Lecture: Group Communication

Question 0

Know what Francis Galton thought of individual’s and group’s intelligence and what study he has done on group intelligence.

Answer 0

• Francis Galton (1822 – 1911) Thought that most people are not intelligent, and groups of people even less so.
• He attended affair where there was a contest to guess the weight of the steer. People wrote their guesses on the piece of paper, most contestants were not cattle farmers or butchers.
• He obtained the 800 tickets hoping to provide data on how stupid people are. The correct answer was 1,198 lbs, Galton found the average of the 800 guesses was 1,197 lbs.

Question 1

Know what a group is.

Answer 1

A group has at least three people.

• shared identity, they identify as members of the group.
• have common goals.
• have interdependent relationships.

Question 2

Know what group polarization is and two explanations for it.

Answer 2

Group polarization-group discussion leads individual members to become more extreme in their positions. Found in criminal trial jury deliberations and deliberations on political issues.

Polarization explanations:
A. Persuasive arguments – group members gradually convince themselves their initial views are correct, and so come to adopt these even more strongly
B. Social comparison – if your opinion is in the minority, you adjust it to be closer to the majority. Even if you do not adjust it, you do not openly disagree with the majority

Question 3

Know the section on brainstorming.

Answer 3

• Brainstorming – process for generating new ideas
• Developed in the ad industry to increase group creativity
• Assumption: creative people feed off of each other’s ideas – better ideas than the same people could generate working alone

-Participants and brainstorming groups:
A. Enjoy the work more than people working alone
B. Evaluate the work as more creative and successful

• The actual performance of brainstorming - groups actually perform worse
• The process that they follow is not structured properly

Rules to make brainstorming work:

1. Ask all participants to come with ideas before they come to the brainstorming session
2. There are no stupid ideas when you are doing brainstorming, no criticisms
3. After brainstorm meeting sessions do:
   a. Ask each member to say what their best idea was
   b. Give us three ways to implement that idea
4. Pick a different group of people to evaluate the ideas that the first group came up with

Question 4

Know what groupthink is and how to avoid it.

Answer 4

Groupthink-tendency of highly cohesive groups to seek consensus so strongly that they ignore information inconsistent with their views, which often leads to disastrous decisions.

How to avoid groupthink:

1. Encourage criticism and doubt
2. Appoint somebody to be devils advocate
3. Get outside experts to challenge the views of the group
4. Break your group up into two smaller groups and have them work independently on the same issue