Group Processes Psychology PDF

GROUP PROCESSES + CHAPTER 9 What is a group? - Two or more people - Interact with and influence each other - Perceive one another as “us” Social facilitation: what is it? How does it occur? 3 possible explanations - Performing tasks in the presence of others–do we do better or worse?...

GROUP PROCESSES + CHAPTER 9 What is a group? - Two or more people - Interact with and influence each other - Perceive one another as “us” Social facilitation: what is it? How does it occur? 3 possible explanations - Performing tasks in the presence of others–do we do better or worse? - Allport–when others were present, one’s performance was enhanced - But sometimes performance is worse? Why? - Zajonc’s Mere Presence Explanation - Mere presence of others is enough to produce social facilitation effect because it increases arousal - Arousal enhances whatever response tendency is dominant - Dominant responses are responses that are most likely to occur in a given situation - Evaluation Apprehension Explanation - Arousal is result of evaluation apprehension - Presence of others makes us concerned about being judged–leading to arousal - Increased self-focus reminds people that they can fail and therefore motivates them - Others must be position to evaluate us - Blindfolded audience does not produce social facilitation - Distraction-conflict explanation - Arousal is a result of conflict between attending to audiences vs. focusing on the task - The conflict creates arousal that in turn influences task performance - It can explain task enhancement occur in both human and nonhuman - Others can affect our performance by just be there- makes us more alert - By distracting us Social loafing: what is it? Why does it occur? How to prevent it? - When presence of others makes you perform worse - Reduction in motivation and effort when individual work collectively in a group (compared with whey they work alone) - Latane’ et al. (1979)- shouting study - Had male students separate into rooms with headphones - Asked to clap or shout as loudly as possible - Led to believe that they were shouting alone or in groups of 2, 4, 6 persons - Result: as group sizes increased, amount of noise produced by individual participant dropped - Social loafing- - Is also found in cognitive task - Occurs in both individuals and collectivist societies, but the former is stronger - Appears in both genders, with women are slightly less likely - We feel less personally responsible for task outcome, leading to diffusion of responsibility - How to reduce it then? Deindividuation: what creates this loss of sense of individuality? - Loss of a person’s sense of individuality and the reduction of normal constraints against deviant behavior when people are in a crowd - Personal identity and values are replaced by those of the group - Increased by anonymity - Increased by loss of self awareness - Can lead to social contagion - Mob and group aggression - Trick or treat study - Children trick or treated alone or in group - Half of trick or treating children were asked name, other half were not - Then all were given chance to steal extra candy from a bowl Group polarization: going to extremes - Tendency for group members to make decision that is more extreme than their initial inclinations - Myers & bishop’s (1970) racial attitude study - High school students were measured level of prejudice - Then were separated into 3 types: high, medium, and low prejudice groups - Discussed with like-minded peers in group on racial issues - Informational influence - Normative influence - Commitment to one’s view after publicly expressing it Groupthink: Causes, symptoms, characteristics - Excessive tendency to seek concurrence among group member - Maintaining group cohesiveness and solidarity is more important than critical analysis - What causes it? - How can it be prevented? - Be sure to read historical examples in the text Group cohesiveness (textbook) Note: Topics of leadership, conflict & cooperation of Chapter 9 on Group will NOT be tested in the exam. Class demonstration on social loafing-what it shows? Class demonstration on deindividuation – what we did and what did we find?