Group Performance And Leadership Flashcards
(40 cards)
Potential group performance (group potential)
The performance that would have occurred if the members of a group had worked independently of each other and not as a group; a common benchmark to evaluate actual group performance.
Group task types
Group tasks are distinguished depending on whether the task is divisible between group members, whether the quality or quantity of the output is relevant, and how individual contributions are related to the group’s performance.
Brainstorming
A group technique aimed at enhancing creativity in groups by means of the uninhibited generation of as many ideas as possible concerning a specific topic.
Eureka effect
Describes the situation when the correct solution to a problem, once it is found, is immediately recognized as being correct by group members.
Coordination losses
Describe the diminished performance of a group if it fails to coordinate the contributions of its individual members in an optimal manner.
Ringelmann effect
Describes the finding that in physical tasks such as weight pulling, the average performance of individual group members decrease with increasing group size.
Nominal group
A number of individuals who perform a task individually and work independently of each other; nominal groups are used to determine the potential performance of groups.
Production blocking
A process loss typical is brainstorming task in face-to-face groups; since in a group only one person can speak at a time, the other group members cannot express their own ideas at the same time.
Motivation losses and gains
Decreases or increases in group member’s motivation to contribute to group task performance.
Social loafing
A motivational loss in groups that occurs when group members reduce their effort due to the fact that individual contributions to group performance are not identifiable.
Dispensability effect
A reduction in group member’s task-related effort because their individual contributions seems to have little impact on group performance.
Sucker effect
A motivational loss in groups that occurs when group members perceive or anticipate that other group members will lower their effort: to avoid being exploited, they reduce their effort themselves.
Social competition
A motivation gain in groups that occurs if the group members want to outperform each other during group tasks in which the individual contributions are identifiable.
Social compensation
A motivational gain in groups that occurs if stronger group members increase their effort in order to compensate for weaker member’s suboptimal performance.
Köhler effect
A motivation gain in groups which involves weaker group members working harder than they would do individually in order to avoid being responsible for a weak group performance.
Individual capability gains and losses
Improvements or impairments in individual group member’s ability to successfully perform a task due to social interaction within the group.
Cognitive restriction
A capability loss in group tasks that involve idea generation, which occurs when an idea mentioned by another group member makes people focus on the particular category this idea belongs to, at the expense of generating ideas from other categories.
Cognitive simulation
A capability gain in group tasks that involve idea generation, which occurs when an idea mentioned by another group member stimulates a cognitive category one would otherwise not have thought of.
Group composition
Specifies how certain characteristics are distributed within a group.
Group performance management
The sum of activities aimed at maximizing (or improving) the group-specific component of group performance.
Hidden profile
A group decision situation in which information is distributed among group members such that no individual group member can detect the best solution based on his or her own information.
Group synchronization
The sum of activities aimed at optimizing the collaborative generation, modification and integration of individual contributions in a group.
Group learning
A generic term for several learning processes that can only occur if several people work interactively on the same task.
Individual-to-individual transfer
Individual learning processes whereby a group member’s ability to perform a task on their own improves as a result of repeated individual task performance.
