Group Influence

1
Group Influence
2
Group Influence

• Group
• Two or more people who interact with and
  influence one another
• Phenomena of collective influence
• Social Facilitation
• Social Loafing
• Deindividuation
• Group Polarization
• Groupthink

3
Social Facilitation

• Presence of other people strengthens dominant,
  well-learned responses
• We are energized and aroused by the presence of
  others
• Why?
• Evaluation Apprehension
• Distraction
• Mere Presence

4
Social Loafing

• Tendency for people to exert less effort when
  they pool their efforts for a common goal than
  when they are individually accountable
• Ingham et al.
• Latane, Williams, Harking
• People loaf less when task is challenging and
  involving, or when group members are friends

5
Deindividuation

• Presence of people causes arousal
• Being part of a group can diffuse personal
  responsibility
• Combination of these can diminish normal
  inhibitions
• Foodfights
• Vandalism
• Riots

6
Deindividuation

• Loss of sense of individual responsibility and
  abandonment of normal restraints

7
Deindividuation

• Affected by
• Group size
• Jumper study
• Physical anonymity
• Uniform studies
• Gergen, Gergen, and Barton
• Distracting activities
• Diminished self-awareness

8
Group Polarization

• Group-produced enhancement of members
  preexisting tendencies
• Normative influence
• Informational Influence
• Risky shift
• Pluralistic ignorance

9
Groupthink

• A tendency of a decision-making group to suppress
  dissent in the interests of group harmony
• Occurs in groups with
• High cohesiveness
• Relative isolation from dissenting views
• Directive leadership

10
Symptoms of Groupthink

• Overestimate might and right
• Illusion of invulnerability
• Unquestioned belief in groups morality
• Closed-mindedness
• Rationalization
• Stereotyped view of opponent

11
Symptoms of Groupthink

• Pressures toward uniformity
• Conformity
• Self-censorship
• Illusion of unanimity
• Mindguards

12
Pearl Harbor
13
Bay of Pigs
14
Space Shuttle Challenger
15
Minority Influence

• How do individuals influence groups?
• Definition Influence of attitudinal minority on
  the majority

16
Minority Influence

• Majorities use
• Power (can force compliance)
• Normative influence
• Minority influence
• Tends to be weaker than majority influence
• Uses informational influence to persuade

17
When is minority influence effective?

• Consistency
• Consensus
• Confidence

18
Social Dilemmas

• Short-term individual self-interest conflicts
  with long-term collective interest

19
The Prisoners Dilemma
You
Your Partner
20
(No Transcript)
21
Tragedy of the Commons

• Commons Shared resource that will replenish over
  time, if used in moderation

22
Social Dilemmas

• Zero-sum game
• A situation in which one sides gain equals the
  other sides loss
• Mixed-motive game (non-zero sum)
• A situation in which both sides may gain or both
  sides may lose

23
How to resolve social dilemmas?

• Regulation
• Small groups
• Communication
• Appeal to altruism
• Change the payoffs

24
Conflict

• Perceived incompatibility of actions or goals
• On an individual level, what do you do with
  someone whose behavior or goals are incompatible
  with yours?
• Conflict escalation
• An increase in
• The intensity of a conflict
• The severity of tactics used in pursuing it

25
Features of Conflict Escalation

• Shift from light tactics to heavy tactics
• Conflict grows in size
• Issues move from specific to general
• Goals change from doing well to winning to
  hurting the other party

26
Applying Social Science to Conflict Situations

• Misperceptions
• Selective Perception
• Stereotyping
• Fundamental Attribution Error
• Group Polarization
• Perceived Injustice

• Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• Group Polarization
• Competition
• Sacrifice Trap
• Mirror-Image Perceptions