Group Behaviour, Conformity, and Obedience

Question 1

What did Forsyth (1998) state about groups?

Answer 1

= Exist when two or more people define themselves as members.
= Existence is recognised by at least one other person.

Question 2

What did Brekcin et al., (2006) state about groups?

Answer 2

= Groups are two or more people interacting with one another (influencing one another)

Question 3

What are groups based on?

Answer 3

= Common experience
= Implicit social structure
= Common characteristics
= Common interests/values/beliefs

Question 4

What did Jetten et al., (2012) state about the ‘social cure’?

Answer 4

= Social groups positively impact individuals as social identification processes make them meaningful and psychologically valuable.

Question 5

What did Wakefield et al., (2012) state about the ‘social cure’?

Answer 5

= Group identification is connected to wellbeing, even after controlling for social integration.

Question 6

What is the ‘social curse’?

Answer 6

= Group membership and group experiences have the potential of hindering group members.

Question 7

What does Kellezi & Reicher., (2012) state about the ‘social curse’?

Answer 7

= social curse phenomena have been identified on a multitude of contexts.

Question 8

What is social loafing?

Answer 8

= Concept that individuals working in groups tend to exert less effort than when working alone

Question 9

What does social loafing occur as a result of?

Answer 9

= Individuals making incorrect attributions about how labour is divided in the group.
= Goals being set lower than they should be, leading members to make less effort.

Question 10

How do Karau & Williams., (1993) apply social loafing to gender?

Answer 10

= Review of 150 studies, showing the tendency to loaf is stronger in men than women.

Question 11

(Eagly., 1987) Why is social loafing stronger in men than women?

Answer 11

Relational interdependence.

Question 12

Why is group decision-making preferred?

Answer 12

= Access to more information.
= Multiple perspectives.

Question 13

What is faulty decision making?

Answer 13

= The process of making decisions that are flawed or incorrect due to influences or lack of information.

Question 14

What are the symptoms of Groupthink?

Answer 14

= An illusion of Invulnerability
= Rationalisation of warnings
= Stereotyped view of enemy leaders

Question 15

What are two real-life examples of groupthink?

Answer 15

= The bombing of Pearl Harbour
= The collapse of Swissair, 2001

Question 16

What is meant by the term ‘groupthink’?

Answer 16

= A psychological phenomenon in which people strive for consensus within a group.

Question 17

How can groupthink be prevented?

Answer 17

= Leader should assign the role of critical evaluator to each member.
= The leader should avoid stating preferences and expectations at the outset.
= Each member of the group should routinely discuss the groups’ deliberations with a trusted associate and report back to the group on the associate’s reactions.

Question 18

What is meant by the term ‘group polarisation’?

Answer 18

= Tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of its members.

Question 19

Examples of polarisation and the internet:

Answer 19

= Social networking sites.
= Online identities (Neo-Nazis, conspiracy theorists, terrorist groups).
= Without face-to-face discussion, therefore a loss of inhibitions.

Question 20

What is meant by the term ‘deindividuation’?

Answer 20

= A feeling in the individual members of a group that have lost personal identities, merging into a group/crowd (becoming anonymous.

Question 21

What do Festinger, Pepitone, and Newcomb (1952) state about ‘deindividuation’?

Answer 21

= A loss of responsibility.

Question 22

What 4 factors cause deindividuation?

Answer 22

= Psychological factors.
= Weakening of inhibitions against undesirable actions.
= Increase adherence to group norms.
= Increased responsiveness to external cues.
*link to Zimbardo e.g., effects of uniform, physical anonymity

Question 23

What do Johnson and Downing (1979) question about Physical Anonymity?

Answer 23

= Is anonymity always a pre-cursor to negative group behaviour?

Question 24

What does Diener et al., (1976) state about group size?

Answer 24

= The larger the group, the more the anonymity.

Question 25

What does the Evil Thesis state?

Answer 25

= People ignore morality of their actions.
= Ordinary people transformed into oppressors.
=People follow rules ‘blindly’.
= People conform to rules handed down by authorities.

Question 26

What studies support The Evil Thesis?

Answer 26

= Milgram
= Zimbardo
*Influenced academic research
*Spilled over to popular culture, becoming an ‘everyone knows’ fact

Question 27

Haslam & Reicher., ‘

(2012) What is the problem with the ‘everyone knows’ fact?

Answer 27

= Perpetuates the myth people inevitably succumb to the demands of authority, however immoral the consequences.
= Tells us ‘resistance is futile’

Question 28

Why do people follow rules ‘blindly’?

Answer 28

= Follow orders/rules/others without knowing right from wrong, or without considering the morality of their actions.

Question 29

PRACTICAL APPLICATION: Following rules ‘blindly’.

Answer 29

WWII Nazis:
= Defence that vague ‘orders were simply followed’.
= Relied upon ‘simple’ order to minimise culpability and escape the death penalty.

Question 30

Zimbardo (1971):

Answer 30

= Guards not given direct orders.
= Guards given general idea of ideal behaviour.
= Guards created prisoners feelings of boredom, sense of fear, with their life being totally controlled.
= Individuality of prisoners was taken away in various ways, leading to a sense of powerlessness.

Question 31

Flaws with Zimbardo’s methodology:

Answer 31

= Lack of direct orders would amount to the absence of a controlled experiment, reducing validity and reliability… too much emphasis on guards ‘ego fuelled psychosis’.
= Highly unethical.
= Guards should have been given same instructions as actual guards to see if ‘real’ rules and laws made any difference.

Question 32

Milgram (1963):

Answer 32

= ppts tried to avoid the situation, laughing and talking their way out.
= Experiment did not allow any space for choice.
= ppts were torn between moral objections and ‘the experiment outcomes’

Question 33

The ‘big idea’ according to Milgram:

Answer 33

= The Milgram Studies are not about people who blindly conform.
= About convincing people to believe in the importance of experiments.

Question 34

SUMMARISING CONFORMITY:

Answer 34

= People conform and obey by belief, not by nature
1. Knowingly not blindly.
2. Actively not passively.
3. Out of choice and not by necessity.
4. Creatively and not automatically.

Question 35

What did Milgram’s (1963) study demonstrate?

Answer 35

= How individuals can be influenced by the roles they are assigned and the power dynamics within a social situation.

Question 36

How did Thomas Blass (2019) Criticise Zimbardo?

Answer 36

= Argued emphasis on the power of authority and that situational factors may obscure the role of individual agency and responsibility in behaviour.