Soc 340 (Group Process) Flashcards
What defines a group in social psychology?
Two or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence each other.
Why do people join groups?
Groups provide:
* important sources of information
* help define identity
* help us feel distinct
* establish social norms.
What are social roles and their potential costs?
Social roles are shared expectations in a group about how particular people are supposed to behave. The potential cost is that individual identities and personalities can get lost when people become enmeshed in their roles.
What did Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment demonstrate about social roles?
When randomly assigned to roles as prisoners or guards, participants assumed these roles so completely that the experiment had to be terminated early due to the guards’ abusive behavior and the prisoners’ distress.
What is group cohesiveness and how does it affect group behavior?
Qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking. Members of cohesive groups are more likely to stay in the group, participate in activities, and recruit like-minded members.
What is social facilitation?
People do better on simple, well-learned tasks and worse on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated.
How does Zajonc explain social facilitation?
The presence of others increases physiological arousal, making it easier to perform simple tasks but harder to perform complex tasks or learn something new.
What are three theories explaining why the presence of others causes arousal?
1) Others make us alert and vigilant
2) Others make us apprehensive about evaluation
3) Others distract us from the task at hand.
What is social loafing?
People exert less effort on a task when working in a group where individual contributions cannot be identified or evaluated.
How does gender affect social loafing?
Social loafing is more common among men than women. Women tend to be higher in relational interdependence, focusing more on personal relationships, which may make them less likely to loaf in groups.
How does culture affect social loafing?
The tendency to loaf is stronger in Western cultures than in Asian cultures, possibly because Asian cultures emphasize an interdependent self-concept.
What is deindividuation?
The loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people cannot be differentiated (as in a crowd), leading to an increase in impulsive and sometimes deviant acts.
Why does deindividuation lead to impulsive or violent acts?
It makes people feel less accountable for their actions and increases obedience to group norms (which may be positive or negative depending on the group).
How does deindividuation manifest in online environments?
Anonymity online can make people feel less inhibited, sometimes leading to trolling and uncivil behavior, though it can also allow for freer discussion of difficult topics.
What is process loss in group decision making?
Any aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving, such as failure to share unique information.
What problem frequently occurs in group decision making?
Groups tend to focus on information that all members already know and ignore facts known to only some members of the group, limiting the advantage of having diverse perspectives.
