Ch.12 Groups

Group (textbook definition)

Individuals who are interdependent to a significant degree; "groupness" comes in degrees (family > seminar > lecture class)

Group (lecture definition)

2+ people with at least one of: direct interaction over time, joint membership in a social category, or a shared fate, identity, or goals

Evolutionary benefits of group living

Caring for offspring, protection from predators, efficiency in getting and sharing food, and defense against aggressors

Need to belong

A drive-like need for connection; isolation and rejection activate pain centers in the brain (e.g., Todd Ashker in solitary confinement)

Social brain hypothesis

The human brain evolved to help us master complex social worlds because group living was rewarded over isolation

Roles

Shared expectations in a group about how particular members should behave; formal or informal

Instrumental roles

Roles that help the group achieve its tasks

Expressive roles

Roles that provide emotional support and maintain group morale

Role ambiguity

Unclear role expectations; negatively correlated with job performance

Norms

Rules of conduct for group members; formal or informal, explicit or implicit

Tolerance for norm deviance

Groups seen as similar (homogeneous) punish deviants more; groups seen as diverse punish less (Hutchinson et al., 2011)

Cohesiveness

Forces that push group members together and promote mutual liking; often but not always improves performance; a risk factor for groupthink

Social facilitation

The effect, positive or negative, that the presence of others has on performance

Dominant response

The response a person is most likely to make; the one elicited most quickly and easily by a task

Zajonc's mere presence theory

Mere presence of others increases arousal, which strengthens the dominant response, which helps simple or well-learned tasks and hurts difficult or novel tasks

Yerkes-Dodson law

Performance follows an inverted U with arousal: moderate arousal is best, too much hurts (especially on hard tasks)

Evaluation apprehension

Concern about how one is being evaluated by others; intensifies social facilitation but isn't necessary for it

Mere presence vs. evaluation apprehension (bottom line)

Mere presence is sufficient to cause social facilitation; evaluation apprehension makes the effect stronger

Social loafing

Reduced individual effort on a group task when contributions are pooled and can't be monitored

Collective effort model

People work hard on a group task to the extent they think their effort is important, relevant, and leads to outcomes they personally value

When is social loafing less likely?

When performance is identifiable, the task is meaningful, one's effort seems necessary, the group expects punishment for failure, and the group is small and cohesive

How to prevent social loafing in group projects

Break projects into smaller milestones, keep groups small, and use peer evaluations

Process loss

A reduction in group performance caused by how members work together

Process gain

When a group outperforms the individuals who make it up

Additive task

Group product is the sum of all members' contributions (e.g., tug-of-war)

Conjunctive task

Group product is determined by the weakest member's performance (e.g., climbing team)

Disjunctive task

Group product is determined by the best member's performance (e.g., trivia team)

Biased sampling

Groups spend more time discussing shared information (known by most) than unshared information (known by one or a few)

Shared vs. unshared information study result

Groups discussed mostly shared info; higher importance made sharing worse; trained groups improved

Groupthink

Faulty thinking in highly cohesive groups where pressure to reach consensus overrides critical evaluation (Janis)

Conditions that lead to groupthink

High cohesiveness, a strong directive leader, isolation from outside input, and high stress

Symptoms of groupthink

Shallow review of info, few alternatives considered, sense of invulnerability or moral superiority, rejection of dissent, self-censorship, illusion of consensus

Self-censorship

Withholding information or opinions in group discussions (e.g., Schlesinger during the Bay of Pigs)

Examples of groupthink

Bay of Pigs, Pearl Harbor, Vietnam escalation, Challenger and Columbia, Iraq 2003

How to prevent groupthink

Leaders hold back their preferences at the start, seek outside input, and assign a devil's advocate (as Kennedy did in the Cuban Missile Crisis)

Collective intelligence (Woolley et al., 2010)

Smart groups have empathic members, equal turn-taking, and more women; one smart member doesn't help and a domineering member hurts

Group polarization

Group discussion makes members' initial leanings more extreme in the same direction, not toward the average

Persuasive arguments account

Polarization happens because discussion exposes members to more arguments for the side they already favored; reading arguments privately is enough

Social comparison account

Polarization happens because people want to be further out than average on the 'right' side; knowing only others' positions still causes weaker polarization

Abilene paradox

A group agrees to something no one actually wants because no one speaks up

Brainstorming

Generating ideas freely without criticism; individuals working alone actually produce more unique ideas than groups

Drawbacks of group brainstorming

Production blocking, free riding, evaluation apprehension, and performance matching

How to improve brainstorming

Brainstorm alone first then together, start with subcategories, use a trained facilitator, make members accountable, meet electronically

Power

The ability to control one's own outcomes and those of others; the capacity to influence; relational

Social hierarchy

The ranking of group members by relative power; forms quickly because it reduces conflict over resources and simplifies decisions

Virtue path to power

Gaining power through courage, humanity, justice, and temperance (Aristotle, Confucius); the more effective path (ten Brinke)

Vice path to power (dark triad)

Gaining power through Machiavellianism (manipulation), narcissism (entitlement), and psychopathy (lack of empathy); rooted in Machiavelli's The Prince

Approach/inhibition theory

High power leads to approach (goal-driven, less concern about others, rash judgments); low power leads to inhibition (vigilant, careful, restrained)

Effects of high power

More stereotyping, less perspective-taking, worse emotion reading, overconfidence, disinhibited and unethical behavior

Effects of low power

More vigilance and attention to others, but less cognitive flexibility and control (P. Smith et al., 2008)

"Power reveals" (Chen et al., 2001)

Power amplifies existing tendencies: communal people become more generous, self-interested people more selfish; power corrupts the corruptible

Emergent properties of groups

Behaviors that appear only when people are in groups

Le Bon's group mind

In a crowd, rational individuals give way to a less reflective collective mind and 'descend several rungs in the ladder of civilization'

Deindividuation

A reduced sense of individual identity and weaker self-regulation in large groups

Zimbardo's model of deindividuation

Anonymity and diffusion of responsibility (plus arousal, sensory overload) lead to reduced self-awareness, which leads to impulsive behavior

Attentional cues vs. accountability cues

Attentional cues pull focus away from the self; accountability cues make one feel not personally responsible; both cause deindividuation

Watson (1973) warfare study

80% of cultures whose warriors disguised themselves were especially aggressive vs. 13% of those that didn't (correlational)

Secular trend

A systematic increase or decrease over time; any two such trends will correlate, so correlation doesn't mean causation

Individuation

A stronger sense of individual identity from focusing on the self, leading to careful behavior consistent with one's values

Self-awareness theory

When attention is focused on the self (mirror, camera, name tag), people compare their behavior with their internal standards and values

Spotlight effect

People's belief that others pay more attention to their appearance and behavior than they actually do

Triplett (1898)

Kids reeled faster next to another child; first social facilitation experiment

Allport (1920)

Students wrote weaker arguments with others present; exception to social facilitation on complex tasks

Zajonc et al. (1969)

Roaches were faster on simple maze and slower on complex maze with other roaches present, even an audience; supports mere presence theory

Michaels et al. (1982)

Being watched made good pool players better and poor players worse; real-world social facilitation

Cottrell et al. (1968)

Attentive audience increased dominant responses, blindfolded audience didn't; supports evaluation apprehension

Markus (1978)

Own shoes faster and lab clothes slower with others present, even a turned-back repairman; mere presence is sufficient

Latané et al. (1979)

Noise per person dropped as group size grew in a clapping and cheering task; social loafing

Hutchinson et al. (2011)

Students primed to see their school as similar judged a deviant student more harshly; norms and tolerance for deviance

Moscovici & Zavalloni (1969)

French students' views of de Gaulle got more positive and of Americans more negative after discussion; group polarization

Schkade, Sunstein, & Hastie (2007)

After discussing with like-minded people, liberals got more liberal and conservatives more conservative; polarization

ten Brinke et al. (2016, 2018)

Virtuous senators got more bill support and virtuous hedge fund managers earned more; virtue path to power

Galinsky et al. (2006)

High-power participants drew the E on their forehead from their own perspective; power reduces perspective-taking

P. Smith et al. (2008)

Powerless participants did worse on cognitive control tasks; costs of low power

Piff et al. (2012)

Luxury-car drivers cut off pedestrians about 46% of the time, cheapest cars never; power leads to unethical behavior

Diener et al. (1976)

Anonymous trick-or-treaters in groups stole the most candy, and a mirror reduced stealing; deindividuation

Diener & Wallbom (1976)

Cheating on anagrams fell from about 71% to under 10% with a mirror; self-awareness theory

Bateson, Nettle, & Roberts (2006)

A picture of eyes nearly tripled payments to an office honesty box vs. flowers; self-awareness

Gilovich et al. (2000)

Barry Manilow T-shirt wearers guessed 50% would notice, actually about 25%; spotlight effect