People in groups Flashcards
Long Answer Q:
Reflecting on your group project, how did being in a group affect both your individual effort and that of your group members? Consider the following concepts as you answer
(i) The impact of group size on performance
(ii) Coordination loss
(iii) Motivation loss and
(iv) Social loafing
-As group size increases, individual effort decreases, as stated in the Ringelmann effect theory.
-As group size increases, social loafing also increases, however, as our group size was less than 4, everyone would have contributed to the total output.
-Output equity, evaluation apprehension, matching to standard.
-Co-ordination loss in groups: Distraction, having to think about others, working against each other!
-Motivation loss in groups: didn’t try as hard, thought someone else would do it, didn’t feel as responsible.
Long Answer Q (2):
Thinking again about your group project, what actions did you take to promote group cohesiveness and foster group socialization?
What factors can make us respond differently
-members of same species
-“co-actors” doing same thing but not interacting
-passive or unresponsive audience
What is a group?
-Turner 1982 definition:
-Brown 1988 definition:
-A group exists when two or more people define themselves as members of it and when its existence is recognised by at least one other
-The subjective sense of togetherness or longingness
How did Johnson & Johnson (1987) define the 7 features of a group?
A collection of two or more people who:
1. Interact one another
2. interact based on norms and roles
3. Influence
4. Independent in some way
5. Perceived belonging to group
6. Satisfying a need through their joint association
7. Achieve a goal together
What are some other features of groups?
LACSSS
-Large (nation) v small (class)
-Autocratic (police) v democratic (uni)
-Concentrated (crew) v Dispersed (FB)
-Short (class) v enduring (religion)
-Structured (army) v informal (club)
-Specific (protest) v general (gang)
How does being in a group effect perfromance?
-Having others present can improve performance of well-learned or easy tasks
-The presence of others can mean a worse performance of poorly learned or difficult tasks.
-Just a passive audience can improve or worsen performance
Social Facilitation:
Theory 1) Arousal: Drive Theory
-Zajonc (1965) Drive Theory says that the presence of others causes arousal that is instinctive ad happens automatically
-Arousal drives us to act
-If we think the act is easy, we do well / if we think it is hard, we perform worse
Presence of others –> Arousal –> Increase in performing dominant responses –> correct/incorrect –> Social facilitation / social inhibition
What is Evaluation Apprehnsion?
The physical presence of members of the same species causes arousal as people have learnt to be apprehensive about being evaluated.
Distraction - Conflict theory
What does it suggest?
-The physical presence of others is distracting because it produces conflict between attending to the task and attending to the audience
- An individual performing a task may be effected by the presence of an audience of co-actors, when there’s an attentional conflict one may pay attention to co-actors or task or have an increased arousal and therefore social facilitation effects
Explain:
-Ringelmann effect
-Co-ordination loss
-Motivation loss
-Ringelmann effect = as group size increases individual performance decreases
-Co-ordination loss = distraction, having to think about others, working against each other
-motivation loss = don’t try as hard, thought someone else would, don’t feel responsible
What is social loafing:
consider: output equity, evaluation apprehension, matching the standard
- Concept that explains reduced individual performance in groups compared with working alone.
Output equity - Belief that others will loaf and so loaf themselves to maintain equity (intergroup comparison)
Evaluation apprehension - Group provides sense of anonymity and so unmotivated persons can remain unidentifiable - Working as an identifiable individual causes apprehension of evaluation so we work harder (peer mark, personally allocated tasks)
Matching to standard - Loaf because we have no clear performance standard (test and exam)
What is group cohesiveness?
-Psychological process that emotionally binds people together as a group.
- Cohesive groups tend to like other group members more and are more likely to identify with the group and conform to its norms.
What is the general framework of social cohesion?
individual goal that can’t be satisfied independently –>
Aggregation of unrelated individuals –> mutual independence and cooperation –>
mutual goal satisfaction –>
perceive others as sources of reward –> interpersonal attraction = cohesiveness
What is Tuckerman’s linear model of group development
-FORMING (Orientation and familiarisation)
-STORMING (conflict stage)
-NORMING (Consensus & sense of common identity)
-Performing (works as unit)
-Adjourning (Groups dissolves)
