lesson 4 - group processes Flashcards
what is a group?
“A group is two or more individuals in face-to-face interaction, each aware of his or her membership in the group, each aware of the others who belong to the group, and each aware of their positive interdependence as they strive to achieve mutual goals”.
(Johnson & Johnson, 1987, p.8)
-Interacting online does not count by this definition – perhaps need for change.
should we study individuals or groups
*“If we take care of the individual, psychologically speaking, the groups will take care of themselves” (Allport, 1924, p.9)
*If we study individuals, we will know about groups, because a group is just a collection of individuals?
What types of groups are there?
*Strong interpersonal relationships: families, small groups of close friends.
*Formed to fulfil tasks: committees, work groups.
*Based on large social categories: women, Americans.
*Weak social relationships: e.g., enjoy Taylor swift music, people from the same local area.
*Transitory groups: people waiting at the bus stop, people in a queue for the bank.
Development of bias and in-group favouritism/prejudice
Tajfel, Billig, Bundy & Flament
*‘Minimal groups’; split randomly into two-groups.
*People allocated more money to their ‘own’ group than the other group, and the effect could not be explained by:
*Self-interest (as they didn’t get a share)
*Existing friendships (as allocation was random)
Social facilitation: Triplett (1988) cyclists
- Triplett (1898) was the first to ask these sorts of questions …
- Observed track cyclists and found performances were faster when:
- Timed alone
- Timed and racing alongside other cyclists.
- Hypothesised that the presence of the audience, particularly in a competition, ‘energised’ performance on motor tasks.
Triplett
social facilitation - what is it? impact of the presence of others
*Triplett tested his hypothesis using a ‘fishing line’ apparatus and found that children performed better when racing against each other than when alone.
*Presence of others had an impact on behaviour.
*Allport (1920) termed this phenomenon ‘Social Facilitation’
*He suggested a more generalised effect: ‘Mere Presence’, rather than the impact of other people judging.
*Mere presence is defined as an “entirely passive and unresponsive audience that is only physically present”
(Hogg & Vaughan, 2014, p.275)
*Improvement in performance due to the mere presence of others as co-actors or passive audience.
*Not just humans: Kangaroos, monkeys and horses eat more and run faster when other members of their species are doing the same thing (e.g., Dindo, et al., 2009; Pays, et al., 2009).
social facilitation vs inhibition
*However, shortly after the discovery, some studies showed how the presence of others can impaired performance for both humans and animals (see review by Bond & Titus, 1983), known as social inhibition.
examples of social inhibition
- complex task (typing name backwards) was done more slowly in the process of other people than alone (Schmitt, et al., 1986).
- men take longer to urinate when someone is standing immediately beside them than alone (Middlemist, et al ,. 1976)
social facilitation: Zajonc’s 1965 Drive theory: (dominant response)
- argued that mere presence of others created an increase in arousal and energises ‘dominant response’.
- ‘dominant response’ is what is typically done in a specific situation (e.g., well learnt, habitual).
- when people are anxious, they tend to do better on easy tasks (already good at) and worse on difficult on ones that they normally struggle at.
- if the dominant response is correct (easy), then performance will be facilitated.
- if the dominant response is incorrect (difficult), then performance will be inhibited.
social facilitation and inhibition conclusion
- An improvement in well learnt and easy tasks because of the mere presence of members of the same species. Does seem plausible as joggers appear to run faster with others.
- A deterioration in the performance of poorly-learnt, difficult tasks due to the mere presence of members of the same species. (Hogg & Vaughan, 2014)
- complicated explanation does not fully account for behaviour, maybe it is mot just the mere presence of others but their judgement is important (e.g., presence of spectator at sporting events).
social facilitation: evaluation apprehension (Cottrell, 1972) - blindfolded
We learn about social reward and punishment contingency (e.g., approval/disapproval) based on others’ evaluation.
Perception of an ‘evaluating’ audience creates arousal, not mere presence.
Cottrell et al, 1968 supported this hypothesis in an experiment with 3 audience conditions:
(1) blindfolded (audience cannot see participant)
(2) Merely present (passive and uninterested)
(3) attentive audience
- tasks were well learned (easy).
social facilitation
- social facilitation was found when the audience was perceived to be evaluative (attentive); wanting to perform well for their audience worked in their favour.
- therefore, not just the presence that matters, but the presence and perception.
Markus 1978 - social facilitation: evaluating apprehensions weakness clothes
however… other research is less supportive - Markus, 1978 found time taken to dress in familiar clothes (easy task, own clothes) vs unfamiliar clothes (lab coat, unfamiliar shoes) as a function of social presence.
conflicting evidence
3 conditions
(1) alone,
(2) in the presence of an inattentive audience
(3) in the presence of an attentive audience.
results of Markus 1978 social facilitation - clothes
Attentive audience speeded up performance in easy task.
- Inattentive and attentive not much difference in difficult task
Familiar clothes:
Alone - 15s
Incidental audience - 15s
Attentive audience - 5s
Unfamiliar clothes:
Alone - 25s
Incidental audience - 35s
Attentive audience - 35s
Both theories are correct - it depends on the context. When we do an easy task, we perform better when watched. When we do a hard task we perform worse.
Schmitt et al (1986) evidence for social facilitation typing
- asked participants to type either their name or a code backwards on a computer
- mere presence of others made people perform simple task quicker and the difficult task slower
- H/e adding in an evaluative condition made little difference to typing speed.
- evaluation apprehension is sometimes helpful but sometimes unnecessary for social facilitation (‘mere presence of others’)
Distraction-conflict theory
- people become distracted, focusing (‘drive’) on what others are doing (evaluating them), and perform worse.
- e.g., Sanders et al 1978, had participants complete an easy or difficult digit task in different conditions.
alone
someone doing the same or a different task
people performed worse when someone did the same thing (more distraction)
Not just the presence of others, Sanders 1981 showed that bursts of light could similarly affect social facilitation.
distraction = operationalised as what the other person was doing.
