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Group Process

Group Influence on Individual Behavior

What is a group?

Two or more people… …who are interacting with each other… …and are interdependent—to fulfill their

needs and goals they must rely on each other.

Why do people join groups?

 Survival  Evolutionarily advantageous

 Benefits  Provide information  Define identity  Establish social norms for behavior

What is the composition of groups?

 Most groups 2-6 people

 Tendency to be similar  Social norms  Social roles  Group cohesiveness

Social norms  “Rules” of behavior that are acceptable in a

group/society  Change according to environment; can change over time  Deviation often punished, unless you have idiosyncrasy credits

Social norms

 Descriptive vs. Injunctive norms  Injunctive norms

 what should happen

 Descriptive norms  what actually happens

 Prescriptive vs. Proscriptive norms  Prescriptive norms

 For things we should do

 Proscriptive norms  For things we should not do

Social Roles All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts…

William Shakespeare, As You Like It

 Parts we play as members of social groups

 Behavior changes to fit expectations you and others have of that role

 There are different social norms for each situation & roles stem from those norms

Social roles

 Stanford Prison Experiment (Zimbardo, 1971)  Created “jail” in basement of Psych building  RA volunteers to be guards or prisoners  Both groups quickly took on their roles  Was supposed to last 2 weeks

 Lasted 6 days before having to be stopped

 Illustrates power of social roles to shape our behaviors

Group Cohesiveness

 The qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking between members.

 The more cohesion:  the more likely to retain members  members take part in group activities  members try to recruit new members

 The good and bad sides of cohesion  Too much cohesion can impede performance

How Groups Influence Behaviors of Individuals  Social Facilitation  When the presence of others energizes us

 Social Loafing  When the presence of others relaxes us

 Deindividuation  Getting lost in the crowd

Social Facilitation  The tendency for people to do better on simple tasks and

worse on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated.

 Norman Triplett (1898)  Children reeled in fishing line faster in groups than alone

 Robert Zajonc (1969)  Applied this effect to cockroaches

Zajonc et al. (1969)

0 20 40 60 80

100 120 140

Seconds to navigate maze

Simple Complex

Alone Audience

Social Facilitation: simple vs. difficult tasks

Social Facilitation: Arousal and Dominant Response  Zajonc (1969)  The presence of others increases arousal.  Arousal (physiological excitation) increases the likelihood

of the dominant response

 Markus (1978)

 The tendency for people to do worse on simple tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance cannot be evaluated.

 Max Ringelmann (1913)

Social Loafing

 Who slacks off the most?  Men more than Women  Western-oriented more than Eastern-oriented

 Why do we loaf?  Individual effort cannot be identified and rewarded.  The task is not challenging, appealing, or involving

Social Loafing

Is a loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension resulting in uninhibited behavior.

Deindividuation

What causes deindividuation?

Anonymity

 Large groups (hiding in the crowd)  Mullen (1986) found that the larger the mob, the more

savage and vicious the lynching.

 Costumes (hiding behind masks & uniforms)  Zimbardo (1970) found that Ps in sheets and hoods

held a shock lever twice as long as those who wore name tags instead of the costume.

Deindividuation

Group Decisions

 Major function of groups = making decisions

 Are two heads better than one?  It depends!

 Process Loss  Group Polarization  Leadership in Groups

Group Decisions: Process Loss

Process Loss: any aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving

 Groups might not try to find most expert member  Normative social pressures felt by expert  Communication problems  Failure to share unique information  Groupthink

Group Decisions: Process Loss

 Failure to Share Unique Information  the tendency to focus on shared information and ignore

unique information known to only some members

 Stasser & Titus, 1995  Student Body President Candidates  IV: Information – Shared vs. Unshared  DV: Which candidate was chosen?

Failure to share unique information They all know the same thing about Candidate A:

Positive facts #1 #2 #3 # 4 #5 #6 #7 #8

Negative facts #1 #2 #3 # 4

They all know different things about Candidate A:

Positive #1 #2

Negative

#1 #2 #3 #4

Positive #3 #4

Negative

#1 #2 #3 #4

Positive #5 #6

Negative

#1 #2 #3 #4

Positive #7 #8

Negative

#1 #2 #3 #4

Group Decision

83% = A

Group Decision

24% = A

Group Decisions: Process Loss  Groupthink: a kind of thinking in which maintaining

group cohesiveness and solidarity is more important than considering the facts in a realistic manner

 Kennedy and the “Bay of Pigs” invasion

Groupthink

 Preconditions  Highly cohesive group  Group is isolated  Directive leader  High stress  Poor decision-making procedures

Groupthink

 Symptoms  Illusion of invulnerability  Belief in moral correctness of group  Stereotyped views of out-group  Self-censorship  Direct pressure on dissenters to conform  Illusion of unanimity  Mindguards

Groupthink

 Defective decision-making  Incomplete survey of alternatives  Failure to examine risks of the favored alternative  Poor information search  Failure to develop contingency plans

Group Decisions: Polarization

 Group Polarization: the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of its members.

 Myers and Bishop (1970)  Surveyed high schoolers on their racial attitudes and then

split them into high and low prejudiced groups.  In like-minded groups, the students discussed racial

issues.  After discussion, again measured their racial attitudes.

Group Decisions: Polarization

-4

-3

-2

-1

0

1

2

3

4

Before discussion After discusion

P re

ju di

ce

High prejudiced Low prejudiced

Why does group polarization occur?

 Informational social influence  New information and one-sided arguments are presented that

persuade people even more.

 Normative social influence  People’s perception of the group norm shifts, freeing them to

express more extreme beliefs.

Group Decisions: Polarization