8. Group Processes

Question 1

What are 6 things that can define a group?

Answer 1

1. categorisation
2. communication
3. influence
4. shared identity
5. shared tasks/goals
6. interdependence

Question 2

What is not a group?

Answer 2

• people who work on the same problem separately: need communication
• people who share the same superficial similarity e.g eye colour (meaningless)
• need a meaningful social connection

Question 3

What is a group?

Answer 3

• 2 or more people connected by and within social relationships
• range in size: 2-many thousand (most are small)
• members are connected like a series of networked computers
• social relationships can link/enclose members

Question 4

What are the main characteristics of groups?

Answer 4

1. interaction
   - task (focussed on groups work): advancement vs hindrance (social loafing)
   - relationship: sustaining vs undermining
2. goals (common goals)
3. interdependence (members of a group depend on each other)
4. structure
   - roles
   - norms: standard describing what behaviours should/shouldn’t be exhibited within that context
5. cohesiveness
   - closeness and solidarity of a group affects group decision making

Question 5

Why are groups important to investigate?

Answer 5

1. groups influence their members and society
2. the dark side of groups

Question 6

In what way can groups influence society?

Answer 6

• groups influence members attitudes, values, perceptions, performance and behaviour
• groups that belong to a society determine the societies cultures and norms
• means by which individuals can transform society

Question 7

In what way can groups have a dark side?

Answer 7

• people show preference for people in their own groups and may discriminate towards people outside of their own group
• larger groups e.g crowds can result in antisocial/violent behaviours
• can lead to misguided/disastrous decisions

Question 8

What is social loafing?

Answer 8

• presence of other people can result in reduced effort of individual members

Question 9

What variables influence social loafing?

Answer 9

• identifiability (anonymity = more likely)
• individual responsibility
• commitment to task

Question 10

What effect did Williams et al find identifiability to have on social loafing?

Answer 10

• shout as loud as you can in groups/individually
• social loafing occurred when individual contribution could not be identified

Question 11

What effect did Harkins & Petty find individual responsibility to have on social loafing?

Answer 11

• work in groups to report when a dot appeared in a section of the screen
• social loafing occurred when there was little individual responsibility

Question 12

What effect did Zaccaro find commitment to task performance to have on social loafing?

Answer 12

• interacts with intragroup processes

intragroup processes:
- group interaction: internal pressures to conform to group performance norms
- members who deviate from group norms may be punished
- identifiability deters social loafing due to consequences for lack of effort: group ostracism
- strength of intragroup pressures should vary as a function commitment to group task
- social loafing should not occur in groups that have high commitment to task performance

Question 13

What did Williams and Karau find about social compensation?

Answer 13

• asked PPs to generate as many uses as possible for a simple object (knife)
• individuals working alone came up with more uses than those in a group (social loafing)
  HOWEVER this was reversed when people didn’t trust the others to work hard OR had low expectations of their co-workers effort/ability

Question 14

What is Karau & Williams collective effort model on why people loaf?

Answer 14

• individuals will be willing to exert extra effort on a collective task only to the degree that they expect their efforts to be instrumental in obtaining valued outcomes

Question 15

When does social loafing occur?

Answer 15

when…
- people don’t believe that their individual efforts can result in achieving valued outcomes
- outcome of group performance is viewed as trivial, not valued

Question 16

What did Karau & Williams meta analysis on social loafing find?

Answer 16

based on collective effort model:
- evaluation potential (identifiability)
- low task meaningfulness, personal involvement (commitment to task)
- high expectations of co-worker performance
- redundancy of individual inputs (individual responsibility)
- low group cohesiveness
- larger group size

Question 17

What factors did Karau & Williams propose can prevent social loafing?

Answer 17

• each individuals input should be identified (identifiability)
• tasks should be meaningful (commitment to task)
• address expectations of co-worker performance
• individuals should make unique and important contributions to group work
• work in cohesive groups/identify ways to increase cohesiveness
• reduce group size

Question 18

Do groups average out individual variability in decision making? (Sherif)

Answer 18

• autokinetic illusion: asked to rate how much the light has moved
• PPs converged on a group mean and gave very similar estimates
• this effect was maintained even when PPs were alone again

group judgement = average of the prior individual judgements

Question 19

How did Stoner show a risky shift in groups?

Answer 19

• PPs were tasked with giving advice to people presented with dilemmas
• asked to make individual recommendations
• subsequently met in small groups to discuss and reach a unanimous decision
• groups made riskier decisions than individuals
• initially termed the risky shift: however this effect was not limited to risky positions

Question 20

What is group polarisation?

Answer 20

• general tendency for group decision to be more extreme than the mean of its members position, in the direction favoured by the mean

Question 21

What is key for group polarisation to occur?

Answer 21

• discussion among group members

Question 22

What factors explain why group discussion leads to polarisation?

Answer 22

• informational influence
• normative influence
• social identity processes

Question 23

How does informational influence explain why group discussion leads to polarisation? (Burstein and Vinokur)

Answer 23

• persuasive arguments theory: persuasiveness of novel arguments
• group discussions bring to light previously unknown information that supports the individuals position
• opinions become more entrenched and extreme

Question 24

How does normative influence explain why group discussion leads to polarisation? (Jellison and Arkin)

Answer 24

• desire for social approval and wish to avoid social censure
• discussion reveals that socially desirable position and members of the group want to be seen to be adhering to this position
• seeking social approval: become more extreme in support for capital punishment

Question 25

How does social identity process explain why group discussion leads to polarisation?

Answer 25

- individuals in the group create a group norm to define membership in the decision-making group and then conform to that norm - ingroup position is polarised away from outgroups - self-categorisation produces conformity to the polarised ingroup norm and polarised group decision

Question 26

What is groupthink?

Answer 26

- group decision making process that produces poor decisions

Question 27

What conditions foster group think?

Answer 27

- high degree of group cohesiveness - insulation of group from external information and influence - lack of impartial leadership - absence of systematic decision-making procedures - high stress from external threat

Question 28

What are symptoms of groupthink?

Answer 28

- illusion of invulnerability: illusion of being invulnerable to dangers that might arise from risky action - illusion of unanimity: members wrongly believe in group consensus - suppression of personal doubts: in the atmosphere of assumed consensus people supress their objections - self appointed 'mind guards': members of a cohesive group suppress any deviations from the group norm by applying direct social pressure on dissidents

Question 29

What are the stages of groupthink theory?

Answer 29

1. antecedent conditions e.g high group cohesiveness 2. symptoms of groupthink e.g illusion of invulnerability 3. poor decision making e.g failure to examine an alternative course of action

Question 30

How can groupthink be prevented?

Answer 30

- leaders should engage in critical evaluation of decisions - leaders should state issues in an impartial way - groups break into subgroups with separate leaders - discuss group decisions with non-group members - consult qualified individuals outside the group - group member be devils advocate - alternative courses of action - re-evaluate original plan, allowing concerns to be voiced - secret ballots to vote on a decision

Question 31

How can the work of groupthink researcher, Esser, be evaluated?

Answer 31

laboratory studies - group cohesiveness: weak/no support for the effects of cohesiveness on groupthink - lack of impartial leadership: consistent support for the role of biased leadership on the symptoms of groupthink, more self-censorship and mind guarding - other conditions: examined in fewer studies, with less consistent support

Question 32

How can the groupthink theory be critically evaluated? (Esser)

Answer 32

- support for case studies, but limited for laboratory research - no single experimental paradigm for groupthink research has been adopted - group cohesion has not been been successfully replicated in laboratory studies - insufficient laboratory research to test the effects of antecedents of groupthink on its symptoms and consequences