Groups and Decision Making Flashcards

1
Q

What is a group

A

Two or more ppl interacting to achieve a common goal

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2
Q

What are 2 types of groups

A

Formal and Informal

Formal: Established by organization

Informal: Emerges naturally in response to common interests of organizational members

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3
Q

What is a Group Norm

A

Collective expectations group members have about others behaviours

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4
Q

What two characteristics do group norms have?

A

Descriptive(What most people do)

Prescriptive (Beliefs about what people should do)

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5
Q

What do norms provide?

A

Psychological security:
Comfort in predicting what people do.

Provide means to regulate behaviour

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6
Q

When is a norm established?

A

When you first enter a new situation. You search information to develop them by observing behaviour of established group members.

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7
Q

What happens when someone doesnt follow a group norm?

A

Alienation, chastising, punishment, shame of the individual.

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8
Q

What are three types of group tasks?

A

Additive tasks-Predict performance by adding up performance of individual members. Performance INCREASES with group size

Disjunction Tasks-Performance depends on performance of best member. Performance INCREASES with size

Conjunctive Tasks-Performance limited by weaker member. Performance DECREASES with size increase

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9
Q

What are group ‘process losses’?

A

When you have performance losses because as group size increases, communication and coordination problems arise.

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10
Q

How can you calculate group performance?

A

Actual Performance= Potential Performance - Process Loss

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11
Q

What is Group Cohesiveness

A

Degree to which group members are attracted to group and are motivated to stay in the group.

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12
Q

How to increase group cohesiveness

A
  • Make it smaller
  • Increase time members spend together
  • Increase group status and admission difficulty
  • Stimulate competition with other groups
  • Give rewards to the group (not individual)
  • Physically isolate the group
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13
Q

How does diversity affect group cohesiveness?

A

Surface diversity (eg. age differences of members) is a superficial factor that doesnt have an effect in the long run.

Gender/ethnic diversity can have a small negative effect

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14
Q

What are some byproducts of group cohesion?

A

Much less absenteeism and turnover

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15
Q

How can group cohesion affect productivity?

A

High cohesion can work for or against the organizational task.
-> People can like to work together but not want to work.

Low cohesion will see individual productivity all over the place some low some high

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16
Q

What are the stages of group development?

A

Prestage 1
Stage 1- Forming(Testing waters What are we doing here?)
Stage 2- Storming(Conflicts can begin as roles established)
Stage 3- Norming(Group develops what their goals and norms are)
Stage 4- Performing(Once norms are agreed upon, group becomes cohesive)
Stage 5- Adjourning (geddafuqoutaher)

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17
Q

When can the group development stages be skipped or adjusted?

A

Highly structured tasks. For example, a flight crew can be complete strangers before boarding but still perform the job

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18
Q

What is one group effectiveness model?

A

The Korn Ferry Group Model

19
Q

What are the 5 components of the Korn Ferry group effectiveness model?

A

5T’s

Thrust- Vision, mission goals. Purpose.
Trust- Do you trust team mates? Take time. Is communication truthful btwn members. Do u trust their actions.
Talent- Do the group members have the appropriate skill level to get the job done
Teaming- Team learning, decision making, conflict resolution. Does the team work together
Task- Is the target being met? Are individuals meeting targets

20
Q

What is the txtbk defn of decision making

A

Process of developing a commitment to a course of action.

Problem solving: bridging gap between existing and desired state?

21
Q

What are two types of problems encountered?

A

Well structured problems

Ill structured problems

22
Q

How to solve well structured problems?

A

Use programmed solutions. Known solutions or means to ends. Follow the guidelines of whats been done before

23
Q

Ho to solve ill structured problems?

A

Think outside the box. Design thinking. Non programmed thinking

24
Q

Why use groups for decision making?

A

Quality
-Groups or teams should make higher-quality decisions than individuals

Acceptance and Commitment
-People wont buy in to a change or decision if they didnt have a role to play in making that decision

Diffusion of Responsibility
-Reduces likelihood of incapacitation of decision maker based on overburden of responsibility

25
Q

What are some advantage to group decision making

A

More complete info: sharing of expertise, experience, diversity

26
Q

What are some disadvantage to group decision making

A

Ambiguous responsibility- bystander effect. No one does anything bc they think others will do it

  • Slow
  • Likelihood of conflict
  • Pressure to conform to norm of leader
  • Likelihood of extreme decision
  • Cost
27
Q

When are groups better than individual?

A

Complex Tasks

28
Q

What is GroupThink?`

A

The capacity for group pressure to damage mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgement of decision making groups.

Unanimous acceptance of decisions is stressed over QUALITY of decisions

Experiment: People hate the person who speaks loudly against the group

29
Q

Example of Groupthink KNOW THIS FOR FINAL EXAM MEDIUM LENGTH ANSWER

A

Bush’s Invasion Of Iraq

Invulnerability and Morality- The group feels they’re invulnerable when they think they are doing the right and virtuous thing
“We cannot lose because were the good guys. We fight for democracy”

Rationalization- If you cant ignore counter arguments, you rationalize them away.
“What do you mean there are no WMD’s?”

Stereotypes of Outsiders- Create negative stereotype
“Saddam Hussein is a bad guy and once he is overthrown the american leadership and introduction of democracy would be welcomed”

Pressure for Conformity- Dont be different.
“Fire that Chief Advisor because he said Saddam wasn’t connected to Al Queda

Self-Censorship-
“Fewer press Conferences”

Illusion of Unanimity
Claim that the whole group is united

Mindguards-
Some members of the group take on the role of the protector, shielding and protecting people from contradictory information

30
Q

What are some Antecedents to Groupthink?

A
  • High cohesiveness
  • Group Structure (isolation, directive leadership, homogenous members, unsystematic procedures)
  • Stressful Situation

Consequences
-Defective decision making

31
Q

How to Prevent GroupThink?

A

Avoid Conformity Pressures:
-Avoid exerting undue pressure for a particular outcome or opinion

Allow Alternative Views:
-Establish norms that encourage and reward responsible dissent. Seek outside experts opinions. Designate members to be devils advocate

Act on imaginative Foresight
-Let group imagine negative consequences of their decision and explore what may caused it

32
Q

What is GroupShift

A

A change in decision risk between the groups decision and the individual decision that members within the group would make.

Can be either toward greater conservatism or greater risk.

People willingness to take risks may change in a group, as a collective

33
Q

What are three main factors explaining group shifts

A
  • Group discussions generate ideas and arguments that individual members have not considered before
  • Group members try to present themselves as basically similar to other members but ‘even better’
  • Group members want their groups to be more distinct from other groups (social categorization)
34
Q

What are two influences to Group Conformity

A

Informational Influence: Believe that others are correct in their judgement and want to be right

Normative Influence: Fears the negative social consequences of appearing deviant

35
Q

What is the autokinetic effect

A

People will look for other peoples positions and will conform to those positions. Whether correct, or not

36
Q

Strategies to Induce Compliance?

A
  • Reciprocity: Do them a solid so they feel like they should do you a solid
  • Foot-in-the-door technique Start small on what you request
  • Door-in-the-face technique: If you want something small, ask for something HUGE. Then they say yes to something small
  • Lowballing: Offer something for little, then when they’ve bought in to the low price, raise it a lot
  • Scarcity- People want what is hard to get, gives status
37
Q

What is Social Loafing

A

The tendency to withhold physical or intellectual effort when performing a group task
-A motivation problem

38
Q

What are the two modes of social loafing

A
  1. Free Rider and 2. the Sucker
  2. This person observes that other do all the work and they can get a free ride
  3. This person realizes that theyre doing all the work, and stops doing so bc theyre not gonna have that done to them
39
Q

How to Counteract Social loafing?

A

-Make individual performance visible
-Implement negative consequences for poor individual performance
-Enhance group cohesiveness and the tasks importance/meaningfulness
-Let individuals know that their efforts are necessary for the successful outcome (Create subspecialties btwn workers)
Cross Functional Teams

40
Q

What is a cross functional Team?

A

A team that brings people together with different functional specialties to better invent, design, or deliver a product or service.

41
Q

What is a cross functional teams factors of effectivesness?

A
  • Composition: Incl. end user as well as variety specialties
  • Superordinate goals: only achievable thru colaboration
  • Physical Proximity
  • Autonomy
  • Rules and Procedures:very standard basic comm procedures
42
Q

What is Design Thinking Methodology?

A

A method for creative solutions to problems.

Read IDEO, Change By Design

43
Q

What are characteristics of Design Thinking

A

Empathy- Experience what the end user experiences from their perspective. Key to creating solutions.

Reframe- Reframe the challenge’Are ppl missing trains because theyre used to it? Tired? Or bc long ticketing process!!’

Ideate- Quantity> Quality rn. Rapid fire lots of ideas SUSPEND JUDGEMENT

Prototype- Make low-res version of idea. Make something to see how the customer interacts with it