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group

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two or more persons perceived as related because of their interactions (direct and over a period of time), membership in the same social category (ex. based on sex, race, etc.), or common fate, identity, or set of goals

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the social brain hypothesis

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a hypothesis that says the unusually large size of primates' brains evolved because of their unusually complex social worlds

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stages of group development

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1. forming = get to know each other; 2. storming = members try to dominate and lead the group in one direction; may involve conflict; 3. norming = reconcile conflict, develop common goals, norms, roles; feel more committed; 4. performing = each member is doing their task, group performance maximized; 5. adjourning = members disengage from the group; may happen if costs of staying with group now outweigh the benefits

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group roles

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set of expected behaviors for group members; can be formal (ex. given a title) or informal; two types = instrumental and expressive

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instrumental role

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a role where one helps the group achieve its tasks

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expressive role

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a role where one provides emotional support and maintains morale

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group norms

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rules of conduct for group members; may be formal or informal

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whistleblower

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a name for someone who is part of a group, has some sort of information about the group (usually negative) and reports the group/ shares the info, going against group norms

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group cohesiveness

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the forces exerted on a group that push its members closer together (such as through feelings of intimacy, unity, and commitment to group goals); causal relationship between this and performance

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Nibler and Harris' research

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these two researchers studied groups of strangers and friends in China and the US; four groups = friends in China, strangers in China, friends in US, strangers in US; US friends group performed the best out of the four groups when there was conflict because members felt the most comfortable disagreeing with each other

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social facilitation

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a process whereby the presence of others leads to arousal and enhances performance on easy tasks but impairs performance on difficult tasks; the presence of others facilitates the dominant response (not the task itself); Zajonc's theory = presence of others leads to arousal, which strengthens the dominant response (succeeding at easy tasks and failing at difficult tasks)

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mere presence theory

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a theory proposed by Zajonc that says that the mere presence of others is sufficient to produce social facilitation effects

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evaluation apprehension theory

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a theory that the presence of others will produce social facilitation effects only when those others are seen as potential evaluators; evaluation apprehension reduced when the people watching were blindfolded

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distraction-conflict theory

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a theory that the presence of others will produce social facilitation effects only when those others distract from the task and create attentional conflict

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Triplett's research

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a researcher who studied children winding fishing poles individually or in a group; found that children performed faster when in a group

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Ringelmann's research

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this researcher found that individuals exerted less effort in a group than when they were alone (ex. people cheer louder when alone than when cheering as part of a group); contradicts Triplett's findings; led to the idea of social loafing

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social loafing

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a group-produced reduction in individual output on tasks where contributions are pooled; first investigated by Max Ringelmann

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factors that reduce social loafing

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social loafing is less likely to occur when: 1. people believe their own performance can be identified and evaluated (by themselves or others); 2. the task is important or meaningful to those performing it; 3. people believe their own efforts are necessary for a successful outcome; 4. the group expects to be punished for poor performance; 5. the group is small; and/or 6. the group is cohesive

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collective effort model

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the model that theorizes that individuals will exert effort on a collective task if they think their individual efforts will be important, relevant, and meaningful for achieving outcomes that they value

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social compensation

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individuals sometimes increase their efforts on a collective task to try to compensate for the anticipated social loafing or poor performance of other group members

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the sucker effect

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individuals don't want to do all of the group's work while everyone else goofs off, so everyone withholds effort, resulting in poor group performance

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deindividuation

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the loss of a person's sense of individuality and the reduction of normal constraints against deviant behavior; usually occurs in the presence of others; arousal, anonymity, and reduced feelings of individual responsibility contribute to this

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the Halloween field experiment

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children who were trick-or-treating were either asked about where they lived and what their names were, or weren't asked questions; the children were then invited to take one item from a bowl of candy and left alone with the bowl; children in a group were more likely to break the rule and take extra candy than children who were alone; not having to answer personal questions also raised the likelihood that they'd break the rule; children took the most candy when they were the most deindividuated (in a group, no personal questions)

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the social identity model of deindividuation effects

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aka SIDE; a model of group behavior that explains deindividuation effects as the result of a shift from personal identity to social identity

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process loss

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the reduction in group performance due to obstacles created by group processes, such as problems of coordination and motivation

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brainstorming

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a technique developed by Alex Osborn that attempts to increase the production of creative ideas by encouraging group members to speak freely without criticizing their own or others' contributions; however, several individuals alone often produce more and higher-quality ideas than the same number of people using this method

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group polarization

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the exaggeration of initial tendencies in the thinking of group members through group discussion; means that group members' attitudes get more extreme instead of more moderate after group discussion

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groupthink

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a group decision-making style characterized by an excessive tendency among group members to seek concurrence; according to Janis, high cohesiveness, the group structure (people with similar backgrounds, isolation, strong leader, lack of systematic procedures), and stressful situations can provoke this

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the escalation effect

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the condition in which commitments to a failing course of action are increased to justify investments already made

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biased sampling

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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); can lead to bad decisions

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transactive memory

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a shared system for remembering information that enables multiple people to remember information together more efficiently than they could do so alone

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group support systems

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specialized interactive computer programs that are used to guide group meetings, collaborative work, and decision-making processes

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social dilemma

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a situation in which a self-interested choice by everyone will create the worst outcome for everyone

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prisoner's dilemma

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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.

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resource dilemmas

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social dilemmas involving how two or more people will share a limited resource; two basic types, commons dilemmas and public goods dilemmas

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commons dilemma

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a dilemma in which, if people take as much as they want of a limited resource that does not replenish itself, nothing will be left for anyone (ex. non-renewable, or slowly renewing, natural resources)

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public goods dilemma

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a dilemma in which, if people do not contribute resources to a common pool, the service cannot continue (ex. funding for schools, libraries, parks)

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graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension-reduction

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aka GRIT; a strategy for unilateral persistent efforts to establish trust and cooperation between opposing parties

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integrative agreement

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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

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group size and resource exploitation

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large groups are more likely than small groups to exploit a scarce resource that the members collectively depend on

Chapter 8: Group Processes

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