Small group processes Flashcards
What are reasons why a group may exist?
Belonging, information, rewards, goals
What is group cohesiveness?
a sense of ‘team spirit’, perceiving things in common with other group members, attraction to the group as a whole; a group that is more cohesive is more likely to stay together
What is an example of collective influence within a group?
Social loafing and social facilitation
What is an example of collective influence between groups?
Group polarisation, minority influence
How can social facilitation help to improve group performance? (Triplett’s research)
Found that cyclists rode faster when they raced together than when they raced against a clock.
The mere presence of others improved speed and accuracy of simple motor task and performance
Social facilitation also occurs within animals e.g. chickens eat more grain
How can social facilitation hinder group performance?
Parakeets were found to learn mazes slower in the presence of others and humans were found to be slower at performing complex maths problems
What is the updated social facilitation theory (Zajnoc)?
Increased arousal enhances performance on easy, unambiguous tasks
Increased arousal promotes incorrect responses for complex, ambiguous tasks
What is social loafing and why is it a problem for collective settings?
Tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool efforts towards a common goal compared to when they are individually accountable. Responsibility can be diffused across group members leading to little in return for effort as there are none or less identifiable individual outputs.
How does social loafing differ across cultures?
Collectivist cultures exhibit less social loafing than those in individualistic cultures as there is a bigger loyalty to the group and the success of the group is as important as individual success so these measures are less likely to be influenced by social loafing.
What is group polarisation?
A principle that helps to explain both good and bad outcomes of small group dynamics as an ingroup discussion typically enhances group members’ initial learnings and average inclination of group members
Why is the accentuation effect an issue in the context of schools and colleges?
Over time, initial differences amongst students become accentuated; the gaps widen both educationally and socially causing a larger divide
What did Cehajic-Clancy et al (2024) find about conflict reconciliation in post war countries?
They found that context-level intergroup contact is the strongest predictor of reconciliation. Where you live is a better predictor than how frequently you interact with others for reconciliation- living in a place where conflicted members interact more leads to being more supportive with them
What is gang delinquency and how can it link to crime rate?
Sharing of attributes and hostilities about certain subgroups within the community, leading to possible amplification of their tendencies and incr power as a group
How can group polarisation be applied to identity on the internet?
Lack of visual cues and an increase in anoymity leads to raised group polarisation inc fake news, misinformation and conspiracy theories. Likelihood of info being repeated is high if it comes from a credible source or repeated by ingroup members. Online interactions on shared experiences and injustices tends to lead to the formation of novel group identities and emergence of anon online leaders during social movements
What are reasons for why groups polarise (adopt stances that are more exaggerated than those of an average member)?
Informational influence- during a discussion, results from accepting evidence from others that is considered to be a reliable and credible source, as well as accurate evidence about the truth
Normative influence- how members view themselves as well as other group members resulting from a desire to be accepted by in groups, conforming to expectations of others.
