Group dynamics

Group Behaviour, Conformity and Obedience

Groups

  • Definition:
    • Forsyth (1998): A group exists when two or more people define themselves as members and its existence is recognized by at least one other.
    • Breckin et al (2006): Two or more people interacting and/or influencing one another.

Types of Groups (Based On)

  • Common experience (e.g., Jewish people in Nazi Germany).
  • Common characteristics (e.g., redheads, gender, sexuality, race).
  • Implicit social structure (e.g., families, friendship groups).
  • Common interests/values/beliefs (e.g., religious, anti-fascism, or political groups).

Reflection

  • How many groups do you belong to?
  • Are you always aware of your group membership?
  • Is it context-specific?
  • Does group membership help or hinder you in navigating the social world or achieving your goals?

Social Cure vs. Social Curse

  • Groups can have both positive (social cure) and negative (social curse) impacts.

The Social Cure

  • Social groups positively impact individuals through social identification, making them meaningful and psychologically valuable (Jetten et al., 2012).
  • Group identification (sense of belonging) is linked to well-being, even when controlling for social integration (Sani et al., 2012).
  • Evidence shows that meaningful group memberships positively impact well-being across healthcare, employment, community life, and sports (Haslam et al., 2012, 2018; Wakefield et al., 2019).
Loss of Group Membership
  • Losing valued group memberships can negatively impact mental health.
  • Seymour-Smith et al. (2017) found that a decrease in valued group memberships after having a baby is associated with increased depressive symptoms in postpartum mothers.

The Social Curse

  • Group membership and experiences can hinder members (Kellezi & Reicher, 2012).
  • Social curse phenomena have been identified in various contexts.
  • Kellezi et al. (2021) found that while family bonds can help overcome challenges, they can also lead to collective suffering; however, the benefits of collective support often outweigh this burden.

Group Behavior: Social Loafing

  • Performance in groups can provide excuses for reduced effort.
  • Social loafing is the temptation to exert less effort when others are present.
  • Example: Group projects where everyone gets the same grade.
Causes of Social Loafing
  • Incorrect attributions about labor division within the group.
  • Goals being set too low.
  • Unidentifiable individual contributions.
Example: Pickle Factory
  • Employees picking pickles off a conveyor belt without individual monitoring.
Gender Differences in Social Loafing
  • Karau & Williams (1993) found that men tend to loaf more than women in a review of 150 studies.
  • This may be due to higher relational interdependence in women (Eagly, 1987).

Social Facilitation: Audience Effects

  • Tendency to perform better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when in the presence of others and being evaluated.
Cockroach Experiment
  • Cockroaches completed a simple maze faster when other roaches watched.
  • They completed a complex maze slower when other roaches watched.
Evaluation Apprehension
  • Audience effects can be positive or negative.
  • Simple tasks: Physiological arousal can block out distractions, leading to enhanced performance.
  • Complex tasks: Physiological arousal restricts the range of attention, leading to impaired performance.
Social Facilitation vs. Social Loafing
  • Presence of others:
    • Individual efforts evaluated: Alertness leads to arousal, enhancing simple task performance but impairing complex task performance.
    • Individual efforts not evaluated: Relaxation enhances complex task performance but impairs simple task performance.

Decision Making in Groups

  • Groups are often formed for decision-making purposes, but they don't always get it right.
Jury Decision Example
  • Discussion of a case where a teen girl killed a violent man, raising questions about gender bias in the justice system.
Advantages of Group Decision Making
  • Access to more information.
  • Multiple perspectives.
Faulty Decision Making: Groupthink
  • Ideal Consensus Process:
    • Gather stakeholders, define the problem, research needed information, facilitate exploration of underlying interests, find common ground, achieve unity, and act on the decision.
  • Groupthink Process:
    • Minimal discussion of alternative ideas, avoidance of conflict, rapid convergence without debate.
Symptoms of Groupthink
  • Illusion of invulnerability.
  • Rationalization of warnings.
  • Unquestioned belief in the group's morality.
  • Stereotyped view of enemy leaders.
  • Pressure on dissenting group members.
  • Self-censorship of misgivings.
  • Illusion of unanimity.
  • Emergence of self-appointed mindguards.
Real-Life Examples of Groupthink
  • The bombing of Pearl Harbor: Senior officers ignored warnings due to the belief that Japan wouldn't dare attack the U.S.
  • The collapse of Swissair: The airline failed to question poor decisions and gross mismanagement due to a belief in their invulnerability.
Counteracting Groupthink
  • Assign the role of critical evaluator to each member.
  • The leader should avoid stating preferences and expectations at the outset.
  • Each member should discuss deliberations with a trusted associate and report back.
  • Invite outside experts to challenge views.
  • Assign a devil's advocate to question assumptions and plans.
  • Set aside time to survey warning signals and construct alternative scenarios.

Group Polarization

  • Tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of its members.
  • Discussion typically strengthens the average inclination of group members (Myers, pg. 304).
  • Occurs in schools, communities, and online.
Polarization and the Internet
  • Social networking sites and online identities can increase polarization.
  • Examples: Neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists, terrorist groups.
  • Without face-to-face discussion, loss of inhibitions increases.
Dangers of Internet Polarization
  • Perfect hunting ground for the vulnerable.
  • Increases polarization (Wright 2003).
  • Examples: Terrorism recruiting videos, suicide pact groups, cults.

Deindividuation

  • Feeling of lost personal identity, merging into the group, and becoming anonymous.
  • Loss of responsibility (Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcomb, 1952).
Causes of Deindividuation
  • Psychological factors:
    • Weakening of inhibitions against harmful actions.
    • Increased adherence to group norms.
    • Increased responsiveness to external cues.
  • Situational Factors:
    • Physical anonymity. Camouflage offers anonymity. Zimbardo 1970, 2002 (Milgram).
Zimbardo's Experiments
  • Women dressed in KKK-like uniforms gave electric shocks of double the duration to those clearly visible.
  • Effects of uniforms (Zimbardo).
Physical Anonymity
  • Is anonymity always a precursor to negative group behavior?
  • Johnson and Downing (1979) found less aggressive shocks when dressed in a nurse's outfit, highlighting the importance of situational cues.
Group Size
  • Does larger groups lead to more anonymity?
  • Diener et al (1976) found that trick-or-treaters in groups and when sure of their anonymity stole candy threefold.

Conformity and Obedience

  • Do people conform and obey blindly?
The Evil Thesis
  • People ignore the morality of their actions.
  • Ordinary people are transformed into oppressors.
  • People follow rules 'blindly' and conform to rules handed down by authorities.
Critiques of the Evil Thesis
  • Milgram's obedience experiment and Zimbardo's prison experiment, while influential, have been critiqued.
  • The myth that people inevitably succumb to authority, however immoral the consequences, may not be supported (Haslam & Reicher, 2012).
Blindly Following Rules?
  • The word 'blindly' implies following orders without considering the morality of actions.
Nazis and