Chapter 9: Group Processes Flashcards
Why do people join groups? Four reasons
- Need to belong
- It may have been evolutionarily adaptive to join groups because survival
- Loneliness isn’t just aversive it’s highly problematic even for health - Social status and identity
- Like members of group and want to interact with them
- Accomplish goals that can’t be individually achieved
What is a group
What is a group?
Two or more people who interact with each other and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to interact with each other
Have Direct interactions
Have Shared fate, identity, set of goals
Social roles and Zimbardo study
Social roles
- Norms that apply to particular people in a position
- Social roles can sometimes overwhelm individual identities
- You can get so caught up you can lose your sense of self
Zimbardo 1973
Subjects were split into guards and prisoners and were rounded up, arrested from those houses, and sent to jail. There they had shackles put on them, we’re dressed in prison uniforms, and had masks over their eyes. The guards had reflected sunglasses and uniforms. The study was supposed to last two weeks, it only lasted six days. The prisoners were abused, had rights taken away, and started to have mental breakdowns. The guards got abusive and even Zimbardo got into it.
Social facilitation and study
Social facilitation
The presence of others can improve performance
Zajonc, 1969
The presence of others makes a cockroach run faster through a straight to, but slower through the tube with the cross. It makes easy tasks faster and hard task slower.
Two factors:
- Evaluation apprehension
- Distraction
Why does social facilitation work?
Why?
- The physical presence of others creates arousal that energizes behavior
- This arousal enhances ones tendency to perform the dominant response
- Quality of performance then varies depending the type of task
Evaluation apprehension
Distraction
Evaluation apprehension
Worry that people are judging us
Distraction
We might be distracted by those others
Social loafing, factors and study
Social loafing
When individuals contributions to a group cannot be identified they often work less hard than they work alone
Latané et al
Participants in a soundproof room shouted, the more people they believed they were shouting with the quieter they got.
Factors that promote loafing
-When there’s no strong invectives to perform
- Gender - men might load more
- Culture - people in individualistic cultures might invest less in groups and loaf more
Deindividuation and two studies
Deindividuation
- Loss in a persons individuality
- Reduction of normal constraints against deviant behavior
Anonymity and group ember ship promote transgression (Diener 1976)
When Halloween trick-or-treaters came to the door, they were either addressed anonymously or identified, the ones who stole the most candy were deindividuated and in the group
Mann
Most suicide baiters occur when it is at night and in the group and far away
Deindividuation and normal shift study
Johnson and Dowling
In a re-creation of the Milgram study, people either raised or lowered shocks whether they were identified or deindividuated, and prosocial or antisocial (KKK or nurse). The participants who fit the norms the most were deindividuated, raising it or lowering it depending on prosocial or antisocial
Group polarization and two reasons
Group polarization
Tendency for groups to make more extreme decisions than individual measures
Two major reasons for group polarization
Persuasive arguments theory
-More people available to make a more persuasive argument
Social comparison theory
-first few people to speak up becomes the norm, then others contribute to build themselves up.
Process loss
Groupthink
Process loss
Any aspects of groups that inhibit decision making
Group think
Maintaining cohesiveness or and solidarity than considering real questions
Keeping group happy instead of confronting real issues
Social identity
Social identity
That part of a persons self concept that derives from knowing that he or she is a member of a social group
Influences how we see ourselves
In group favoritism
In group favoritism
Tend to prefer in group members over out group members
Competition (Sherif 1961)
Set up a summer camp with eagles and rattlers. In stage one the groups established themselves. In stage two they introduce conflict between the two. Animosity develops. In stage III they reduce conflict.
The only way to keep this from happening is by having them work together to achieve mutual goals.
Three effects of social identity and study
BIRGing
-Basking in reflective glory
In group favoritism
Tend to prefer in group members over out group members
Self esteem
By liking people who are similar to you increases self esteem
