Performance Flashcards
What is social facilitation?
An improvement in task performance that occurs when people work in the presence of other people.
What was the first study of social facilitation? Who conducted it? When?
Norman Triplett in 1898
He knew that bicycle racers raced faster when other racers were present, and believed that the effect could not be fully accounted for by drafting.
In his experiment, he had children turn reels as fast as possible. Again, he found that children doing it together with other children were faster than children doing it alone.
Later research (after Triplett’s study) found that _____________ was not the only form of social facilitation. What has a similar effect?
coaction was not the only form of social facilitation; audiences have a similar effect
When social facilitation occurs and both speed/quantity and quality can be measured, what is usually the result?
there is often a trade-off: people in groups often work faster but less well (quality is often sacrificed for speed)
What did Robert Zajonc say about social facilitation? How did he demonstrate this?
He explained quality in groups being sacrificed for speed for the following reason:
He claimed that performing a task with others enhances dominant responses but inhibits nondominant responses.
Dominant responses – simple or well-learned tasks – enhanced by social facilitation
Nondominant responses – complex or novel tasks – inhibited by social facilitation
He even demonstrated this effect with cockroaches.
What are 5 reasons that social facilitation occurs?
Drive processes – motivation increases (Zajonc)
Social cognition – parts of brain used to think about people are different from those used for thinking about other things (non-people) – When a task is a simple one, this activation of the attentional and reward centers of the social brain facilitate performance, but when the task is more difficult, the social brain interferes with performance
Evaluation apprehension – when you have an audience, you get nervous about their judgment (maybe a subset of drive processes) - increases energy but you’re not necessarily thinking clearly
Distraction/conflict – presence of others is distracting
Attentional processes - dividing attention (you can only really pay attention to one task at a time) – multitasking is really just switching attention from one task to another quickly and does not increase quality of performance
What is self-presentation theory? Whose theory is it?
An analysis of performance gains in groups assuming that social facilitation is caused by individuals striving to make a good impression when they work in the presence of others.
We do not want the others to think that we possess negative, shameful qualities and characteristics, so we strive to make a good impression – related to evaluation apprehension
Goffman
What are some consequences of social facilitation?
If the presence of others facilitates dominant responses, and prejudice is the dominant response for many people, then we would expect people to become more prejudiced under conditions of crowding.
Social facilitation also seems to increase the amount people eat.
Because classroom settings often ask people to learn complex material, the presence of others may inhibit learning, at least sometimes.
Group exercises are particularly ambiguous in this regard.
What is the Ringelmann effect? What is it attributed to?
Way back in 1913, Max Ringelmann found that the per-person force generated by people pulling on a rope decreases as the number of people on the rope increases.
Part of this is coordination losses (vector addition tells you that if people don’t all pull in exactly the same direction, some force is lost).
Part of this appears to be social loafing.
What are two causes of social loafing?
Free riding: People count on others to carry the load and don’t work as hard.
This is especially likely to happen if people suspect others are not pulling their weight. This is called the sucker effect.
Anonymity: We just spent three slides telling you people work harder in groups, and now we say the opposite. The difference is in whether people’s individual contributions can be identified. If they can, we get social facilitation, if we cannot, we get social loafing.
How can social loafing be reduced?
Set clear goals.
Increase involvement by making the group goal a meaningful one and call the skill or motivation of coworkers into doubt.
Increase identification with the group (c.f. social identity theory).
What is the Collective Effort Model (CEM)? What theory is it related to?
incorporates expectancy-value theory to predict that effort is highest when a goal is valued and expectations of meeting it are high
If you both value the goal highly and think you have a chance of achieving it, that will increase the motivation and, therefore, performance
Related to Expectancy Value Theories – theories of motivation
How well groups work compared to individuals depends on what circumstances?
Divisible versus unitary tasks: Can the task be divided into subtasks that different group members can do?
Quantity versus quality: Are you looking for quantity (maximization) or quality (optimization)?
Interdependence: How are individual inputs combined?
What are the five types of tasks related to interdependence?
additive,
compensatory,
disjunctive,
conjunctive,
discretionary
What are additive tasks?
These are divisible, maximizing tasks, like pulling on a rope or shucking oysters. For simple tasks where individuals’ contributions are visible, the group may be more effective than separate individuals would be.
if one person can make product X in an hour then twenty people will make more than one (and possibly even more than x20)
What are compensatory tasks?
These are tasks in which group members make judgments and the judgments are then averaged.
averaging the judgments of the individuals in a group – only works when the general knowledge (re the task) of the crowd is high (wisdom of crowds)
Who first documented the Wisdom of the Crowds Effect? How? What type of tasks does this relate to?
Francis Galton first documented the Wisdom of the Crowds Effect.
He studied a contest to guess the weight of an ox carcass at a fair. The average weight guessed by the contestants was 1197 pounds and the actual weight was 1198.
The wisdom of the crowds only works when most members of the crowd have the background to provide a reasonable estimate.
compensatory tasks
What are disjunctive tasks?
The group must generate a single solution (usually some sort of decision).
Groups typically do somewhat better than the average individual within the group on such tasks.
– solution cannot be generated by averaging the individual judgments – e.g., jury decisions
Are groups performing disjunctive tasks guaranteed to come up with the right answer when one group member knows the right answer?
Though groups often do better than average individuals, it is not guaranteed that the group will come up with the right answer even if a group member knows the right answer.
If someone supports the person with the right answer, this is often very helpful (remember minority influence).
What are eureka problems?
(ones that have solutions that are generally solved in a single satisfying flash of insight), the group will almost always choose the correct solution provided someone in the group finds it
What types of tasks tend to foster better group performance when working on disjunctive tasks? What types foster worse performance?
Intellective tasks (ones with a clear right answer) tend to foster better group performance than judgment tasks (ones without a clear right answer).
What are conjunctive tasks? What are some examples?
ones where all members must do their part in order for the group to succeed.
For example, a group of hikers who want to stay together will not go faster than the slowest member.
For divisible tasks, the person who performs their component slowest limits the speed of the group, so groups will often be careful in how they allocate the tasks.
What is the Köhler effect?
When people know they are the weakest/slowest group member, they are often motivated to work extra hard to avoid holding the group back (conjunctive tasks)
What are discretionary tasks?
ones where the members have some control over how their inputs are aggregated
groups decide how to combine input – performance depends on which techniques (the other types of tasks) they decide on –
if they turn it into an additive task, they have the best performance usually
