Methods - How do we study groups? Flashcards
HC 2
What are the different methods to study group?
Case Study
Correlational study
Experimental study
How to come up with a research question
Read literature, identify a gap, and fill it OR observe group interactions in life (media, among your friends, etc.) and pick something that interests you to study systematically.
What are the pros and cons of a case study?
o Pros
Detailed
Natural
o Cons
Not all info appears
Poor external validity
Need to be interpretated (bias, theories, beliefs may affect it)
Relationship between variables unclear
What are the pros and cons of a correlational study?
o Pros
Can inform about relationship
Natural
Can be relatively easy and provide rich data
o Cons
Can not inform us about causality (no randomization)
Selection bias
Missing important variables
Hard to exclude alternative explanations
o Studies: intentionally collect data about various variables and examine correlations
o Analysis of archival data: use existing data to examine phenomenas
What are the pros and cons of a experimental study?
o Pros
Internal validity
Causality
o Cons
Sometimes hard / impossible to conduct (e.g., effect of gender on group performance)
External validity
o Lab experiments: Participants come to the lab and conduct tasks
o Field experiments: Experiments are conducted in real-world settings
How can we reduce negative views of outgroup members?
- Positive, energetic, community events…centered on non-political issues.
- Teammates need to cooperate, have a shared goal.
- Like behaviors toward Muslim strangers, personal beliefs also proved difficult to change.
- Contact can build tolerant behaviors toward peers within an intervention; Building broader social cohesion outside of it is more challenging.
What is the contact hypothesis?
Interpersonal contact across group lines can reduce prejudice if it is cooperative, places participants on equal footing, is endorsed by communal authorities, and is characterized by a common goal.
Wat is an observational measurement?
A measurement method that involves watching and recording the activities of individuals and groups.
- Naïve observers who do not know the research question or hypothesis
- Ideally using several coders and examine reliability (correlation between the coding)
Is higher social class linked to more/less unethical behaviors while driving?
- Observes in California coded vehicle status and recorded whether the driver cut off (A) other vehicles (B) pedestrians
- “we used observers’ codes of vehicle status (make, age, and appearance) to index drivers’ social class. Observers stood near the intersection, coded the status of approaching vehicles, and recorded whether the driver cut off other vehicles by crossing the intersection before waiting their turn, a behavior that defies the California Vehicle Code”
What are the different Types of observation?
- Overt observation = Openly watching and recording information with no attempt to conceal one’s research purposes.
- Covert observation = Watching and recording information on the activities of individuals and groups without their knowledge.
- Participant observation = Watching and recording group activities as a member of the group or participant in the social process.
What is Overt observation?
Openly watching and recording information with no attempt to conceal one’s research purposes.
What is Covert observation?
Watching and recording information on the activities of individuals and groups without their knowledge.
What is participant observation?
Watching and recording group activities as a member of the group or participant in the social process.
What are Self-reports (of believes, feelings, attitudes, etc. or intended behavior in hypothetical scenarios)?
Participants report their own feelings, perceptions, attitudes on a given situation or how they would behave in certain hypothetical scenarios.
What are Economic games?
- Used to measure various behaviors (e.g., altruism, prosocial behavior, (dis)honesty, cooperation, risk aversion / seeking, gambling)
- Often used when there might be a difference between people’s actual behavior and what they say (due to social desirability or social image concerns)
- Female- versus male- versus mixed groups
What is the Motivational perspectives, Theoretical perspectives of groups and their dynamics?
- Motivational theories suggest that groups are an excellent’ way for members to satisfy some of their most basic needs.
- Psychologist Abraham Maslow’s (1943) well-known hierarchy of needs, for example, describes a ranked series of basic human motives, including physiological and safety needs, belonging ness needs, and the need for esteem and respect. Applied to groups, his motivational theory suggests that groups are the most popular of choices for most people because they satisfy these needs. Groups, with their greater resources, offer members food, shelter, and other essentials for survival. Groups offer protection from harm (“safety in numbers”), and they can care for members who are sick or injured. Groups, by their very nature, create a sense of belonging for their members and, by accepting and supporting them, are a source of prestige and esteem. Groups, from a motivational perspective, are a useful means of satisfying psychological needs
- Emotions often accompany these needs and desires; feelings of happiness, sadness, satisfaction, and sorrow are just a few of the emotions that can influence how people act in group situations.
o Emotions, too, play a role in prompting individuals to seek membership in groups rather than remain alone. - Motivations are psychological mechanisms that give purpose and direction to behavior.
- To be sure, groups, by rejecting and mistreating members, can be sources of extremely negative emotions such as loneliness, despair, sadness, and shame, but groups are also the source of such positive social emotions as contentment, pleasure, bliss, joy, love, gratitude, and admiration
What is the behavioral perspectives of groups and their dynamics?
- Skinner’s behaviorism was based on two key assumptions:
- First, Skinner believed that psychological processes, such as motives and drives, may shape people’s reactions in groups, but he also believed that such psychological processes are too difficult to index accurately. He therefore recommended measuring and analyzing how people behave in a specific context rather than speculating about the psychological or interpersonal processes that may have instigated their actions.
- Second, Skinner believed that most behavior was consistent with the law of effect—that is, behaviors that are followed by positive consequences, such as rewards, will occur more frequently, whereas behaviors that are followed by negative consequences will become rarer.
- Social exchange theories use Skinner’s behaviorism to explain how relationships are initiated and sustained through the reliable exchange of rewards and the imposition of costs by individuals and groups.
o These theories stress the economics of membership by suggesting that members contribute their time and personal resources to their groups in exchange for direct, concrete rewards, such as pay, goods, and services, as well as indirect, socioemotional rewards, such as status and admiration.
o These exchanges create relationships among members and their group that are strengthened when
(a) the rewards are valued ones and any costs created by the group are minimized,
(b) the members trust each other to fulfil their obligations over the long term,
(c) the exchange is judged to be a fair one with fairness defined primarily by mutual adherence to the norm of reciprocity, and
(d) members develop a commitment to the group as indicated by increased affective attachment, a sense of loyalty, and an authentic concern for the other members’ and the group’s well-being. - If, however, groups make too many demands on members— meetings, time commitment, investment of personal resources, and giving up involvement in other groups—then members are less likely to maintain their membership.
What is the social exchange theorie?
It suggests that people join with others in groups because membership is, in a sense, a good deal.
It uses Skinner’s behaviorism to explain how relationships are initiated and sustained through the reliable exchange of rewards and the imposition of costs by individuals and groups.
What is the systems perspectives of groups and their dynamics?
A systems theory approach assumes groups are complex, adaptive, dynamic systems of interacting individuals. Two ways a group can form:
- The members are the units of the system who are coupled one to another by relationships. Just as systems can be deliberately designed to function in a particular way, groups are sometimes created for a purpose, with procedures and standards designed with the overall goal of the system in mind.
- Groups can, however, be self-creating and self-organizing systems, for they may develop spontaneously as individuals begin to act in coordinated, synchronized ways.
What does the systems theory suggets?
that parts are, to an extent, interchangeable— specific units can be swapped in and out with no discernable impact on the system—but in some cases, because groups are built up of closely entwined parts, they can change to an extraordinary degree when one of their constituent components changes.
- Systems theory provides a model for understanding a range of group-level processes, including group development, productivity, and interpersonal conflict.
Input–process–output (I–P–O) models of group productivity are systems theories that?
Emphasize inputs that feed into the group setting, the processes that take place within the group as it works on the task, and the outputs generated by the system.
Inputs would include any factors that are present in the group setting, including members’ individual qualities (training), group-level factors (cohesiveness), and macro-level factors input factors all influence the processes that take place within the group as members interact with each other, including communication, planning, conflict, and leadership.
These processes transform the inputs into outputs, which could include aspects of the group’s performance (errors) but also changes in the factors that serve as inputs to the system (feedback).
If the group performs poorly, for example, it may become less cohesive or it may seek out new members. Members of successful groups, in contrast, may become more satisfied with their group and take steps to make sure that the group uses the same procedures to solve the next problem.
What is the self reference effect and the group reference effect?
This self-reference effect is the tendency for people to have better memories for actions and events that they are personally connected to in some way.
There is also a group-reference effect found this is the tendency for group members to have better memories for actions and events that are related, in some way, to their group.
What is the cognitive perspectives of groups and their dynamics?
New group members are busy perceiving, judging, reasoning, and remembering, and all these mental activities influence their understanding of one another, the group, and themselves.
Cognitive researchers have discovered that people have better memories for actions and events that they are personally connected to and that thinking about themselves when processing information prompts them to encode the information more deeply.
What is the biological perspectives of groups and their dynamics?
Social psychologist James Blascovich’s biopsychosocial (BPS) threat/challenge model, traces differences in group members’ performance back to their physiological reactions to evaluation. His model suggests groups that feel their work is challenging respond very differently, physiologically, then do groups that feel threatened by the complexities of the tasks they are attempting.
Group members who displayed changes in cardiac functioning that indicated they felt challenged and not threatened performed better.
How do you select a theoretical perspective?
Many of the greatest advances in understanding groups have occurred not when one theory has been pitted against another, but when two or more theories have been synthesized to form a new, more encompassing theoretical perspective.
Paradigm
Scientists’ shared assumptions about the phenomena they study; also, a set of research procedures.
Level of analysis
The focus of study when examining a multilevel process or phenomenon, such as the individual-level or the group-level of analysis.
Group fallacy
Explaining social phenomena in terms of the group as a whole instead of basing the explanation on the individual-level processes within the group; ascribing psychological qualities, such as will, intentionality, and mind, to a group rather than to the individuals within the group.
Group mind (or collective consciousness)
A hypothetical unifying mental force linking group members together; the fusion of individual consciousness or mind into a transcendent consciousness
B = f(P,E)
The law of interactionism that states each person’s behavioral, cognitive, and emotional reactions (“behavior”), B, are a function of his or her personal qualities, P, the social environment, E, and the interaction of these personal qualities with factors present in the social environment (proposed in Lewin, 1951).
Multilevel perspective
The view that recognizes that a complete explanation of group processes and phenomena requires multiple levels of analysis, including individual (micro), group (meso), and organizational or societal (macro) level.
Hawthorne effect
A change in behavior that occurs when individuals know they are being observed or studied.
Interaction Process Analysis (IPA)
A structured coding system used to measure group activity by classifying each observed behavior into one of 12 categories, such as “shows solidarity” or “asks for orientation” (developed by Robert F. Bales).
Systematic Multiple Level Observation of Groups (SYMLOG)
A theoretical and structured coding system for recording the activities of a group and the overall behavioral orientation of members (developed by Robert F. Bales).
Sociometry
A method for measuring the relationships among members of a group and summarizing those relationships graphically (developed by Jacob Moreno).
Sociogram
A graphic representation of the patterns of intermember relations created through sociometry. In most cases, each member of the group is depicted by a symbol, such as a lettered circle or square, and relations among members (e.g., communication links and friendship pairings) are indicated by lines from one member to another.
Social network analysis (SNA)
A set of procedures for studying the relational structure of groups and networks mathematically and graphically. Using information about the relationships (ties, edges) linking members (nodes, vertexes), the method yields member-level indexes (e.g., centrality and betweenness), group-level indexes (e.g., density and cohesiveness), and a graphic representation of the unit.
Groupthink
A set of negative group-level processes, including illusions of vulnerability, self-censorship, and pressures to conform, that occur when highly cohesive groups seek concurrence rather than objective analysis when making a decision (identified by Irving Janis).
Bona fide groups
Naturally occurring groups, such as audiences, boards of directors, clubs, or teams, compared to ad hoc groups created for research purposes.
Systems theory
A general theoretical approach that assumes that complex phenomena are the result of the constant and dynamic adjustments that occur between and among the interdependent parts of the whole. Applied to groups, systems theory assumes that groups are open systems that maintain dynamic equilibrium among members through a complex series of interrelated adjustments and processes.
Input–process–output (I–P–O) model
Any one of a number of general conceptual analyses of groups that assumes raw materials (inputs) are transformed by internal system processes to generate results (output). For example, an I–P–O model of group performance assumes that group-level processes mediate the relationship between individual, group, and situational input variables and resulting performance outcomes.
Social exchange theory
An economic model of interpersonal relationships that assumes individuals seek out relationships that offer them many rewards while exacting few costs
