group processes

• types of groups

  • large groups with strong interpersonal relationships, e.g within families there are siblings, parents, spouses etc.
• types of groups:

  • groups put together to complete a task, e.g. committees and work groups
• groups based on large social categories, e.g. women or Brits
• groups based on weak social relationships, e.g. people who enjoy one artists music
• types of groups:

  • transitory groups - gathered for a short amount of time, no relationship to each other, e.g. people at the bus stop
• label the diagram of Zajonc's drive theory

  A) arousal

  B) social facilitation

  C) social inhibition

  
• minimal groups - demonstrate how easily bias and in-group favouritism can develop
• social facilitation - performance is improved by the presence of co-actors or even a passive audience
• Triplett (1898) - found differences in track cyclists performance when timed alone and when timed and racing with other cyclists (evidence for social facilitation)
• Allport (1920)

  • created a more generalised term: Mere Presence
  • defined as an entirely passive and unresponsive audience that is only physically present
• however, in some contexts the presence of others can have the opposite effect, e.g. in complex tasks
• social facilitation/ inhibition:

  • improvement in easy tasks and deterioration in difficult tasks in the mere presence of others of the same species
• evaluation apprehension (Cottrell, 1972)

  • perception of evaluating audience creates arousal, not just their presence
  • 3 audience conditions (blindfolded, merely present, attentive); tasks were easy
  • social facilitation found when audience was perceived to be evaluating (attentive)
• Markus (1978)

  • measured time taken to dress in familiar clothes or unfamiliar clothes
  • 3 conditions - alone, inattentive audience, attentive audience
  • attentive audience condition = faster time
  • conditions didn’t make a great difference in the difficult task
• Siemon (2023)

  • participants had to present an idea to an AI and a real person
  • participants showed less evaluation apprehension to the AI, - has limited capacity to critically evaluate them
• The Ringelmann effect - tug of war experiment

  • social loafing - in groups individuals seem to pull less weight than when they are pulling alone
• Western cultures - more concerned with individual performance.

  Eastern cultures - concerned with harmony, group success and satisfaction of others