lecture 8 - science of self-improvement Flashcards
Working in groups
Science of Self-Improvement:
Working with Others
- How does the presence of others affect my performance on tasks?
- How do we work together in groups?
- Do we make better decisions in groups?
GTA seminar: You’ll be contrasting pop science versus the social psych.
Presence of Others:
Social Facilitation
Norman Triplett (1898)
- Cyclists race faster when competing against others than when alone
- Children pulled on a fishing line faster in the presence of others than when alone.
2 Children on own or together fishing line – children work harder in presence of other – co-action effect
Examples of co-movement increasing speeds, e.g., walking when others are speeding up
Presence of Others:
Social Facilitation
Social facilitation is the tendency to perform “better” in the presence of others than when alone.
Clendenen, V. I. et al. (1994). Social facilitation of eating among friends and strangers. Appetite, 23(1), 1-13.
could be different talks or others are just observing others doing tasks
e.g., race faster when others are watching
not just humans – ants, cockroaches, rats, parakeets
e.g., Chen, 1937 ants dig 3 times faster around other ants
Presence of Others:
Social Facilitation…?
Floyd Allport (1920)
* Participants were more productive in the presence of others (e.g., generated more arguments)…
* …But the quality of their work declined (e.g., poorer arguments were given).
more performance in presence of group of 5 than when alone – more associations, better arguments
Presence of Others:
Social Facilitation…?
Social inhibition is the tendency to perform worse in the presence of others than when alone.
Presence of Others:
Social Facilitation AND Inhibition
Zajonc (1965):
The presence
of others
-
Increase drive
or arousal
-
Strengthens tendency
to perform dominant
aka well-learned
response
-
If dominant response is
correct, performance
is improved
social faciliation
or
If dominant response is
incorrect, performance
is impaired
Social Inhibition
Comparing facilitation vs inhibition: WHICH is true? NO – WHEN is one or the other true? Boundary conditions inform the mechanism.
Practical implications – which of my tasks will be facilitated by other people.
Presence of Others:
Social Facilitation AND Inhibition
Michaels et al. (1982)
* The shot accuracy of
good billiards players
increased in the
presence of others
(from 71% to 80%).
* The shot accuracy of poor billiards
players decreased in the presence
of others (from 30% to 25%).
Players coded for High or Low ability
Teams of 4 female researchers, coded players in terms of skill – accuracy – from distance
women move up and become audience for players - show interest
Presence of Others:
Alternative Mechanisms
Theory-Explanation
Mere Presence-The mere presence of others leads to arousal, which enhances the performance of well-learned, simple tasks and causes declines in performance on difficult, complex tasks.
Evaluation Apprehension- The above is only true because the presence of others implies that we are being evaluated. Evaluation apprehension causes the arousal.
Distraction-conflict - The presence of others is distracting, causing attention to be divided between the task and the people present, leading to conflict and arousal.
conflict arousal – dissonance in terms of goal conflict (grey et al)
which one? All, one or other in different contexts
Presence of Others:
Alternative Mechanisms
Evaluation
Apprehension
* Male skateboarders take
more risky tricks in
presence of women.
* Conditional: the evaluator
matters.
* Mediated by increased
testosterone levels
Ronay = attractive girl coming closer made the skateboarders “worse” because they became more risk-taking – greater testosterone = greater resource appraisal diminished perception of task difficulty
Group Productivity:
Type of Task
additive tasks - the more you do something the more you have of it
Total Impact.
e.g., Trick-or-
treating
conjunctive tasks -
Speed of slowest.
e.g., Assembly line
disjunctive tasks -
Problem solving.
e.g., Science?
Additive – total impact = additive function of individual efforts – every person counts to the same degree of potential contribution e.g., 1/8 equality of potential contribution
Conjunctive – e.g., assembly line – only as fast as the slowest individual – success depends on weakest link – division of labour
Disjunctive task – problem to solve , find one best solution - not everyone will be needed equally – output depends on most competent/crucial member – may not need the rest – resting on the strongest link
Group Productivity:
Type of Task
Ringelmann’s Rope-Pulling Study
KG force per person
graph in notes
Question: what kind of task is this?
What would we expect happens?
Group Productivity:
Social Loafing
Social loafing is the tendency to work less on a collective activity than when alone.
Most problematic for additive tasks, especially those with hidden contributions.
Art of Laziness picture – adaptive and efficient? Consolidation of resources
Karau & Williams (1995)
Importance
of person’s
contribution
Valuing
group
success
Identifiability
of individual’s
contribution
What factors affect affect?
Don’t care as much about reward – winning tug of war vs. relay at Olympics
Relative importance of contribution – more people = less crucial contribution
Can I be assessed individually? Can you tell how much I contributed? Tug of war vs. football player.
e.g., cheer sections in stadium making areas identifiable
Group Productivity:
Social Loafing
- Loafing is lower when people work with acquaintances than with strangers (Karau & Williams, 1997).
- What does this remind you of from past lecture?
- Loafing is lower when the reward for group success is valued (Shepperd & Wright, 1985) or the task is challenging (Jackson & Williams, 1985).
strangers care less about success, indefinability dimensions
challenge speaks to resource efficiency and/or reward dimensions
Group Productivity:
Social Compensation
Social compensation occurs when people exert effort to compensate for others in the group.
can turn loafing off – what about MORE effort?
Know others are less competent or effortful – must help group to succeed
Group Productivity:
Social Compensation
Williams and Karau 1991
Ability of partner
low. high
trivial. loafing loafing
important compensation. loafing
trivial/ important = importance of outcome of challenge
ability of partner - capable or not capable of job assigned
loafing in trivial high ability - you loaf to a greater extent - you coast on their extent
uses for knife – told confederate partner was high or low in ability (I’m good at this” “I’m not good at this”)
trivial –pointless fun task
important – good indicator of intelligence of future success
WATCH OUT FOR EXPERIEMTNER EFFECT e.g., experiment more interested/engaged when old it was a important task
Group Productivity:
Köhler Effect
The Köhler (1927, 1928) effect occurs when a yoked dyad exerts more effort on a valued task than one person working alone.
Specifically, the less competent person “steps up” to match the more competent person.
koherl – LESS competence gives more effort, not MORE competent + compensation
yoked together at bar, so identifiable who is working more – less able works harder to ‘equal bar’ and contribute as much
diagram in notes
Group Productivity:
Köhler Effect
- Köhler: Increased effort from the less competent person.
Social compensation: involves increased effort from the most competent person.
Group Productivity:
Decision Making
- Alex Osborne 1957 – wrote book about technique and coined term “brainstorming”
- Widely used in business world (Cain’s book Quiet)
- Real goal is disjunctive (treated as additive)
4. no criticism of ideas
5. wild ideas are especially valued and welcome
6. high volume of ideas is desired
combine and improve ideas later
Group Productivity:
Decision Making
Taylor, Berry, & Block (1958)
- The output of brainstorming groups of five was compared with the output of five people working on their own.
- They worked on abstract problems without obviously correct solutions.
- Less ideas, less unique ideas, less high-quality (e.g., feasible) ideas [than people working alone, ideas summed].
Is this technique effective?
Experiment only a year later.
12 minutes for 5 problems - 5 in one hour
e.g., how do we increase US tourism from Europe?
Open-ended question to encourage creativity – abstract with no “correct” answers
Groups of 5 people working together in group discussion using brainstorming rules
Individuals working in cubicles
Add up distinct ideas and code them for quality
Brainstorming did significantly WORSE – fewer ideas, lower quality
Not 5 heads better than one – it’s about 5 together or alone
We think together is better because it may be more enjoyable, and validating especially when no criticism
Apple example
Group Productivity:
Summary
- Presence of others increases arousal
- Arousal improves performance of tasks we experience as challenge, and inhibits performance of tasks we experience as threats
- Working on a collective task with others tends to decrease effort, except when the individual believes that it is important to compensate for others.
Brainstorming often generates weaker ideas than the same number of individuals alone.
