chapter 8
When would cohesiveness be counterproductive?:
group that is working for creative work, more independent though and ideas therefore cohesion is not optimal; having a whistleblower,
factors that reduce the effectivness of group brainstorming
prductition blockingL free riding social loafing evaluation apprehension perfomarmance matching
trick or treat : field experiemnts on Halloween.
results demonstrate hoe accountability and attentional cues can affect behavior on a night when many otherwise well-behaved individuals act in antisocial ways; the group of children who were in a group and were anonymous were most likekly to cheat by tkaing extra candy.
group roles
roles can be formal or informal; there are two findamental types of groups 1. instrumental 2. expressive
additive tasks
tasks for which the contributions from every member add up to determine team performance, but people in these tasks indulge in social loafing as well
diveristy and group performances
- Groups are becoming increasingly diverse - Evidence on effects of diversity on group performance is mixed - Diversity often associated with negative group dynamics; s. Miscommunications and misunderstandings are more likely to arise among heterogeneous group members, causing frustration and resentment and damaging group performance by weakening coordination, morale, and commit- ment to the group. Cliques and conflicts often form in diverse groups, causing some group members to feel alienated. - But diversity can have positive effects; On the other hand, research has also demonstrated positive effects of diver- sity, such as on patterns of socialization, creativity, and the complexity and inclusiveness of group discussion; - Sommers and others (2008) also found that merely anticipating being in a racially mixed group made white individuals process information relevant to race more thoroughly.
Why does social facilitation occur?
-mere presence (ZAJONCS) -evaluation apprehension theory -distraction-conflict theory
Avoiding Groupthink
1. Avoid isolation: groups should consult widely with outsiders 2. Reduce group pressures to conform: leaders should explicitly encourage criticism and not take a strong stand early in the discussion 3. Establish a strong norm of critical review: subgroups should separately discuss the same issue and take steps to challenge all decisions and ideas
why join a group?
1. Evolutionary perspective There are basic rewards such as interaction, affiliation gives us protection;t he more predators species has, the more social we are; humans gain more becuase afifaliton gives social status, civic obligations, and social identity which are all important for us, we enjoy being in groups, there is an innate mean (social brain hypothesis, evolved becuase of the complex world that became over time) Health psychology also explains this; social support is group affiliation, marriage can be healthy if happy, increase immune fucntioning, life expectancy Not compeletely protective , gives social identity though; OPTIMSITIC WHEN VOLANTRAILY JOINING, Downside is being rejected , exclusion, ostrasicim
The Zajonc Solution (favored came after triplett)
1. The presence of others creates general psychological arousal (which energizes behavior) , he argiued that all animals including humans, tend to become aroused when in the presence of conspecies - that is members of their own species. 2. Increased arousal enhances an individual's dominant response, which is the reaction elicited most QUICKLY and EASILY by a given stimulus. 3. The quality of performance varies with the type of task. on an easy task (one that is simple and well learned) the dominant response is usually correct or successful. but on a difficult task (one that is compex or unfamiliar), the dominant response is often incorrect or unsuccessful ex: violin perfomraing as a newbie vs an expert, the dominatn reposne will be enhanced when there is an audience but will not when you are a newbie and an audience is the least thing you desire for.
solving social dilemmas
1. psychological factors (individual and cultural differences - having a cooperative personal orientation , having a collectivist cultural orientation 2. situational factors (being in a good mood, having a successful eperience managing resources and working copperatively, seeing unselfish models, having reason to expect others to cooperate 3. group dynamics (acting as n individual rather than in a group, being in a small group, sharing a social identity or superordinate goals STRUCTURAL ARRANGEMENTS 1. creating a payoff structure that rewards cooperative bahevior and/or punishes selfish behavior 2. removing resources from the public domain and handing them over to private ownership 3. establishing an authority to control the resources
what can the presence of others lead to? name common effecs
1. social facilitation 2. social loafing 3. occaisionaly, ectreme actions ex: a group of sports fans excited at their home teams victory spills out of the arena onto the street and soon a riot develops. , there are many factors that lead to these extreme events including deindividuation.
Philip Zimbardo
1933-present; Field: social psychology; Contributions: proved that peoples behavior depends to a large extent on the roles they are asked to play; Studies: Stanford Prison Study-studied power of social roles to influence people's behavior essentially stating that arousal, anonymity, and reduced feelings of individual responsibility together contribute to deindividuation seen in the loss of mens basketball team.
common dilemma
A social dilemma in which everyone takes from a common pool of good that will replenish itself if used in moderation but will disappear if overused; ex: oil, minerals
what is a collective?
An assembly of people engaging in a common activity but having little direct interaction with each other
communicating information and utilizing expertise
Crucial that groups utilize all the information and skills that group members have - But all the information available to individual members may not be brought before the group: 1. Biased sampling - Biased sampling less likely when leaders encourage group participation
tightness-looseness of various countries
Ecological, husotircal threats, population density, countries considered TIGHT(in allowing deviance) have strong HOMOGENOUS population meaning there is less toalerance for deviance, greater looseness there is higher tolerance for devaint behavior , more diversity, USA is low in looseness (58 being slighly more loose but ony by a bit); morrocco, indonesia, jordan, egpt are the least loose countries, and spain france are high in looseness
Although the overall picture remains mixed, more prom- ising is research focused on understanding specific factors that can help groups achieve the benefits of diversity while avoiding or reducing its problems
One set of recent findings is that multicultural groups perform better if their members or leaders have relatively high awareness of their own and others' cultural assumptions—what is sometimes called cultural metacognition
finding common ground
Recognize a superordinate identity - Shared identity across group boundaries increases attractiveness of outgroup members and often results in more peaceful interactions; - those who would make peace, rather than stoke conflict, realize that it is in their own self-interest to find common ground and to understand that the cloak of humanity is large enough to cover a multitude of lesser differences.
training and technology: efficient group discussions
Research supports the value of training in improving group performance Group support systems 1. Specialized interactive computer programs that are used to guide group meetings, collaborative work, and decision-making processes 2. Often improves sampling information, communicating, avoiding groupthink, and arriving at good decisions
group norms
Shared guidelines or rules for behavior that most group members follow; group establishes norms or rules of conduct for membership
social dilemmas
Situations in which a self-interested choice by everyone creates the worst outcome for everyone. What is good for one is bad for all, if everyone makes the most self-reqwarding choice, everyone suffers the greatest loss.
collective intelligence
The ability of a group to exhibit a greater degree of intelligence by solving problems collaboratively compared to the intelligence of an individual member.
social brain hypothesis
The hypothesis that the human brain has evolved, so that humans can maintain larger ingroups.
biased sampling
The tendency for groups to spend more time discussing shared information (information already known by all or most group members) than unshared information (information known by only one or a few group members) resulting in the failure to consider important information that is not common knowledge in the group resulting in a bad decision and confidence in discussing. problems arise from the communication network which defines who can speak with whom based on a groups structure.
are some groups smarter than others? Anita Williams Woolley and others (2010) tried to answer this kind of question.
They had 699 people work in small groups on a wide variety of group tasks. Across these various group tasks, some groups did tend to outperform the other groups. The researchers considered these groups that tended to do well on a wide variety of group tasks as being high in "collective intelligence." What predicts which groups are like this? Predictors of collective intelligence Average social sensitivity of the group members Tendency to allow the various group members to take turns participating in the discussion A higher proportion of women (who tend to be higher than men in social sensitivity) NOT average or maximum level of intelligence of individual members
expressive group
a group that meets emotional needs and is more personal than an instrumental group; provide emotional support and maintain moral
social loafing
a group-produced reduction in individual outpur on tasks wehere contribitions are pooled further explained by bibb lateen. he explains that it is also common in other types of tasks as well, students loaf (exerted less) when other performed with them. ; not restricted to simple motor tasks such as team sports, compelting memory, math, or verbal tests and improtant enduring real world behaviors like team projects. when others are there to pick up the slack, people slack off.
ringlemann factory workers research.
a group-produced reduction in individual output on tasks where contributions are pooled; a group produced reduction in indiivdual output on simple tasks. in a study of :when many produce less", college students were told to cheer or clap as loudlt as thhey could. the noise produced by each of them decreased as the size of the group increased.
production blocking
a loss of productivity in brainstorming sessions due to the unstructured nature of brainstorming; people may forget their ideas as they wait for their turn
social identity model of deindiduation effects (SIDE)
a model of group behavior that explains deindividuation effets as the result of a shift from personal identity to social identity, proposes whether deindivduation affects people for better or for worse reflects the characteristics and norms of the group immediately surrounding the individual as well as the groups power to act according to these norms. as perosnal idenitity and nternal controls are submerged, social idneitity emerges and conformity to the group increases. for example, if a group defines itself in terms of prejudice and hatred agasint another group, deindividuation can ignite an explostion of violence. if a group defines itself in terms of helping others, in contrast, deindividuation may promote prosocial, selfless actions.
the prisoners dilemma
a particular "game" between two captured prisoners that illustrates why cooperation is difficult to maintain even when it is mutually beneficial; cooperating or competing, how to reolve tension, cooperate and get moderate reward A type of dilemma in which one party must make either cooperative or competitive moves in relation to another party. The dilemma is typically designed so that the competitive move appears to be in one's self- interest, but if both sides make this move, they both suffer more than if they had both cooperated; Each of two criminals is offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for a confession. If both stay silent, both get off with a light sentence on a minor charge (upper left). If both confess, both receive a moderate sentence (lower right). But if one confesses while the other stays mum, the confessing criminal goes free and the silent one spends a long time in jail.
what is a group?
a set of individuals who have at least one of the following characteristics: direct interactions joint membership in a social category a shared, common fate, identity, or set of goals
evaluation apprehension theory
a theory that the presence of others will produce social facilitation effects only when those others are seen as potential evaluators in other words its not simply because others are around that im so aroused and therefore inept as i try to learn to snowboard on a croded mountain rather its because i worry that the others are watching and probably laughong at me. these concers increase my dominant response, which unfortunately is failing.
distraction-conflict theory
a theory that the presence of others will produce social facilitation effects only when those others distract from the task and create attentional conflict, we are torn between focusing on a task and glancing at the distracting stimulus. when we are conflicted about where to pay attention, our arousal increases. (basketball game)
brainstorming
alex osborn devleoped this in the 1950s which was designed to enhance the creativity and productiviyty of problem solving groups. the ground rules call for a freewheeling creative approach: Express all ideas that come to mind even if they sound crazy. d The more ideas, the better. d Don't worry whether the ideas are good or bad, and don't criticize anyone's ideas; they can be evaluated later. d All ideas belong to the group, so members should feel free to build on each other's work.
public goods dilemma
all of the individuals are supposed to contribute resources to a common pool but we don't bc of fear of being exploited. Examples of these public goods include the blood supply, public broadcasting, schools, libraries, roads, and parks., paying income tax, volunteering. If no one gives, the service can't continue, and all will suffer. Again, self-interest conflicts with the public good.
reducing conflict: negotiating
best approach is Integrative agreement: - A negotiated resolution to a conflict in which all parties obtain outcomes that are superior to what they would have obtained from an equal division of the contested resources; differs between western and nonwestern cultures.
Alan Ingham rope study
blindfolded people pulled less and exerted less effort when they thought someone was pulling with them (less accountability and importance)
Culture and Cohesiveness
cohesiveness in collectivsit countries may be associated with with social harmony, cooperation, and interpersonal relations than in individualist countries where recognizing members unique skulls and job focused efforts may be more essential fro groupcohesiveness. respect and obedience to leaders are more important in collectiveist countries than those in individualsit countries. study showed that controlling leaders was associated with greater group cohesiveness; americans view it as debates and Chinese view it has conflict , intergroup conflict was disliked by collectivest country
what avoids groupthink
computerized texhqnieues which allow for freedom, the fear of being judged to go away and no wait time.
3. Social categorization (causes group polarization)
considering the people in their group as the in group (the only correct group) and all others the outgroup (who are incorrect)
free riding
enjoying the benefits of some good or action while letting others bear the costs, see their contribtutions as less valuabale so they speak less as others speak more
what seems to be more effective than brainstomirng alone
first goether and then alone or first alone and then together proves to be more effective
karua and williams meta anlysis on social loafing
found that it is less prevalents amojng women than men and less prevalent among people in East Asian, collectivist cultures than western cultures , poeple in collecvitist cultures may take mor eoffense.
instrumental group
function at highest possible level. Meet mental health needs. prevent regression and maintain function - you need an instrument to MAINTAIN a beat; helps acheive group goals, AGENCY
process gain
getting more from the team than you would expect according to the capabilities of its individual members when 1. the correct answer is clearly evident to everyone in the group once it is presented and 2 the work on the task can be divided up
Groupthink
group polarization sets the step fro groupthink; excessive tendency to seek concurrence among group members; the process involve din group polarizarion may set the stage for an even greater and more dangerous bias in group decision making called groupthink; is the bandwagon effect
another benefit of groups:
hold eachother accountable : sticking to a plan exercise and weightloss
emotions during negotiations: cross cultural differences
hong kong students were affected by the emtoions displayed by the negotiator than israel students
2. social comparison (leads to group polarization)
in the case of group discussions, as individuals learn that most of the other group members lean in one direction on some issue, they may adopt a more extreme attitude in this same direction. people who are members of a group that believes X is goog may be willing to state to the group that twice X is even better.
evalaution apprehension
in the presenence of others, people may be hesitant to suggest wile, off the wall ideas for fear of looking foolish and being criticized.
TOLERANCE FOR DEVIATING FROM THE NORM
s study showing the power of knowing the context and their group. students evaluated a fellow student who expressed an attitude that was either typical or atypical for their university. in general, the student expressint the typical attitude was evaluated more positvely than the atypical student. but if the students had first been PRIMED (EXPOSED) to see their university as heterogeneous, they were less negative towards the atypical student than were the students who had been PRIMED to see their university as homogenous
nominal groups
several individuals working alone produced a greater number of better ideas than do real groups in which members interact with each other. contractited the texhnqieu of alex osborn
resource dilemma
social dilemmas involving how two or more people will share a limited resource which includes 1. commons dilemma and 2. commons dilemma
social facilitation
stronger responses on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others
social facilitation: when others arouse us (tRIPLEYYS 1897) FISHING REEL STU whether competition (triplett) or negative or psoitive dominant response (zajonc) DIES
stronger responses on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others
1. persuasive arguments theory (leads to gorup polarization)
suggests that the greater the number and persuasiveness of the arguments to which gorup members are exposed, the more extreme their attitudes become. ex: if most group members favor cautious decision, most of the arguments discussied will favor caution, giving the members more and more reasons to think caution is the correct approach; hearing them overr and over again and builds, reinforces, and validates your way of thinking
conjunctive tasks
tasks for which the team's performance depends on the abilities of the team's weakest link or poorest performance. the weakest link in the opposite team determines the teams defenseive line success. group perofmance on these tasks tend ot be lower
disjunctive tasks
tasks with an objectively verifiable best solution for which the member with the highest level of ability has the most influence on team effectiveness such as trying to solve a problem or develop a strategy
performance matching
tendency to match performance to that of the least productive member
what makes deviant behavios such as rioting accroding to steven prentice dunn and ronald rogers?
teo types of enviormental and attnetional cues 1. accountability cues (affect the individuals cost reward calculations , when accountability is low, those who commit deviant acts are less likely to be caught and punished.. ex: being in a large crowd, or wearing a maskare two eamples of instances when accountability may be low, associated with destructive behavior 2. aatentional cues (focus a persons attention away from the self. in this state, the individual attends less to internal stanards of conduct, reacts more to the immediate situation, and is less sensitive to long term consequences of behavior.. behavior slips out from the bonds of congitive control, and people act on impluse. ex: when in a party with loud music, you may be swept up with pulsating crowd and feel individual idenity slipping away.
transactive memory
the combined memory of a group that is more efficient than the memory of the individual members but process loss can occur in this domain as well including social loafing such as people slacking off or not doing their part. but groups that develop good transactive memory systems have enormous advantages over other groups and involve a few elements. 1. must develop a division of knowledge and communication 2. group members must be able to trust eachothers specialized knowledge, 3. need to coordinate their efforts. Julija Mell found that having a central group member who is the expert at the metaknowledge of ebing able to identiify which members know which info or skills can also have a big advantage.
group polarization
the exaggeration through group discussion of initial tendencies in the thinking of group members , any decision can ve infuenced by group polarization, from serious decisions such as how to allocate scarce medical resources or the theme of the next party. persuasive arguments theory ex: political parties talking with members they exageraate their reaction (support) with the same group members.
group cohesiveness
the forces exerted on a group that push its members close together which leads to more commitment in tasks , feels positivelt toward the other gory members, feels gorup pride, and engage in many often intense interactions Factors include: commitment of tasks and goals , is there a goal, whats the task, gorup pride, attraction to one another, outside forces can create more cohesieve,ess danger, threats form other gorups; cohesiveness and productivey, work in small groups and taks requiring independence, ex: sports team , surgical team
Leadership and Information Sharing
the group who was given a lot of detailed information made better dicussions and decision quality was better becuase they stated the unique characteristics while the group who was given a general goal, made poor decisions.
cultural metacognition
the level of conscious cultural awareness we possess during cross-cultural interactions; more successful; People exhibit cultural metacognition to the extent that they often think about and check the accuracy of their cultural knowledge, particularly in cross-cultural interactions.
Deindividuation
the loss of a persons sense of individualitt and the reduction of individualisty and the reduction of normal constraints agsinst deviant behavior; many believe occurs only in the presence of others; anonimity
Ringelmann Effect
the phenomenon by which individual performance decreases as the number of people in the group increases; individual output declines on pooled tasks on simple tasks like pulling a rope or pushing a cart.
mere presence
the proporposition from ZAJONC that the mere presenence of others is ufficient to produce socual facilitation effects. some have argued that a better explantion is the EVALUATION APPREHANSION THEORY to explain social facilitation effects.
process loss (according to steiner, some types of group tasks are more vulnerable to process loss/reduction in group performance) than others. on an additive task
the reduction in group performance due to obstacles created by group processes, such as problems of coordination and motivation;
Triplett (1897-1898): Fishing reels study
the study that proves that the presence of tohers brings the sense of competition as wour nervous energy increases and enhances performances. in the series, Triplett gathers 40 children to wind up fishing reels , alternatinf between perfomring alone and working in parallel. he reportrted that chhildren were more liekeklt to perfomr better when they worked side by side than when they worked alone. later though research showed that sometimes the presence of others declined performance which resulted in many abandon this research becuase it depends on the task on hand. (the zajonc solution)
collective effort model (culture and social loafing explantion)
the theory that individuals will exert effort on a collective task to the degree that they think their individual efforts will be important, relevant, and meaningful for achieving outcomes that they value
one key advantage to groups
they can divide alarge body of information into smaller portions and delegate differentmembers to remember these more manageable portions called transactive memory
hidden profile technique
when ALL of the information , including the unshared infromation was discussed instead of only commonly discussing shared information which may lead to biased decision making.
Irving Janis and groupthink
when members of a group are so driven to reach unanimous decisions that they no longer truly evaluate the consequences of their decisions; when the need for agreement takes priorirty over the motivation to obtain accurate infromation and make appropiate decisions; describes the characteristics/antecedants that contribute to the development of group think: 1. antecedents: which include (a) "high cohesiveness bc they are more likely to reject members with deviant opinions, (b) group structure (homogenous members, isolation, directive leadership, unsystematic procedures), and (c) stressful situations 2. which all leads to GROUPTHINK 3. In Janis formulation, groupthink is a kind of social disease, and infected groups display the behavioral symptoms ex: nasa; (a) close mindedness; (b) increased pressures toward uniformity (mindguards and pressure on dissents and uniformity, self-censorship, illusion of unanimity. 3. This all leads to consequences including (a) defective decision making (incomplete survey of alternatives (what could have been done), incomplete survey of objectives, failure to examine risks of preferred choice, failure to reappraise initially rejected alternatives, poor information search for outside information, selective bias in processing information at hand, failure to work out contingency plans bc youre right); (b) ultimately high probability of a bad decision
virtual teams (Kirkman 2002)
•Kirkman et al (2002): "Groups of people who work interdependently with shared purpose across space, time, and organizational boundaries using technology to communicate and collaborate"; due to globalization; the lack of cohesiveness in virtual groups can have advantages such as in helping these groups avoid some of the conformity pressures associated with groupthink-like problems, teams are more collaborative than groups