Group Processes Flashcards
(12 cards)
Social Facilitation
The tendency for people to do better on simple well learned tasks in the presence of others
The strengthening of dominant responses in the presence of others
Why does Social Facilitation occur?
-The presence of others create a general physiological arousal
Increased arousal enhances an individuals tendency to perform the dominant response
The quality of the individuals performance will vary depending on the type of task:
For an easy task, the dominant response is more successful
For a difficult task, the dominant response is often incorrect.
Why does the presence of others influence performance?
Mere presence:
The presence of others is associated with heightened physiological arousal
Distraction:
Non human distraction cam lead to similar outcomes
Evaluation apprehension:
Concern how others are evaluating us
Social Loafing
The tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable.
Free Rider
Person who benefits from the group without giving much in return
How do we combat social loafing?
- Evaluate individual performance
- Meaningful Tasks
- People believe their own contribution is important for success
- Negative consequences for poor group performance
- Group size (smaller the better)
Deindividuation
loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad.
Causes of Deindividuation
Accountability cues:
- Cost/benefit analysis
- High anonymity
Attentional cues:
- Attention is focused away from the self
- Lower self-awareness can lead to a discrepancy between behavior and beliefs.
Groupthink (Pg. 290-291)
The mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group, that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action
Characteristics of groupthink
Highly cohesive groups
An illusion of invulnerability
Group becomes closed minded
Uniformity
Group Polarization
Group-produced enhancement of members preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the members average tendency, not a split within the group.
Why does group polarization occurs?
Informational Social Influence:
-The information discussed in the group often favors a dominant viewpoint; Active Participant: When we express our own viewpoint, it can straighten our a
Normative Social Influence:
- Social comparison
- Pluralisitc ignorance- A false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding.
