group processes

• social facilitation


  effect of group on individual productivity

  
  

  - presence of others improves/facilitates performance when individual is highly skilled at the task

  - interferes/inhibits w performance when not (eg. when learning)
• harvard study on social facilitation

  study of 5,000 premier league matches suggested away teams gave away more penalties

  
  

  the crowd effect was particularly pronounced on inexperienced referees

  - social inhibition effects for inexperienced referees
• Allport (1920)

  improvement in performance on simple/well learnt tasks in presence of other of same species

  - presence makes simple tasks easier and complex tasks harder
• drive theory (Zajonc, 1965)

  - presence of others automatically produces arousal, driving dominant responses

  - performance improved by a 'correct' dominant response (facilitation)

  - impaired by an 'incorrect' dominant response (inhibition)
• Cottrell et al. (1968)

  believed the mere presence of others is sometimes calming

  - nonsense word pronunciation in front of blindfolded or 'seeing' audience

  - no facilitation effect on well learned task when audience blindfolded (therefore cannot be mere presence) - support for evaluation apprehension explanation
• distraction-conflict (Baron)


  presence of audience creates conflict between attending to task and attending to audience

  
  

  attentional conflict produces drive that has social facilitation effects
• people in groups - Hazel Markus (1978)

  - male ppts undress, dress in unfamiliar clothing (lab coat, special shoes), and then back into own clothing

  - task presented as an incidental activity which experimenter wasn't interested in

  - 3 conditions: alone, in presence of confederate who faced away and completed other task (low evaluation apprehension), in presence of attentive confederate who watched ppt closely

  - only attentive audience decreased time taken to perform task

  - w more difficult task of dressing in unfamiliar clothing, the mere presence was sufficient to slow performance and attentive confederate had no additional effect

  - supports drive theory
• Worringham and Messick (1983)

  - uni students inconspicuously timed while running

  - ran alone or encountered female confederate halfway

  - evaluation condition: confed facing ppt

  - mere presence condition: confed not facing

  - runners accelerated in evaluation condition
• social loafing


  a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task, outputs are pooled with those of other group members
• Ringelmann effect


  individual effort on a task diminishes as group size increases

  - young men alone or in groups of 2, 3 or 8

  - pull horizontally on a rope attached to a dynamometer

  - force exerted per person decreased as group size increased
• Latane et al. (1979)

  - ppts blindfolded and given headphones w shouting voices being played

  - told to shout as loud as possible

  - always alone but told either were shouting w one other, or w a group

  - shout intensity abt 82% w one other, 74% in group

  
  

  the reduction of effort conforms to a negatively accelerating power function
• free-rider effect


  gaining the benefits of group membership by taking advantage of a shared public source without contributing to its maintenance and allowing other members to incur those costs

  
  

  loafers reduce the effort on coactive tasks but do contribute to the group products whereas, free riders exploit the group product while contributing nothing to it
• social motivational review - Geen (1991)

  conducted a review of social motivation research and concluded three reasons that can account for social loafing:

  - output equity

  - evaluation apprehension

  - matching to standard
• output equity


  belief that others loaf so to maintain equity we also loaf
• evaluation apprehension


  when anonymous we loaf, especially when a task is not engaging (Kerr and Bruun 1981) however, when we can be identified and evaluated by others, loafing is reduced (Harkins 1987)
• matching to standard


  when we do not have a clear sense of the group's standards or norms we loaf. However, the presence of. Clear personal, social or group performance standard should reduce loafing (Goethals and Darley 1987; Harkins and Szymanski 1987)
• social impact


  the effect other people have on personal attitudes and behaviour, usually as a result of factors such as group size, and temporal and physical immediacy

  - may be why group size has the effect it does
• social compensation


  increased effort on a collective task to compensate for other group members' actual, perceived or anticipated lack of effort or ability
• collectivist effort model (Karau and Williams, 1993)

  identifies ways of reducing loafing

  - evaluation

  - smaller groups

  - meaningful tasks

  - undermine expectancy of fellow workers to perform poorly

  
  

  collectivist cultures less likely to load
• diffusion of responsibility


  leads to loss of motivation

  - there's a diffusion of individual responsibility that grows with group size
• intragroup processes


  between two or more individuals
• entitativity


  collection of people who are perceived to be bonded together to some level
• low entitativity


  a mere collection of people
• high entitativity


  shared goals and outcomes
• factors that predict entitativity for an observer

  - degree to which members interact

  - apparent importance of group to members

  - shared outcomes and common goals

  - similarity
• Lickel et al. (2000)

  suggests that taxonomy of entitativity provides a basis for the groups discussed

  - effects of presence of others who have no prior relationship on individual performance

  - effects of task groups on group performance
• leadership


  'a process of social influence through which an individual enlists and mobilises the aid of others in the attainment of a collective goal' (Chemers, 2001, p.376)

  
  

  the most powerful/influential person in a group will become the leader
• personality traits that influence if one will become a leader

  - agreeableness - ability to get along w others

  - conscientiousness - ability to care for others

  - intelligence - important for problem solving

  - extraversion

  - emotional stability (neuroticism)

  
  

  - individual differences such as height and attractiveness - most US presidents taller than opponent
• situational factors that influence if one will become a leader

  - some personalities more suited to some situations eg. argumentative and opinionated useful in war setting but less so in peace where diplomacy may be more useful

  - collectivist encourage cooperation and foster positive relationships

  - individualist reward individual achievement and reaching group goals
• autocratic


  liked less and high productivity when leader present
• democratic


  liked more and relatively high productivity - discuss decisions w group
• laissez-faire


  liked less and low productivity - organise own activities
• personality characteristics unique to transformational leaders

  - charismatic (inspire)

  - individualised (respect for all group members)

  - intellectual stimulation (encourage novel approach to problems)
• roles


  behaviours specific members expected to undertake
• status


  position or rank within a group - greater access to resources when in position of higher status
• norms


  rules within group suggesting how members behave - following norms increases status
• cohesiveness


  forces that cause members to remain in group - desire to belong to groups that improve status
• hazing


  initiation rituals increase cohesiveness and used to gain access to status groups