Group Processes Flashcards
Exam 2
What is social facilitation?
How the presence of others affects our behavior
What did research suggest about social facilitation with individuals in a group?
Presence of other people –> increases arousal –> increases dominant (habitual) response
With familiar or simple tasks leads to better performance
With unfamiliar or complex tasks leads to poor performance
What does mere presence mean?
The mere presence of others is sufficient to produce social facilitation because they heighten alterness/vigilance
What is evaluation apprehension theory?
Others must be seen as potential evaluators for facilitation to occur
What is distraction-conflict theory?
Others must distract attention needed to perform the task for facilitation to occur
What is social loafing?
People exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal
When do people loaf less?
- Individual performance can be evaluated
- Task is challenging, appealing, or involving
- When others in situation are friends
- In collectivist cultures
What is groupthink?
Faulty thinking by group members in which critical scrutiny of issues is subverted by social pressures to reach consensus (people are motivated to agree with each other)
What are some characteristics of groupthink?
High cohesiveness, group structure, high stress
What is high cohesivness?
Group is close and wants to maintain itself
What is group structure?
Group members are similar, group is isolated from others, directive leader
What is high stress?
The group is threatened
What is group polarization?
The tendency of group decisions to be more extreme than those made by individuals
What is deindividuation?
Loss of person’s sense of individuality and diminished self-regulation when people are in a large group
Why does deindividuation occur?
People feel less accountable for their actions when deindividuated, people are no longer self-aware
