Groups Flashcards
Entitactivity
The property of a group that makes it seem like a coherent, distinct and unitary entity
Common-Bond group
groups based upon attachment among members
> Maximising their rewards and minimising their costs with respect to their own contributions
personal goal > Group goal
Common-identity groups
groups based on direct attachment to the group
> altruistic principle of maximising the group’s rewards and minimising its cost
Group goal > personal goal
Group cohesiveness
The property of a group that effectively binds people, as group members, to one another and to the group as a whole, giving the group a sense of solidarity and oneness
by:
- attractiveness of group/group members
- ind. goals requiring social interaction / social interaction per se
personal attraction
liking for someone based on idiosyncratic preferences and interpersonal relationships
social attraction
liking for someone based on common group membership and determined by the person’s prototypicality of the group
Group socialisation
dynamic relationship between the group and its members that describes the passage of members through a group in terms of commitment and of changing roles
three basic processes
1. Evaluation: continuous comparison of the past, present and future of rewards of the group
2. Commitment
3. role transition: a sharp change in the type of role a member occupies in a group
initiation rite: often painful or embarrassing public procedure to mark group members’ movement from one role to another
Five stage developmental sequence
- Forming: an orientation and familiarisation stage
- storming: a conflict stage, where members know each other well enough to start working through disagreements about goals and practices
- norming: having survived the storming stage, consensus, cohesion and a sense of common identity and purpose emerge
- performing: a period in which group works smoothly as a unit that has shared norms and goals, and good morale and atmosphere
- adjourning: the group dissolves because it has accomplished its goals, or because members lose interest and motivation and move on
Ethnomethodology
Method involving the violation of hero norms to reveal their presence
Frame of reference
complete range of subjectively conceivable positions on some attitudinal or behavioural dimension, which relevant people can occupy in a particular context
> to act ‘appropriately’
coordinate the actions of members towards fulfilment of group goals
constitute moral conduct: behavioural activation (approach) and behavioural inhibition (avoidance)
Roles
> A division of labour
furnish clear-cut social expectations within the group and provide information about how members relate to one another > furnish members with a self-definition and a place within the group
role identity theory
Status
consensual evaluation of the prestige of a role or role occupancy in a group, or of the prestige of a group and its members as a whole
expectation state theory
theory of the emergence of roles as a consequence of people‘s status-based expectations about others‘ performance
specific status characteristics
information about those abilities of a person that are directly relevant to the group‘s task
Diffuse status characteristics
information about a person’s abilities that are only obliquely relevant to the group’s task, and derive mainly from large-scale category memberships outside the group
Communication network
set of rules governing the possibility or ease of communication between different roles in a group
> greater centralisation improves group performance
> degree of autonomy felt by group members > satisfaction
Subgroup
> competition
> Schism: division of the group into subgroups that differ in their attitudes, values or ideaology
deviants and marginal members
deviation
Subjective group dynamics
a process where normative deviants who deviate towards an outgroup (anti—norm deviants) are more harshly treated than those who deviate away from the outgroup (pro-norm deviants)
reasons for joining groups
> Share goals that require behavioural interdependence for the achievement > for mutual positive support and the mere pleasure of affiliatio
motivation for affiliation and group formation
> terror management theory: the notion that the most fundamental human motivation is to reduce terror of the inevitability of death
reduce fear of death
uncertainty-identity theory: to reduce uncertainty and to feel more comfortable about who they are, people choose to identify with groups that are distinctive, and clearly defined and have consensual norms
motivated to join groups that are consensually positively evaluated and furnish a positive social identity
reasons for not joining group
> social ostracism: exclusion from a group by common consent can be particularly painful and have widespread effect
Coacting groups
Mere presence of others
Mere presence of others
an entirely passive and unresponsive audience that is only physically present
fishing reel experiment
Social facilitation effect
Individuals perform better in the presence ofothers than alone
an improvement in the performance of well-learnt/easy tasks and a deterioration in the performance of poorly learnt/difficult tasks in the mere presence of members of the same species
Drive theory
The physical presence of members of the same species instinctively causes arousal that motivates performance of habitual behaviour patterns
audience effects
Impact of the presence of others on individual task performance
self-presentation
to make the best possible impression of themselves to others
Social inhibition effect
Individuals perform worse in the presence of others
destruction-conflict theory
The physical presence of members of the same species is distracting and produces conflict between attending to the task and attending to the audience > distraction impairs task performance
> attentional conflict produces strife that facilitate dominant responses
> manage easy task but not difficult task
self-awareness theory
> Focus their attention on themselves as an object
compare actual self and ideal self > Self-discrepancy theory
increases motivation and effort on easy task
give up trying on difficult task
Arousal theory
A reconciliation of social facilitation and social inhibition effects
mere presence of others > arousing
dominant response is the correct response: social facilitation
dominant response is the incorrect response: social inhibition
the cockroach experiment
Initial arousal changes with task difficulty Easy task : lower initial arousal
Difficult task : higher initial arousal
The correlation between performance and arousal: inverted U shape
affected by two factors: difficulty of the task and arousal
evaluation apprehension model
The argument that the physical presence of members of the same species causes drive because people have learnt to be apprehensive about being evaluated
> approval and disapproval > social pressure > acquired arousal
Leadership
getting group members to achieve the group‘s goals
Autocratic leaders: leaders who use a style based on giving orders to followers
Democratic leaders: leaders who use a style based on consultation and obtaining agreement and consent from followers
Laissez-faire leaders: leaders who use a style based on disinterest in followers, generally intervened minimally
Leaders behaviour description questionnaire:
Scale devised by the Ohio State leadership researchers to measure leadership behaviour and distinguish between “initiating structure” (task-oriented) and “consideration” (relationship-oriented) dimensions > high on both: effective leader
Great person theory
perspective on leadership that attributes effective leadership to innate or acquired individual characteristics (instead of the context or process of leadership)
Situational perspectives
The view that anyone can lead effectively if the situation is right
Contingency theories
Theories of leadership that consider the leadership effectiveness of particular behaviours or behavioural styles to be contingent on the nature of the leadership situation
Least-preferred co-worker (LPC) scale
Fiedler’s scale for measuring leadership style in terms of favourability of attitude towards one’s least-preferred coworker
> high: relationship-oriented
> low: Task-oriented
Situational control
classification of the task characteristics in terms of how much control effective task performance requires
Normative decision theory
A contingency theory of leadership that focuses on the effectiveness of different leadership styles in group decision-making contexts
> autocratic: subordinates input is not sought > fast
> consultative: subordinates input is sought, but the leader retains the authority to make the final decision
> Group decision-making: leader and subordinates are equal partners in a truly shared decision-making process
> contingent on the quality of leader-subordinate relations, and on task clarity and structure
Path-goal theory
A contingency theory of leadership that can also be classified as a transactional theory - it focuses on how ‘structuring’ and ‘consideration’ behaviours motivate followers
Transactional leadership
Approach to leadership that focuses on the transaction of resources between leaders and followers
> Creating expectations and setting goals, providing recognition and reward for task completion
idiosyncrasy (special) credit:
hollander’s transactional theory, in which followers reward leaders for achieving group goals by allowing them to be relatively idiosyncratic > Allow them to be innovative in experimenting with new ideas and new directions
Leader-member exchange theory
theory of leadership in which effective leadership rests on the ability of the leader to develop good-quality personalised exchange relationships with individual members
Vertical dyad linkage model
an early form of leader-member exchange theory in which a sharp distinction is drawn between dyadic leader-member relations: the subordinate is treated as either in ingroup member or an outgroup member
Transformational leadership
approach to leadership that focuses on the way that leaders transform group goals and actions - mainly through the exercise of charisma > individualised consideration: attention to followers’ needs, abilities and aspirations, in order to help raise aspirations, improve abilities and to satisfy needs
> intellectual stimulation: Challenge followers’ basic thinking, assumptions and practices to help them develop newer and better mindset and practices
> charisma/inspiring leadership: provides the energy, reasoning and sense of urgency that transforms followers
Multifactor leadership questionnaire: The most popular and widely used scale for measuring transactional and transformational leadership
charismatic leadership
leadership style based upon the leaders’ (perceived) possession of charisma
Leader categorisation theory / implicit leadership theory
we have a variety of schemas about how different types of leaders behave in different leadership situations. When a leader is categorised as a particular type of leader, the schema fills in details about how that leader will behave
Status characteristics theory / expectation states theory
Theory of influence in groups that attributes greater influence to those who possess both task-relevant characteristics (specific status characteristics) and characteristics of a high-status group in society (diffuser status characteristics)
social identity theory of leadership
development of social identity theory to explain leadership as an identity process whereby in salient groups prototypical leaders are more effective than less prototypical leaders
Group value model
view that procedural justice within groups makes members feel valued, and that leads to enhanced commitment to and identification with the group
> leaders: act fairlly
Relational model of authority in groups
Tyler’s Account of how effective authority in groups rests upon fairness- and justice-based relations between leader and followers
Distributive justice
The fairness of the outcome of the decision
Procedural justice
The fairness of the procedure is used to make a decision
Social dilemmas
Situations in which short-term personal gain is at odds with the long-term good of the group > crisis of trust
Glass ceiling
an invisible barrier that prevents women, and minorities in general, from attaining top leadership positions
Role congruity theory
mainly applied to the gender gap in leadership - because social stereotypes of women are inconsistent with people’s schemas of effective leadership, women are evaluated as poor leaders
Stereotype threat
feeling that we will be judged and treated in terms of negative stereotypes of our group, and that we will inadvertently confirm these stereotypes through our behaviour
Glass cliff
A tendency for women rather than men to be appointed to precarious leadership positions associated with a high probability of failure and criticism
Intellective tasks
demonstrable
adopt the truth-wins rule
empirically, the group decision making process is like a “truth-supported win”
Groups perform at the level of the second-best member (groups require as least two solvers to solve a problem)
group performance > average ind. performance
for the best person’s performance > Great performance Empirically, the proportion of groups who answer the question correctly is close to that predicted by “truth-supported win” than “truth-win”.
Thus, a group performs better than an average individual, but does not perform at the level of the best member
These results suggest that 3-person groups are necessary and sufficient to perform better than the best individuals on highly intellective problems.
Judgmental tasks
not demonstrable
adopt the majority-wins rule
Jury decision making
A typical decision rule is 2/3-majority, hung otherwise
In general, the number of group members that is necessary and sufficient for the collective decision is inversely proportional to the demonstrability of the proposed group response.
i.e., The smaller the demonstrability of the proposed group response, the greater the number of group members required for a collective decision.
task demonstrability
Group consensus on a verbal and mathematical system eg. degrees, parallel lines etc
Sufficient information for solution within system
Non-solvers can recognize and accept correct solution
Solvers have sufficient time, motivation, and ability to demonstrate the solution to non- solvers
social decision schemes
The consensus requirement for a group to solve a problem or to reach a decision can be represented by social decision schemes
the rule of combining a set of individual preferences into a group judgment
Social decision schemes, as inferred from, or as an indication of the underlying group processes need
not be the same as the assigned decision rule.
explicit or implicit decision-making rules that relate individual opinions to a final group decision
decision rules also differ in
- strictness: The amount of agreement required by the rule - unanimity is extremely strict and majority-wins is less straight
- distribution of power: How authoritarian the rule is
> authoritarian: concentrate power in one member
> egalitarian: spread power among all members
social transition scheme
method for charting incremental changes in member opinions as a group moves towards a final decision
group is better than individuals in
rejection of errors
recognition of truth
collective information processing
Social loafing
A reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task (one in which our outputs are pooled with those of other group members) compared with working either alone or I’ll call actively (our outputs are not pooled)
shouting experiment
Ringelmann effect
Individual effort on a task diminishes as group size increases
Free-rider effect
Gaining the benefits of group membership by avoiding costly obligations of membership and by allowing other members to incur those costs
Process loss
deterioration in group performance in comparison to individual performance due to the whole range of possible interferences among members
= potential productivity – actual productivity
Coordination loss
Members do not organize their efforts optimally
deterioration in group performance compared with individual performance, due to problems in coordinating behaviour
Motivation loss (social loafing)
Not trying hard as in groups as an individual
evaluation effects
If individual input cannot be identified, social loafing occurs. Even when an individual works alone, he or she will put in less effort
solution: ask to identify their individual input
Reasons of social loafing
- output put equity: we believe that others loaf
- evaluation apprehension: We worry about being evaluated by others
- matching to standard: we do not have a clear sense of the group‘s standards or norms, so we hang back and loaf
Social compensation
Increased effort on a collective task to compensate for other group members‘ actual, perceived or anticipated lack of effort or ability
task taxonomy
Group task can be classified according to whether a division of labour is possible, whether there is a predetermined standard to be met, and how an individual‘s inputs can contribute
Task demands
Group performance is determined by task demands (I. Steiner)
- task goal
- task divisibility
- combination procedure
 Task goal
Maximizing (quantity)
how much or how rapidly something is done Optimizing (quality)
how well something can be done
Task divisibility
Divisible
Tasks can be broken down and shared by different members
Unitary
Tasks have to done concurrently by different
members
Combination procedure
Additive
Sum of group members’ performance determines
group performance
disjunctive
Performance of best performing member determines group performance
Conjunctive
Performance of the poorest performing member solely determines group performance
Brainstorming
A technique to facilitate creative thinking Defer Judgment
Quantity Breeds Quality
The Wilder the Idea the Better
Combine and Improve Ideas
Take a Break from the Problem
Group members generate as many ideas as possible To build on other’s ideas when possible
Not to criticize other’s ideas
Brainstorming problems
Production blocking
Cannot express ideas when someone else is talking Cannot think while listening to others
reduction in individual creativity and productivity in brainstorming groups due to interruptions and turn taking probably the main obstacle to unlocking the creative potential of brainstorming groups
Social loafing or free-riding
Perceive low accountability or value of one’s effort
Evaluation apprehension
Afraid of being negatively evaluated
Downward comparison
Follow the group norm in maintaining a low level of performance throughout the group session
Production matching
because brainstorming is novel, members use average group performance to construct a performance norm to guide their own generation of ideas > produces regression to the mean
illusion of group effectivity
experience-based belief that we produce more and better ideas in groups than alone, because:
1. More ideas than any single member would produce alone
2. fun: enjoy groups more > feel more satisfied
3. Only call out some of the ideas, Because others have already suggested the remaining ideas
> attribute relatively low to their own relatively high latent productivity
> seen to have enhanced or confirmed the high level of performance
Solutions to production blocking
- electronic brainstorming: Brainstorm via computer
> Do not have to listen or wait for a turn to speak
> can produce more ideas - heterogeneous group: Members have diverse types of knowledge about the brainstorming topic
> create a particularly stimulating environment that alleviate the effects of production blocking
Choice shift
The difference between pre-discussion individual decision and group decision
Group polarization
The difference between individual opinions before participating or listening to group discussion and
after such experience
2 variants:
- The bandwagon effect: On learning which attitude pole is socially desirable, people in an interactive discussion may compete to appear to be stronger advocates of that pole
- pluralistic ignorance: because sometimes people behave publicly in ways that do not reflect what they actually think, they can be ignorant of what everyone really thinks
Reasons of group polarisation (social comparison theory)
reasons:
Festinger’s social comparison theory (normative influence)
Lacking objective standard to evaluate an individual’s opinion, look to others to seek validation
Depending on the task, either riskiness or cautiousness is normatively favored by most people
Seeking social approval, individuals want to be more extreme than others
Realize not as extreme as they desire upon discussion
Adjust opinion to become more extreme
reasons of group polarisation (persuasive argument theory)
There exists an universal pool of persuasive arguments
More persuasive arguments favoring the dominant direction than another
During discussion the probability of sampling, and thus being persuaded by, novel arguments favoring the dominant direction is higher
Individuals become more extreme in opinion
View that people in groups are persuaded by novel information that supports the initial position, and thus become more extreme in their endorsement of their initial position
reasons of group polarisation (social identity theory)
theory of group membership and intergroup relations based on self-categorisation, social comparison and the construction of a shared self-definition in terms of ingroup-defining properties
> specifically focuses on the social-categorisation process
Group memory
> important aspect of group decision-making is the ability to recall information
Group remembering
> Group recall more than individuals because members communicate unshared information and because the group recognises true information when it hears it
depend on the memory task
Simple and artificial task > Complex and realistic task
Because of process loss, fail to adopt appropriate recall and decision strategies
A constructive process by which an agreed joint account is worked out
Some individuals’ memories will contribute to the developing consensus, while others’ memories will not
The group shapes its own version of truth
transactive memory
members have a shared memory for who within the group remembers what and is the expert on what
> different members remember different things
> remember significantly more information
> The basis is usually social categorisation: people stereotypically assign memory domains to individuals on the basis of their category memberships
> can also develop:
negotiate responsibility for different memory domains
assign memory domains on the basis of relative expertise assign memory domains on the basis of access to information
Group mind
people adopt a qualitatively different mode of thinking when in a group
Group culture
groups develop detailed knowledge about norms, allies and enemies, working conditions, motivation to work, performance and performance appraisal, who fits in and who is good at what
groupthink
A mode of thinking in highly cohesive groups in which the desire to reach an unanimous agreement overrides the motivation to adopt proper rational decision-making procedures
effect of group size
Group size DOES matter (found in simulation studies) even though it was not
demonstrated in empirical studies due to limited sample sizes
Consider a criminal trial, the simulation shows that
When the proportion of people in the population favoring a guilty verdict (pg) is low, 6-person groups are more likely to convict than 12-person groups.
When pg is high, 12-person groups are more likely to convict than 6-person groups
Order effects
3 charges in a criminal trial
Criminal damage to property [CD] Aggravated battery [AB]
Reckless homicide [RH]
Orders to consider the three charges RH, AB, CD (descending severity)
CD, AB, RH (ascending severity)
Conviction rate on the AB charge Descending = .22 > ascending = .04
straw poll
Empirical results
Strong effect of local majority at the individual level But no effect at the group decision level
2 ways:
> together
> one-by-one
straw poll: one-by-one
3-person majority > conformity
facing local majority: majority influence
Compared with simultaneous polling, there were more participants shifting their opinions in sequential polling
cyclical majority
3 options
A vs C
