Lecture 6 -> Group Processes Flashcards
(22 cards)
Overview
Why do we join groups?
Cooperate in groups
Performance in a social contest
Group decision making
Why do people leave and disidentify with groups?
What is a group?
Entitativty:
- degree to which a collection of people feels cohesive
Features of a cohesive gore
- common bond -> the degree to which members interact and depend on one another
- common identity -> the degree to which groups share similar characteristics
Entitativity
Type group -> examples
1. intimacy groups (most-group like) -> family, partners in a romantic relationship, friends
2. task group -> colleagues, committees, work groups
3. social categories -> women., muslim, British
4. loose associations (least group-like) -> people who live on the same street, people who like rock music
Why join a group?
Promoting survival and achievement goals
- group membership has enhanced survival groups
- adaptive tendency to identify with kinship groups
- groups contribute to goal completion
Uncertainty-identity theory:
- people join and identify with groups to reduce negative feelings of uncertainty about themselves and others
- groups have norms and roles about how to think and act
Reduced anxiety via:
- less uncertainty of other’s actions
- provides template for our thoughts/behaviours
- Group identification reduces uncertainty
Social identity theory
- group identities are an important part of self-definition and a key source of self-esteem
~ basking in reflective glory (Cialdini)
- intergroup comparisons (in-group vs outgroup bias)
~ particularly among successful or high- status groups
Terror management theory:
- associating with groups help our morality concerns
- group membership strengthens feelings of connections to something bigger and longer lasting
Cooperation in groups
Social dilemmas
- pit self-interest against a larger social group
- the best known is the prisoner’s dilemma
~ do you remain silent and spend 5 years in prison or confess and snitch on your paternity, have no time but they get 20 years
~ same dilemma but instead you’d only get 1 year each
Resource dilemmas
- involved distribution of scare or values resources
~ ultimatum game
~ dictator game
When
- situational factors (e.g. salient social norms)
- personality traits (e.g. agreeableness)
~ cultural influences
Why
- biological basis?
- oxytocin
Oxytocin
Involved in reproductive functions
- causes contraction of uterus during brith
- releases in response to stimulus of nipple, causing lactation
- the reflex can become conditioned to environmental stimuli, leading to the release of oxytocin in response to the sight of a baby crying or the sound of a baby crying
Hormone vs neurotransmitter
In the brain, oxytocin effects:
- assists in social recognition and interaction
- pair bonding -> oxytocin = the “love” chemical
- released during -> sexual activity, stimulation of the skin (e.g. hugs)
- vasopressin = similar effects in men
Oxytocin affects trust
Ppts decide how much money to invest with someone
Ppts who received a dose of oxytocin were more trusting
They were twice as likely to invest all of their money
Oxytocin group:
- % who invested all money, reflecting high trust = 45
- % who made smaller investments, less trusting - 22
Placebo group:
- high investment = 21
- low investment = 44
Performance in social context
Social facilitation theory
- presence of others can boost a person’s performance
- presence of others heightens arousal, improving performance -> drive theory
- cyclists and fishing rods study
Social facilitation theory revised
- presence of others does not always improve performance
- if task is simple or practised, audience improves performance
- if task is complex or Newley learned, performance impaired
(Think about Zac playing the guitar)
Importance of physiology
- challenge of response
~ heart pumps faster
~ blood flows to extremities
~ social facilitation
- threatened response
~ heart pumps faster
~ artery constriction
~ social inhibition
Role of evaluation
- potential for social judgment
- brings distracting thoughts to mind (e.g. self-defeating worries) and drains working memory capacity
- blindfolding audience can diminish social facilitation/inhibition effects
Heightened arosual may occur due to conflict between the task and attending to other people or things
- can explain so this as well as non-social distraction
e.g. podcast
Consequences of groups
Self loafing
- effort reduced when perfuming in a group rather than alone
Why?
- low accountability
- high expected effort from others
- high perceived dispensability
- tasks that lack personal meaning
Self loafing
Blindfolded ppts in a circle
Earphones played shooting voice
Told to shout as loud as possible
Told they were shooting with one person or with group
- always just the ppts shouting
- told shouting with one other person = 83% intensity
- told shouting in group = 75% intensity
Diffusion responsibility
- people in a group feel personally less responsible for any task at hand their contribution is literally ‘lost in the crowd’
Diffusion of responsibility and task complexity
- performance increases in groups during complex taks
- diffusion of responsibility and evaluation apprehension cancel each other out during complex tasks
- the contributions are not assed, performance improves
- e.g. you fear rejection from peers during difficult tasks
Performance within a group
Deindividuation:
- a tendency to lose sense of individuality in a group
- opposite of heightened self-awareness
Certain conditions make deindividuation more likely
- overstimulation
- high cognitive load
- physiological arousal, larger group size
- few cues distinguishing individuals in a crowd
Stanford prison experiment
Philip Zimbardo (1971)
- ppts were randomly assigned to be a prisoner of a guard
- each group removed of all individuality
~ guards became more aggressive
~ prisoners become submissive
Group decision-making
Group polarisation:
- the tendency for group discussion to shift group members toward an extra,e position
Groupthink:
- the tendency toward flawed group decision-making when group members are so intent on persevering group harmony they fail to analyse a problem completely
Group polarisation
Ppts make risker decisions as a group than they do on their own
- group discussions shifts groups towards an extreme position
- normative social influence
~ auto kinetic effect
~ Asch’s line study
~ cycle of comparison and amplification
Group think
What does group think feel like?
- group members feel strong pressure to agree with majority
- any voiced concerns could be viewed as weak or antagonistic
Why do groups fall prey to group think?
- group members too focused on reaching consensus
- this is more likely when:
~ motivated to be liked by the group or by group leader
~ want to keep the group together, fear that the group will break apart
~ they close themselves off to new informations, opinions or perspectives
How does group think affect decision making?
- members do not gather enough information before decision
- they do not fully consider alternative perspectives
- as a result, they do not make adequate plans for what to do if their decisions and actions turn out badly
Improving group decision making
Increase group diversity
Assess groups cohesion
Encourage individuality
Plan to be object
Leaving groups (disidentifying)
People leave groups because they no longer successfully serve one or more basic psychological needs, such as:
- promoting survival
- reducing uncertainty
- bolstering self-esteem
- managing morality concern
Collective action
Social identity model of collective action (van Zomeren)
- attitude/behaviour change more difficult in groups
- must mobilise majority of group members for change
Three key factors:
- perceived injustice
- self-efficacy
- social identity
Perceived injustice
Pluralistic ignorance
- inaccurate perceptions of social or cultural norms
- assumptions others in group hold different opinion
- in reality, they probably share same opinion
Self-efficacy
Confidence in your ability to complete a specific task or achieve a particular goal
Linked to social facilitation vs inhibitor
- if self-efficacy is high = facilitation
- if self-efficacy is low = inhibition
If groups self-efficact is low, no one will have confidence to engage in collective action to enact change
Social identity
Social identity theory (again)
- issues linked to your social identity promote action
- if targeted behaviour is unrelated to group, action more likely
How to promote relevance to social identity
- blame
- promotion sense of guilt effective in linking action to identity
- however, may cause backlash against collective action
