Chapter 9 - BA350

Increasing Cohesiveness

Make the group smaller Encourage agreement with group goals Increase time members spend together Increase group status and admission difficulty Stimulate competition with other groups Give rewards to the group, not individuals Physically isolate the group

Low Cohesiveness

people are not striving for same goals; norms are for high performance, but people do not have same goals = moderate productivity (end up in the middle)

If cohesiveness is low and performance norms are high...

productivity increases, but less than in the high-cohesiveness/high-norm situation (moderate productivity)

When cohesiveness and performance-related norms are both low...

productivity tends to fall into the low-to-moderate range

Social Loafing

the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually

Nominal Group Technique

-a group decision-making method in which individual members meet face-to-face to pool their judgements in a systematic but independent fashion; avoid conformity -restricts discussion or interpersonal communication during the decision-making process -does not restrict independent thinking

Norm

-acceptable standards of behavior shared by their members that express what they ought and ought not to do under certain circumstances -a lot of times groups will set these themselves

Storming - Group Development

-as a group, you should have some level of debate; healthy conflict -characterized by intragroup conflict

Relationship between cohesiveness and productivity

-depends on the group's performance related norms -if norms for quality, output, and cooperation with outsiders are high, for instance, a cohesive group will be more productive than will a less cohesive group

Performing - Group Development

-doing the actual work; performance will be high if norms are set well -group is fully functional

Group Shift

-group members tend to exaggerate the initial positions they hold when discussing a given set of alternatives and arriving at a solution -Some decision a group has to make -the individuals might, on their own before talking to others, have their own decision -after discussion, the overall group decision moves in a more extreme direction or position which is more risky -You are not solely responsible for this, getting confidence that other people agree with you; not conforming to change your mind -Can go the other way; group decisions more conservative

Conformity

-people desire acceptance by the group -conform to group norms -higher in collectivistic cultures, but still a powerful force in groups in individualistic countries -people conform to the important groups (reference groups) to which they belong or hope to belong

Groupthink

-relates to norms -consensus overrides appraisal of alternate courses of action -even though a group member thinks they should do things different, the group does not consider all of the perspectives that may be in the group -everyone goes along with someone

Norming - Group Development

-start establishing norms; can be about performance or anything; what do we do when someone doesn't do their job or we get stuck on something? establish things that you think will make the group work well -characterized by close relationships and cohesiveness

The Punctuated-Equilibrium Model

-started work and did not work the most efficient -then group members become aware of the fact that they are at the midpoint; mini debrief, what can we be doing better? can stimulate better work by being aware of the midpoint -transition; restructure how they will work towards their goals -work at a high performance level and do this until completion -characterizes groups as exhibiting long periods of inertia interspersed with brief revolutionary changes triggered primarily by members' awareness of time and deadlines

Adjourning - Group Development

-the completed work; debriefing -final stage for temporary groups -characterized by concern with wrapping up activities rather than task performance

Forming - Group Development

-when the group comes together; start to talk about big picture goals -characterized by much uncertainty

Nominal Group Technique Steps

1. before you discuss anything as a group, each person should write his/her idea down on a piece of paper 2. Each person takes a turn presenting their idea (important: nobody can comment until everyone's ideas have been presented) 3. Discuss the ideas (focusing on clarification and why you thought what you did) 4. Each group member independently ranks all the ideas presented in order of favorableness 5. The final decision is determined by the idea with the highest aggregate ranking

Stages of Group Development

Forming ↓ Storming ↓ Norming ↓ Performing ↓ Adjourning

Relationships Between Group Cohesiveness, Performance Norms, and Productivity

High Cohesiveness and High Performance Norm = High Productivity High Cohesiveness and Low Performance Norms = Low Productivity Low Cohesiveness and High Performance Norms = Moderate Productivity Low Cohesiveness and Low Performance Norms = Moderate to low productivity

Asch Study

People will often conform (about 1/3 of time) -people looking at lines on two cards and when one person says the wrong answer on purpose, the others in the group follow -group norms press us toward conformity -we desire to be one of the group and therefore avoid being visibly different

Group Structure - Status

Status - a socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others Group Norms ↴ Status Equality→ Group Member Status Culture ---^

How to avoid Social Loafing

assign or delegate work performance measure or reward based on individual work positive reinforcement

Zimbardo's Prison Experiment

at Stanford students randomly assigned to be prisoners or guard; they found extreme conformity to the jobs they were assigned people conformed to their new given "identities" or jobs in the prison regardless of who they were outside of the experiment

Cohesiveness

degree to which group members are attracted to each other and are motivated to stay in the group; will strive toward the same goals

If cohesiveness is high and performance norms are high...

high productivity

If cohesiveness is high and performance norms are low...

low productivity

Low Performance Norms

not much cohesiveness or performance norms = moderate to low productivity; not pulling together towards same goal

Group Structure - Size

social loafing Odd number groups do better than even Groups of 7 or 9 perform better overall than larger or smaller groups

Hawthorne Studies

they had people working in groups in a factory setting; even though they have managers and rules, they found that group members would set their own rates of performance Group establishes norms; and those are things people tend to conform to