Group Behavior

1
Group Behavior
2
Groups

• Definition
• collection of interdependent individuals that
  interacts or has the potential to interact
• typically face-to-face
• direct influence on each another

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Features of Groups

• social norms
• rules/expectations about behavior
• social roles
• define the division of labor in a group
• social status
• prestige, influence, authority
• cohesiveness
• forces ( -) that hold a group together

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Historical Conception of Group Behavior

• Plato
• believed that democracy was rule by irrational
  mobs
• LeBon (1895)
• Isolated he may be a cultivated individual
  in a crowd, he is a barbarian, that is, a
  creature acting by instinct.
• notion of the group mind
• Floyd Allport (1924)
• rejected the idea of a group mind
• most common current conception is that groups
  possess the power for both good and bad depends
  on the situation

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Social Facilitation/Inhibition

• Triplett (1898)
• bicycling studies
• 1st formal experiment in social psychology
• Social Facilitation
• presence of others improves performance
• observed across many situations ( species)
• cockroaches remember mazes better when other
  roaches are present
• ants dig 3x more dirt when around other ants

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Social Facilitation/Inhibition

• However, the presence of others doesnt always
  help
• Social Inhibition
• presence of others can also inhibit performance
• so what gives?

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Social Facilitation/Inhibition

• Zajonc (1965)
• the presence of others increases arousal
• Increased arousal makes our dominant response
  more likely, which
• helps performance on well-learned or innate tasks
  
• dominant response success
• hurts performance on new, complex, or poorly
  learned tasks
• dominant response failure

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Social Facilitation/Inhibition

• Other Explanations
• Evaluation Apprehension
• concern with what others think of us
• simple tasks ? motivation to perform well
• complex tasks ? decreased performance
• Distraction-Conflict Model
• simple tasks ? full attention unnecessary
• difficult tasks ? full attention necessary
• we have a limited supply of attention
• give attention to task or audience?
• attentional conflict leads to decreased
  performance on difficult task

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Social Facilitation/Inhibition

• Biopsychological Explanation (Blascovich, 1999)
• presence of others can be thought of as a
  challenge or as a threat
• If Challenge
• perceive that we are able to meet the goal
• physiological response similar to aerobic
  exercise, enhanced cardiovascular functioning
• If Threat
• perceive that we are unable to meet the goal
• physiological response similar to the flight
  response
• body prepares to cope with danger
• blood pressure increases

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Social Loafing

• Social Loafing
• individuals contributions to a group cannot be
  identified
• total group output much less than it would be if
  each individuals contribution could be
  identified.
• e.g., group check gratuities, group projects,
  tug-of-war, etc.

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Social Loafing

• Latané, Williams, Harkins (1979)
• participants placed in rooms by themselves
• instructed to make as much noise as they could by
  clapping and yelling
• each participant did this task alone and as part
  of a 2, 4, and 6 person group
• ½ of the participants were told that their
  contributions could be determined apart from the
  group (identifiable group)
• ½ were told that only the output of the group as
  a whole could be determined (unidentifiable group)

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Social Loafing

• Results
• Identifiable Group
• no difference in noise made across group sizes
• Unidentifiable Group
• group size and noise output negatively correlated
• Replicated in India, Thailand, Japan, and China
  with similar results
• effect not as as large though

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Social Loafing

• Explanations for Social Loafing
• Collective Effort Model (Karau Williams, 1993)
• How hard we work on a group task depends on two
  things
• perceived importance of contribution to group
  effort
• perceived values of the potential outcome of
  group goal achievement
• To decrease social loafing,
• make individual output identifiable
• make group success highly desirable by individual
  group members

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Social Loafing

• Social Compensation
• Picking up the slack
• Those who care about the group outcome are faced
  with a dilemma
• face the consequences of not meeting the group
  goal, or
• do the work the social loafers have neglected in
  order to achieve the group goal

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Deindividuation

• Deindividuation
• Le Bons (1896) idea of a social contagion
• in the right situations, the emotions of one
  person can spread throughout a group
• e.g., the riots on Franklin Street after a
  victory over Duke a few years ago
• unlikely that those causing the damage would have
  done it were they by themselves

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Deindividuation

• Anonymity leads to deindividuation
• Situational norms determine group behavior
• Can be prosocial or antisocial
• Are there beneficial aspects of deindividuation?

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Crowding

• Crowding
• psychological discomfort created by wanting more
  personal space than one currently has
• actual social space irrelevant

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Crowding

• Why do we feel crowded?
• Sensory Overload (Milgram, 1970)
• too much stimulation sensory overload
• social density leading to feelings of crowding
  which lead to increased stimulation
• individual differences in preferred levels of
  stimulation
• those preferring
• high levels prefer more socially dense situations
  (extroverts)
• low levels prefer less socially dense situations
  (introverts)

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Crowding

• Loss of Control
• increased social density leads to a loss of
  perceived control
• those in highly dense situations are likely to
  interfere in each others activities
• leads to the feeling of being crowded

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Crowding

• Attributions
• attaching the cognitive label of being crowded
  to socially dense situations
• by not focusing on the socially dense situation,
  people can feel less crowded

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Crowding

• Cultural Differences in Crowding
• collectivistic culture tend to experience less
  perceived crowding
• conversational distances vary
• often a source of cross-cultural miscommunication

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Group Performance

• Type of Task
• Additive
• productivity is the sum of all members output
• Conjunctive
• each group member must succeed for the group to
  succeed
• depends on the groups weakest member
• Disjunctive
• any one person in the group succeeding equals
  group success
• success depends on the groups strongest member

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Group Performance

• Brainstorming
• ineffective when done as a group
• more ideas of higher quality when done alone
• still widely used despite its demonstrated
  ineffectiveness

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Group Decision Making

• Group Polarization
• Risky Shift
• the finding that groups often make riskier
  decisions than individuals
• subsequent research found that some groups made
  more conservative choices though
• Group Polarization
• depends on the groups overall level of
  risk/conservatism before group discussion

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Group Decision Making

• Groupthink (Janis, 1982)
• According to Janis, occurs when
• the group feels invulnerable and excessively
  optimistic about its decision-making
• doubts about the decision are not allowed
• outside information is ignored
• the group believes its decision is unanimous even
  when dissent exists
• e.g., Pearl Harbor preparation, Bay of Pigs
  invasion, Vietnam War escalation, Challenger
  space shuttle explosion, etc.

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Group Decision Making

• Preventing Groupthink (Janis, 1982)
• leader should encourage valid criticism
• leader should remain undecided until after group
  members have voiced their views
• subcommittees should be formed to discuss issues
  independently
• encourage outside experts to participate in group
  discussions
• assign a devils advocate for each meeting

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Group Decision Making

• Groupthink occurs, but
• the causes outlined by Janis are unclear
• predicting when it happens is difficult
• the same things that supposedly cause it can also
  lead to great decisions
• groups often make terrible decisions when they
  use Janiss suggestions
• Obviously, more research is needed in this area

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Group Interaction

• Cooperation vs. Competition
• The Trucking Game
• Deutsch Krauss (1960)
• Prisoners Dilemma Game
• from game theory

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Group Interaction
Deutsch Krausss (1960) Trucking Game
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Group Interaction
Prisoners Dilemma Game (PDG)
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Group Interaction

• Cooperation rare in the trucking game
• even though the nature of the game isnt
  competitive
• Cooperation in the PDG decreases as trials
  increase
• groups interactions with each other are much more
  competitive than individuals interacting with
  each other in this situation
• the discontinuity effect (Insko Schopler)

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Group Interaction

• Why do we compete?
• situational reward structure
• competitive interdependence
• one sides gain means another sides loss
• a.k.a. zero-sum game
• cooperative interdependence
• group success dependent upon working together
• Individualistic reward structure
• outcomes are independent of anothers outcomes

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Group Interaction

• Personality Factors
• primary motives in these situations differ from
  person to person
• Cooperators (pro-social individuals)
• about 75 of the population
• Competitors and Individualists (pro-self
  individuals)
• competitors dont really care how they do, only
  that they do better than the other side
• individualists dont care how the other person
  does, only that they themselves do well
• both comprise about 25 of the population

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Group Interaction

• Communication
• no communication in the original PDG and Trucking
  Game experiments
• with communication, competition declined and
  cooperation increased dramatically
• Reciprocity
• Tit-for-Tat competitive choices
• Screw me over, Ill screw you over.
• use of this strategy leads to the highest levels
  of cooperation

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Group Interaction

• Culture
• Americans tend to be very competitive
• urbanites tend to be more competitive
• high socioeconomic status more competitive

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Group Interaction

• Social Dilemmas
• when the interests of an individual are at odds
  with the interest of society
• e.g., prisoners dilemma game, tragedy of the
  commons, pollution, water use during droughts,
  littering, depleting group resources, etc.
• as group size increases, self-interested behavior
  tends to increase
• How can social dilemmas be solved?
• change the reward/punishment structure
• make social norms concerning the dilemma salient
• raise children with pro-social value orientations
• communication between group members
• make actions of individuals non-anonymous

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Group Interaction
Contemporary Social Dilemmas.