Group Processes Flashcards
What is a group?
*Two or more individuals
*Perceive themselves as a unit
*Influence each other
*Interdependent
*Common-identity and/or common-bond
Groupiness?
Degree to which a collection of individuals is grouplike
What makes groupiness? 2 things
Group Cohesion: strength of bonds linking members to the group as a whole
Entitativity:
how much the group is considered by others to have unity, coherence, and internal organization rather than a set of independent individuals
Why do we join groups? + two theories
- Promoting Survival and Achieving Goals
- Bolster our Self- Esteem
Social identity theory:
Group identities are an important part of self definition and a key source of self-esteem
- Reduce uncertainty
Uncertainty-identity Theory:
Uncertainty about one’s perceptions, attitudes, values, or feelings is uncomfortable.
We identify with groups to reduce this uncertainty
Testing Uncertainty’s Effect on Group Identification (Hogg, 2007)?
Participants in groups of strangers
Manipulated groupiness:
*High = you responded similarly, group unlike others
*Low = you did not respond similarly, group like others
Manipulated uncertainty:
*Low = reflect on certain aspects of life
*High = reflect on uncertainty in who you are/the future
Found that when there was high uncertainty and high groupiness the people highly identified with the group -> connection to Terror Management Theory
Social Loafing?
When on group tasks, individuals exert less
effort if individual contributions are not possible to identify
Study: Many hands make light work??
Participants asked to make noise with a “group”
The larger the group, the less noise each individual made
Why do people slack off in groups?
Low accountability, individual efforts not seen or held accountable
Low expected effort from others
High perceived dispensability
Social Facilitation?
The improvement in an individual’s performance of a task that often occurs when others are present
But depends on the task!
Easy/well-learned = do better
Hard/new = do worse
Why?
Zajonc says mere presence, which is related to arousal
Zajoncis theory of social facilitation?
Presence of other people -> Increase in arousal -> Dominant response becomes more likely
- If dominant response is the correct one, performance is enhanced
- If dominant response is the incorrect one, performance is impaired
Alternative to not just pure arousal?
Evaluation apprehension -> others judging us, not just mere presence
Distraction-conflict theory -> split attention between the person and the task = Less attention on the task
One challenge to Effective Group Decision Making: GroupThink, definition?
A tendency toward flawed group decision making when group members are so intent on preserving group harmony that they fail to realistically appraise alternatively courses of action
Self-censorship -> Illusion of agreement +
invulnerability/moral infallibility
Groupthink more likely when?
Cohesion most important
Motivation to be liked
Isolated from new information
External pressure
GroupThinks effects on decision making?
Not enough info gathered
Alternatives not considered
Fail to examine risks of preferred action
No adequate plans for failure
How might we encourage effective
decision making, the ODDI Model?
Orientation
- Define the problem
- Establish Goals
- Gather information
- Develop a plan
Discussion
- Remember, share, and process info
- Avoid shared information bias: spending too much time on what info everyone knows
- Leverage transactive memory: remembering different parts of an event -> Get a clearer picture from different angels
Decision
- Coming up with a strategy to decide
(e.g., Consensus? Vote?)
Implementation
- Do it then evaluate!
