group processes Flashcards
what is a group
a group is 2 or more individuals in a face to face interaction, each aware of his or her membership in the group, each aware of the others who belong to the group and each aware of their positive interdependence as they strive to achieve mutual goals
what are the 2 types of groups
- strong interpersonal relationships
- formed to fulfil tasks
what are different types of groups
- groups based on large social categories
- groups based on weak social relationships
- transitory groups
what is the minimal groups experiment
- split randomly into two groups
- people allocated more money to their own group than the other group, and the effect could not be explained by self interest or existing friendships
- demonstrates how easily bias can develop
what did Triplett find about social facilitation
- observed track cyclists and found performances were faster when;
- time alone
- timed and racing along other cyclists
- presence of the audience, particularly in a competition, energised performance on motor tasks
- children performed better when racing against each other than when alone
what is mere presence
an entirely passive and unresponsive audience that is only physically present
- improvement in performance due to the mere presence of others as co actors or passive audience
what is social inhibition
the presence of others can impair performance for both humans and animals
what is Zajonc’s drive theory
- mere presence of others create an increase in arousal and energises dominant response
- when people are anxious they tend to do better on easy tasks and worse on difficult ones
what is the dominant response
- that what is typically done in that situation e.g. a well learnt habitual response
what is Cottrell’s evaluation apprehension theory
- we learn about social reward/punishment contingencies based on others evaluation
- perception of evaluating audience creates arousal, not mere presence
- social facilitation is an acquired effect based on perceived evaluations of others
what did Cottrell et al find to support his hypothesis
3 audience conditions
- blindfolded
- merely present
- attentive
- tasks were all learned
- social facilitation was found when the audience was perceived to be evaluated (attentive) wanting to perform well for their audience worked in their favour
what did Markus 1978 find about evaluation apprehension
- time taken to dress in familiar clothes/unfamiliar clothes as a function of social presence
3 conditions - alone
- attentive audience - speed up easy task but not difficult task
- inattentive audience - not much difference for difficult task
what did schmitt et al find about evaluation apprehension
- asked pps to type their name backwards on computer
- mere presence - perform simpler task quicker and difficult task slower
- adding an evaluation apprehension condition made little difference to writing speed
- evaluation apprehension is sometimes unnecessary for social facilitation
what is the distraction-conflict theory
- people become distracted, focusing on what others are doing and perform worse
what did Sanders et al find - distraction-conflict theory
- pps complete easy or difficult digital task
- either alone
- or someone doing the same task or someone doing a different task
- people performed worse when someone did the same thing as them
what did Siemon find about evaluation apprehension
- pps express less evaluation apprehension when presenting their idea to AI than a real person
- show that when humans are involved in evaluating an idea, people tend to feel concerned
what is social loafing in the ringelmann effect
- men pulling on a rope attached to a dynamometer exerted less force than the number of people in the group
what are the reasons for the ringelmann effect
- coordination loss - as a group size inhibits movement, distraction and jostling
- motivation loss - pps did not try as hard as less motivated
what did inghman et al find about social loafing
- investigated social loafing with ‘real groups’ and ‘pseudo-groups’ pulling on a rope, pp blindfolded
- real group - groups varying in size
- pseudo group - only one true pp, rest were confederates who did not pull at all
what is social loafing
- reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task compared with working either alone
how did Latane et al support social loafing
- recorded amount of cheering/clapping noise made per person reduced by:
- 29% in 2 person groups
- 49% in 4 person groups
- 60% in 6 person groups
what did Green find about why people loaf
- output equity - when people learn others are not pulling their weight, they too can lose motivation and put less effort in
- evaluation apprehension - individuals only believe their efforts are being judged when they perform alone, in group, people are not accountable
how can we reduce social loafing
- identifiability - people’s individual contributions to a task can be identified
- individual responsibility - when people they know can make a unique contribution to a task
how is social loafing replicated across groups
individuals from western cultures may attach greater importance to outcomes
- individuals from eastern cultures may be more likely to attach at least moderate importance outcomes such as group harmony, group success, and the satisfaction of other group members
what is the collective effort model
- people will put effort into a group task when
- they believe their input will have an impact
- and completing the task is likely to bring them something they value, which could include;
- concrete things like money, grades
- abstract things such as satisfaction/enjoyment
what did Moscovici and Zavalloni find about group polarisation
- found that group discussions enhanced french students positive towards their president and enhanced their negative attitudes towards American
what did McGlynn et al find about problem solving
- when groups get together and critique each other’s ideas, they have been found to come up with better quality ideas
what did mullen et al find about problem solving
- more effective when small rather than large groups and if the experimenter is not present to monitor the process
what is groupthink
- Janis - where objections to poor group decisions are suppressed to maintain group harmony
what conditions does groupthink occur
- stressful situations without a clear, correct solution
- cohesive group of like-minded people, cut off from external influences
- strong, vocal leader
what is the consequences of groupthink
- the group does not carry out adequate research
- alternative options are not considered group members cascade around the same opinion
- risks are not adequately assessed
