Structure

Question 1

What are the four types of norms?

Answer 1

Prescriptive norms
Proscriptive norms
Descriptive norms
Injunctive norms

Question 2

What are prescriptive norms? What are examples?

Answer 2

what people should do
(can be descriptive or injunctive)

Turn Signals (specific), Be kind (general)

Question 3

What are proscriptive norms?

Answer 3

what people should refrain from doing
(can be descriptive or injunctive)

Question 4

What are descriptive norms?

Answer 4

what most people actually do; this does not necessarily lead to a value judgment.
No evaluation of behaviour; it just is what it is

Studies: People often follow descriptive norms: do what others do.

Question 5

What are injunctive norms?

Answer 5

what people ought to do or refrain from doing (or else!); this does have evaluative consequences.

i.e.: Judging someone for not signalling
Moral component

Question 6

What is internalization of norms?

Answer 6

When norms are internalized, people follow them even when nobody is watching.
When people violate internalized norms, they experience distress.

Question 7

What was a famous study regarding internalized norms?

Answer 7

Milgram story:
Go on a subway and violate a norm:
ask them for their seat. This caused a lot of stress for students to violate the norm.
Some people gave their seats up.
Milgram asks a guy for his seat: he feels physically ILL, not simply guilty. Asks the guy, and he gives up his seat.
Looking visibly sick = has an excuse.

Question 8

Social tuning is the process by which people…(fill in blank).
What does this relate to?

Answer 8

…adjust their behaviours to align with those around them.

relates to the development of social norms

Question 9

What is Sherif’s 1936 study of the autokinetic effect? What were the results?

Answer 9

looked at people judging the movement of a tiny light in a darkened room

When people made these judgments alone, different people made very different judgments from each other.

When people made these judgments publicly in groups of three, estimates tended to converge over time.

If they then made more judgments individually afterwards, their judgments remained close to the group norm.

Once these norms were created, gradual turnover would not cause the norm to change even if everyone from the original group eventually left.

Typically, estimates converge around 3-4 inches.
Can RIG it with a Confederate who consistently says 7 inches, people eventually converge on 7.
You can even change the group members out individually; “norm” of 7 inches will still be the same.

Question 10

What is the Sherif 1936 study often cited as an example of? What does it relate to?

Answer 10

The autokinetic effect is often cited as an example of informational social influence

relates to the development of norms

Question 11

Children as young as __ are sensitive to norms and are __________ to people who violate norms.

Answer 11

3

hostile

Question 12

Sometimes norms are misperceived due to what? Explain. What’s an example of this?

Answer 12

pluralistic ignorance

When members of a group privately vary in outlook and expectations, but publicly they all act similarly because they believe that they are the only ones whose personal views are different from the rest of the group.

For example, many university students think other university students are more tolerant of binge drinking than they themselves are, with unfortunate consequences (especially if the misperceived norm is then internalized).

Question 13

What tends to spread through social networks like a contagious disease? Why does this occur? What else does this happen with?

Answer 13

Obesity tends to spread through social networks, almost like a contagious disease.

This seems to occur due to the spread of norms surrounding lifestyle.

Similar things can happen for eating disorders.

Question 14

Why might special programs for at-risk youth be counterproductive? What can have the opposite effect?

Answer 14

because they foster the spread of dysfunctional norms

Support groups that encourage healthy behaviours can have the opposite effect.

Question 15

What is a role?

Answer 15

The role is a set of expectations for certain group members, held both by the group and the members themselves.

Question 16

Role structures can be what two types? How are they developed?

Answer 16

Role structures can be either formal or informal and may either be mandated from outside or developed internally.

Question 17

Roles tend to do what over time?

Answer 17

differentiate

Question 18

What is role differentiation?

Answer 18

An increase in the number of roles in a group, accompanied by a gradual decrease in the scope of these roles as each one becomes more narrowly defined and specialized.

Question 19

What are the two broad categories of roles? Are these two types of roles held by the same person?

Answer 19

Task roles (focus on helping carry out one or more of the groups tasks) or relationship roles (focus on helping improve relationships within the group)

Often (but not always) task and relationship roles are held by separate people.

Question 20

What do relationship roles depend on?

Answer 20

communication and respect

Question 21

What are the four types of role theories?

Answer 21

Functional role theories
Interactionist theories
Dynamic role theories
Bale’s SYMLOG Model

Question 22

What are functional role theories? Who developed this theory?

Answer 22

assert that certain things need to be done for a group to function effectively, and role differentiation is a way of ensuring that those things actually do get done

Roles need to be filled; we know what roles must be filled.
People have some sense of what roles need to be filled.

Benne and Sheats, 1948

Question 23

What are interactionist theories (regarding roles)? What is this compatible with?

Answer 23

agree that group members are aware that certain roles need to be fulfilled for the group to function but also assert that interpersonal interactions result in continual negotiation and modification of roles.

This appears to be compatible with Erving Goffman’s dramaturgical perspective, in which people are very focused on their own self-presentation.

We interact with others; we put on a show. Different Theatre = Different Show.
Depending on who we are with, our roles differ: with your besties versus your professors.
Roles emerge as we present ourselves and others present themselves to us.

Question 24

What are dynamic role theories?

Answer 24

follow the work of Sigmund Freud (yes, him) in claiming that transference-like processes play a big role in the creation of groups because people are unconsciously trying to recreate their families when they start forming a new group.

Question 25

What is Bale’s SYMLOG Model?

Answer 25

in addition to differentiating task and relationship roles, Bales also recognized three other dimensions.
Dominance versus submissiveness
Friendliness versus unfriendliness
Acceptance or nonacceptance of task-oriented authority

Question 26

What are two types of role stress?

Answer 26

role ambiguity
role conflict

Question 27

What is role ambiguity?

Answer 27

When roles are weakly or ambiguously defined, holders of roles may experience an unpleasant state called role ambiguity.

Question 28

What are the three types of role conflict? When do they occur? Examples?

Answer 28

Interrole conflict occurs when a single person has two or more roles whose demands are not compatible.
Professor and Parent = more schoolwork lead to less time for family: performing substandard as a parent.

Intrarole conflict occurs when requirements of a single role conflict with each other.
Various aspects of role conflict with each other
Professor Role: Evaluator interferes with a role as teacher.

Person-role conflict occurs when the person is a poor fit for the role
(e.g. a highly agreeable person take on a supervisory role and must act as a disciplinarian).

Question 29

What consequences does role stress have? What can help this?

Answer 29

negative psychological and organizational consequences, including tension, conflict, absenteeism, and turnover

Explicit guidance from the organization may help. (e.g., job descriptions, syllabuses)

Question 30

What is status differentiation?

Answer 30

The gradual rise of some group members to positions of greater authority, accompanied by decreases in the authority exercised by other members.

Although people in the abstract tend to prefer egalitarian structures, in practice they often feel more comfortable when some higher status individuals (a leader or group) are giving some direction and the overall group structure is hierarchical.

Question 31

Who is more likely to rise in status in a group (status differentiation)?

Answer 31

This is not simple to predict but extraverts are more likely to rise in status than introverts.

People with special skills relevant to the group’s tasks are also likely to acquire high status.

Question 32

What is sociometric differentiation? What does it relate to?

Answer 32

The development of stronger and more positive interpersonal ties between some members of the group, accompanied by decreases in the quality of relations between other members of the group.

relates to popularity; some individuals are well liked by most or all (stars) whereas others are liked by few or none (outcasts)

Question 33

What are the three common motivators of attraction?

Answer 33

Reciprocity is common; that is, if person A likes person B, person B probably likes person A.

Transitivity is also common. If person A likes person B and person B likes person C, then A probably likes C as well.

Homophily we have already talked about; similar people are more likely to like each other than dissimilar people.

Question 34

Larger groups often break into what? How does this relate to attraction?

Answer 34

Groups often break up into smaller cliques, in which the members of the clique like each other a lot but others may not like any of them very much.

Question 35

What is Balance Theory? Whose theory is this?

Answer 35

Heider

Groups are considered balanced if either all members like each other or there are an even number of negative relationships.
1. ABC all like each other
2. A doesn’t like C = Unbalanced
3. A doesn’t like BC = Balanced (B and C are doing just fine, stable group)

Question 36

What are the three types of communication networks?

Answer 36

comcon - If everyone does communicate with everyone else (more likely in small groups)

central patterns - a single individual (or small group) communicates with virtually everyone. This person or small group is the hub and tends to engage in very intense information processing.

decentralized patterns - everyone has roughly the same number of people with whom they communicate. Organization is more diffuse.

Question 37

Early work suggested which type of communication network outperformed another? What does later work say about this?

Answer 37

Early work suggested that centralized networks outperformed decentralized networks, but later works suggests that that breaks down as the task becomes more complex and the amount of information being transmitted is too much for any one person to process.

Question 38

What type of communication network does not work as groups get larger? What becomes essential?

Answer 38

decentralized

Hierarchical organization becomes essential.

Question 39

What happens to communication in hierarchies?

Answer 39

People lower in the hierarchy send shorter and more guarded messages up the hierarchy than those at the top send down. This can lead to problems (e.g. the leader is sometimes the last one to hear bad news).

Question 40

What is social network analysis? How does it work?

Answer 40

a technique that attempts to make the structure of groups more explicitly understood.
The focus is on linkages among group members. These are explicitly measured, then represented on graphics. Mathematical and statistical procedures are used to analyze them.

Question 41

Why is social network analysis necessary?

Answer 41

Though people are often somewhat aware of how social relations are structured in their groups, they are often fuzzy or wrong on the details. Even if they are not, they probably do not have a good overview.

Question 42

What can social network analysis look at? What are these levels called?

Answer 42

SNA can look both at the relations of individuals within the group, and at the overall structure of the group.

egocentric network - information about each member of the network

sociocentric network - insights into the group as a whole

Question 43

What are the four variables that egocentric networks can be analyzed for?

Answer 43

Degree centrality: the number of ties with others.

Outdegree (I like you, you don’t like me) and indegree centrality (I don’t like you, you like me) refer to one-way relationships.

Betweenness is not the same as centrality; it refers to things like forming a bridge between cliques (i.e. people from one clique who want to communicate with someone from another clique may have to go through this individual).

Closeness: how many links are needed to reach a given other person.

Question 44

What are the three variables that group-level network indices look at?

Answer 44

Density has a maximum value of 1 if everyone is connected to everyone else, lower otherwise.

Cliques are self-explanatory.

Holes are the gaps between cliques.