Group Behavior

Question 1

What’s a group?

Answer 1

A group is defined as two or more individuals who have come together to achieve particular objectives.

Question 2

What type of group do you know?

Answer 2

Fromal and Informal groups.
Formal groups are those defines by the organizaton’s structure.
Informal groups are just alliances that are neither formally structured not organizationally determined.

Question 3

What’s the social identity theory?

Answer 3

It’s a theory that considers when and why individuals consider themselves as a part of a group.

Question 4

Explain ingroup favoritism.

Answer 4

It occurs when we see members of our group as better than other people, and people not in our group as all the same.

Question 5

What’s the social identity threat?

Answer 5

Individuals believe they will be personally negatively evaluated due to their association with a devalued group, and they may lose confidence and performance effectiveness. This leads to stereotypes.

Question 6

What’s a role?

Answer 6

Set of expected behavior patterns attributed to someone occupying a given position in a social unit.

Question 7

What’s role perception, role expectations and role conflict?

Answer 7

Role perception: one’s perception of how to act in a given situation.

Role expectations: how others believe one should act in a given situation.

Role conflict: situation in which an individuals faces divergent role expectations.

Question 8

What’s a norm?

Answer 8

Set of acceptable standards of behavior within a group that are shared by the group’s members.

Question 9

What’s status? What defines it?

Answer 9

A socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others.
Status is defined from one of three sources:
1-The power a person wields over others;
2-A person’s ability to contribute to a group’s goals;
3-An individual’s personal characteristics.

Question 10

How can status affect performance?

Answer 10

1. Status and Norms: high status individuals often have
   more freedom to deviate from norms.
2. Status and Group Interaction: high status people are
   often more assertive.
3. Status Inequity: perceived inequity creates disequilibrium
   and can lead to resentment and corrective behavior.
4. Status and Stigmatization: stigma by association.
5. Group Status: “us and them” mentality and ensuring
   polarization.

Question 11

What’s social loafing?

Answer 11

It’s the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than alone.

Question 12

What’s diversity? Can it change a group’s performance?

Answer 12

Degree to which members of a group are similar to or different from one another. Diverse groups may preform better over time because it may help them be more open-minded and creative.

Question 13

What are Faultlines?

Answer 13

Percieved divisions that split groups into two or more subgroups based on individual differences.

Question 14

What are the strengths and weaknesses of group decison making?

Answer 14

Strengths:
1. More complete information
2. Increased diversity of views
3. Increased acceptance of solutions

Weaknesses:
1. Time consuming
2. Conformity pressures
3. Dominance of a few members
4. Ambiguous responsability

Question 15

Explain groupthink and groupshift.

Answer 15

Groupthink is a situation in which group members feel pressured to hide their views and opinions because they are unpopular and deviant opinions.

Groupshift is when groups are discussing a given set of alternatives and arriving at a solution whereby group members tend to exagerate the initial positions they hold.

Question 16

What techniques can be used in group decision making?

Answer 16

Brainstorming (everyone bringing ideas to a table and combining them into a solution) < nominal group technique (resticts discussion during decision making)

Question 17

To sum:

Answer 17

• Recognize that groups can have a dramatic impact on
  individual behavior in organizations, to either positive or
  negative effect. Therefore, pay special attention to roles,
  norms, and cohesion—to understand how these are
  operating within a group is to understand how the group
  is likely to behave.
• To decrease the possibility of deviant workplace activities,
  ensure that group norms do not support antisocial
  behavior.
• Pay attention to the status aspect of groups. Because
  lower-status people tend to participate less in group
  discussions, groups with high status differences are
  likely to inhibit input from lower-status members and
  reduce their potential.
• Use larger groups for fact-finding activities and smaller
  groups for action-taking tasks. With larger groups,
  provide measures of individual performance.
• To increase employee satisfaction, make certain people
  perceive their job roles accurately.