1. David Myers Chapter Eight Group Influence
Social Psychology
David Myers
Chapter Eight
Group Influence
©2013 McGraw-Hill Companies

2. What Is a Group?
Two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as “us” (M. Shaw, ‘81)
For
Affiliation
To achieve
Social identity
What are some groups you belong to?
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3. Topics: Collective influence
(can occur in minimal group situations):
Social facilitation
Social loafing
Deindividuation
Influence occurring with interacting groups:
Polarization
Groupthink
Minority influence
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4. Social Facilitation: How Are We Affected by the Presence of Others?
Crowding: The Presence of Many Others
Effect of others’ presence increases with their number
Being in a crowd intensifies positive or negative reactions
Enhances arousal
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5. Social Facilitation: How Are We Affected by the Presence of Others
Social Facilitation: How Are We Affected by the Presence of Others? (biking with others – N. Triplett, ‘90)
Why Are We Aroused in the Presence of Others?
Evaluation apprehension
Concern for how others are evaluating us
Driven by distraction
When we wonder how co-actors are doing or how an audience is reacting, we become distracted
Mere presence
Can be arousing even when we are not evaluated or distracted
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6. Social facilitation (& hindrance)
Social facilitation (& hindrance) evaluation apprehension causes arousal
R. Zajonc
Dominant response theory:
Group presence
Boosts performance on easy tasks
Hurts performance on difficult tasks
If the dominant response is correct and well learned
Performance increases
If the dominant response is incorrect (not well-learned)
Performance decreases
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7. Crowding Evaluation apprehension Distraction Mere presence
Dominant response theory is enhanced
With increased apprehension
Distraction
More difficult to pay attention to the task
Mere presence
Arousal occurs just with the mere presence of others
-Zajonc (with all sorts of species)
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8. Social Loafing: Do Individuals Exert Less Effort in a Group?
Many Hands Make Light Work
Effort decreases as group size increases
Free riders
People who benefit from the group but give little in return
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9. Social Loafing: Do Individuals Exert Less Effort in a Group?
Tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable
Give some personal examples of where this has happened to you.
Have you ever been a ‘social loafer’?
Does it happen with “tug o’ war”? (Ringlemann)
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10. Social Loafing: Do Individuals Exert Less Effort in a Group?
Social Loafing in Everyday Life
People in groups loaf less when the task is
Challenging
Appealing
Rewards are significant
Involving
Team spirit
When held accountable / effort is visible
Interdependent tasks with specific roles
When the reward (output) is for self/small group
Is this why communism usually doesn’t work?
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11. Deindividuation: When Do People Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad
Looting in
Iraq, London, Ferguson
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12. Deindividuation: When Do People Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
Doing Together What We Would Not Do Alone
Group size
Larger the group the more its members lose self-awareness and become willing to commit atrocities
Lnychings, encouraging suicidial persons to jump to their death
People’s attention is focused on the situation, not on themselves
“Everyone’s doing it” attitude
They contribute their behavior to the situation rather than to their own choices
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13. Deindividuation: When Do People Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
Doing Together What We Would Not Do Alone
Anonymity
Being anonymous makes one less self-conscious, more group-conscious, and more responsive to cues present in the situation, whether negative or positive
Dressed to cover their identity delivered more electric shocks Zimbardo (‘79; ‘02)
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14. Deindividuation: When Do People Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
“flaming”
Download to MP3
Smoked car windows
Incivility when driving
Single or multiple checks for restaurant bill?
Halloween
Masked vs unmasked
Which take more candy?
Always bad behavior?
Klan hoods v. nurse uniforms
Why not?
Response to situational cues
Anti-social v.
Pro-social
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15. Deindividuation: When Do People Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
Doing Together What We Would Not Do Alone
Arousing and distracting activities
When we act in an impulsive way as a group, we are not thinking about our values; we are reacting to the immediate situation
i.e. “situational cues” overwhelm “held values”
Impulsive group action absorbs our attention
Starting, encouraging chants in demonstrations
Purposely done by protest organizers
to induce disinhibited behaviors
- makes us think others feel as we do (social comparison theory
- and induces false consensus beliefs
- and compliance with social (group) norms
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16. Deindividuation: When Do People Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
Self-Awareness
Opposite of deindividuation
Tend to increase people’s responsiveness to the immediate situation, be it negative or positive
Take a mirror with you everywhere you go
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17. Group Polarization: Do Groups Intensify Our Opinions?
Group-produced enhancement of members’ preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the members’ average tendency, not a split within the group
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18. Group Polarization: Do Groups Intensify Our Opinions? -first comes:
“Risky Shift” Phenomenon (J. Stoner, ’61)
What would you advise Helen to do?
Cheap westerns or a significant novel?
What would you advise Roger to do?
Sell or not sell his life insurance policy?
Occurs not only when a group decides by consensus; after a brief discussion, individuals, too, will alter their decisions
Juries
Business committees
Military organizations
Teen drivers
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19. Group Polarization: Do Groups Intensify Our Opinions?
Do Groups Intensify Opinions?
Group polarization experiments
Moscovici and Zavalloni (1969)
After French students discussion how did initial attitudes change toward Americans and the French President?
Mititoshi Isozaki (1984)
Japanese judgements of “guilty” for traffic violations
Were award damages from group larger or smaller that for individual awards?
Markus Brauer, et al. (2001)
After discussion did French students dislike certain other people more or less? Why?
What effect does discussion ofmoral issues have on individuals in the group?
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20. Group Polarization: Do Groups Intensify Our Opinions?
Do Groups Intensify Opinions?
Group polarization in everyday life (echo chamber)
Schools
Accentuation effect
How does this apply to gender orientation?
Communities
Self-segregation
Internet
U.S. Congress
Gerrymandering phenomenon?
Terrorists organizations
What’s the solution to prevent radicalization of these individuals?
Boys become more competitive, girls more relationlly oriented
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21. Group Polarization: Do Groups Intensify Our Opinions?
Explaining Polarization
Informational influence
Arguments
Favor given to the initial ones
Active participation
“Don’t you agree….?”
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22. Group Polarization: Do Groups Intensify Our Opinions?
Explaining Polarization
Normative influence (social influence)
Social comparison
Evaluating one’s opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others
Pluralistic ignorance
A false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding
When we find out what others think, we want to be unique and stand out more by taking a stronger position (“I’m not like everyone else!”)
Explain the “bandwagon effect” for why songs become popular (Salganik, ‘06)
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23. Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or Assist Good Decisions
Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or Assist Good Decisions? (Irving Janis, 71)
Mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action
Caused by
Cohesive group
Isolation of the group from dissenting viewpoints
Directive leader
Perl Harbor
Bay of Pigs
Vietnam war
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24. Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or Assist Good Decisions?
Symptoms of Groupthink
Following lead group members to overestimate their group’s might and right
Illusion of invulnerability
Admiral Kimmel’s laugh (Diamond Head)
Unquestioned belief in the group’s morality
Kennedy vs. William Fulbright Arthur Schlesinger
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25. Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or Assist Good Decisions?
Symptoms of Groupthink
Following leads group members to become closed-minded
Rationalization
“Tuesday Lunch group” (explain and justify focus)
Stereotyped view of opponent
Castro’s military? ….much too weak!
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26. Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or Assist Good Decisions?
Symptoms of Groupthink
Following leads group to feel pressure toward uniformity
Conformity pressure
Here comes Bill Moyers, “Mr. stop the bombing”
Self-censorship
What should Arthur have done?
Illusion of unanimity
Adolf’s team / Vietnam / Bay of Pigs / Pearl Harbor / Iraq
Mindguards
Bobby Kennedy / Dean Rusk
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27. Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or Assist Good Decisions?
Critiquing Groupthink
Directive leadership is associated with poorer decisions
Groups do prefer supporting over challenging information
Groups make smart decisions by widely distributed conversation with members who take turns speaking
Group acceptance, approval, and social identity, suppress disagreeable thoughts among members
Diverse groups produce more creativity
Groups may not always benefit from all that members know
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28. Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or Assist Good Decisions?
Preventing Groupthink
Be impartial
Encourage critical evaluation
Occasionally subdivide the group, then reunite to air differences
Welcome critiques from outside experts and associates
Call a second-chance meeting
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29. Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or Assist Good Decisions?
Group Problem Solving
Combine group and solitary brainstorming
Have group members interact by writing
Incorporate electronic brainstorming
How to evaluate the correctness of the decision?
Not on the outcome/ results
But on the decision process itself (I. Janis)
Anyone can be a Monday morning quarter back
Remember counter-factual thinking?
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30. The Influence of the Minority: How Do Individuals Influence the Group?
Consistency
Minority slowness effect
Self-Confidence
Portrayed by consistency and persistence
Defections from the Majority
Minority person who defects from the majority is more persuasive than a consistent minority voice
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31. The Influence of the Minority: How Do Individuals Influence the Group?
Is Leadership Minority Influence?
Leadership
Process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group
Formal and informal group leaders exert disproportionate influence
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32. The Influence of the Minority: How Do Individuals Influence the Group?
Is Leadership Minority Influence?
Task leadership
Organizes work, sets standards, and focuses on goals
Social leadership
Builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support
Transformational leadership
Enabled by a leader’s vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence
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