Week Three

Question 1

group definition

Answer 1

2 or more people who share a common definition and evaluation of themselves and behave in accordance with such a definition.

Question 2

entitavity

Answer 2

the property of a group that makes it seem like a coherent, distinct and unitary entity.

Question 3

aggregate

Answer 3

is just a group of people in a particular place who have nothing to do with each other.

Question 4

social ostracism

Answer 4

the effect of not being i a group.

Question 5

roles

Answer 5

patterns of behaviour that distinguish between different activities within the group and that interrelate to one another for the greater good of the group.

Question 6

status

Answer 6

consensual evaluation of the prestige of a role or role occupant in a group or the prestige of a group and its members as a whole.

Question 7

Fesinger’s comparison theory

Answer 7

states that usually we compete for roles, so if another person get it we usually hold them in a high regard.

Question 8

how a group functions

Answer 8

commitment increases from entry to acceptance and is highest when they are a full-member. then decreases with time as the member becomes marginal and eventually an ex-member.

SEE DIAGRAM IN NOTES

Question 9

Tuckman’s group development model

Answer 9

forming
- bringing individuals together.
storming
- conflict stage where there are resolved disagreements and status issues.
norming
- if storming is resolved, standards for interactions emerge members identify with the group to a greater degree.
performing
-members focus on group tasks, focus on decision making and producing output.
adjourning
- group disbands and de-identifies, stage of evaluation of task performance and friendships.

Question 10

joining and leaving groups

Answer 10

○ Development of groups with the 5 stage model.
○ Mild vs. severe initiation rights (those with extreme initiation rights often rate the group with higher interest due to cognitive dissonance).

Question 11

norms

Answer 11

○ Descriptive and prescriptive; explicit or implicit.
○ Norms are fairly resistant to change
○ Norms provide guidelines on how to behave as a typical group member.
○ Norms can continue to influence the individual even when the group is not present.
§ The group is carried in the head of an individual in the form of a norm.
Becomes a code as to how we should behave as the group norms are always in the back of our mind

Question 12

group cohesion

Answer 12

Relies on both personal and social attraction.

Question 13

social facilitation

Answer 13

○ Found that people did better on easy tasks when in the presence of other, however, did worse on difficult or uncommon tasks when in the presence of others.
○ Performing worse is called social inhibition.
○ Performing better is called social facilitation.
○ (Zajonc’s drive theory) : arousal drives energy to produce dominant response.
○ (Cottrell’s evaluation apprehension model): attentive others produce fear of evaluation.

Question 14

distraction-conflict theory

Answer 14

• It is also theorised that the reduced performance in the presence of others could be due to distraction: Baron’s distraction-conflict theory.

Question 15

self-awareness theory

Answer 15

the idea that there is a distinction between who we are and who we want to be.

Question 16

social loafing

Answer 16

• Ringelmann’s experiments featured the pulling of a rope to see how people worked together as a group.
  ○ Found that as the number of people pulling the role increased, each person’s exertion was reduced
  ○ People pulling in 8 person groups each exerted half the effort of a person pulling alone.
  
  • Ingham’s experiments ruled out coordination explanation.
  • Latane claimed tat motivation loss was equal to social loafing.
    ○ Social loafing- individuals work less hard because they believe others in the group are also working on the task.
    ○ A social loafer generally does some work while a free rider does nothing.

Question 17

to explain social loafing…

Answer 17

• To explain social loafing:
  ○ Output equity: the idea that you put in less effort because you don’t believe you should be doing all the work if others do nothing.
  ○ Evaluation apprehension: Fear of judgement, thus, others wont do as much work as they are scared it will be wrong/they will be judged etc.
  ○ Matching to standard: no explicit rule regarding the standard of work or how much work you should be doing.

Question 18

factors that influence social loafing

Answer 18

○ Anonymity- people are more likely to loaf if their identity is anonymous.
○ Involvement in task - people are less likely to loaf if they are interested/invested in the group/task.
○ Intergroup comparison- competition within the group can increase or decrease work.
○ Anticipated loafing of others- greater output by other members as they anticipate that some will loaf (I’ll do more work because I know the others wont).

Question 19

brainstorming

Answer 19

Brainstorming gives an illusion of success due to the sheer number of ideas given. However, is generally more ineffective in groups.
- Poor performance can be due to:
○ Evaluation apprehension
○ Social loafing
○ Production blocking: too many people thinking of the same ideas can be distracting etc.

Question 20

collective remembering

Answer 20

• Groups are better at remembering things together rather than as individuals.
  
  • This is due to consensus and recognition of true information.
  • Transactive memory (group members have a shared memory for who within the group remembers what and is the expert on what).

Question 21

group think

Answer 21

Desire for unanimity reduces rationality.

Question 22

group polarisation

Answer 22

• Stoner’s ‘risky shift’ research: group shifts to a more extreme and risky decision.
  
  • Group polarisation: more extreme post-discussion group decisions in the direction of the pre-discussion opinion.
  • Explanations
    ○ Persuasive arguments, social comparison.
    Self-categorisation: distinguish from outgroup.

Question 23

jury decision making

Answer 23

Factors which can influence juries:

- Physical appearance of defendants. 
- Race of accused 
- Harshness of penalties 
- Jury foreman 
- Age, gender, education, SES of jurors.

Question 24

high/low entitativity

Answer 24

• High entitavity groups have clear boundaries, and are internally well structured and homogenous.
  
  • Low entitavity groups have fuzzy boundaries and structure are relatively heterogeneous.
  • There are four different group types with decreasing entitativity;
    ○ Intimacy groups
    ○ Task groups
    ○ Social categories
    ○ Loose associations

Question 25

individualists and groups

Answer 25

Individualists believe that people in groups behave in much the same way as they do in pairs of by themselves and that group processes are nothing more than interpersonal processes between a number of people.

Question 26

collectivists in groups

Answer 26

Collectivists believe that the behaviour of people in groups is influenced by unique social processes and cognitive representations that can only occur in and emerge from groups.

Question 27

drive theory

Answer 27

Zajonc’s theory that the physical presence of members of the same species instinctively causes arousal that motivates performance of habitual behaviour patters.

Question 28

evaluation apprehension

Answer 28

the argument that the mere presence of someone of the same species causes drive as people have learned to be apprehensive of evaluation.
- The evaluation apprehensions model argues that we quickly learn that the social rewards and punishments we receive are based on others’ evaluations of us.

Question 29

social impact

Answer 29

the effect that other people have on our attitudes and behaviour, usually as a consequence of factors such as group size and temporal and physical immediacy.

Question 30

social compensation

Answer 30

Increased effort on a collective task to compensate for other group members actual, perceived or anticipated lack of effort or ability.

Question 31

personal attraction

Answer 31

liking for someone based on idiosyncratic preferences and interpersonal relationships.

Question 32

social attraction

Answer 32

liking for someone based on a common group membership and determined by the person’s protypicality of the group.

Question 33

group socialisation

Answer 33

dynamic relationship between the groups and its members that describes that passage of members through a group in terms of commitment and of changing roles.

Question 34

basic processes of group socialisation

Answer 34

○ Evaluation: an ongoing comparison by individuals of the past, present and future rewards of the groups with rewards of alternative relationships. (i.e. is this group going to be better than another would be).
○ Evaluation affects commitment (commitment disequilibrium): where the individual is committed to the group but the group is not committed to the individual or vice versa.
○ Role transition: discontinuities in the role relationship between the individual and the group.

Question 35

types of roles

Answer 35

○ Non-member: includes prospective members, ex-members or those who haven’t joined.
○ Quasi-member: includes new members who haven’t attained full membership yet or marginal members who have lost their status.
○ Full member: those who are identified with the group and who have the privileges and responsibilities associated w group membership.

Question 36

ethnomethodology

Answer 36

method devised by Garfinkel, involving the violation of hidden norms to reveal their presence.

Question 37

difference between norms and roles

Answer 37

• Roles are like norms in that they describe and prescribe behaviour.
  
  • Norms apply to the group as a whole while roles apply to a subgroup of people.

Question 38

roles

Answer 38

patterns of behaviour that distinguish between different activities within the group, and that interrelate to one another for the greater good of the group.

Question 39

transactive memory

Answer 39

shared memory for who in the group remembers what and is the expert on what.

Question 40

group mind

Answer 40

people adopt a qualitatively different mode of thinking when in a group.