Social Facilitation/Social Loafing

Question 1

What is the definition of social psychology?

Answer 1

“The scientific study of the reciprocal influence of the individual beliefs, attitudes, perceptions and emotions and his or her social environment.”

Question 2

What does the Cuban cigar case tell us about the intuitions of social science?

Answer 2

It is not clear which intuition is best supported by the data

Question 3

Define co-participants.

Answer 3

Actors participating individually on a non-competitive activity

Question 4

Define social facilitation before and now.

Answer 4

Social Facilitation: (1) Original meaning: the tendency of people to perform simple or well-learned tasks better when others are present. (2) Current meaning: the strengthening of dominant (prevalent, likely) responses in the presence of others and the decrease in performance in non-dominant responses.

Question 5

What did Triplett find out about social facilitation?

Answer 5

He found that children wound up their rods faster when there were other children around. There were contradictory results later.

Question 6

What did Robert Zajonc find out about social facilitation?

Answer 6

The presence of others increases arousal (which is something that is physiologically measurable, i.e. heart-rate, sweating palms, etc.). Therefore arousal increases the dominant response (the response that comes most easily/most practiced).

Question 7

What was Robert’s experiment with cockroaches?

Answer 7

Gave cockroaches two clear mazes (easy vs hard). The second condition was that he either placed other cockroaches outside the maze, or had no cockroaches watching. They ran through the easy mase faster when there was an audience, and ran through the hard maze more slowly when there was an audience.

Question 8

What was Cottrell’s theory on social facilitation?

Answer 8

He argued that for humans, there is an evaluation-apprehension component. Human performance is enhanced/decreased ONLY if the audience is fit to evaluate the performance. A boss vs a kid evaluating your work. Study: 3 conditions (working on the task alone, with other people, and other people wearing blindfolds). He found that less social facilitation occurred when people were wearing blindfolds.

Question 9

What was Baron’s theory on social facilitation?

Answer 9

He argued for distraction-conflict, if we’re distracted, that increases arousal and so the dominant response will increase. There is nothing social about it, if someone is mowing the lawn outside we will show increased performance on easy tasks.

Question 10

What did animals disprove about social facilitation that contradicted Cottrell?

Answer 10

The dominant response was documented in animals too who are likely not conscious of evaluation.

Question 11

Define social loafing.

Answer 11

The tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable.

Question 12

How did a simple game of tug-of-war show the presence of social loafing? (Ringleman)

Answer 12

Tested cleverly in a tug-of-war game where a participant was made to think they were pulling in a team, those that were told this exerted 18% less effort than when they pulled alone.

Question 13

Define “Free Riders”.

Answer 13

People who benefit from the group but give nothing in return

Question 14

What does the Soviet Union teach us about social loafing?

Answer 14

When individual production is observed, output increases (interesting ties to the decrease in agricultural production in the Soviet Union vs equivalent area of private land)

Question 15

How does the difficulty of the task affect social loafing?

Answer 15

When the task is challenging, appealing and involving enough, social loafing decreases (Olympic rowing team), adding incentives, or getting a team to strive for a common goal, increases participation

Question 16

What are the two explanations for the existence for social loafing?

Answer 16

1. Groups are less coordinated than the sum of individuals

2. People try less hard in groups

Question 17

How did Latane deduce which explanation for social loafing was the correct one?

Answer 17

Latane convinced subjects that other people were in the room with them when in reality there were none. When people were alone they screamed louder than when they believed that they were with others (decibels went down to 72% of the original output with 5 other people), down to 84% when there was one other person

Question 18

What reduces social loafing (6)?

Answer 18

1. identifiability
2. importance of task
3. own efforts necessary for successful outcome
4. threat of punishment for poor performance
5. small group
6. group cohesiveness (group of friends)

Question 19

What is the collective effort model? (Karau and Williams)

Answer 19

Effort is exhausting but success is desired. People seek to optimize the ratio between their input and the groups output. (i.e. People are not entirely lazy and not entirely concerned with top performance – seek optimal balance).

Question 20

Define social compensation.

Answer 20

The increasing effort from the baseline to make up for incompetent teammates. Karau and Williams found that social compensation happens in collective tasks when teammate says they are not going to try hard. Social loafing happens when the confederate says they’re going to try really hard.

Question 21

Plaks and Williams finding on gender stereotypes and social loafing.

Answer 21

When the collective math task was given, a girl confederate resulted in social compensation, a boy confederate resulted in social loafing.

Question 22

Define physical anonymity and Zimbardo’s experiment.

Answer 22

Philip Zimbardo (here he is again), tested the effect of covering one’s face on their moral actions and found that women who wore face covering white coats held a button that delivered an electric shock to someone for twice as long as those who wore name tags and didn’t have the frock

Question 23

How do groups affect risk-taking behaviour? (Founded by Stoner)

Answer 23

Group-produced enhancement of members’ preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the members’ average tendency, not a split within the group

Question 24

Define the risky-shift phenomenon.

Answer 24

Surprisingly, most people tend to be more extreme or take riskier decisions when they’re in groups (contrary to the original hypothesis)

Question 25

Define group polarization effect. (Moscovici et al.)

Answer 25

The group polarization hypothesis predicts that discussion will strengthen an attitude shared by group members whether risky or conservative.

Question 26

Define accentuation.

Answer 26

Spending more time with people with certain characteristics (i.e., high intellectual ability), will accentuate those features in you over time

Question 27

Why does group polarization happen (3)?

Answer 27

1. Greater number of arguments in favor of one position.
2. Informational influence may solidify ideas that used to be vague.
3. Social categorization: Clear boundaries drawn between ingroup and outgroup. May posit ourselves against another group

Question 28

Define groupthink.

Answer 28

“The mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.”—Irving Janis (1971)

Question 29

Define social comparison.

Answer 29

Evaluating one’s opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others.

Question 30

Define pluralistic ignorance.

Answer 30

A false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they respond (often in our favor, we like to think that we are different somehow, this is the self-serving bias?)

Question 31

Why is Bay of Pigs an example of group think.

Answer 31

The military unit sent to Cuba to deter Castro. Huge humiliation to the US. Rather than dissent, groups tend to prefer actions that lead to harmony, despite potential bad outcomes

Question 32

Why is the Cuban Missile Crisis an example of groupthink in a way we may not expect?

Answer 32

JFK quieted the situation by bringing both countries back from war because they

Question 33

What is bad groupthink facilitated by (5)?

Answer 33

1. very cohesive groups
2. isolation from alternative viewpoints
3. leader who signals decisions that they favor
4. situation of high stress
5. no systemic decision-making process

Question 34

What are the symptoms of group think (7)?

Answer 34

1. illusion of invulnerability
2. collective efforts to rationalize
   unquestioned belief in group’s inherent morality
3. stereotyped view of enemy leaders as weak or stupid
4. direct pressure on dissenters to comply with the group
5. self-censorship of deviations from group consensus
6. shared illusions of unanimity (“pluralistic ignorance”!)
7. emergence of self-appointed “mind guards” to screen the group from adverse information

Question 35

Provide examples of good group think (4)?

Answer 35

1. Thinking in groups can actually be beneficial, typically if 2/6 people come up with the correct answer on their own, they’re able to convince the rest 4/6
2. Tricky logic problems are better solved in a group of 3+
3. Eyewitness accounts are also more accurate in groups
4. More and more papers are authored by multiple people “team-think”

Question 36

Define additive tasks. (charity)

Answer 36

product is sum of all members’ contributions (e.g., contributing to United Way campaign). Result: teams > individuals

Question 37

Define conjunctive tasks.

Answer 37

product is determined by individual with worst performance (e.g., mountain climbing team). Result: individuals > teams

Question 38

Define the disjunctive tasks. (think tank teams)

Answer 38

product is determined by individual with best performance (e.g., group needs to generate one brilliant idea). Result: no clear advantage

Question 39

Define production blocking.

Answer 39

Where an individual forgets an idea because the other person is speaking

Question 40

Why is brainstorming better solo?

Answer 40

1. production blocking

2. People are less likely to voice some “odd” opinions

Question 41

What makes a minority more effective?

Answer 41

1. Consistency: it is important to stick to your opinions no matter how much ridicule they get or how much others dislike the fact that you’re disrupting harmony
2. Self-Confidence: physically occupying a lot of space or the main place at the table (for example), gives opponents self-doubt, minorities are more persuasive with attitude rather than facts
3. Defections from the Majority: any consistency from a minority dissolves unanimity which may encourage opposition to deviate from their views or even agree with the minority
4. Newcoming members are more likely to persuade as they are immediately given more attention and more likely to convince old-timers to dissent

Question 42

Name the type of leadership and explain them.

Answer 42

Task leadership: Leadership that organizes work, sets standards, and focuses on goals. (good directive style)

Social leadership: leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support. (good democratic style - delegation)

Transformational leadership: Leadership that, enabled by a leader’s vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence.