Chapter 8 Group Processes. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.8 | 2...

Chapter 8Group Processes

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 8 | 2

Individuals in Groups

The Presence of Others


What is a Group?

• A set of individuals who have at least one of the following characteristics:

– Direct interactions with each other over a period of time

– Joint membership in a social category based on sex, race, or other attributes

– A shared, common fate, identity, or set of goals


What Is a Collective?

• An assembly of people engaging in a common activity but having little direct interaction with each other.

– Not a real group

• Some social psychological processes are unique to real groups.

– However, others affect both groups and collectives


Social Facilitation:When Others Arouse Us

• How does the presence of others affect our behavior?

• Triplett’s (1897-1898) fishing reel studies.• Later research found conflicting findings.

– Sometimes the presence of others enhanced performance.

– At other times, performance declined.

• What was going on???


Figure 8.1: Social Facilitation: The Zajonc Solution


Why Does Social Facilitation Occur?

• Zajonc’s Mere Presence Theory• Evaluation Apprehension Theory

– Someone must be in position to evaluate performance.

– Stereotype threat revisited.


Why Does Social Facilitation Occur? (cont.)

• Distraction Conflict Theory– Attentional conflict between focusing on task and

inspecting the distracting stimulus creates arousal.– Maintains there is nothing uniquely social about

“social” facilitation.

• Which theory is correct?


People will cheer louder when they cheer as part of a group than when they cheer alone.

Answer: False… Let’s see why!

Putting Common Sense to the Test…


Social Loafing: When Others Relax Us

• Ringelmann (1880s): Individual output declines on pooled tasks.

• Social Loafing: A group-produced reduction in individual output on easy tasks in which contributions are pooled.


Figure 8.2: Social Loafing: When Many Produce Less

Adapted from Jackson & Williams, 1985; Sanna, 1992.


When Is Social Loafing Less Likely to Occur?

• People believe that their own performances can be identified and thus evaluated, by themselves or by others.

• The task is important or meaningful to those performing it.

• People believe that their own efforts are necessary for a successful outcome.


When Is Social Loafing Less Likely to Occur? (cont.)

• The group expects to be punished for poor performance.

• The group is small.• The group is cohesive.


Why Does Social Loafing Occur?

• Collective Effort Model: Individuals try hard on a collective task when they think their efforts will help them achieve outcomes they personally value.


Figure 8.3: Unifying the Paradigms: Presence and Evaluation

Adapted from Jackson & Williams, 1985; Sanna, 1992.


Deindividuation

• The loss of a person’s sense of individuality and the reduction of normal constraints against deviant behavior.

– A collective phenomenon that only occurs in the presence of others

• What can lead to deindividuation?


Environmental Cues

• Accountability cues affect the person’s cost-reward calculations.

• Attentional cues focus a person’s attention away from the self.


Figure 8.4: Deindividuationand Social Identity

From Johnsson, R.D., and Downing, L. L. (1979). "Deindividuation and valance of cues: Effects on prosocial and antisocial behavior."


Group Dynamics

Interacting with Others


Why Join a Group?

• We may have an innate need to belong to groups.

• Groups help us to accomplish things we cannot accomplish as individuals.

• Groups offer social status and identity.• We like the members and want to have the

opportunity to interact with them.


Table 8.1: Stages of Group Development


Group Roles

• People’s roles in a group can be formal or informal.

• Two fundamental types of roles:– An instrumental role to help the group achieve

its tasks– An expressive role to provide emotional support

and maintain morale


Group Norms

• Groups establish norms or rules of conduct for members.

• Norms may be either formal or informal.


Group Cohesiveness

• The forces exerted on a group that push its members closer together.

• Cohesiveness and group performance are causally related.

– But relationship is complex


Group members’ attitudes about a course of action usually become more moderate after group discussion.




Group Polarization

• Conflicting findings about the types of decisions groups make:

– Sometimes riskier, other times more cautious

• Group Polarization: The exaggeration through group discussion of initial tendencies in the thinking of group members.


What Creates Group Polarization?

• Persuasive arguments theory• Social comparison• Social categorization


Groupthink

• Excessive tendency to seek concurrence among group members.

• Emerges when the need for agreement takes priority over the motivation to obtain accurate information and make appropriate decisions.


Antecedents of Groupthink

• Highly cohesive groups• Group structure

– Homogeneous members– Isolation– Directive leadership– Unsystematic procedures

• Stressful situations


Symptoms of Groupthink

• Overestimation of the group• Closed-mindedness• Increased pressures toward uniformity

– Mindguards and pressures towards uniformity– Self-censorship– Illusion of unanimity


Consequences of Groupthink

• Defective decision making– Incomplete survey of alternatives– Incomplete survey of objectives– Failure to reappraise initially rejected alternatives– Poor information search– Selective bias in processing information at hand– Failure to work out contingency plans

• High probability of a bad decision


Figure 8.5: Charting the Course of Groupthink


Preventing Groupthink

• Avoid isolation by consulting widely with outsiders.

• Leaders should reduce conformity pressures.• Establish a strong norm of critical review.


Table 8.2: How Computerized Group Support Systems Help Groups Avoid Groupthink


Group Performance: Are More Heads Better than One?

• Additive Tasks: Groups usually outperform single individuals.

• Conjunctive Tasks: Group performance tends to be worse than the performance of a single, average individual.

• Disjunctive Tasks: Process loss can occur.


Setting Goals

• Better if group has specific, challenging, and reachable goals.

• Goals selected by groups tend to be less ambitious.

– But still typically perform better than groups without goals.

– As gain more experience, begin to set more challenging goals.


People brainstorming as a group come up with a greater number of better ideas than the same number of people working individually.




Brainstorming: Coming Up with Ideas

• A technique that attempts to increase the production of creative ideas by encouraging group members to speak freely without criticizing their own or others’ contributions.


Table 8.3: Brainstorming in Groups: Problems and Solutions


Table 8.3: Why Electronic Brainstorming is Effective


Biased Sampling and Communication

• On some tasks, simply sharing information is crucial for good performance.

• But all the information available to individual members may not be brought before the group.

– Biased sampling

• If inadequately informed, the group may make a bad decision.


When Is Biased SamplingLess Likely to Occur?

• When group members are aware that not everyone has access to the same information.

• Leaders encourage group participation.• At least two group members know the

uncommon information.


Figure 8.6: Sharing Information in a Group: The Role of Group Norms

From T. Postmes, R. Spears, and S. Cihagir, "Quality of Decision Making and Group Norms," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, 918-930, 2001. Copyright © 2001 by the

American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.


Groups are less likely than individuals to invest more and more resources in a project that is failing.




Escalation Effects

• Occurs when commitment to a failing course of action is increased to justify previous investments.

• Groups more likely to escalate commitment.– Also likely to do it in more extreme ways.


Information Processing

• How well do group members process information compared with individuals?

• Groups are also susceptible to information processing biases.

• Through transactive memory, groups remember information more efficiently than individuals.

– But process loss can still occur.


Diversity and Group Performance

• Diversity often associated with negative group dynamics.

– But diversity can have positive effects.

• Diversity can enhance a group’s performance if the group is integrated.


Cooperation,Competition, and Conflict


Social Dilemmas

• Situations in which a self-interested choice by everyone creates the worst outcome for everyone.

– What is good for one is bad for all.


Figure 8.7: The Prisoner’s Dilemma


Strategies Used When Facing Mixed-Motive Situations

• Tit-for-Tat• Win-Stay, Lose-Shift


Large groups are more likely than small groups to exploit a scarce resource that the members collectively depend on.

Answer: True… Let’s see why!



Resource Dilemmas

• Social dilemmas concerning how two or more people share a limited resource.

• Two types of resource dilemmas:– Commons dilemma (“take-some dilemma”)– Public goods dilemma


Table 8.4: Solving Social Dilemmas


Figure 8.8: Culture and the Prisoner's Dilemma


Table 8.5: Factors that Promote and Sustain the Escalation of Between-Group Conflict


Reducing Conflict: Through GRIT

• Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction (GRIT)

– A strategy for unilateral, persistent efforts to establish trust and cooperation between opposing parties.

• GRIT is a reciprocal, tit-for-tat strategy.


Negotiation

• Integrative agreement is a negotiated resolution where all parties obtain outcomes that are superior to a 50-50 split.

• Key elements in successful negotiating include:– Flexibility and strength– Communicating and trying to understand the point of

view of the other person


Table 8.6: Cultural Assumptions About Negotiating


Finding A Common Ground

• Recognition of a superordinate identity.• Superordinate goals can elicit cooperation by

appealing to people’s self-interest.– These goals can also produce a superordinate

identity.

Chapter 8 Group Processes. Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.8 | 2...

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