Group Processes

What What isis a group? a group?

Which of these are Which of these are meaningfulmeaningful groups? groups? Members of your

fraternity/sorority Your family Members of the St. Louis

Cardinals Fans watching a Cardinals

game Males Social psychologists A group of people occupying

the same elevator

People who like watching The Sopranos

People who own sexy red sports cars

People who wear glasses People who wear funny-looking glasses

People who notice other people’s funny-looking glasses

People who are sick of my “funny glasses” example

An index of “groupiness”: An index of “groupiness”: entitativity (Campbell, 1958)entitativity (Campbell, 1958)

what specific factors lead to perceptions of high entitativity?

At least three:– Similarity, interaction, common goals

Lickel et al. (2000)Lickel et al. (2000)– Cluster one: Intimacy groups (e.g. families, close friends,

street gangs, fraternities/sororities) high levels of interaction/similarity/importance; long duration,

and shared goals; moderate permeability; high perceived entitativity

– Cluster two: Task-oriented groups (e.g. juries, students studying for an exam, labor unions)

similar to intimacy groups, but of shorter duration and often small in number; high permeability; moderate entitativity.

– Cluster three: Social category groups (e.g. Women, Jews, Hispanics)

low interaction, low importance, few shared goals, low perceived similarity (as viewed by fellow group members); impermeable, low entitativity.

– Cluster four: loose associations (e.g. people who drive red sports cars, people in the same neighborhood)

Short or moderate duration, low importance, interaction, similarity, extremely low entitativity

Functions served by different Functions served by different kinds of groupskinds of groups

Intimacy groups: affiliation needs (emotional attachment, belongingness)

Task-oriented groups: achievement needs

Social category groups: social identity needs

“gender-bender” role violations“try-it” exercise on p. 287

Social facilitation Social facilitation

Classic paradigms in social Classic paradigms in social facilitation facilitation

Perform task in Private, versus:“co-actor”“audience” (you plus others

watching)Public

First known study: Triplett (1898)

Brief overview of Brief overview of social facilitation literaturesocial facilitation literature

Is performance improved or impaired in “public” (audience or co-actor) conditions ?

Decades of confusing resultsResolution: Zajonc (1965)

– Dominant (habitual, well-learned) responses more likely in public

If dominant response yields correct answer: helps performance

If dominant response yields incorrect answer: hurts performance

Zajonc studyZajonc study

Pronounce words between 1 and 16 times – Creates “dominant” response – Words pronounced most frequently

Words flashed very quickly: 1/100 second – Participants guess word

If others are present, more likely to guess “dominant” words

Zajonc: Basic Principle of Zajonc: Basic Principle of Animal BehaviorAnimal Behavior

Cockroaches placed in runway Bright light shown Run to other end of runway to escape

light Cockroach “spectators” or not Perform faster with spectators But only if maze is simple

Ok, but Ok, but whywhy dominant response in dominant response in public ?public ?

Presence of others (of same species) arousing for at least three reasons:– Mere presence– Evaluation apprehension– Distraction

Arousal then directly leads to enhanced likelihood of well-learned response– Actual mechanism a little obscure

Alternate “Cognitive load” Alternate “Cognitive load” explanationexplanation

more parsimonious Public settings distracting for several reasons Erodes capacity to engage in controlled

(complex) processes, and, hence:– Habitual/automatic responses more likely

Similar to findings in heuristics literature– Baron (1986); Lambert, Payne, Jacoby, 2003)

Social LoafingSocial Loafing

Output of individual is diminished when working in a group

Ringelmann--rope pulling – Clapping, cheering

Why no social facilitation?

Presence of others

Individual efforts can be evaluated

Individual efforts cannot be evaluated

Arousal/ distraction

Enhanced performance on simple tasks

Impaired performance on complex tasks

Little arousal/evaluation apprehension

relaxation

Impaired performance on simple tasks

Enhanced performance on complex tasks

SOCIAL FACILITATION

SOCIAL LOAFING

Jackson and Williams (1986)Jackson and Williams (1986)

Simple vs. complex mazes on computer Another participant worked on identical task

in other room Researcher:

– Each performance would be evaluated separately,

or– Computer would average scores (no

accountability)

Difficulty of mazeseasy difficult

Time to complete maze

(long)

(fast)

evaluation

No evaluation

DeindividuationDeindividuation

Original view: loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people are in a crowd

“mob behavior”

Newer view of DeindividuationNewer view of Deindividuation

Two factors– Lower accountability– Increases obedience to “local” norms