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Group Processes
Groups
Destructive Groups (“cults”)
Deindividuation
Social Facilitation and Social Loafing
Group Decision Making
Decision Making in Juries
Leadership
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 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
QuickTime™ and ampeg4 decompressor
are needed to see this picture.
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
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