PSCL 315 Chapter 12: Groups & Motivation

What is a group?

• Group: a collection of individuals who have relations to one another that make them interdependent to some significant degree

  • Different groups have varying degrees of interdependence → degrees of “groupness”

    • Smaller communities with people who interact more and are more directly dependent on one another are considered to be higher  on their degree of groupness

What are the three components to Zajonc’s Theory?

1. The mere presence of others makes us more aroused

   1. People are unpredictable stimuli therefore we need to be alert in their presence so we can react to what they might do

2. arousal tends to make us more rigid and narrowly focused

3. the increase in dominant response tendencies facilitates performance of simple tasks and inhibits performance on complex tasks

What is a dominant response?

in a person's hierarchy of possible responses, the response that a person is most likely to make

• For easy well known tasks the dominant response is lilley to be the correct one therefore performance is facilitated

• For a difficult or novel task the dominant response is not likely to be correct therefore performance is impaired

What is motivation?

A moving force that energizes behavior

What are two things you need to know when talking about motivation?

1. The strength of motivation

2. Direction of the motivation

How does the strength of the motivation effect motivation?

• The more motivated you are the more likely you are to meet goals

• Predicts effort 

  • Motivated to perform well on the MCAT you will study a lot 

• Only helps you on some kinds of tasks 

  • Yerks dodson law 

  • The more motivation you have performance starts to fall off on high tasks 

  • Skill based task → wanting to do better isn't enough → motivation doesn't create skill → wanting it more won't make you perform better 

How does the Direction of the motivation effect motivation?

• Approach versus avoidance 

  • Here is what I want to do well in → end up with more positive action statements and have more specific behaviors you can engage in 

  • Approach have plans and more effort and positive emotions 

  • Avoidance → don't know what to do, no action plans, have negative emotions when thinking about how it can go wrong

What are the 2 broad categories of motivation?

1. Intrinsic motivation

2. Extrinsic Motivation

What is intrinsic motivation?

•  desire to engage in tasks that person finds inherently satisfying and enjoyable, novel, or optimally challenging 

  • Performing task because it is personally satisfying for you 

  • No external rewards for doing these tasks or hobbies

What is extrinsic motivation?

• external influence on behavior, such as rewards, social evaluations, rules, and responsibilities

  • Motivated by external rewards like praise 

    • Not motivated by personal enjoyment or interest

Is extrinsic motivation bad?

• It reduced creativity 

• BUT It works well as a motivator → people will work hard to get an A

• It keeps the person working hard… until they achieve the awards and then they typically stop working 

• What happens when the reward is no longer available?

  • The person stops working

What happens is both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation are present?

• Extrinsic rewards are very obvious and intrinsic rewards are very subtle 

  • People tend to overestimate the importance of extrinsic motivators

• OVERJUSTIFICATION EFFECT

What is the overjustification effect?

• Providing compelling external reasons for a behavior causes people to underestimate the importance of intrinsic factors 

• Where is Lebrons pressure to perform well if he gets paid the same whether he wins or loses?

  • Somewhere in there is probably a love for basketball but he has so many extrinsic rewards 

What are the 3 ways to reduce overjustification?

• Make rewards unexpected 

• Make rewards performance contingent, not task contingent 

  • Gets more money if he is the best in the league not just for showing up 

• Internalize the achievement but making it a challenge for self

What is the self determination theory?

It states that people are motivated to grow and change by three innate (and universal) psychological needs. RELATED TO INTRINSIC MOTIVATION

• AUTONOMY

• COMPETENCE

• RELATEDNESS

How does autonomy relate to intrinsic motivation?

• You are more likely to be intrinsically motivated for a task if a task involves.. 

  • Autonomy → able to determine your own outcomes 

    • The need to determine, control, and organize one's own behavior and goals so that you are in harmony with one's own interests and values 

      • Med school personal choice drives you 

      • Med school someone tell you to do it won't be as driven in ochem

How does competence relate to intrinsic motivation?

• Find ways to reframe task to be more intrinsic 

  • You are more likely to be intrinsically motivated if a task involves COMPETENCE

    • The need to learn and master appropriately challenging tasks 

      • We like to be optimally challenge 

How does relatedness relate to intrinsic motivation?

• The need to feel attached to others and experience senses of belonging, security, and intimacy 

  • It's easier to keep motivated if you feel belonging 

    • If you want to keep going to the gym you find a gym bro 

    • When you feel like you have a sense of belonging or connection and others are involved in it too and validating your choices we feel better about it 

How does having an audience affect performance?

• When there is an audience present people change what they do 

• They change what they are trying to get done 

• When there is an audience there you are a little worried about how they will evaluate you 

  • Aware 

    • We want to be liked by others

• EVALUATION APPREHENSION

• SOCIAL FACILITATION

What is evaluation apprehension?

people are strongly motivated to receive a positive evaluation ot yo be judged positively by others

What is social facilitation?

initially a term for enhanced performance in the presence of others; now a broader term for the effect, positive or negative, of the presence of others on performance

• Tripplett 

  • Noticed that when bicyclists were alone they did not ride as fast as when riding next to others 

  • Experiment 

    • The person will work harder when someone is next to them 

      • This works if the “others” are co-actors or if they are observers

People work harder when there is an audience – BUT does this mean they perform better??

• On some tasks working harder does not mean you perform better 

  • Skill matters 

  • It makes a difference if its a task that you are good at vs not good at 

    • If good at having an audience makes you do better 

    • If not good at having an audience makes you do worse 

• People perform better on single tasks and worse on complex tasks with an audience 

  • On an easy task you exhibit the dominant response and get it right in front of an audience

  • On a hard task you exhibit the dominant response and get it wrong in front of an audience

Is it just the mere presence of an audience that affects performance?

•  its not just having an audience there, it is having an audience that can evaluate you 

What does it mean if the task is easy?

• Different types of evaluation

  • Class presentation vs presentation at a club meeting w peers

• Easy or hard depends on how well you have learned the task 

  • Playing pool is easy if you have learned it well but hard if you haven't

Why does it seem reasonable that groups would be better at making decisions than individuals?

• Pooling of information from individuals 

• Division of labor for research and group tasks

How does brainstorming demonstrate that working in groups isn’t always better?

• Brainstorming is half as productive as the sum of the same individuals brainstorming alone, as individuals benefit from:

  • No production blocked (waiting turn to speak)

  • No free riding/social loafing 

  • No evaluation apprehension 

  • No performance matching (norm adherence)

• Companies that do this well have people bring in their ideas already figured out and then they discuss 

  • No thinking on the spot 

What is brainstorming?

Brainstorming is a method for generating new ideas that involves

• bringing up as many new idea as possible without worrying too much how good they are 

• not criticizing others’ ideas

• combining and improving on those ideas

What is social loafing?

•  the tendency to exert less effort when working on a group task in which individual contributions cannot be monitored 

  • EXAMPLE: If you and your friends have to move a couch up a flight of stairs, for example, you might be tempted to hold less than your fair share of weight and hope that your friends’ more vigorous efforts will get the job done.

What can be done to reduce social loafing?

• Increase the salience of the evaluation → make it measurable 

• Increase intrinsic motivation → we all really want to do well on this task!

  • Groups of 4 or up tend to not work as hard and everyone loafs a bit

What is group think?

• The tendency of members of highly cohesive group to assume that

  • Their decisions cannot be wrong 

  • All members must strongly support the groups decision 

  • Information contrary to the group’s decision must be ignored

• EX: NASA really wanted to launch and even those who knew they shouldn't stayed silent because opposite opinions were not going to be listened to

What is an example of group think?

NASA CHALLENGER LAUNCH

• NASA really wanted to launch and even those who knew they shouldn't stayed silent because opposite opinions were not going to be listened to 

When does group think occur?

• The group is highly cohesive

  • Group is highly desirable and people want to be in the group and get along with the group so they don't speak against it 

• powerful leader rewards apparent cohesiveness

  • BUSH AND TRUMP → inner circle of friendly reporters they gave extra access → if you want to be in this group you can't speak out against them 

  • No dissent is tolerated, opposition is belittled 

  • People back away from it because they are not willing to speak against group

  • Isolation from others who might correct decision

• The leader makes his or her opinion known strongly 

  • Steve jobs → his way was the right way and he was miserable to work for because he kept shooting people down 

    • If his opinions are well known then you wont speak up

• there are no mechanisms for evaluating alternatives

  • External pressure to make a particular decision

  • Alternative ideas are seen as threats to group 

    • People at NASA thinking we shouldnt launch the challenger didnt say anything because it was seen as you not wanting NASA to succeed

When people get together to make group decisions what are certain individual concerns that can undermine the goal of arriving at the best possible decision?

• How will i be judge 

• How can i avoid hurting said person's feelings 

• How can i dodge responsibility if this goes wrong

What is self censorship?

withholding information or opinions in group discussions

What is group polarization?

 the tendency for group decisions to be more extreme than those made by individuals; whatever way the group as a whole is leaning, group discussion discussion tends to make it lean further in that direction