Chapter 12: Groups

Group

3 or more people who interact & are interdependent in that their needs & goals cause them to influence each other

Minimal group paradigm

Arbitrary and meaningless preferences or features can lead people to feel a part of a group

Social facilitation

Mere presence of others can enhance performance

Social inhibition

Mere presence of others disrupts/hinders performance (harder tasks)

Evaluation apprehension

Concern for how others are viewing us

Mere presence

Signals need for alertness/attention

Distraction-conflict hypothesis

Conflict from attention to others vs. the task overloads us & produces arousal

Social loafing

Tendency to exert less effort when pooling contributions to a common goal than when they are individually accountable

Conscientious team

Oriented towards completing goals, solving problems

Agreeable team

Maintains social harmony, reduce internal competition

Extraverted team

Brings members together, seek help when needed

Emotionally stable team

Provides calm, balanced, and interpersonal support

Open to experience team

Adaptable in novel or complex situations

Informational diversity

Dif knowledge bases & perspectives (edu background, work experience)

Social category diversity

Dif social groups (race, ethnicity, gender)

Value diversity

Differ in how they see group’s aims & missions

Group polarization

Group-produced enhancement of members’ preexisting opinions & tendencies

Deindividuation

Loss of one’s personal identity in a group, leading to behavior inconsistent with normal values & abandoning restraint

Groupthink

Deterioration of judgment produced by striving for consensus