1. Chapter 8
Group Processes

2. Individuals in Groups
The Presence of Others

3. What is a Group?
A set of individuals who have at least one of the following characteristics:
Direct interactions with each other over a period of time
Joint membership in a social category based on sex, race, or other attributes
A shared, common fate, identity, or set of goals

4. What Is a Collective?
An assembly of people engaging in a common activity but having little direct interaction with each other.
Not a real group
Some social psychological processes are unique to real groups.
However, others affect both groups and collectives

5. Social Facilitation: When Others Arouse Us
How does the presence of others affect our behavior?
Triplett’s ( ) fishing reel studies.
Later research found conflicting findings.
Sometimes the presence of others enhanced performance.
At other times, performance declined.
What was going on???

6. Figure 8.1: Social Facilitation: The Zajonc Solution

7. Why Does Social Facilitation Occur?
Zajonc’s Mere Presence Theory
Evaluation Apprehension Theory
Someone must be in position to evaluate performance.
Stereotype threat revisited.

8. Why Does Social Facilitation Occur? (cont.)
Distraction Conflict Theory
Attentional conflict between focusing on task and inspecting the distracting stimulus creates arousal.
Maintains there is nothing uniquely social about “social” facilitation.
Which theory is correct?

9. Putting Common Sense to the Test…
True or False?
People will cheer louder when they cheer as part of a group than when they cheer alone.
Answer: False… Let’s see why!

10. Social Loafing: When Others Relax Us
Ringelmann (1880s): Individual output declines on pooled tasks.
Social Loafing: A group-produced reduction in individual output on easy tasks in which contributions are pooled.

11. Figure 8.2: Social Loafing: When Many Produce Less
Adapted from Jackson & Williams, 1985; Sanna, 1992.

12. 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.

13. When Is Social Loafing Less Likely to Occur? (cont.)
The group expects to be punished for poor performance.
The group is small.
The group is cohesive.

14. Why Does Social Loafing Occur?
Collective Effort Model: Individuals try hard on a collective task when they think their efforts will help them achieve outcomes they personally value.

15. Figure 8.3: Unifying the Paradigms: Presence and Evaluation
Adapted from Jackson & Williams, 1985; Sanna, 1992.

16. Deindividuation
The loss of a person’s sense of individuality and the reduction of normal constraints against deviant behavior.
A collective phenomenon that only occurs in the presence of others
What can lead to deindividuation?

17. Environmental Cues
Accountability cues affect the person’s cost-reward calculations.
Attentional cues focus a person’s attention away from the self.

18. Figure 8.4: Deindividuation and Social Identity
From Johnsson, R.D., and Downing, L. L. (1979). "Deindividuation and valance of cues: Effects on prosocial and antisocial behavior."

19. Interacting with Others
Group Dynamics
Interacting with Others

20. Why Join a Group? We may have an innate need to belong to groups.
Groups help us to accomplish things we cannot accomplish as individuals.
Groups offer social status and identity.
We like the members and want to have the opportunity to interact with them.

21. Table 8.1: Stages of Group Development

22. Group Roles People’s roles in a group can be formal or informal.
Two fundamental types of roles:
An instrumental role to help the group achieve its tasks
An expressive role to provide emotional support and maintain morale

23. Group Norms Groups establish norms or rules of conduct for members.
Norms may be either formal or informal.

24. Group Cohesiveness
The forces exerted on a group that push its members closer together.
Cohesiveness and group performance are causally related.
But relationship is complex

25. Putting Common Sense to the Test…
True or False?
Group members’ attitudes about a course of action usually become more moderate after group discussion.
Answer: False… Let’s see why!

26. Group Polarization
Conflicting findings about the types of decisions groups make:
Sometimes riskier, other times more cautious
Group Polarization: The exaggeration through group discussion of initial tendencies in the thinking of group members.

27. What Creates Group Polarization?
Persuasive arguments theory
Social comparison
Social categorization

28. Groupthink Excessive tendency to seek concurrence among group members.
Emerges when the need for agreement takes priority over the motivation to obtain accurate information and make appropriate decisions.

29. Antecedents of Groupthink
Highly cohesive groups
Group structure
Homogeneous members
Isolation
Directive leadership
Unsystematic procedures
Stressful situations

30. Symptoms of Groupthink
Overestimation of the group
Closed-mindedness
Increased pressures toward uniformity
Mindguards and pressures towards uniformity
Self-censorship
Illusion of unanimity

31. Consequences of Groupthink
Defective decision making
Incomplete survey of alternatives
Incomplete survey of objectives
Failure to reappraise initially rejected alternatives
Poor information search
Selective bias in processing information at hand
Failure to work out contingency plans
High probability of a bad decision

32. Figure 8.5: Charting the Course of Groupthink

33. Preventing Groupthink
Avoid isolation by consulting widely with outsiders.
Leaders should reduce conformity pressures.
Establish a strong norm of critical review.

34. Table 8.2: How Computerized Group Support Systems Help Groups Avoid Groupthink

35. Group Performance: Are More Heads Better than One?
Additive Tasks: Groups usually outperform single individuals.
Conjunctive Tasks: Group performance tends to be worse than the performance of a single, average individual.
Disjunctive Tasks: Process loss can occur.

36. Setting Goals
Better if group has specific, challenging, and reachable goals.
Goals selected by groups tend to be less ambitious.
But still typically perform better than groups without goals.
As gain more experience, begin to set more challenging goals.

37. Putting Common Sense to the Test…
True or False?
People brainstorming as a group come up with a greater number of better ideas than the same number of people working individually.
Answer: False… Let’s see why!

38. Brainstorming: Coming Up with Ideas
A technique that attempts to increase the production of creative ideas by encouraging group members to speak freely without criticizing their own or others’ contributions.

39. Table 8.3: Brainstorming in Groups: Problems and Solutions

40. Table 8.3: Why Electronic Brainstorming is Effective

41. Biased Sampling and Communication
On some tasks, simply sharing information is crucial for good performance.
But all the information available to individual members may not be brought before the group.
Biased sampling
If inadequately informed, the group may make a bad decision.

42. When Is Biased Sampling Less Likely to Occur?
When group members are aware that not everyone has access to the same information.
Leaders encourage group participation.
At least two group members know the uncommon information.

43. Figure 8.6: Sharing Information in a Group: The Role of Group Norms
From T. Postmes, R. Spears, and S. Cihagir, "Quality of Decision Making and Group Norms," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 80, , Copyright © 2001 by the American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission.

44. Putting Common Sense to the Test…
True or False?
Groups are less likely than individuals to invest more and more resources in a project that is failing.
Answer: False… Let’s see why!

45. Escalation Effects
Occurs when commitment to a failing course of action is increased to justify previous investments.
Groups more likely to escalate commitment.
Also likely to do it in more extreme ways.

46. Information Processing
How well do group members process information compared with individuals?
Groups are also susceptible to information processing biases.
Through transactive memory, groups remember information more efficiently than individuals.
But process loss can still occur.

47. Diversity and Group Performance
Diversity often associated with negative group dynamics.
But diversity can have positive effects.
Diversity can enhance a group’s performance if the group is integrated.

48. Cooperation, Competition, and Conflict

49. Social Dilemmas
Situations in which a self-interested choice by everyone creates the worst outcome for everyone.
What is good for one is bad for all.

50. Figure 8.7: The Prisoner’s Dilemma

51. Strategies Used When Facing Mixed-Motive Situations
Tit-for-Tat
Win-Stay, Lose-Shift

52. Putting Common Sense to the Test…
True or False?
Large groups are more likely than small groups to exploit a scarce resource that the members collectively depend on.
Answer: True… Let’s see why!

53. Resource Dilemmas
Social dilemmas concerning how two or more people share a limited resource.
Two types of resource dilemmas:
Commons dilemma (“take-some dilemma”)
Public goods dilemma

54. Table 8.4: Solving Social Dilemmas

55. Figure 8.8: Culture and the Prisoner's Dilemma

56. Table 8.5: Factors that Promote and Sustain the Escalation of Between-Group Conflict

57. Reducing Conflict: Through GRIT
Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension-Reduction (GRIT)
A strategy for unilateral, persistent efforts to establish trust and cooperation between opposing parties.
GRIT is a reciprocal, tit-for-tat strategy.

58. Negotiation
Integrative agreement is a negotiated resolution where all parties obtain outcomes that are superior to a split.
Key elements in successful negotiating include:
Flexibility and strength
Communicating and trying to understand the point of view of the other person

59. Table 8.6: Cultural Assumptions About Negotiating

60. Finding A Common Ground
Recognition of a superordinate identity.
Superordinate goals can elicit cooperation by appealing to people’s self-interest.
These goals can also produce a superordinate identity.