social psych ch. 9 - Group Processes

Group

two or more ppl in an interdependent relationship that fulfills needs or achieves goals

social roles

shared expectations in a group about how particular people are supposed to behave

people will take on ___ based on personal goals, personality, and group identity

Standford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo)

showed the influence of social roles on behavior and thought

- participants' role played in the manner they thought was expected of them

** most people cannot resist the social influence in powerful situations and can perform acts we thought we were incapable of

***when people get into a role, they do their best based on their expectations(what they think is the right thing to do) THUS they start believing it's the right thing to do

Problems with the Stanford Prison Experiment (Le Texier)

1. Guard "Training": ps were told how to act, including to "maintain order", "be tough"

2. Demand Characteristics: the guards knew what results were expected and acted in ways that would help the experiment succeed

3. Unrealistic Situation: lack of realism, since ps knew it was an experiment and could have left anytime--results don't generalize to real world prison experiments

4. Prewritten, non-academic conclusions: Conclusions were written in advance to support the hypothesis -- lots of bias in the study

Group Cohesiveness

the qualities of a group that bind members together to promote mutual liking

social facilitation

improved individual performance when in the presence of other people - presence of others causes arousal which facilitates a dominant response. presence of others improves performance on easy tasks and worsens performance on difficult tasks

easy (for you) tasks

dominant response is success (social facilitation)

difficult (for you) tasks

dominant response is failure (social facilitation)

evaluation apprehension

concern about being judged in the presence of others, and trying to avoid embarrassment

process loss

any aspect of a group interaction that inhibits good problem-solving

caused by:

- not trying hard enough to ask the most competent members

- communication problems within a group

- one person dominating the conversation

transactive memory

the combined memory of a group that is more efficient than the memory of the individual members

groupthink

a kind of decision process in which maintaining group cohesiveness and solidarity is more important than considering the facts in a realistic manner

MORE LIKELY WHEN GROUP IS:

- highly cohesive

- isolated from contrary opinions

- ruled by a directive leader

- high stress: members perceive threats to the group

- poor decision-making procedures

risky shift

Groups make riskier decisions than individuals do; a form of group polarization and opposite to cautious shift

group polarization

the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of their members

caused by: persuasive arguments and social comparison

Great Person Theory

the idea that certain key personality traits make a person a good leader, regardless of the situation

BUT reality is that few personality traits correlate strongly with leadership effectiveness

transactional leaders

leaders who set clear, short-term goals and reward people who meet them

transformational leaders

leaders who inspire followers to focus on common, long goals

adopt both transactional and transformational styles

most effective leaders will…

Contingency Theory of Leadership

Leadership effectiveness depends both on how task-oriented or relationship-oriented the leader is and on the amount of control and influence the leader has over the group

two kinds of leaders:

1) task-oriented leaders

2) relationship-oriented leaders

task-oriented leaders

leaders who are more concerned with getting the job done than with worker's feelings and relationships

** do well in HIGH control work situations(leader is perceived as powerful and work needing to be done is well structured/defined) & LOW control work situations(leader is not percived as powerful and work needing to be done is NOT clearly defined)

relationship-oriented leaders

leaders who are more concerned more with workers' feelings and relationships

** do well in moderate control work situations, where the wheels are turning smoothly, but important work still needs to be done

Gender and Leadership

good leaders are believed to have "agentic traits": assertive, controlling, dominant, independent == associated with MEN

BUT women are expected to be more "communal": concerned with the wellfare of others, warm, helpful

**THUS women are often thought to be better at managing crises, particularly ones involving interpersonal conflicts == more likely to be put in positions where cries and risk of failure is high

social dilemma

a conflict in which the most beneficial action for an individual will, if chosen by most people, have harmful effects on everyone

Prisoner's Dilemma

a particular "game" between two captured prisoners that illustrates why cooperation is difficult to maintain even when it is mutually beneficial

**dilemma is that both players may come to think selfishly, resulting in both sides losing

BEST SOLUTION == people must trust each other and stay silent

tit-for-tat strategy

first acting cooperatively, but then always responding in the way your opponent did in the previous trial === communicates a willingness to cooperate and an unwillingness to sit back and be exploited if the partner is selfish

**often successful in getting the other person to respond with a trusting response

negotiation

A form of communication between opposing sides in a conflict in which offers and counteroffers are made and a solution occurs only when both parties agree

integrative solution

a solution to a conflict whereby the parties make trade-offs on issues, with each side conceding the most on issues that are unimportant to it but important to the other side

social loafing

the tendency for people to relax when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance cannot be evaluated

people will do WORSE on simple tasks that they dont care about and BETTER on complex tasks that are important to them

worse, better

in social loafing, people will do ____ on simple tasks that they don’t care about and ____ better on complex tasks that are important to them

western men

gender & culture more likely to engage in social loafing

performance can be evaluated

The presence of others will make you aroused == SOCIAL FACILITATION

**you will do better on simple tasks but worse on complex tasks

performance cannot be evaluated..

you will be relaxed == SOCIAL LOAFING

** you will do worse on simple tasks you don't care about but better on complex tasks you care about

Deindividuation

the loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people can't be identified (such as when they are in a crowd), makes people feel less accountable

ex. anonymous online forums

transactive memory

combined memory of a group that is more efficient than the memory of the individual members

1. high cohesiveness

2. isolation

3. directive leader

4. members in high stress

5. poor decision-making procedures

preconditions for groupthink

1. impartial leader

2. seek outside options

3. create subgroups

4. seek anonymous opinion

preventing groupthink

mere presence

conspecifics (same species) create arousal

distraction

presence of others causes attentional conflicts and cognitive overload that affect performance

Ringelmann & Social Loafing

used people to see how much effort people will put in when told to "pull as hard as you can"

found that as the number of people increased, the amount of "work done" decreased due to coordination loss

coordination loss

productivity decreases due to imperfectly coordinated effort

Myers and Bishop

example of group polarization

Pretest: Assessed HS students individually on prejudice

Divided into high (upper 1/3) and low (lower 1/3) prejudice groups (IV)

Give each group the same questions to discuss, then give an individual response

Found that the individuals were left even more prejudiced than before after talking in a group

informational and normative social influence

What are the two types of social influence involved in group polarization?

harvesting dilemma

Do you exploit a shared resource or preserve? (ex. Fish, timber)

issue: resource is FINITE and competition is present.

if everyone decides to catch as many fish as they can, it results in exhaustion of resources == everyone is hurt

contributions dilemma

do you neglect?

resource is free to you, but you must contribute to maintain it; otherwise resource will vanish