The psychology of Groups Flashcards
(32 cards)
What is a Group?
→ A Group is two or more people who interact with and influence one another and perceive themselves as ‘us’. (Marvin Shaw, 1981)
Why do Groups exist?
→ (Johnson et al., 2006) Groups may exist for a number of reasons, to meet a need to belong, to provide information, to supply rewards, and to accomplish goals.
What is the Structure and Composition of Groups?
A. Collective influence:
1. Social Facilitation
2. Social Loafing
3. Deindividuation
B. Social influence:
1. Group Polarization
2. Groupthink
3. Minority Influence
Give me a personal experience of when you felt you belonged in a group.
a) I have joined an Eminem fan club group chat online and it made me feel like I was in a group because we interact together as well as all share a mutual liking of that music artist so it connects us together in a way. (Marvin Shaw, 1981)
What is Social Facilitation?
→Social Facilitation is the improvement in an individual’s performance of a task when others are present.
How are we affected by the presence of others? explain.
→ we are affected by people who are merely present as a passive audience or as co-actors. As social animals, we are primed to be ever-conscious of others.
What are co-actors?
→ Co-actors are co-participants working individually on a non-competitive activity.
The mere Presence of Others. Does it Improve or Hinder performance? Compare & Contrast.
A. Improved performance
→ (Norman Triplett, 1898) noticed that cyclists’ racing times were faster when they raced together than when each one raced alone against the clock. To test that theory he asked children to wind string on a fishing reel as rapidly as possible. And the results show that they wound faster when they worked with co-actors than when they worked alone.
B. Hindered performance
→ (Halfmann et al., 2020) have revealed that on some tasks the presence of others hinders performance. Other’s presence diminishes efficiency at learning and solving problems.
Compare & Contrast -
→ (Park and Catrambone, 2007) discovered that while the presence of virtual humans facilitated their participants in achieving simple tasks, it hindered them in the accomplishment of complex tasks.
→ (Robert Zajonc, 2008) The Drive Theory suggests that arousal enhances whatever response tendency is dominant. Increased arousal enhances performance on easy tasks (dominant) promoting correct responses. On complex tasks (not dominant) increased arousal promotes incorrect responding.
Example -
→ (Rockloff et al., 2007) Gambling behavior, This study investigates whether gambling is prone to social facilitation if it is done in the presence of other gamblers. By giving them 5 bucks and placing them in a gambling room filled with other gamblers on the same machine who then hear and see flashing lights and announcements of other fake gamblers winning. And as the results show all participants ended up playing more games and losing all the money. Proving the Influence the presence of others has.
Give me a personal experience that shows how the mere presence of others affects your performance.
a) I have noticed that I perform so much better in tasks that I have mastered when surrounded by co-actors than in a newer task that I don’t feel as confident in. I have realized that I tend to second guess every step I make when I am not confident in my ability to perform that task and it becomes 10 times harder and takes longer time to do when surrounded by others than when alone. (Robert Zajonc, 2008)
The Presence of many Others. Does it Improve or Hinder performance?
→ (Knowles, 1983) Arousal and self-conscious attention created by a larger audience interfere even with well-learned, automatic, dominant behaviors.
Give me a personal experience that shows how the presence of many others affects your performance.
a) I tend to be more stressed and self-conscious when jumping a course in an event in front of many others even when I have trained a million times on the same height at home with no complications. (Knowles, 1983) & (Mullen & Baumeister, 1987)
Why are we Aroused in the Presence of Others?
→ (Cottrell et al., 1968) state that observers make us apprehensive because we wonder how they are evaluating us. Otherwise known as Evaluation Apprehension.
→ (Mullen & Baumeister, 1987) State that the self-consciousness we feel when being evaluated can also interfere with behaviors that we perform best automatically.
→ (Sanders, 1981) The Distracted-Conflict Theory says that when we wonder how co-actors are doing or how an audience is reacting, we become distracted.
What is Evaluation Apprehension?
→ Evaluation Apprehension is the concern for how others are evaluating us.
Give me a personal experience that shows the affect of being aroused by others.
a) I Graduated with a French Diplomat otherwise known as BAC and to do so one of our final exams was an oral one where I had to present a topic I created in front of a jury, and I got nervous to the point where I was uncontrollably crying the whole time and was hard for me to even breath at times because of the evaluation apprehension effect. (Cottrell et al., 1968)
What is Social Loafing?
→ Social loafing is the reduction of individual effort that occurs when people work in groups compared to when they work alone.
Do Individuals exert less effort in a group? explain.
A. Loafing
→ (Harkins et al., 1980) In this experiment they placed 6 people in a semi-circle, blindfolded, and had them put headphones on which they blasted with the sound of people shouting and clapping, and were then asked to shout and clap believing that they were among others who were doing the same. The results showed that the participants produced one-third less noise than when they thought themselves alone. Thus proving social loafing.
B. not fully
→ (Gockel et al., 2008) discovered that groups loaf less when their members are friends or they feel identified with or indispensable to their group.
Explanation -
→ (Jones, 2013) explains social loafing as being free-riders which happens when rewards are divided equally, regardless of how much one contributes to the group.
→ (Tan & Tan, 2008) This study shows that when people are not accountable and cannot evaluate their own efforts, responsibility is diffused across all group members. (evaluation apprehension)
What is a free-rider?
→ Free-riders are people benefiting from the group but giving little in return.
Give me a personal experience of you experiencing social loafing.
a) Whenever I find myself in a group setting where we all are doing the same act, I tend to rely on others to carry on with it and find myself being less enthusiastic and not putting in as much effort as I would normally do. (Harkins et al., 1980)
Explain with an example the difference between Social Facilitation and Social Loafing.
→ When individuals cannot be evaluated or held accountable, loafing becomes more likely. An individual swimmer is evaluated on her ability to win the race. In a tug-of-war, no single person on the team is held accountable, so any one member might relax or loaf.
What is Deindividuation?
→ Deindividuation is the loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad.
When do people lose their sense of self in groups?
→ Groups can generate a sense of excitement, of being caught up in something bigger than one’s self, and can likely abandon normal restraints, to forget their individual identity, to become responsive to group or crowd norms.
What influences make you more susceptible to deindividuation?
- The bigger the group the bigger the anonymity
- People’s attention is focused on the situation, not on themselves
- “everyone is doing it”
- Group experiences that diminish self-consciousness tend to disconnect behavior from attitudes.
Give me an example of deindividuation.
→ Children were more likely to transgress by taking extra Halloween candy when in a group, when anonymous, and especially when deindividuated by the combination of group immersion and anonymity. (Diener et al., 1976)
What is group Polarization?
→ Group Polarization is a group-produced enhancement of members’ pre-existing tendencies. When a rather homogenous group discusses a topic, the opinion of the group often merges into a more extreme one.
