Understanding Groups and Group Dynamics

Groups and Belonging, Lecture 1: The Group

• A group is a central part of human existence and influences who we are and how we live.
• The lecture discusses what constitutes a group, how groups form, fitting into groups, and what groups provide.

Defining a Group

• Groups consist of more than two people who perceive themselves as a unit ("us") and are recognized as such by others.
• Differentiation between groups is determined by the extent of common bond, the extent of a common identity, and the extent to which the group exists as a distinct entity.
• The bond within a group is related to its performance: weak bonds can lead to poor performance, and strong bonds can lead to good performance.
• Groups are defined as two or more individuals who perceive themselves as members of the same social category. (Tajfel, 1981)
• Groups exists when two or more people define themselves as members and its existence is recognized by at least one other. (Brown, 2000)
• The definition of a group includes the contrast between "us" versus "them" (Turner, 1982).
• An in-group is a group someone belongs to.
• An out-group is a group someone does not belong to.

Group Formation

• Individuals can choose to join many groups.
• Group formation occurs in stages (Tuckman, 1965):
  • Forming entails acceptance, avoiding conflict, and establishing structure and roles.
  • Storming involves addressing issues and conflict, which may be suppressed for harmony.
  • Norming involves listening, support, flexibility, and developing a common identity and purpose.
  • Performing focuses on task orientation.
  • Adjourning means the task is complete, and the group disengages.

Group Socialization

• Group socialization explains the dynamic nature of groups over time.
• Interrelationships between group and individual members are important (Moreland & Levine, 1982).
• Group socialization involves the individual and group evaluating each other which influences commitment.
• Five membership phases include, prospective member (investigation), marginal member (socialisation), member (maintenance), marginal member (re-socialisation), ex-member (remembrance).
• Groups benefit from positive socialization.
• Socialization outcomes describe the group members' feelings about how they functioned.
• A prominent outcome of socialization is group cohesion.
  • Group cohesion is how much the group holds together as an entity.
  • Group cohesion depends on mutual support and consistent behavior.

Fitting into Groups: Norms

• Norms include uniformities of behavior and attitudes that determine, organize, and differentiate groups.
• Norms are either formal or informal.
• Norms regulate and guide behavior.
• Some norms are universal, and some vary across cultures.
• People asked others to give up their seat on the train in Milgram's subway study.
  • 68% of passengers gave up their seat
  • Students reported discomfort when asking.
• Littering is highest when a role model litters and the area is dirty.
• Norms do not need to be explicit to be powerful.
• Norms work well because they are often enforced, people internalize them, they're fixed during socialization, consensual, frequently activated, and act as action heuristics.
• Permitting groups to form their own norms can increase effectiveness (Coch & French, 1948).

Roles and Status

• Roles include shared expectations of how people in a group are supposed to behave.
• How people holding particular positions should behave: division of labor, expectations, and providing information about the group.
• Groups that set roles are more satisfied and perform better (Barley & Bechky, 1994).
• Roles can sometimes cause people to lose sight of right and wrong.
  • Seen in the Stanford Prison Experiment (Haney et al., 1973)
• Roles can seem illegitimate or arbitrary, such as gender roles.

Fitting into Groups: Deviants

• Deviants violate norms and go against roles and status
• Marginal group members who deviate too far from prototypical members are generally disliked.
• "Black sheep" studies presented participants with good or bad speeches by in-group or out-group members (Marques et al., 1988).
• Deviants can also be good for the group, pointing out things that are wrong (Packer, 2008, 2010).
• Intergroup sensitivity effect refers to the tendency to accept criticism more readily from within the group than from outsiders (Hornsey et al., 2002).
• Even though they are deviant, they are constructive.

What Groups Do for Us

• Interdependence means people can achieve more in groups than when alone (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959).
• Affiliation, similarity, and support refer to grouping with people who have the same attitudes (Baumeister & Leary, 1995).
• Terror-management suggests people seek structure in their lives to confront the inevitability of their death (Greenberg et al., 1986).
• Need for social identity includes positive consequences for the self (Tajfel & Turner, 1979).
• Motivation arises to protect the group because it is part of the self-image.
• Optimal distinctiveness means that people like to distinguish themselves from others (Brewer, 1991), but also need to affiliate with others.
• Being in a group allows for both distinction and affiliation.
• Ostracism can lead to the feeling of being sad, angry, and psychologically distressed.
• Ostracism even hurts when someone does not want to be part of the group (Gonsalkorale & Williams, 2007) and it resembles physical pain (Eisenberger et al., 2003).

Social Influence

• Social influence is an attempt to explain how individuals' thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by others' presence (Allport, 1954).
  • Social influence can be direct (orders, persuasion, threats) or indirect (norms).

Definition of Conformity

• Conformity is the tendency to change perceptions, opinions, or behaviours in ways consistent with group norms (Brehm et al., 2002, p. 222).
• Compliance involves publicly acting in accordance with social pressure while privately disagreeing.
  • Politicians are expected to be compliant with party line, regardless of personal opinions.
• Acceptance involves both acting and believing in accordance with social pressure.

Sherif's Studies on Group Norms (1935)

• Sherif's study investigated the formation of social norms.
• Subjects were placed in a dark room, a pinpoint of light appeared 15 feet away, seemingly moved, and then disappeared.
• Subjects then had to estimate how far it had moved.
• The procedure was repeated in groups of three with verbal estimates of the dot's movement following each trial.
• Each subject's opinion alters and regresses to a common average toward a normative value.
• Group norms are a part of everyday life and a common consensus on fashion, music, political opinions etc.
• When presented alone, a stationary light will appear to move.
• The Group Norm that emerged in Sherif's experiments was actually completely wrong.
  • A year later, Sherif asked the subjects if they still stood over their earlier estimates, and almost all did.
• Vulnerability is present when asked to make decisions or form opinions, as we are afraid of it being the wrong decision and an unpopular opinion
• Looking to others as a source of information is known as informational social influence.
• In Sherif's study, the erratic movement of the dot and the difficult nature of the question meant that subjects were unsure of the correct answer.
• Subjects then referred to others to help them form their opinions.

Asch's Study (1951) on Majority Influence

• For the first two trails, all confederates gave the correct answer when asked about the length of a line.
• On the third trail, each of the 5 confederates gave the same incorrect answer.
• 75% of all subjects gave the same wrong answer as the confederates.
• In Sherif's study the real answer was ambiguous, but in Asch's study the correct answer was clear.
• Subjects reported that impression must be wrong to give their answer, and that they gave what they thought was the correct response to avoid discomfort.
• Replications have produced similar results, showing tendencies to conform.
• Adaptive influence can lead to better decisions when uncertain and often conform when we need to be accurate.
• People can be liked when they aren't disliked (normative influence)
• People can be protected....

Boen et al 2006

• This study questioned the role of conformity among judges of sporting events that involved multiple scores over trials.
• The judges were aware of the score given by their peers.
• 27 certified judges in panels of 5 watched 30 videos of performances.
• Feedback increased score-conformity.
• The study took place in Belgium with rope skipping videos.

Obedience to Authority

• Obedience is a social norm and part of every culture as a part of 'shaping'.
• Consequently, we are socialized to obey authority figures beginning as children.
• We're even obedient when the authority figure is not present.
• Obedience can have tragic consequences as seen from Hannah Arendt (1965) – The Banality of Evil and trial of Adolf Eichmann.
  • He was just doing what he was told.
• Stanley Milgram (1963, 1974, 1976) decided to find out, in what has become the most famous series of studies in social psychology, if the Holocaust was caused by evil people, or social forces.
• In Milgram's studies, participants were told to administer electric shocks to a learner whenever he made a mistake.
  • The experimenter, in a white lab coat, would instruct you to deliver an electric shock.
• Each time the student got a question wrong, the subject was instructed to increase the punishment by 15 Volts.
• With each wrong question, the experiments continued with the participants reaching the maximum amount. -Psychology majors at Yale University estimated that only about 1% of the population would go to this extreme.
• No learners were harmed in the making of Milgram's experiments. -The learner was a confederate working with Milgram, only pretending to get shocked.
• Most of Milgram's participants succumbed to the pressure of authority.
• The learner would protest through shouts, heart problems, and more.
• 62.5% of the participants went all the way, delivering the 450-volt shock, and the average maximum shock delivered was 360 volts.
• 65% of the participants went all the way even if they knew the person had a heart problem.
• The obedience experiment was a confusing situation for participants, with competing, ambiguous demands, with the order of the authority taking precedence
• Fast paced nature of the experiment led to a loss of thought for the individuals, as the shock levels were increased in small increments
• There were instances in the experiments of the business man, in the experiment to be reduced to twitching wreck when administering the shocks, showing clear discomfort

Obedience Level determinants

• The authority figure is determined by "expertise" and "proximate distance".
  • 20% of subjects went to 450V when instructed to do so over the phone.
  • 21% did so when the instructor was a clerk.
• 40% went all the way when in the same room as the learner.
  • 30% helped to hold down the learners hand.
• Participants by this time reached 435V and imposed 29 punishments and stopping would mean meaning earlier decisions wrong, as a result people were more likely continue.
• France and N and Norway have seen Obedience experiment levels to have been the lowest compared to any other culture

Moscovici's studies on minority influence (1969)

• Large social movements begin with a small disgruntled minority.
• Moscovici suggested there has been and obscured bias in social influences from a "conformity bias"
• Moscovici showed that only minority groups would name the blue slides as green, with smaller influences

Questions & answers for Moscovici studies

• Is this compliance or acceptance?
  • The subjects reported that “the minority raised a suspicion that I was wrong, I accepted it, and sided with their judgement".
• Moscivici suggests that minorities, particular consistent minorities, are influential because they:
  • Disrupt commonly accepted norms
  • Draw attention to an alternative perspective
  • Demonstrate certainty and commitment to Previously Overlooked Values

Conformity and Obedience: Application to inter-group conflict.

• Wardlaw linked motivation for joining/staying within terrorist organizations to sense of belonging, while other lack certain psychological and social supports.
• Post suggested that some terrorist have troubled family backgrounds and an identity crisis.
• Some terrorists are just joining to find a substitute family they were never able to have.
• Members of the Red Brigades came from incomplete family units (Ferracuti, 1983).
• 25 percent of terrorists had lost one or both parents by the age of 14, the german ministry found.
• Steady employment lead to low self-esteem and social isolation (Schmidtchen 1981).
• Pressure to conform is generated by the cult- like tendency of individual group members to submerge their identities.
• Organizations enforce that one must follow if do not want to face violence/expulsion, with an ideological rhetoric.
• The emergence is created with groups that have common enemy that threats the organization, causing conformity.
• Heskin noted that new recruits were put into terror organizations structured on obedience so they diffuse responsibility.
• Post found group psychology to be the main explanation for population of terror groups.
• This allows for there to be manifest