Group Dynamics Ch 8

Question 1

Social Power

Answer 1

The capacity to produce intended effects in interpersonal contexts.

Question 2

Obedience

Answer 2

Compliance with authoritative directives pertaining to a given situation, including changes in behaviour in response to instructions, orders, and demands issued by those with authority.

Question 3

Power Bases

Answer 3

Sources of social power in a group, including one’s degree of control over rewards and punishment, authority in the group, attractiveness, expertise, and access to and control over information needed by group members (originally described by John French and Bertram Raven).

Question 4

Reward Power

Answer 4

Power based on control over the distribution of rewards (both personal and impersonal) given or offered to group members.

Question 5

Coercive Power

Answer 5

Power based on the ability to punish or threaten others who do not comply with requests or demands.

Question 6

Agentic State

Answer 6

A psychological state that occurs when subordinates in an organized status hierarchy experience such a marked reduction in autonomy that they are unable to resist authorities orders (proposed by Stanley Milgram).

Question 7

Legitimate Power

Answer 7

Power based on an individuals socially sanctioned claim to a position or role that includes the right to require and demand compliance with his or her directives.

Question 8

Referent Power

Answer 8

Power derived from social relationships between individuals, including identification with, attraction to, or respect for another person or group.

Question 9

Charisma

Answer 9

From the Greek xarisma (a divine gift of grace), the ascription of the extraordinary or supernatural acumen, ability, and value to a leader by his or her followers.

Question 10

Expert Power

Answer 10

Power based on the belief that an individual possess superior knowledge, skills, and abilities.

Question 11

Informational Power

Answer 11

Power based on the potential use of informational resources, including rational, argument, persuasion, or explanation.

Question 12

Power Tactics

Answer 12

Specific strategies used to influence others, usually to gain a particular objective or advantage.

Question 13

Foot-in-the-door technique

Answer 13

Influencing a person by extracting compliance to a small initial request before then making the second, more substantial, request.

Question 14

Pecking Order

Answer 14

A stable, ordered pattern of individual variations in prestige, status, authority among group members.

Question 15

Bullying

Answer 15

Repetitively teasing, ridiculing, provoking, or tormenting others through various type of irritating, harassing, or aggressive actions, such as name-calling, threats, insults, and physical injury.

Question 16

Expectation-States Theory

Answer 16

An explanation of status differentiation in groups, which assumes that group members allocate status to group members judged to be competent at the task at hand and to group members who have qualities that the members think are indicators of competence and potential.

Question 17

Specific Status Characteristics

Answer 17

In status characteristics theory, task-specific behavioural and personal characteristics that people consider when estimating the relative competency, ability, and social value of themselves and others.

Question 18

Diffuse Status Characteristic

Answer 18

In status characteristics theory, general personal qualities such as age, race, and ethnicity, that people consider when estimating the relative competency, ability, and social value of themselves and others.

Question 19

Status Generalization

Answer 19

The tendency for individuals known to have achieved or been ascribed authority, respect, and prestige in one context to enjoy relatively higher status in other, unrelated, contexts (e.g., celebrity who exercises influence on a group even though this diffuse status characteristic is not relevant in the current group context.

Question 20

Solo Status

Answer 20

The state of being the only group member who is representative of a specific social category in an otherwise homogenous group (e.g., a man in an all female group).

Question 21

Iron Law of Oligarchy

Answer 21

The principle of political and social control that predicts that, in any group, power is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals (an oligarchy) who will act in ways that protect and enhance their power (described by Robert Michels).

Question 22

Interpersonal Complementarity Hypothesis

Answer 22

The predicted tendency for certain behaviours to evoke behaviours from others that are congrous with the initial behaviour, with positive behaviours evoking positive behaviours, dominant behaviours evoking submissive behaviours, and submissive behaviours evoking dominant behaviours.

Question 23

Approach/Inhibition Theory

Answer 23

An integrative conceptual analysis of the transformative effects of power that finds power to be psychologically and behaviourally activating but the lack of power inhibiting (posited by Dacher Keltner and his colleagues).

Question 24

Bathsheba Syndrome

Answer 24

The tendency for high-status members to claim unfair and inappropriate privileges and honours, including predacious sexual activities.

Question 25

Revolutionary coalition

Answer 25

A subgroup formed within the larger group that seeks to disrupt or change the groups authority structure.

Question 26

Lucifer Effect

Answer 26

The transformation of benign individuals into morally corrupt individuals by powerful, but malevolent, social institutions; named for the biblical character Lucifer, an angel who fell from grace and was transformed into Satan (proposed by Philip Zombardo).