CH 9 - Group Processes: Influence in Social Groups

Defining a Group

two or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence each other

Why do people join groups?

• number of benefits

  • important source of information

    • help us resolve ambiguity in the social world

  • important aspect of identity

    • help us define who we are

    • help us feel distinct from other groups

  • establishment of social norms

Social roles

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

• potential costs to social roles

  • if too focused on role, individual identities can get lost

    • Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison experiment

Group Cohesiveness

qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking between members

• the more cohesive, the more likely to

  • stay in the group

  • take part in group activities

  • try to recruit new like-minded members

Group Diversity

• group members tend to be alike in age, sex, beliefs, and opinions

  • attraction to and likely to recruit similar people

  • operate in ways that encourage similarity in the members

Cohesiveness and Group Diversity

homogenous groups are more cohesive

Performance and Group Diversity

diverse groups perform better

Social Facilitation

people do better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated

The presence of others can mean one of two things:

• performing a task with coworkers doing the same thing you are

• performing a task in front of an audience that only observes you

If the task is simple, well-learned

• the mere presence of others improves performance

• this phenomenon is found in humans as well as other species

When working on a more difficult task

• a task can take longer to solve when others are present than when performing alone

• people and animals do worse in the presence of others when the task is difficult

The presence of others increases physiological arousal

• when such arousal exists

  • it is easier to do something that is simple

  • it is harder to do something complex or learn something new

Three theories to explain the arousal and social facilitiation

• other people cause us to become particularly alert and vigilant

• other people make us apprehensive about how we’re being evaluated

• other people distract us from the task at hand

Other people cause us to become particularly alert and vigilant

because other people can be unpredictable, we are in a state of greater alertness in their presence

• causes mild arousal

Other people make us apprehensive about how we’re being evaluated

when other people can see how you are doing, you feel as though they are evaluating you

• causes mild arousal

Other people distract us from the task at hand

• divided attention produces arousal

• consistent with this interpretation, non social sources of distraction (flashing light), causes the same kinds of social facilitation effects as the presence of other people