A group is defined as several interdependent people who have emotional ties and who interact on a regular basis.
Group size. As a group grows, there's a tendency for member participation to decline, power to become concentrated in the hands of a few, conflicts to increase, and cooperation to decrease.
Member similarity and diversity. Within groups, members tend to be more similar than different.
Group structure develops quickly and changes slowly.
Social norms are expected standards of behavior and belief established and enforced by a group. They are often conveyed informally within a group.
Social roles are clusters of socially defined expectations that individuals in a given situation are expected to fulfill. They often improve group dynamics and performance.
Status systems reflect the distribution of power among members. Even in informal groups, power and authority are often not shared equally.
Status can be determined by observing nonverbal behavior.
Expectation states theory proposes that people form expectations of others' probable contributions to group goals based on task-relevant characteristics and diffuse status characteristics.
There are five phases to group membership.
Three psychological forces that propel people in and out of groups during this process are
ongoing evaluations of group by individual, and individual by group,
feelings of commitment that follow the evaluations, and
role transitions resulting from changes in commitment.
Five phases of membership are
investigation,
socialization,
maintenance,
resocialization
remembrance.
Groups accomplish instrumental tasks and satisfy socioemotional needs.
II. Group Influence on Individual Behavior
Social facilitation enhances easy tasks and inhibits difficult tasks.
The mere presence explanation. The presence of conspecifics increases arousal, increasing the likelihood of the dominant response.
The evaluation apprehension explanation. Assumes that the arousal leading to social facilitation is not due to mere presence of others, but to fear of being judged by others.
The distraction-conflict explanation. The presence of conspecifics produces a conflict-whether to attend to the task at hand, or to the others present. This conflict produces arousal, leading to social facilitation.
Social loafing occurs when our individual output becomes "lost in the crowd."
Early and contemporary research.
On physical and cognitive tasks, when people believe that others are contributing to the effort, they do not try as hard.
Reducing social loafing.
When individual effort can be identified in the group, social loafing does not occur. The key appears to be providing the potential for evaluation, even if evaluation does not occur.
Research has found gender differences in the response to social ostracism as a means to reduce social loafing.
Deindividuation involves the loss of individual identity.
Group-induced lowering of inhibitions. Important factors are arousal, anonymity, and diffused responsibility.
Can deindividuation unleash positive behavior? Prosocial behavior that would be inhibited under everyday conditions can be released by deindividuation.
Deindividuation and reduced self-awareness. The deindividuated lose their sense of personal identity in a group by not engaging in self-awareness.
An alternative explanation for deindividuation. Disinhibited behavior may be a behavioral expression of conformity to group norms specific to the situation.
III. Decision Making in Groups
Group decision-making occurs in stages and involves various decision rules.
Two types of decision-making issues.
What kind of decision is it? (e.g., intellectual vs. judgmental)
How will the decision be made?
Normative vs. informational social influence
Systematic vs. heuristic processing
Majority influence on group decisions.
Majorities can exert greater normative and informational social influence than minorities.
Group decision rules are the required number of group members that must agree with a position in order for the group as a whole to adopt it. Common decision rules include
unanimity rule,
majority wins rule, and
plurality-plus wins rule.
Group discussion enhances the initial attitudes of people who already agree.
Are group decisions more cautious? Research has shown shifts both toward caution and toward risk.
Group enhancement of initial tendencies. The group-produced enhancement or exaggeration of members' initial attitudes through discussion is called group polarization.
What produces group polarization?
Social comparison explanation: through social comparison, individual members discover that they are not nearly as extreme in the socially valued direction as they initially thought. Because they want others to evaluate them positively (normative influence), discussants begin to shift toward even more extreme positions.
Persuasive arguments explanation: hearing more arguments in favor of their own position rather than against it, and hearing new supportive arguments that they had not initially considered, members gradually come to adopt even more extreme positions.
Meta-analyses suggest that both explanations play a role.
Groupthink occurs when consensus-seeking overrides critical analysis.
Symptoms of groupthink:
overestimation of ingroup,
close-mindedness, and
increased conformity pressures.
Research on groupthink. Although cases of groupthink have been documented, there is evidence to suggest that groupthink does not always occur in the way Janis proposed.
IV. Leadership
A leader is an influence agent.
Task leadership consists of accomplishing the goals of the group.
Socioemotional leadership involves an attention to the emotional and interpersonal aspects of group interaction.
Transformational leaders take heroic and unconventional actions. Components of transformational leadership include
ability to communicate a vision,
ability to implement a vision, and
demonstrating a charismatic communication style.
The contingency model highlights personal and situational factors in leader effectiveness.
Leadership style. A leader may be task oriented or relationship oriented.
Situational control, which depends on the leader's relationship with the group, task structure, and the leader's position power.
Predicting leader effectiveness. Effectiveness is an interaction between situation and leadership style.
Gender and culture can influence leadership style.
There are more similarities than differences between men and women.
Collectivists may differ from individualists. The ideal leader in a collectivist culture is more nurturing than in an individualist culture. The task-oriented leader may be an artifact of the individualist culture.
V. Group Interests vs. Individual Interests
Social dilemmas occur when short-term and long-term interests conflict.
Cooperation is necessary to resolve social dilemmas.
Sanctioning cooperative behavior. One way to increase the cooperation of selfish individuals is to force them to cooperate.
Education. When participants were instructed about the negative consequences of selfish actions, there was a slight, but reliable, increase in cooperation.
Group identification. People are more likely to cooperate if they think of the other users of limited resources as being a part of their ingroup rather than as mere competitors.
Promoting a cooperative orientation. Those with a cooperative orientation seek to maximize joint gains, those with an individualistic orientation try to maximize their own well-being regardless of what happens to others, and those with a competitive orientation strive to outdo others by as much as possible.
Promoting group discussion. Studies indicate that groups allowed to talk about the dilemma cooperate more than 95 percent of the time.
VI. Applications: How Do Juries Make Decisions?
The deliberation process.
The consequences of small juries and non-unanimous verdicts.
