Group Influence and Altruism Flashcards
What are some phenomena that occur in minimal group interactions?
Social facilitation, social loafing and deindividuation
What are some phenomena that happen in direct interactions?
Groupthink and group polarization
Why do people join groups?
FOR OURSELVES
Fulfillment of basic human needs: relatedness need (self-determination theory)
Self-esteem (social identity theory)
motivation to be involved in social chabge
What is a group?
2 or more people, interacting and influencing each other, has to be seen or see themselves as a group.
What is social facilitation?
The mere presence of other people in elevated physiological arousal, it increases our own physiological arousal, makes us want to follow suit. It strengthens dominant responses, enhances easy behavior and impairs difficult behavior, grounds you.
E.g. trying to do somehting you always do, but with people looking
Why does social facilitation caused that?
Because other people causes us to 1. become alert and vigilant, aware of their presence
2. it causes us evaluation apprehension and
3. it distracts us.
What is social loafing? Mention one study that shows the phenomenon.
People exert less effort when efforts are combined into a goal than when they are accountable individually, it decreases evaluation apprehension.
Latane et al. demonstrated people cheer or clap more when the group size is less.
What are some exceptions to social loafing?
When the task is challenging and that it’s understood. When you know you can’t do it by yourself. When you have others counting on you. E.g. rowing a boat (you need a group), group sports.
What is deindividuation? When is it more likely to occur?
Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension.
Larger group sizes, physical anonymity and arousing/distracting activities, when you know you’re not the center of attention. E.g. marathon or even certain careers.
What did Buckels et al. find? What is another research that supports that finding?
They found that cybertrolling is a manifestation of everyday sadism. Anonymity in the internet leads people to do bad things.
Hardaker & McGlashan found that deindividuation leads to negative and harmful behaviour by finding the most used terms on X.
What is groupthink?
Thinking in which maintaining group cohesiveness and solidarity is more important than considering facts in a realistic manner. Agreeing with people as to not rock the boat.
What are some factors that lead to groupthink?
The group is highly cohesive, the membership is valued
Group isolation
A directive leader
High stress, members perceive threats to the group
Poor decision-making procedure, no standard to consider alternative viewpoints.
What are the symptoms of groupthink?
Illusion of invulnerability
Belief in the moral correctness of the group
Stereotyped views of the out-group
Self-censorship
Direct pressure on those that disagree to conform
Illusion of unanimity
Mind guards, people that protect the leader from dissenting opinions.
How can groupthink be avoided?
Remain impartial
Encourage critical evaluation
Seek outside opinions
Create subgrouos
“Second-chance” meetings
What is group polarization?
Enhancement of group member’s pre-existing tendencies due to informational (you are feeding each other information) and normative influence (being persuaded and conforming to a group).
What is the pessimistic result that Myers & Bishop found?
Group polarization also work for prejudice, high prejudice group will become more prejudice when discussing.
What is altruism?
It’s a prosocial behavior, motive to help others without conscious regard for one’s own self-interest.
Why are people altruistic?
Evolutionary people: we help people due to genetic relatedness, in group protection and kin selection. Hamilton’s rule rb>c, degree of relatedness and benefit to the person has to outweigh the cost to the actor.
What is Smith et al. experiment?
Kin selection and will, people tend to look out for their relatives on their will so they will continue your legacy
What are other theories on why people help each other inside the evolutionary theory?
Reciprocity norm: an expectation that people will help those who have helped them.
Social-responsibility norm: an expectation that people will help those dependent on them, e.g kids or subordinates at work
What is the social exchange theory?
Human interactions are transactions that aim to maximize one’s rewards and minimize one’s costs
What is a factor that impacts if people help others?
Having people around
Mood, helping people enhances a person’s mood and overall self-esteem. Goes both ways, we help people in a good and in a bad mood.
What is the empathy-altruism hypothesis by Batson?
If you feel empathy towards someone, you will help regardless if the cost outweighs the reward. If not, you will only help if the reward outweighs the costs. First to consider empathy and not just a robotic theory.
What are the 5 steps to intervene successfully?
Notice the event or you fail to notice
Interpret the event as an emergency or pluralistic ignorance
Assume responsibility or diffusion of responsibility
Know appropriate form of assistance or lack of knowledge/ competence
Decide to implement help or there are dangers to self, legal concerns, costs are too high
What is the diffusion of responsibility?
Delegation or assumption that other people will help or take responsibility.
When do people help?
Help when someone else does, when time allows or they find similarity to the victim.
How can we increase help?
Undo the restraint on helping (reduce ambiguity, increase responsibility and enable guilt and concern for self-image)
Socialize altruism (teach moral inclusion, model altruism, attribute helping behavior to altruism and learn altruism).
What has Buckels et al. found?
They found that trolling is pointless and just to annoy and that those that troll enjoy trolling and are higher in traits of agency, sadism and Machiavellianism and its correspondent BFI (high extraversion, low agreeableness)
What did Packer found out?
It was discovered that members with strong group membership are likely to escape groupthinking to improve group outcome. They are ‘vigilants’, they speak up if there is a reason to think there’s a threat to the group, either by their or other’s opinions.
