Lecture 10- Group Dynamics Flashcards
What is a non-social group?
A collection of independent people who are not interacting. Just in presence of each other as opposed to real group membership.
What is social facilitation? How is this demonstrated with cockroaches?
- Presence of others improves performance on a simple task
- Cockroach is faster at completing maze when other cockroaches are watching (Zajonc et al., 1969)
What was found in the cockroach study when the maze became more complex?
- With a difficult maze and others watches cockroach performance got worse.
- Suggests that the presence of other impairs performance on complex tasks
What was found in Michaels et al. (1982)?
- Below average pool player got worse when others were watching (complex task)
- Above average player got better with others watching (simple task)
Explain Zajonc’s (1965) drive theory for social facilitation?
- Social presence results in arousal
- Arousal results in whatever the dominant response in the situation being increases
- Therefore, if dominant response is appropriate performance increases and if the dominant response is inappropriate performance decreases
What is social loafing? What study investigated this?
- The idea that as you add more people performance in a group doesn’t necessarily increase. Individual team members do less.
- Ringlemann et al. 1913 showed that as you add more people the individuals in the group exert less effort (less responsibility is on them) and so overall group performance decreases
What is price’s law? / How does it relate to social loafing?
As the number of employees in a company increases the number of people doing 50% of the work they would have once done increases
What is a social dilemma?
When the interests of the individual and the group differ such that the individual obtains better outcomes through following actions that will over time lead to suboptimum outcomes for the collective.
What is game theory?
The branch of mathematics concerning the optimal solutions for presumably rational actors engaged in social dilemmas
What is the most famous example of a game theory?
Prisoner’s dilemma:
2 people commit a crime
Both arrested and separated
Told if they confess and implicate the other prisoner will get off
If both confess= go to prison, if don’t confess= both fine, if one confess then other is worse off
Draw the table (shown in slides)
Rational choice is to confess no matter what other does. Therefore, when they both do this they end up with worst option= Nash equilibrium
Two people can act irrationally and end up with an rationally group choice
List some other applications of game theory (aside from the prisoner’s dilemma)?
- Arm’s race
- Common’s problem
- Free-rider problem: some set of people have to incur a cost= think of donating blood
- Panic: proceed calmly or run in a fire
Is explicit communication a solution for social dilemmas? What study investigates this?
The Trucking Game (Deutsch & Krauss, 1960):
- Need to find a way to cooperate on one- way road,
- Best individual option is to have one-lane road to themselves but this will result in them both people on one-way at same time which collectively is a shit option
- Allowing people to communicate doesn’t help negotiate solutions as they just get angry at each other
What are some solutions for social dilemmas that actually work?
- “Tacit” communication: Where you signal intentions but don’t explicitly talk. The “tit-for-tat” strategy proves nice, provocable, and forgiving
- Changing the payoff matrix: rewards for cooperation, penalties for noncooperation e.g. parking (commons resource, government doesn’t trust people will share/ take turns they install penalties which makes it too costly not to)
- Changing group membership: to a certain extent when you unite people against a common goal/ enemy the individual goals/ group goals align
