Group Processes

•Fundamentals of Groups

•Individuals & Groups

•Group Performance

•Conflict

• I Fundamentals of Groups

Group- two or more people, who for longer than a few moments, interact and influence one another and perceive one another as “us”.

Collectives & assemblages- gym membership, etc…

Joining Groups

• Meet the demands of life.

• Innate social need (social brain hypothesis)

• Personal & social identity

• Fear of isolation (being alone)

• Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development (1965)

1. Forming- members get to know each other.

2. Storming- Members try to shape the group to fit their personal needs.

3. Norming- Members attempt to reconcile and compromise

4. Performing- members adopt their assigned roles & try to carry those roles out.

5. Adjourning- Members distance themselves from the group when the group costs more than the benefits that are yielded.

• Roles- set of expected behaviors.

• Formal or informal

The more ambiguous one’s role, the worse one’s performance (Lu et al., 2008)

• Abillities & Roles (Woolley, 2007)• Participants work in 2 person teams.• One member works on an object identification task, the other on

a sptial relationship task.• Three teams: Homogenous, Incongruent, congruent.• Homogenous team- two individuals both good at the same task.• Incongruent team- two people, both good at the other person’s

task.• Congruent team- two members, both matched roles to strengths• Congruent teams performed significantly better.

• Norms- rules of conduct for members

• Formal or informal

• A group norm for individualism can be formed, resulting in members who conform to the norm of not conforming (McAuliffe, 2003).

• Cohesiveness- feelings of intimacy, unity, and commitment to group goals that brings group members together.

• Mullen & Cooper (1994) found stronger evidence that performance affects cohesiveness than cohesiveness affects performance. We more often bond because we win, not win because we bond.

• Culture (collectivist/individualist)• Nibler & Harris (2003)• 5, 2 person groups, strangers, 1 from China &

1from US.• Asked to rank 15 items to be taken on a

lifeboat.• CONFLICT & DISAGREEMENT• China/US disagreement interfered with group

performance.• US/US groups, viewed as debate & freedom

of expression.

• II Individuals in Groups

• Social Facilitation- presence of others enhances performance on easy tasks, but impairs performance on difficult tasks.

• Triplett (1897) bicycle racing.

• Robert Zajonc (1965) on individual performance within a group:

• Presence of others creates arousal.

• Arousal decreases performance on tasks that one is not excellent at & increases performance on tasks that one is excellent at.

• People relate to TV characters.

• Knowles (2008) People demonstrated social facilitation with a photo of their favorite TV character present.

• Catrambone (2007) demonstrated social facilitation with virtual person.

Other theories of Social Facilitation• Mere Presence Theory- mere presence of

another.• Evaluation apprehension theory- social

facilitation only occurs when being judged.• Distraction-Conflict theory- social facilitation

effects only present if interference & distraction from evaluator.

• Social Loafing- A group produced reduction in individual output on tasks where contributions are pooled.

• 1880s Ringelmann (France) found that farm production decreased when working in groups.

• Ingham (1974) in a rope pulling task, subjects pulled 20% harder when they thought they were alone.

• Latané (1979) social loafing term originators: people cheered & clapped louder if the were the only fan at an event.

How to reduce social loafing.People believe their performance is identifiable.

Task is important to the individual.

Group anticipates punishment for poor performance.

Small group.

High group cohesiveness.

CYBERLOAFING- personal web-surfing at work.

• Collective Effort Model

People will put forth an effort to the degree that they feel their effort is important.

(Karau & Williams, 2001)

Sucker Effect -people put in less effort when they see others loafing.

Culture & Social Loafing

Universal but less common in collectivist cultures.

Deindividuation Loss of a sense of individuality and reduction of

normal constraints on behavior. (Festinger, 1952)

Zimbardo (1969) reduced feelings of responsibility when in a group. ARROUSAL+ANONYMITY= REDUCED SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY

Prentice-Dunn & Rogers (1983)

Two cues for deviant behavior:

Accountability cues

Attentional cues

If accountability is low & attention is on something other than self, mob mentality occurs.

Diener & Beaman (1976)

Trick or treaters asked name & address.

Or

Trick or treaters anonymous.

Invited to take 1 item from a bowl.

Group + anonymous = 50% took more than 1 treat.

Social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE)-

Model describing the process of shifting from “I” to “we”.

Can result in good or bad.

• III Group Performance

Process loss- reduction in group performance due to group processes, dynamics, or structure (Steiner, 1972).

Additive task- performance sum of all.Conjunctive task -worst performing

individual.Disjunctive task - assessed on best

performing group member.

Brainstorming

• Attempts to increase performance by increasing members of a team (two heads are better than one).

• (Osborn, 1953)• Express all ideas• More is better• All ideas belong to the group• No good or bad ideas

Brainstorming Problems & Solutions

1. Production blocking- waiting turn, forget or lose idea. - write down ideas.

2. Free riding- let others do the thinking- keep track of each members input.

3. Evaluation apprehension- fear of ridicule for ideas - anonymous idea suggestion.

4. performance matching- work only as hard as others work. - share other’s ideas with the group to motivate.

Group Polarization

• Majority idea highjack the meeting. Initial majority attitudes determine ideas & outcomes that are supported or rejected by the group.

Groupthink

• The desire to agree & have a good feeling in the group leads to agreeing on mediocre ideas.

Escalation Effects

• Becoming more committed to a failling idea to justify the resources already invested in it.

• “Saving face” by “staying the course”.

• The honor of commitment & sticking to one’s ideals.

• Foolish consistency.