Groups

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Groups

• 10/9/07

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How do groups influence individuals?
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What is a group?

• A group is a set of individuals who have at least
  one of the following characteristics
• Direct interactions with each other over a period
  of time.
• A shared, common fate, identity, or set of goals.
• A collective is an assembly of people engaging in
  a common activity but having little direct
  interaction with each other.

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Why form groups?

• Evolutionary Needs
• Preservation
• Mating
• Psychological Needs
• Affiliation
• Self-Knowledge

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3 Questions, 3 Contradictions

• Do groups behave more or less morally than
  individuals?
• Do groups perform better or worse than an equal
  number of individuals?
• Do groups make better decisions or worse
  decisions than individuals?

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Do groups behave more or less morally?

• Yes!
• Public self-awareness When in front of an
  audience, people are more likely to act in accord
  with their enduring attitudes and values
• No!
• Deindividuation When in large groups, people can
  act in uninhibited, impulsive, and destructive
  ways

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Deindividuation

• Loss of individual identity accompanied by
  diminished self-regulation that comes over a
  person when he or she is in a large group

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Deindividuation

• Zimbardo (1970)

• Antecedent Conditions
• Anonymity
• Diffusion of Responsibility
• Energizing Effect of Others
• Stimulus Overload

• Internal State
• Lessened self-observation and self-evaluation
• Lessened concern with the evaluation of others
• Weakening of internal controls
• Lessened concern with shame, guilt, fear emotions

• Behavioral Effects
• Impulsivity
• Irrationality
• Emotionality
• Antisocial activity

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Suicide Baiting

• Urging a person on the verge of committing
  suicide to take his life

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Suicide Baiting

• Mann (1981)

Percentage of times that suicide baiting occurred
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Warfare

• When soldiers are deindividuated, they are more
  barbarous during warfare
• Celts vs. Scots

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Halloween Shenanigans

• Halloween night is probably the best example of
  how deindividuation leads to uninhibited and
  impulsive behavior.
• Diener et al.s (1976) Halloween Study

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Halloween Study

• Diener et al (1976)
• Percentage of trick-or-treaters who took more
  than one piece of candy

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Groups and Individual Identity

• So, groups can have two contradictory influences
  on identity
• Individuation emphasize individual identity by
  focusing attention on the self
• Deindividuation reduced sense of identity as a
  result of large groups
• Individuation leads individuals to think about
  how they are different from others
  deindividuation makes them more similar
• This tension is can be resolved
• Optimal distinctiveness theory

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Optimal Distinctiveness Theory

• When people feel very similar to others, they
  seek to be different
• When they feel different, they try to be more
  similar

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Effects of Groups on Performance

• Do groups perform better or worse than an equal
  number of individuals?

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• Triplett (1898)

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Social Facilitation

• Proposition that the presence of others increases
  the performance of individuals
• Why?
• Evaluation apprehension concern for how others
  are evaluating us leads us to work harder
• Problems

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Groups Inhibit Performance

• Anecdotal evidence
• Shooting a free-throw
• Ringelmann (1913)
• Working in a group, individuals give less effort
  than when they are alone
• Allport (1920)
• Individuals provided better philosophical
  refutations than groups
• Additional evidence
• Arithmetic problems, memory tasks, maze learning

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Social Loafing

• The tendency to exert less effort when working on
  a group task
• Group assignments
• Latane et al. 1979

• Participants were asked to cheer or clap as
  loudly as they can
• IV Participants completed the task either alone
  or in a group.
• DV Amount of sound produced per person

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When is Social Loafing Less Likely to Occur?

• People believe that their own performances can be
  identified and thus evaluated, by themselves or
  by others.
• The task is important or meaningful to those
  performing it.
• People believe that their own efforts are
  necessary for a successful outcome.
• The group expects to be punished for poor
  performance.
• The group is small.
• The group is cohesive.

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Resolving the Contradiction

• Does being in a group lead to greater performance
  (social facilitation) or worse performance
  (social loafing)?
• Bob Zajonc (rhymes with science)
• Explained why the contradiction exists
• Dominant Response In a hierarchy of responses
  this is the one you are most likely to make in a
  given situation

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Zajoncs Theory
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Social Facilitation

• Zajonc (1969) Investigated the effects of an
  audience on cockroach behavior.
• The researchers placed a bright light (which
  cockroaches dislike) on one end of simple maze
  and timed how long it took for the roaches to
  reach a darkened box at the other end of the maze
• IV Task was done alone, or task was done in the
  presence of other roaches who were in audience
  boxes
• Results Cockroaches completed the task FASTER in
  the presence of other roaches than when alone

Simple Maze
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Social Impairment

• In a second study, roaches had to navigate a
  complex maze, where they had to make the correct
  turn in order to reach the goal
• IV Again, the task was done alone, in the
  presence of other roaches who were in audience
  boxes
• Results Cockroaches completed the complex task
  SLOWER in the presence of other roaches than when
  alone

Complex Maze
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Groups Continued10/11/07

• Announcements
• Das Experiment
• Exam Review Sheet
• Semester Project Description

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Zajoncs theory of social facilitation
Mere Presence or Evaluation Apprehension?
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Mere presence or Evaluation apprehension?

• Competing explanations
• Cottrell et al. (1968)

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Mere presence or evaluation apprehension?

• Markus (1978)

Time to change item of clothing
(novel clothes)
(own clothes)
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3 Questions, 3 Contradictions

• Do groups behave more or less morally than
  individuals?
• Do groups perform better or worse than an equal
  number of individuals?
• Do groups make better decisions or worse
  decisions than individuals?

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Group Decisions

• Groups make better decisions that individuals
• When people come togetherthey may surpass,
  collectively and as a body, the quality of the
  few bestWhen there are many who contribute to
  the process of deliberation, each can bring his
  share of goodness and moral prudence Aristotle

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Groups make better decisions

• The Wisdom of Crowds (Surowiecki, 2004)
• Sports gambling
• Who Wants to Be a Millionaire
• Transactive Memory process by which members of a
  small group remember different kinds of
  information
• Brainstorming creative thinking in groups in
  which group members are encouraged to generate as
  many ideas as possible
• More enjoyable than working alone
• More satisfied with outcome

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Brainstorming

• Buttypically leads to reduced performance
  (compared to same number of individuals)
• Factors that reduce the effectiveness of
  brainstorming
• Production Blocking when people have to wait for
  their turn to speak, they may forget their ideas
  or lose interest
• Free Riding As others contribute, some
  individuals may feel less motivation to
  contribute
• Evaluation Apprehension In the presence of
  others, some people may be hesitant to respond
• Performance Matching Group members work only as
  hard as they see other members work

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Better Brainstorming

• A more effective approach to brainstorming is to
  have individuals first brainstorm by themselves
  and then meet as a group
• Members should be encouraged to express all
  ideas, even if they sound crazy
• The more ideas, the better
• No criticizing of ideas during brainstorming
  stage
• Individuals should be free to build on others
  ideas

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Group Decisions

• Many contexts in which group decisions are no
  better and sometimes worse than individual
  decisions
• Groupthink A kind of faulty thinking on the part
  of highly cohesive groups in which the critical
  scrutiny that should be devoted to an issue is
  subverted by social pressures to reach a
  consensus.

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Groupthink
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Essential Elements of Groupthink
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Reducing Groupthink

• Limiting premature seeking of concurrence
• Open style of leadership
• Devils advocate
• Subgroup discussions
• Subgroups should separately discuss the same
  issue.
• Avoid isolation, groups should consult widely
  with outsiders.
• A second chance meeting should be held to
  reconsider the decision before it is implemented.

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Group Decisions Risky or Conservative?

• Stoner (1961) Hypothesized that group decisions
  would be more conservative than individual
  decisions
• Asked groups or individuals to evaluate 12
  scenarios
• Mr. A., an electrical engineer, who is married
  and has one child, has been working for a large
  electronics corporation since graduating from
  college. He is assured a lifetime job with
  modest, although adequate salary. While attending
  a convention he is offered a job from a small,
  newly founded company that has a highly uncertain
  futureThe new job would pay more to start and
  would offer a share of the ownership and profits
  if the company survived competition from larger
  firms.

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Stoner (1961)

• Imagine that you are advising Mr. A. Listed below
  are several probabilities or odds that the new
  company will be financially sound
• Please check the lowest probability that you
  would consider acceptable
• The chances are 1 in 10 that the company will
  prove financially sound
• The chances are 3 in 10 that the company will
  prove financially sound
• The chances are 5 in 10 that the company will
  prove financially sound
• The chances are 7 in 10 that the company will
  prove financially sound
• The chances are 9 in 10 that the company will
  prove financially sound
• Mr. A. should not take the job no matter what the
  probabilities

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Stoner (1961)

• Contrary to his predictions, group decisions
  tended to be riskier than individual decisions
• They were more likely to take worse odds
• Risky Shift tendency for groups to take greater
  risks that the same individuals would have
  decided (on average) individually

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Stingy Shifts

• But other evidence contradicted the notion of
  risky shift (Stoner, 1961)
• Group decisions were more conservative
• Mr. C., a married man with a 7 year old son, can
  provide his family with all the necessities of
  life, but few luxuries. Mr. C.s mother recently
  died, leaving her grandson a small inheritance
  she had accumulated by scrimping and saving. Mr.
  C. would like to invest his sons inheritance in
  the stock market. He is considering investing in
  either blue-chip stocks that should earn a 6
  return, or in a new biotech company that he has
  heard about. If things go well for the biotech
  company, he could quadruple his money in the
  first yearbut if things go poorly, he could lose
  all the money

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Explaining the contradiction

• Why would some groups make more conservative
  choices, whereas others would make riskier
  choices?
• Evidence suggests what group discussion does is
  make people more inclined to go in the direction
  in which they were already predisposed to go
• Group polarization a shift toward more extreme
  positions resulting from group discussion

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Group Polarization Example

• Imagine you were considering the pros and cons of
  going to grad school, and you talked it over with
  two groups
• Your family
• Who was initially slightly opposed to the idea
• Your fellow students
• Who were initially slightly favorable
• After discussion within each group what is likely
  to happen?

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Group Polarization Example
Definite GO
Attitude Towards Grad School
Unsure
Definite NO (Get A Job!)
Before Group Discussion
After Group Discussion
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What causes group polarization?

• Persuasive Arguments Explanation
• The greater the number and persuasiveness of the
  arguments to which members are exposed, the more
  extreme their attitudes become.
• Minority positions are counter-argued quickly
• Some arguments provide new information.
• Hearing others repeat our arguments validates our
  reasoning, giving us more confidence in our
  attitude.

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What causes group polarization?

• Social comparison explanation
• Individuals develop their social reality by
  comparing themselves to others
• The construction of social reality in like-minded
  groups is a two-step process
• People discover more support for their own
  opinion than they had originally anticipated.
• This discovery sets up a new norm, a more extreme
  norm, and motivates members to go beyond that
  norm.
• If believing X is good, then believing double X
  is even better

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Polarization in modern life

• Polarization occurs when most individuals in a
  group tend to prefer one option to another at the
  outset
• This isnt necessarily true for naturally forming
  groups
• Diversity vs. homogeneity
• Group polarization is particularly troubling
  because often in contemporary life dialogue among
  varying positions is discouraged
• You are either with us or against us GWB
• The differences of opinion, and the jarring of
  partiespromote deliberation and circumspection
  and serve to check the excesses of the majority
  Alexander Hamilton