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what is a group?
Two or more people who interact with each other and are interdependent (their needs and goals cause them to influence each other)
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why do people join groups?
- need to belong
- sounds of information
- important source of identity
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what is deindividuation?
refers to the loss of self-awareness and of individual accountability in a group
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why does deindiviuation occur?
- occurs because anonymity
- reduced feelings od individual responsibilty/accountability
- arousal
- increased obedience to group norms
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Diener's study with children on Halloween
tested deindividuation with trick or treaters and said "please take one"
when annoymous, more deviant behavior
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when does group think happen?
- when groups make decisions, they may engage in group think
- Excessive tendency among group members to seek concurrence
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what are the antecendents of group think?
- Highly cohesive group (esp with similar people)
- Directive leader
- Group structure
- High stress
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What are they symptoms of group think?
- Self censorship
- Direct pressure on dissenters to conform
- Illusion of unanimity
- Belief in moral correctness
- Stereotype of outgroup
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what are the consequences of groupthink?
- Incomplete survey of alternatives
- Failure to examine risks of the favored alternative
- Poor information search
- Failure to develop contingency plans
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how can group think be prevented?
- Leaders should be impartial; can have secret ballot votes Encourage critical evaluation to stimulate original thinking Have debates, work in small groups
- Welcome critiques from outside
- “Second chance” meeting
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influence of minority on groupthink
- Minority influence
- Consistency: consistent and firm (but not rigid)
- Self confident: confident and forceful
- Defection from majority
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when do groups make good decisions?
- Difficult intellectual tasks (e.g. SAT, logic questions)
- Memory tasks (pooled information and corrected for other’s errors)
- • There are benefits of groups, but psychology tends to focus more on the negative aspects
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what is social facilitation?
Presence of others enhances performances on easy tasks but impairs performances on difficult tasks
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what are triplett's studies on social facilitation?
- Triplett (1898)
- • Cycling: Individuals who competed against others were faster than those who raced alone (against clock)
- • Reeling in fishing lines: Children were faster with others than alone
- • BUT sometimes, people do worse in groups!
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Zajoc's theory of social facilitation
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When does the presence of others improve performance and when does it not?
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Reasons why presence of others cause arousal
- Alert
- Distracting
- Evaluation concerns
- Spot light effect
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What is social loafing?
when people reduce efforty when working in a group, compared to when working alone
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studies on social loafing: tug of war
- Ingham et al (1974)
- Tug of war
- Measured strength under 4 conditions
- Alone: 130 lbs
- Participant +1: 118 lbs
- Participant +2: 106 lbs
- Participant + 8: 102 lbs
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studies on social loafing: clapping
- Latane (1979)
- Clapping
- Social loafing occurs for other motor tasks, cognitive tasks
- UNLESS:
- Individual evaluation
- Important task
- Individual effort is necessary
- Fear of punishment
- Small group, cohesive group
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why does social loafing occur?
the feeling of being in a groupd, and therefore not beinf individually accountable
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what reduces social loafing? (pg 440)
when the contributions of individual group members are identified, so that everyone (or at least the leader) knows who did what, social loafing is greatly reduced
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what are zimbardo's studies that facilitated deindividuation?
- Women wearing hoods while administering shocks
- Stanford Prison experiment: results and problems with study
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When does deindividuation leads to positive results?
when the group norm is positive
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