Group Processes and Influence Flashcards
Define group.
Two or more people who interact with and influence one another or perceive one another as a group.
Different groups help us to meet different human needs. What are those needs?
Affiliation, achievement, and social identity needs.
When is a social identity formed?
When people perceive themselves as ‘us’ in contrast to ‘them’.
Name three examples of collective influence based on perceptions.
Social facilitation, social loafing and deindividuation.
Name three examples of social influence in interacting groups.
Group polarisation, groupthink and minority influence.
Define co-actors.
Co-participants working individually on a noncompetitive activity.
What is the original meaning of social facilitation?
The tendency of people to perform simple of well-learned tasks better when others are present.
What is the current meaning of social facilitation?
The strengthening of dominant responses in the presence of others.
Who discovered social facilitation?
Norman Triplett.
If social arousal facilitates dominant responses, it should:
Boost performance on easy tasks and hurt performance on difficult tasks.
Who found that arousal facilitates dominant responses?
Zajonc.
What did Zajonc discover?
Arousal facilitates dominant responses.
What autonomic system responses occur when others are present? (6)
Perspiration, faster breathing, muscle tension, higher blood pressure and faster heart rate.
The effect of the presence of others increases with what?
Their number.
What occurs when friendly people sit close in a crowd?
They are liked even more.
What occurs when unfriendly people sit close in a crowd?
They are disliked even more.
What does crowding do?
Enhance arousal.
Give three factors that explain why we are aroused in the presence of others.
Evaluation apprehension, distraction, and mere presence.
Who came up with evaluation apprehension?
Cottrell.
Explain evaluation apprehension.
Concern for how others are evaluating us.
What concept explains why people perform best when their co-actor is slightly superior?
Evaluation apprehension.
What underlying mechanism of evaluation apprehension did Sanders, Baron, and Moore find?
Arousal.
Explain how arousal underlies evaluation apprehension.
Conflict between paying attention to others and paying attention to the task overloads our cognitive system.
A good theory offers clear predictions that: (3)
Help confirm or modify the theory, guide new exploration, and suggest practical applications.
Define social loafing.
The tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts towards a common goal than when they are individually accountable.
Explain free riders.
People who benefit from the group but give little in return.
When do people in groups loaf less? (3)
When the task is challenging, appealing or involving.
Define deindividuation.
Loss of self awareness and evaluation apprehension which occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad.
Who coined deindividuation? (3)
Festinger, Pepitone and Newcomb.
Being anonymous makes people: (3)
Less self-conscious, more group-conscious and more responsive to cues present in the situation.
What is the opposite of deindividuation?
Self-awareness.
Define group polarisation.
Discussion strengthens the average inclination of group members.
What is the risky-shift phenomenon?
Group decisions are usually riskier.
Who named group polarisation? (2)
Moscovici and Zavalloni.
What is the accentuation effect?
Initial differences among groups become accentuated over time.
Name three theories used to explain group polarisation.
Informational influence, normative influence, and referent informational influence.
According to informational influence, why does polarisation occur?
Because shared information and views are more likely to be the focus of the conversation than novel information and views that only a few group members hold.
What behaviour in discussions produces more attitude change than passive listening.
Active participation.
Define social comparison.
Evaluating your opinions and abilities by comparing yourself with others.
Define pluralistic ignorance.
A false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding.
Who developed social comparison theory?
Festinger.
Explain how normative influence leads to polarisation.
We want people to like us, so we express stronger opinions after discovering that others share our views.
What is the key idea of referent informational influence?
Most of the time we learn information about what is real at the same time as we learn what other people think should be done about it.
Define groupthink.
A way of thinking that people engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a group that it overrides realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.
Janis believes the the soil from which groupthink sprouts includes: (3)
A cohesive group, isolation from dissenting viewpoints, and a directive leader.
Name eight symptoms of groupthink.
An illusion of invulnerability, unquestioned belief in the group’s morality, rationalisation, stereotyped view of opponent, conformity pressure, self-censorship, illusion of unanimity, and mindguards.
Which two groupthink symptoms lead the group to overestimate their might and right?
Illusion of invulnerability and unquestioned belief in the group’s morality.
Explain the groupthink symptom of rationalisation.
The group discounts challenges by collectively justifying their decisions.
Which two symptoms of groupthink demonstrate that the group is becoming close-minded?
Stereotyped view of opponent and rationalisation.
Which four symptoms of groupthink demonstrate that the group is being pressured into uniformity?
Conformity pressure, self-censorship, illusion of unanimity, and mindguards.
Give Janis’ recommendations for preventing groupthink. (5)
Be impartial, encourage critical evaluation, occasionally subdivide the group, welcome critiques from outside experts and associates, and call a second-chance meeting before implementing.
Brown and Paulus identified three ways to enhance group brainstorming:
Combine group and solitary brainstorming, have group members interact by writing, and incorporate electronic brainstorming.
Is group brainstorming more productive when it precedes or follows solitary brainstorming?
When it precedes it.
Moscovici identified several determinants of minority influence in groups: (4)
Consistency, self-confidence, commitment to the group and defection.
What is the minority slowness effect?
A tendency for people with minority views to express them less quickly than people in the majority.
What happens when there is dissent within a group? (3)
People take in more information, think about it in new ways and make better decisions.
What is the intergroup sensitivity effect?
Ingroup members who criticise their groups tend to be received in a more open minded way that outsiders who make the same comments.
Why does the intergroup sensitivity effect occur?
Ingroup members are more likely to be perceived as driven by genuine and constructive motives.
When does the intergroup sensitivity effect disappear?
When the group is facing an external threat.
When does a minority person become more persuasive within a group?
When they were originally part of the majority but dissented.
Define leadership.
The process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group.
Define task leadership.
Leadership that organises work, sets standards and focuses on goals.
Define social leadership.
Leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict and offers support.
What kind of leadership style do task leaders normally have?
Directive.
What kind of leadership style do social leaders normally have?
Democratic.
Define transformational leadership.
Leadership that, enabled by a leader’s vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence.
Who discovered the risky shift phenomenon?
Stoner.
People in groups loaf less when their members are:
Friends.
People in groups loaf less when they feel ___ or ___ to the group.
Identified or indispensable.
Who developed groupthink?
Janis.
What is production blocking?
A phenomenon that occurs in group discussions, where the individual loses their idea while waiting for a turn to speak.
What does minority influence stimulate? (2)
Deeper processing of arguments and increased creativity.
The social impact of any positions depends on the: (3)
Strength, immediacy and number of those who support it.
How do newcomers to a group exert influence? (2)
The attention they receive and the group awareness they trigger.
Give some characteristics of transformational leaders. (4)
Charismatic, self-confident, extraverted, and energetic.
