Group Processes

Lecture 11

Group Processes

Groups

Destructive Groups (“cults”)

Deindividuation

Social Facilitation and Social Loafing

Group Decision Making

Decision Making in Juries

Leadership

Types of Groups

Differentiating elements of Nonsocial vs Social Groups:

Interaction

Interdependence

Social Groups

Groups have social norms to guide behavior

Groups have well-defined social roles

Vary in level of group cohesiveness

Social Norms

➔ The implicit or explicit rules of a group about the acceptable behaviours, values, and beliefs of its members

Group members are expected to conform to these norms

Members who deviate from norms are punished or rejected

UC Berkeley’s “Naked Guy”UC Berkeley’s “Naked Guy”

Social Roles

➔ Shared expectations about how particular group members should behave

Potential costs:

Individual personality may be taken over by power of role

Violation of social roles meets with censure from other group members

Group Cohesiveness

➔ The degree to which a group IS or IS PERCEIVED TO BE close knit and similar

Promotes liking and ingroup favouritism

Affects stereotyping of the group by outsiders

Destructive Cults

➔ A group of great devotion to a person/idea/thing that employs unethical techniques of manipulation or control

Jim Jones and “The People’s Temple”

November 18th, 1978

Rep. Ryan and party are gunned down

Jones orchestrates mass suicide

Fruit punch is laced with potassium-cyanide

913 people drink punch

276 children

Destructive Cults

Defining characteristics:

1. Charismatic leader(s)

2. Leaders are self-appointed

3. The leader is the focus of veneration

4. Group culture tends toward totalitarianism

5. Group usually has 2 or more sets of ethics

6. Group presents itself as innovative and exclusive

7. Main goals: Recruitment & fundraising

Iclicker poll

Have you ever personally known someone who has been involved in a destructive cult?

A. = Yes

B. = No

Iclicker poll

If yes, which of the following qualities makes you think it was a destructive cult? (Press “A” if this quality was present, “B” if it was not present)

1. Charismatic leader(s)

2. Leaders are self-appointed

3. The leader is the focus of veneration

4. Group culture tends toward totalitarianism

5. Group usually has 2 or more sets of ethics

6. Group presents itself as innovative and exclusive

7. Main goals: Recruitment & fundraising

Deindividuation

➔ The state in which a person loses the sense of him or herself as an individual

Occurs:

In crowds

When physically anonymous

Group chanting or stomping

Effects of Deindividuation

Brandon Vedas, a 21 year-old man in a chatroom

Took a fatal overdose of pills while others egged him on

Social Facilitation and Social Loafing

Effects of groups on individual performance

Created by an interaction of three factors:

Individual Evaluation

Arousal

Task complexity

Social Facilitation

➔ Tendency for performance to be:

➔ improved when doing well-learned or dominant behaviours in the presence of others

➔ inhibited when doing less practised or difficult tasks in the presence of others

Social Loafing

➔ Tendency for people to perform worse on simple tasks and better on complex tasks if they are in a group and not being individually evaluated

Social Loafing

➔ Tendency for people to perform worse on simple tasks and better on complex tasks if they are in a group and not being individually evaluated

Evaluation

Evaluation Apprehension

➔ Concern about being judged/evaluated

Socio-evaluative Threat

➔ Extreme Evaluation Apprehension

Body responds with the stress hormone, cortisol

Cortisol constricts blood vessels in hippocampus, inhibiting memory and linguistic complexity

Putting it All Together

Evaluation, Arousal, and Task Complexity ...

How do they contribute to Social Facilitation and Social Loafing?

Putting it all Together

PresenPresence of ce of

OthersOthers

PresenPresence of ce of

OthersOthers

Evaluation Evaluation ApprehensiApprehensi

onon

Evaluation Evaluation ApprehensiApprehensi

onon

No No Evaluation Evaluation ApprehensiApprehensi

onon

No No Evaluation Evaluation ApprehensiApprehensi

onon

ArousalArousalArousalArousal

RelaxationRelaxationRelaxationRelaxation

Task ComplexityTask ComplexityArousalArousalEvaluationEvaluation

Enhanced Enhanced Performance on Performance on

Simple TasksSimple Tasks

Enhanced Enhanced Performance on Performance on

Simple TasksSimple TasksSimple

Impaired Impaired Performance on Performance on

Simple TasksSimple Tasks

Impaired Impaired Performance on Performance on

Simple TasksSimple TasksSimple

Impaired Impaired Performance on Performance on Complex TasksComplex Tasks

Impaired Impaired Performance on Performance on Complex TasksComplex Tasks

Complex

Enhanced Enhanced Performance on Performance on Complex TasksComplex Tasks

Enhanced Enhanced Performance on Performance on Complex TasksComplex Tasks

Complex

Group Decision Making

Group Polarization

Group Think

Jury Decision Making

Group polarization

➔ Tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of their members

Can be a shift to either greater risk or greater caution

Has both informational and normative explanations

Group Think

➔ “A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action”

Extreme form of Group Polarization

Challenger Disaster

January 28, 1986, 11:39am

Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian to go into space

Many children watched the lift off in schools

Rogers Commission

Day before launch, engineers warn about O-rings

Never tested below 12ºC

Day of launch was around 4ºC

Engineers’ warnings suppressed

O-ring warning never mentioned to higher-ups

“A launch should be cancelled if there is any doubts of its safety” -NASA policy

Highly cohesive

Isolation

Directive leader

High stress

Non-structured decision-making procedures

Characteristics of Group Think

Illusion of invulnerabilityGroup is morally correctOut-group is stereotypedSelf-censorshipPressure for conformityIllusion of unanimityMindguards

Incomplete survey of alternativesFailure to look at risks of favored alternativesPoor information searchNo contingency plans

Antecedents Symptoms Consequences

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Exploding WhaleGroup Think at its Viral Video Best

preventing Group Think

Apriori assign someone to play “Devil’s Advocate”

Everyone must know that this person was assigned this role

Leader remains impartial

Seek feedback from people outside the group

Begin by creating subgroups which suggest ideas to the group as a whole

Anonymous opinions from group members (e.g., ballots)

Jury Decision Making

Group Decision Making and Juries

Value of Unanimity

12 person versus 6 person juries

Jury Decision Making

Group Polarization and Group Think

Across 200 jury trials, 97% of juries ended with the decision favoured by majority on the initial vote

Called “Predeliberation Errors”

Cascade Effect

➔ Judgements of initial speakers shape successors, who do not disclose what they know or think

Unanimous Decisions

Requirement of Unanimity forces group to be extra cohesive

Group Think is amplified

HOWEVER, lack of unanimity requirement increases rates of guilty verdicts

Just World Hypothesis applied to a defendent

Predeliberation errors are biased toward belief of defendant's guilt

Jury Composition

How many people are ideal?

6-person vs. 12-person juries

6 person juries convict more often

12-person juries acquit or are “hung” more often

12-person juries are more likely to have a dissenter

Leadership

Who Should Lead?

Who Does Lead?

Who Should Lead?

Anyone, really

“Great Person Theory” … big bust

Effective leadership uncorrelated with personality

One trait stands out:

Integrative Complexity

➔ The ability to simultaneously hold, consider, and integrate multiple perspectives on an issue

Who Does Lead?

All the same, (relative to nonleaders) leaders tend to be:

More intelligent

Socially skilled, charismatic

Driven by power

Adaptive and flexible

Confident in their leadership abilities

Trait dominance

Example Exam Question

Kathy paints her face blue and silver, dons a silver wig, and goes to a big football game. During the game, she engages in stamping and rhythmic clapping with others. At the end of the game, many people charge the field and trample some people to death. Kathy personally trampled at least two people. What social psychology phenomenon can explain this behaviour?

A. Social facilitation

B. Group polarization

C. Social norms

D. Tragedy of the commons

E. Deindividuation

Example Exam Question

Kathy paints her face blue and silver, dons a silver wig, and goes to a big football game. During the game, she engages in stamping and rhythmic clapping with others. At the end of the game, many people charge the field and trample some people to death. Kathy personally trampled at least two people. What social psychology phenomenon can explain this behaviour?

A. Social facilitation

B. Group polarization

C. Social norms

D. Tragedy of the commons

E.E. DeindividuationDeindividuation

Next Lecture:Emotions

Project on mind and Law at Harvard Law School:www.thesituationist.com