

Question 19

one where the group’s product is determined by the rate or level of performance of the slowest or least able member (e.g. a group working on an assembly line).

Answer 19

conjunctive task

Question 20

one where the relationship between individual inputs and the group’s product is not directly dictated by task features or social conventions; instead, the group is free to decide on its preferred course of action (e.g. a group that decides to shovel snow together).

Answer 20

discretionary task

Question 21

Deterioration in group performance in comparison to individual performance due to the whole range of possible interferences among members.

Answer 21

process loss

Question 22

Deterioration in group performance compared with individual performance, due to problems in coordinating behaviour.

Answer 22

Coordination loss

Question 23

Individual effort on a task diminishes as group size increases.

Answer 23

ringelmann effect

Question 24

A reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task (one in which our outputs are pooled with those of other group members) compared with working either alone or coactively (our outputs are not pooled).

Answer 24

Social loafing

Question 25

Gaining the benefits of group membership by avoiding costly obligations of membership and by allowing other members to incur those costs.

Answer 25

Free-rider effect

Question 26

The effect that other people have on our attitudes and behaviour, usually as a consequence of factors such as group size, and temporal and physical immediacy.

Answer 26

Social impact

Question 27

Increased effort on a collective task to compensate for other group members’ actual, perceived or anticipated lack of effort or ability.

Answer 27

Social compensation

Question 28

The property of a group that affectively binds people, as group members, to one another and to the group as a whole, giving the group a sense of solidarity and oneness.

Answer 28

Cohesiveness

Question 29

Liking for someone based on idiosyncratic preferences and interpersonal relationships.

Answer 29

personal attraction

Question 30

Liking for someone based on common group membership and determined by the person’s prototypicality of the group.

Answer 30

Social attraction

Question 31

Dynamic relationship between the group and its members that describes the passage of members through a group in terms of commitment and of changing roles.

Answer 31

Group socialisation

Question 32

Focusing on small interactive groups, Bruce Tuckman (1965) described a now famous fivestage developmental sequence that such groups go through, namely?

Answer 32

Forming,Storming, Norming performing and adjourning

Question 33

an orientation and familiarisation stage;

Answer 33

forming

Question 34

a conflict stage, where members know each other well enough to start working through disagreements about goals and practices

Answer 34

storming

Question 35

having survived the storming stage, consensus, cohesion and a sense of common identity and purpose emerge

Answer 35

norming

Question 36

a period in which the group works smoothly as a unit that has shared norms and goals, and good morale and atmosphere;

Answer 36

performing

Question 37

the group dissolves because it has accomplished its goals, or because members lose interest and motivation and move on.

Answer 37

adjourning

Question 38

Moreland and levine (1982, 1984; Moreland, levine, & Cini, 1993) distinguished five phases of group socialisation namely,

Answer 38

Investigation
Socialisation
Maintenance
Resocialisation
Remembrance

Question 39

the group recruits prospective members, who in turn reconnoitre the group. this can be more formal, involving interviews and questionnaires (e.g. joining an organisation), or less formal (e.g. associating yourself with a student political society). A successful outcome leads to a role transition: entry to the group.

Answer 39

Investigation

Question 40

the group assimilates new members, educating them in its ways. In turn, new members try to get the group to accommodate their views.

Answer 40

socialisation

Question 41

Role negotiation takes place between full members. Role dissatisfaction can lead to a role transition called divergence, which can be unexpected and unplanned. It can also be expected – a typical group feature (e.g. university students who diverge by graduating and leaving university).

Answer 41

Maintenance

Question 42

If successful, full membership is reinstated – if unsuccessful, the individual leaves. exit can be marked by elaborate retirement ceremonies (e.g. the ritualistic stripping of insignia in a court martial).

Answer 42

Resocialisation

Question 43

After the individual leaves the group, both parties reminisce. this may be a fond recall of the ‘remember when . . . ’ type or the more extreme exercise of a totalitarian regime in rewriting history.

Answer 43

Remembrance

Question 44

Often painful or embarrassing public procedure to mark group members’ movements from one role to another.

Answer 44

Initiation rites

Question 45

State of psychological tension produced by simultaneously having two opposing cognitions. People are motivated to reduce the tension, often by changing or rejecting one of the cognitions. Festinger proposed that we seek harmony in our attitudes, beliefs and behaviours and try to reduce tension from inconsistency among these elements.

Answer 45

Cognitive dissonance

Question 46

Attitudinal and behavioural uniformities that define group membership and differentiate between groups.

Answer 46

Norms

Question 47

Method devised by Garfinkel, involving the violation of hidden norms to reveal their presence.

Answer 47

ethnomethodology

Question 48

Complete range of subjectively conceivable positions on some attitudinal or behavioural dimension, which relevant people can occupy in a particular context.

Answer 48

Frame of reference

Question 49

Division of a group into different roles that often differ with respect to status and prestige.

Answer 49

Group structure

Question 50

Patterns of behaviour that distinguish between different activities within the group, and that interrelate to one another for the greater good of the group

Answer 50

roles

Question 51

A general attribution bias in which people have an inflated tendency to see behaviour as reflecting (corresponding to) stable underlying personality attributes.

Answer 51

Correspondence bias

Question 52

Consensual evaluation of the prestige of a role or role occupant in a group, or of the prestige of a group and its members as a whole.

Answer 52

Status

Question 53

Theory of the emergence of roles as a consequence of people’s status-based expectations about others’ performance.

Answer 53

expectation states theory

Question 54

Information about those abilities of a person that are directly relevant to the group’s task.

Answer 54

Specific status characteristics

Question 55

Information about a person’s abilities that are only obliquely relevant to the group’s task, and derive mainly from large-scale category memberships outside the group.

Answer 55

Diffuse status characteristics

Question 56

Set of rules governing the possibility or ease of communication between different roles in a group.

Answer 56

Communication network

Question 57

Division of a group into subgroups that differ in their attitudes, values or ideology.

Answer 57

Schism

Question 58

A process where normative deviants who deviate towards an outgroup (antinorm deviants) are more harshly treated than those who deviate away from the outgroup (pro-norm deviants).

Answer 58

Subjective group dynamics

Question 59

To reduce uncertainty and to feel more comfortable about who they are, people choose to identify with groups that are distinctive, are clearly defined and have consensual norms.

Answer 59

Uncertainty–identity theory

Question 60

Exclusion from a group by common consent.

Answer 60

Social ostracism

Question 61

four different general types with decreasing entitativity:

Answer 61

intimacy groups, task groups, social categories and loose associations.

Question 62

groups based upon attachment among members

operate according to an egocentric principle of maximising their rewards and minimising their costs with respect to their own contributions

personal goals are more salient than group goals

Answer 62

common-bond groups

Question 63

groups based on direct attachment to the group

operate according to an altruistic principle of maximising the group’s rewards and minimising its costs through their own contribution

group goals are more salient than personal goals because the group provides an important source of identity

Answer 63

common-identity groups

Question 64

two or more individuals in face-to-face interaction, each aware of his or her membership in the group, each aware of the others who belong to the group, and each aware of their positive interdependence as they strive to achieve mutual goals.

Answer 64

group

Question 65

participants were less motivated; they simply did not try so hard.

Answer 65

Motivation loss

Question 66

Ivan Steiner (1972, 1976) developed a task taxonomy with three dimensions, based on answering three questions: which are?

Answer 66

Is the task divisible or unitary?
Is it a maximising or an optimising task?
How are individual inputs related to the group’s product?

Question 67

someone who takes advantage of a shared public resource without contributing to its maintenance.

Answer 67

Free rider

Question 68

A review of social motivation research concluded that there are three reasons why we loaf when we are in a group

Answer 68

Output equity
Evaluation Apprehension
Matching to Standard

Question 69

we believe that others loaf; so, to maintain equity (Jackson & Harkins, 1985) and to avoid being a ‘sucker

Answer 69

Output Equity

Question 70

we worry about being evaluated by others; but when we are anonymous and cannot be identified, we hang back and loaf, especially when a task is not engaging . However, when we can be identified and therefore evaluated, loafing is reduced

Answer 70

Evaluation apprehension

Question 71

often, we do not have a clear sense of the group’s standards or norms, so we hang back and loaf. However, the presence of a clear personal, social or group performance standard should reduce loafing

Answer 71

Matching to standard

Question 72

, cohesiveness was formally defined by

Answer 72

Festinger, Schachter and Back (

Question 73

A novel feature of this analysis is that it focuses not only on how individuals change in order to fit into the group but also on how new members can, intentionally or unintentionally, be a potent source of innovation and change within the group (Levine, Moreland, & Choi, 2001). Three basic processes are involved:

Answer 73

Evaluation
Commitment
Role Transition

Question 74

There are three general types of role

Answer 74

(1) non-member – this includes prospective members who have not joined the group and ex-members who have left the group;

(2) quasi-member – this includes new members who have not attained full member status, and marginal members who have lost that status; and

(3) full member – people who are closely identified with the group and have all the privileges and responsibilities associated with actual membership.

Question 75

Moreland and levine (1982, 1984; Moreland, levine, & Cini, 1993) distinguished five phases of group socialisation

Answer 75

Investigation-
Socialisation
Maintenance
Resocialisation
Remembrance

Question 76

the group recruits prospective members, who in turn reconnoitre the group. this can be more formal, involving interviews and questionnaires (e.g. joining an organisation), or less formal (e.g. associating yourself with a student political society). A successful outcome leads to a role transition: entry to the group.

Answer 76

Investigation

Question 77

the group assimilates new members, educating them in its ways. In turn, new members try to get the group to accommodate their views.

marked by acceptance.

Answer 77

Socialisation

Question 78

Role negotiation takes place between full members. Role dissatisfaction can lead to a role transition called divergence, which can be unexpected and unplanned. It can also be expected – a typical group feature (e.g. university students who diverge by graduating and leaving university

Answer 78

Maintenance

Question 79

When divergence is expected, resocialisation is unlikely; when it is unexpected, the member is marginalised into a deviant role and tries to become resocialised. If successful, full membership is reinstated – if unsuccessful, the individual leaves. exit can be marked by elaborate retirement ceremonies (e.g. the ritualistic stripping of insignia in a court martial).

Answer 79

Resocialisation

Question 80

After the individual leaves the group, both parties reminisce. this may be a fond recall of the ‘remember when . . . ’ type or the more extreme exercise of a totalitarian regime in rewriting history.

Answer 80

Remembrance

Question 81

These rites generally serve three important functions:

Answer 81

symbolic – they allow consensual public recognition of a change in identity;

apprenticeship – some rites help individuals become accustomed to new roles and normative standards;

loyalty elicitation – pleasant initiations with gifts and special dispensations may elicit gratitude, which should enhance commitment to the group.

Question 82

fundamental organising principles for our behavior, which regulate behavioural activation (approach) and behavioural inhibition (avoidance)

Answer 82

Moral Principles

Question 83

the ‘ideas’ people, who get things done

Answer 83

task specialists

Question 84

the people everyone likes because they address relationships in the group

Answer 84

sociemotional specialists

Question 85

In general, higher-status roles or their occupants have two properties:

Answer 85

1 consensual prestige;
2 a tendency to initiate ideas and activities that are adopted by the group.

Question 86

Many, if not most, groups are also structured in terms of two kinds of member:

Answer 86

1 Those who best embody the group’s attributes – core members who are highly prototypical of the group.

2 Those who do not – marginal or non-prototypical members.