Lecture 3 - people in groups MC

Question 1

What is a group?

Answer 1

• 2+ who share common defintion + evaluation of themselves and behave in accordane with such defintion
• Common goal/liking

Question 2

What is entitatvity?

Answer 2

• nature of groupness and the extent to which members are a meaningfull group - share common goals/liking
• closely related to the indivisuals interaction with others that are in his/her group, importance of group membership to the members, common goals, likings, similarity of indivials within the group

Question 3

What is the difference between aggregate and a group?

Answer 3

• Aggregate: people who happen to be in same place at same time but NO connection between the people
• Example: people at a resturant -> they are all in the same place at same time but dont know eachother/probably never be in same place ever again
• Group: people that interact with eachother over time + identity/beloning + norms that outgroup members DONT have
• Example: class consists of 2+ ppl who meet several times a week, identity themselves based on the classes they are taking

Question 4

What is the difference between an indivisualistic approach and collectivist approach?

Answer 4

1. Indivisualistic approach:
   * Believe that individuals are able to succeed by themselves
   * Individuals in indivisualic society respond well to messages promoting individuality and personal achievement
   * More reductionst approach
2. Collectivist
   * Believe that group is more important than the individual
   * In business collectivist cultures look for group harmony + decision making
   * Collectivist cultures like Japan believe in conformity, consensus, group agreement
   
   • Looks poorly at individuals who pull away from the crowd
     * Unique social process that ONLY occur in groups

Question 5

What are some proposed theories on why people join/dont join groups?

Answer 5

• Reasons for joining groups:
  1. terror managment theory - indiv. Has inherent fear of dying and cope by joining groups to get sense of protection/solidarity
  2. uncertainty reduction: more common understandings - joining groups provides indiv. With “code” that helps undertsand things, way we feel, how to behave

Question 6

What are some theories proposed on the effects of NOT joining groups?

Answer 6

• Social ostracism
• Experiment on social osatracism: Kipp williams
• Brought people in who thought they were waiting to do an expeirmental study
• Whilst waiting 1 of the 2 confederates thew ball at eachother and the participant
• After a while the condederates stopped throwing ball to participant and excluded him/her
• Results: particpants began to feel very very uncomfrotable and tried to seem like they didnt care
• Masisve loads of debriefing was needed -> due to high levels of ostracism

Question 7

What is a role and do different roles exist within a group?

Answer 7

• Yes within groups, roles exist
• Roles: patterns of behaviour that distinguish between different activities within a group and that interrelate to one another for the greater good of the group

Question 8

What is the purpose of roles within a group?

Answer 8

• regulate group functioning
• To ensure time isnt wasted, ppl arnt doing the same things,
• can have power to govern behaviour and
• Examples: treasuer of the group

Question 9

Which expeirment in particular demonstrates that a role can have power to govern behaviour?

Answer 9

• Zimbardo’s guard and prisioner experimental study
• Zimbardo recreated prision
• Included males who were psycholoigically stable - given role of prisioner/guard
• Totally random selection
• Wanted to see whether ppl assumed thier roles to the extreme
• Results: roles help govern behaviour and thats how you can get extreme behaviours when people are in particular roles
• We have the propensity to behave in like we normally wouldnt when we are in a particular role ( prision guard in this experiment)

Question 10

What is status?

Answer 10

Status: consensual evaluation of the pristige of a role or role occupant in a group or the prestige of a group and its members as a whole

Question 11

How can status be explained by Festinger’s social comparison theory?

Answer 11

• As humans we compete for roles
• If someone else gets a role that you wanted -> you will automatically think that person is better than you for them to be able to get the role
• TF you hold that person higher than you

Question 12

what is the difference between specific and diffuse status characteristics?

Answer 12

• specific characteristics: personal and behavioural characteristics that are relevant to the setting we are in when making judgements
  
  • example: security guard/expertise within particular field
• diffuse status characteristics: when people get roles because of diffuse status - i.e. someone that has not had experience within the task but given the role from other characteristics including age, ethnicity, sex
  
  • example: when someone gets the role to lead the jury