Groups & Individuals

Question 1

What do evolutionary theorists suggest about groups?

Answer 1

Groups are an indispensable part of our lives; evolutionary theorists suggest that groups are necessary for human survival.

Question 2

What are 2 different kinds of groups?

Answer 2

1) common-bond: where the individual members have a bond with each other
2) Common-identity: where the members are linked via the category as a whole

Question 3

What are the basic features of groups?

Answer 3

Basic features of groups include: status, norms, roles, cohesiveness

Question 4

What are groups composed of?

Answer 4

Groups are composed of people who perceive themselves and are perceived by others as forming a coherent unit.

Question 5

What is entitativity?

Answer 5

The extent to which the group is perceived to form a coherent entity is known as entitativity

Question 6

Why do people gain status in Groups?

Answer 6

People gain status in a group for many reasons, ranging from physical characteristics(e.g., height) to various aspects of their behavior(e.g., Conforming to group norms)

Question 7

For whom status tend to be higher in groups?

Answer 7

Status tends to be higher for those who are prototypical of the group, or those who have seniority within the group.

Question 8

What are the effects of roles on our behavior?

Answer 8

The effects of roles on our behavior are often powerful, especially when we internalize the role as a part of our identity.

In some roles, there are explicit feeling rules about the emotions we should express

Question 9

How it affects people who are deviating from the group norms?

Answer 9

Deviating from group norms can affect how other group members, especially those who highly identify with the group, evaluate us.

Question 10

What are the 2 types of norms?

Answer 10

Norms can be: 1) Collectivist, where harmony is valued

2) individualistic, where being different from the rest of the group is valued

Question 11

How do groups differ?

Answer 11

groups differ in their level of cohesiveness - the sum of all factors that cause people to want to remain members

Question 12

How can cohesiveness be increased?

Answer 12

When perceiving a threat to one’s group can encourage actions aimed at increasing group cohesiveness and solidarity

Question 13

What are the benefits of joining groups?

Answer 13

Joining groups confers important benefits on members, including increased self-knowledge, progressed toward important goals, self-enhancement, and when a politicized collective identity is formed, a means of attaining social change.

Question 14

What are the costs of group memberships?

Answer 14

• loss of personal freedom

- demands on time, energy, resources

Question 15

Is there a strong desire to join prestigious and exclusive groups?

Answer 15

Yes, the desire to join exclusive and prestigious groups may be so strong that individuals are willing to undergo painful and dangerous initiations in order to become members.

Having undergone such initiations can result in increased commitment to the group.

Question 16

When do individuals withdraw from groups?

Answer 16

Individuals withdraw from groups when they feel that the group’s ideology has changed so much that it no longer reflects their basic values.

When a schism - splintering of a group into distinct factions occurs, some members experience emotional distress and feel they can no longer identify with or see the group as the one they originally joined.

Question 17

What is the intergroup sensitivity effect?

Answer 17

When ingroup critics generally responded more positively than outgroup critics called the intergroup sensitivity effect.

Question 18

Why the intergroup sensitivity effect works?

Answer 18

This is because ingroup critics are believed to be motivated to create constructive change, which is not the case for outgroup critics

Question 19

How can ingroup criticism help?

Answer 19

Ingroup criticism can help bring about improved group outcomes

Question 20

What is social facilitation?

Answer 20

The mere presence of other people either as audience or as co-actors can influence our performance on many tasks.

Such effects are known as social facilitation.

Question 21

What does the drive theory of social facilitation suggest?

Answer 21

The drive theory of social facilitation suggests that the presence of others Is arousing and can either increase or reduce performance, depending on whether dominant responses in a given situation are correct or incorrect

Question 22

What does the evaluation apprehension view suggest?

Answer 22

the evaluation apprehension view suggests that an audience disrupts performance because of the actor’s concerns about being evaluated

Question 23

What does the distraction conflict perspective suggest?

Answer 23

the distraction conflict perspective suggests that the presence of others induces conflicting tendencies to focus on the task being performed and on the audience or co-actors.

This can result both in increased arousal and narrowed attentional focus

Question 24

What happens When individuals work together?

Answer 24

When individuals work together on an additive task - where their contributions are combined, social loafing - reduced output by each group member - frequently occurs.

Such loafing has been found on physical and cognitive tasks

Question 25

How can social loafing be reduced?

Answer 25

Social loafing can be reduced in several ways:
by making outputs individually identifiable,
increasing commitment to the task and task importance, and ensuring that each member’s contributions to the task are unique

Question 26

What is hooliganism?

Answer 26

Wild and destructive behavior

Initially, it was believed that hooliganism is inevitable in crowds

Question 27

How do people behave in crowds?

Answer 27

People act on the basis of whatever norms are operative in crowds, which differ depending on what group identity is salient.

Those norms can either sanction either antisocial or prosocial actions

Question 28

What is co-operation?

Answer 28

working together with others to obtain shared goals - is a common aspect of social life

Question 29

In which situations co-operation doesn’t develop?

Answer 29

co-operation doesn’t develop in many situations where it is possible, partly because such situations involve social dilemmas in which individuals can increase their own gains by not co-operating or because there is perceived to be a conflict of interests between individuals involved

Question 30

When does co-operation in teams become hard?

Answer 30

co-operation in teams becomes difficult when people work on computers at a distance can be difficult to achieve because of the absence of interpersonal cues that are present during face-to-face conversations

Question 31

How co-operation can be in teams increased?

Answer 31

Social embeddedness, which is a sense of knowing the reputation of the other parties involved, can improve cooperation by making those who do not cooperate accountably.

Question 32

What is negative interdependence?

Answer 32

It is where one person obtained the desired outcome, others can not - lowers the likelihood of cooperation

Social dilemmas such as prisoner’s dilemma are cases where cooperation could occur and benefit both the parties, but where it often does not because the parties do not trust each other

Question 33

What happens when people engage in noncooperation?

Answer 33

Having sanctions for noncooperation can change the extent to which people trust others, and thereby lower the extent to which they engage in cooperation in other tasks

Question 34

When does conflict begin between groups of individuals?

Answer 34

Conflict often begins when individuals or groups perceive that others’ interests are incompatible with their own interests.

Social factors such as faulty attributions(errors concerning the causes of others’ behavior) can play a role in conflict

Question 35

How do people from different cultures respond when they feel misunderstood?

Answer 35

Members of different ethnic groups often respond differently when they feel misunderstood by others.

European Americans appear to prepare for confrontation and Asian Americans seem to withdraw under these conditions

Question 36

How conflict can be reduced?

Answer 36

It can be reduced in many ways but bargaining and

the induction of superordinate goals - goals that both sides seek, and that tie their interests together rather than driving them apart - can be particularly effective

Question 37

What are the different tactics of integrative agreements?

Answer 37

Bridging (Read more on this)

Question 38

How fairness can be judged?

Answer 38

Individuals wish to be treated fairly by the groups to which they belong. Fairness can be judged in these ways:

1) distributive justice - in terms of outcomes
2) Procedural justice - in terms of procedure
3) transactional justice - in terms of how the treatment is delievered

Question 39

What do people use to determine whether the outcomes or procedures are fair or not?

Answer 39

People may not have the necessary information to determine whether their outcomes or the procedures used are fair or not. When such information is unknown, people may use their feelings of respect as a guide

Question 40

What can accord people respect to other minorities?

Answer 40

Feeling respected based on social identity can encourage people to accord respect to other minorities.

Conversely, feeling disrespected based on minority identity can result in lowered willingness to abide by social norms and increased deviance

Question 41

How do individuals behave when they are involuntarily merged?

Answer 41

When formerly distinct groups are involuntarily merged, members of both groups can feel threatened and consequently show favoritism toward members of their old group

Question 42

How do groups make decisions than individuals?

Answer 42

It is often supposed that groups make worse decisions than individuals. Research indicates that groups are subject to group polarisation, which lead them to make more extreme decisions than individuals; that is their decision making is flawed

Question 43

Why group decision-making is flawed?

Answer 43

This occurs for two reasons:

1) Members want to old views that are more pro-typical than others, which is more extreme than average
2) During group discussions, members are persuaded by the arguments that other members make and, therefore, they subsequently move their own views in that direction

Question 44

What is groupthink?

Answer 44

Groups often suffer from groupthink which is a tendency for a highly cohesive group to assume that they can do no wrong and that information contrary to the group’s view should be rejected

Question 45

How do groups respond to criticism?

Answer 45

Groups tend to reject criticism from outgroup members relative to the identical criticism from ingroup members. It is also more distressing to hear one’s ingroup criticized in front of an outgroup compared to when the audience consists of another ingroup compared to when the audience consists of other ingroup members only

Question 46

How do groups discuss and with respect to information that they possess for such discussions?

Answer 46

Group members often fail to share information during the discussion that only some members possess.

Instead, discussions tend to focus on the information that all members already know, so the decision that they make tend to reflect this shared information

One way to prevent this is to ensure group members do not know other members’ views and what information they have before the discussion begins

Question 47

What is brainstorming?

Answer 47

Generating ideas in a group without evaluating them

Question 48

How does creativity work in groups?

Answer 48

Brainstorming in groups does not result in Creativity than individuals producing ideas on their own

Although the debate about ideas does tend to stimulate more creative idea production

Question 49

What are the personality characteristics of leadership?

Answer 49

Leadership researchers long-sought personality characteristics that differentiate leaders from followers.

Evidence shows that leaders are somewhat more intelligent and sociable than non-leaders

Traits don’t explain the variability and do a poor job of differentiating leaders from non-leaders or even effective leaders from ineffective leaders

Question 50

When do nontraditional leaders emerge?

Answer 50

nontraditional leaders tend to emerge in periods of crisis - which means they can find themselves on glass cliffs where failure is more likely because the situation they are attempting to lead in contains a greater risk

Question 51

When do leaders instill greater satisfaction in the group members?

Answer 51

Leaders that are seen as prototypical of the group (rather than different from other group members) instill greater member satisfaction and perceived leader effectiveness.

The greater trust felt in leaders who are prototypical of the group allows group members to weather poor outcomes and forgive the leader for failure relative to leaders who are seen as not prototypical of the group