Group Processes

What is a group?

Which of these are meaningful groups? Members of your fraternity/sorority Your family Members of the St. Louis Cardinals Fans watching a Cardinals game Males Social psychologists A group of people occupying the same elevator People who like watching The Sopranos People who own sexy red sports cars People who wear glasses People who wear funny- looking glasses People who notice other people’s funny-looking glasses People who are sick of my “funny glasses” example

An index of “groupiness”: entitativity (Campbell, 1958) what specific factors lead to perceptions of high entitativity? At least three: – Similarity, interaction, common goals

Lickel et al. (2000) – Cluster one: Intimacy groups (e.g. families, close friends, street gangs, fraternities/sororities) high levels of interaction/similarity/importance; long duration, and shared goals; moderate permeability; high perceived entitativity – Cluster two: Task-oriented groups (e.g. juries, students studying for an exam, labor unions) similar to intimacy groups, but of shorter duration and often small in number; high permeability; moderate entitativity. – Cluster three: Social category groups ( e.g. Women, Jews, Hispanics) low interaction, low importance, few shared goals, low perceived similarity (as viewed by fellow group members); impermeable, low entitativity. – Cluster four: loose associations (e.g. people who drive red sports cars, people in the same neighborhood) Short or moderate duration, low importance, interaction, similarity, extremely low entitativity

Functions served by different kinds of groups Intimacy groups: affiliation needs (emotional attachment, belongingness) Task-oriented groups: achievement needs Social category groups: social identity needs

“gender-bender” role violations “try-it” exercise on p. 287

Social facilitation

Classic paradigms in social facilitation Perform task in P rivate, versus: “co-actor” “audience” (you plus others watching) Public First known study: Triplett (1898)

Brief overview of social facilitation literature Is performance improved or impaired in “public” (audience or co-actor) conditions ? Decades of confusing results Resolution: Zajonc (1965) – Dominant (habitual, well-learned) responses more likely in public If dominant response yields correct answer: helps performance If dominant response yields incorrect answer: hurts performance

Zajonc study Pronounce words between 1 and 16 times – Creates “dominant” response – Words pronounced most frequently Words flashed very quickly: 1/100 second – Participants guess word If others are present, more likely to guess “dominant” words

Zajonc: Basic Principle of Animal Behavior Cockroaches placed in runway Bright light shown Run to other end of runway to escape light Cockroach “spectators” or not Perform faster with spectators But only if maze is simple

Ok, but why dominant response in public ? Presence of others (of same species) arousing for at least three reasons: – Mere presence – Evaluation apprehension – Distraction Arousal then directly leads to enhanced likelihood of well-learned response – Actual mechanism a little obscure

Alternate “Cognitive load” explanation more parsimonious Public settings distracting for several reasons Erodes capacity to engage in controlled (complex) processes, and, hence: – Habitual/automatic responses more likely Similar to findings in heuristics literature – Baron (1986); Lambert, Payne, Jacoby, 2003)

Social Loafing Output of individual is diminished when working in a group Ringelmann--rope pulling – Clapping, cheering Why no social facilitation?

Presence of others Individual efforts can be evaluated Individual efforts cannot be evaluated Arousal/ distraction Enhanced performance on simple tasks Impaired performance on complex tasks Little arousal/evaluation apprehension relaxation Impaired performance on simple tasks Enhanced performance on complex tasks SOCIAL FACILITATION SOCIAL LOAFING

Jackson and Williams (1986) Simple vs. complex mazes on computer Another participant worked on identical task in other room Researcher: – Each performance would be evaluated separately, or – Computer would average scores (no accountability)

Difficulty of mazes easydifficult Time to complete maze (long) (fast) evaluation No evaluation

Deindividuation Original view: loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people are in a crowd “mob behavior”

Newer view of Deindividuation Two factors – Lower accountability – Increases obedience to “local” norms