Title: Social Groups Chapter 7
1Social GroupsChapter 7
2The Group
- Humans are fundamentally social.
- If deprived of social contact over a long period
of time, mental breakdown occurs. - The Geneva Convention defines more than 30 days
of solitary confinement as a form of torture. - The group (defined) a collection of people
interacting who share expectations about each
others behavior. - Groups have a shared sense of special belonging
or membership they know they have something in
common with each other. Examples a family,
Carolina Panther fans, a rock band. - The group is one of the fundamental components of
social structure.
3The Group
- A group differs from an aggregate.
- An aggregate is a collection of people who merely
happen to be in the same place at the same time,
but who have no sense of special membership. - Examples of aggregates moviegoers, plane
travelers. - Crowd a temporary cluster of individuals.
- Category a number of people who share similar
characteristics. - Category members may have never encountered each
other.
4The Group
- All groups have an internal structure.
- They have membership boundaries.
- They have their own values, norms, statuses and
roles. - They have leaders and followers.
- The structure of a group may be rigid and
explicit (such as in the military) or flexible
and vague (such as among friends). - People form groups for a purpose or a common
goal. - This purpose may be explicit or implicit.
- For this reason, group members tend to be similar
to each other in ways that are relevant to this
common purpose.
5The Group
- The more group members interact with each other,
the more they are influenced by the groups norms
and values, and the more similar to each other
they are likely to become.
6Two Basic Types of Social Groups
- 1. Primary group small, intimate, lasting,
meaningful. - The vast bulk of social interaction in
pre-industrial societies occurs in primary
groups. - 2. Secondary group large or small, formal, task
oriented, temporary, impersonal or anonymous. - Since the emergence of industrial societies,
there has been a dramatic increase in secondary
group interaction. - Large secondary groups always contain smaller
primary groups within them.
7Small Groups
- A small group is one that contains few enough
members that they can relate or interact as
individuals with one another. - A small group may be a primary or secondary
group. - Small groups have a tendency to develop personal
or primary group relationships if they meet a lot
over time. - However, if the group meets only a few times and
disbands after it has fulfilled its purpose, then
members may remain impersonal and relatively
anonymous toward each other.
8The Effects of Group Size
- Basic insight the smaller the group, the more
personal and intense the interaction can become. - The dyad the smallest possible group, consisting
of two people. - Its distinguishing characteristic is that each
member has to take account of the other. - If one ignores the other, then the group is
destroyed. - Dyads are highly unstable.
- This has implications for the American family and
its middle class emphasis on the nuclear
structure. The nuclear family has fewer supports
from extended family members.
9The Effects of Group Size
- The triad is significantly different from a dyad,
because any one member can ignore the others
without destroying the group. - The triad is more stable than the dyad.
- Beyond 3 members, groups get progressively more
stable. - In the triad, 2 members can unite against the
third, subjecting them to peer pressure.
10The Effects of Group Size
- The quality of group interaction changes with
increases in the size of the group. - Group sizes of 2 to 7 members allow all members
to take part in the same conversation. - Beyond 7 members, it becomes difficult to hold
people to the same conversation, and usually
several simultaneous conversations begin to
occur. - Groups larger than roughly 12 members usually
cannot have all members engaged in the same
conversation unless one member takes the role of
leader and regulates the interaction. - Something else happens because individuals can
no longer tailor their speech to specific
individuals, speech becomes more formal.
11The Effects of Group Size
- Generally the larger the group, the more
difficult the interaction. - A sudden increase in group size can be
particularly disruptive because - 1. Interaction becomes more difficult.
- 2. New members usually bring changes to the old
norms of interaction, making old members
uncomfortable until new norms emerge.
12Leadership
- Leadership is always present in groups.
- A leader is someone who is consistently able to
influence the behavior of others, usually by
virtue of certain personality traits. - Even a group that claims to have no leader
usually has a leader.
13Two types of leadership in small groups
- 1. Instrumental leadership the kind necessary to
organize and achieve a goal. - This leader is goal oriented.
- 2. Expressive leadership the kind necessary to
create group harmony and solidarity. - This leader focuses on keeping morale high and on
minimizing conflicts. They tend to be well liked. - In the American family, men are traditionally
socialized into instrumental leadership roles
while women are traditionally socialized into
expressive leadership roles.
14Leadership
- Expressive leaders (who are well liked) are
sometimes pressured to be instrumental leaders by
the members of the group. - However, people who direct group activities
(instrumental leaders) tend to lose popularity
fairly quickly. - They are greatly respected, but less well liked.
- Result leaders generally do not fill both
instrumental and expressive roles at the same
time for very long. - When an expressive leader becomes an instrumental
leader, it is not uncommon to see another member
of the group assume an expressive leadership role.
15Leadership
- When a newly formed group chooses a leader, it
usually gives both instrumental and expressive
roles to the same person. - Generally what occurs is that this leader loses
popularity over the next 3 or 4 meetings. By the
4th meeting, few members still consider the
leader likable. - In such cases, the original leader may retain the
instrumental role, but another member emerges to
assume the expressive role.
16Leadership
- Do leaders have distinctive characteristics?
- Generally, they are more likely to be
- Taller than average
- Judged better looking
- Rated higher in IQ
- More sociable
- More talkative
- More self confident
- More liberal in political outlook (even in
conservative groups)
17Leadership
- However, personality traits alone cannot tell use
who would make a good leader because different
conditions require different leadership
qualities. - The same leader who may be appropriate for
fighting a war may be inappropriate for waging
peace.
18Three Basic Styles of Leadership
- 1. Authoritarian where leaders simple give
orders. - 2. Democratic where leaders seek group
consensus. - 3. Laissez faire where leaders seem easy going
and make little attempt to direct or organize the
group. - In the U.S. democratic style leadership is
usually the most effective style in holding small
groups together and accomplishing goals. - Authoritarian leaders are usually less effective
because groups can get bogged down in internal
conflicts. - Laissez faire leaders are less effective because
the group loses goals and directives.
19Three Basic Styles of Leadership
- However, there are situations where democratic
leadership is less effective. - In emergency situations where speed and
efficiency are primary, an authoritarian style
produces the most effective leader. - In ordinary friendship situations where folks are
just hanging out and relaxing, the laissez-faire
style works well. - Within any formal organization or bureaucracy,
there may be different situations that call for
different styles of leadership. - It is not uncommon to see an authoritarian style
of leadership being used on the job when a
democratic style would be more effective. - Americans are socialized into democratic ideals
and tend to react negatively to authoritarian
leaders in non-crisis situations.
20Group Decision Making
- When it comes to making decisions, are two heads
better than one? - Yes, but only for determinate tasks. These are
problems that have only one correct solution. - Two heads are not necessarily better than one
when a problem has no necessarily-correct
solution. In other words, for indeterminate
tasks. - When several solutions seem correct, group
decision making may not be the best way to go.
21How do groups come to a decision?
- Usually, through consensus.
- Only rarely does a majority impose its view on a
reluctant minority. - No matter what the views of the individual
members at the outset, the general tendency is
for discussion to bring about general conformity. - This insight has applications for understanding
the jury deliberation process. Juries usually
move toward general agreement and certainty. - The only exception to this pattern toward
consensus is when members represent the fixed
opinions of others outside the group, such as in
union-management bargaining.
22Group Decision Making
- Because members tend to arrive at a consensus,
are groups likely to make less risky or more
risky decisions than individuals? - Generally groups are likely to make more risky
decisions than individuals. - This is called the risky shift and is partly
explained by individuals being absolved of
personal responsibility for the decisions made by
the group. - An example of a disastrous risky shift was the
decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Recent evidence
shows that the CIA and other security agencies
adopted a risky shift policy under pressure from
President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
23Group Decision Making
- Conclusion
- The process of group discussion tends to
intensify members opinions at the same time that
consensus begins to emerge. - Discussion toward consensus breeds boldness in
group decision-making. - In other words, the initially tentative opinions
of members becomes more bold as the group moves
toward consensus. - The problem is that unanimous decisions that are
boldly stated can cause major problems if the
decision happens to be wrong. Part of the issue
involves groupthink.
24Groupthink
- Groupthink is the informal norm associated with
small groups that says that loyalty to the group
(or group harmony) is more important than asking
the tough questions that may cause group
arguments. - Groupthink keeps members from rocking the boat
by disagreeing with each other. An atmosphere of
consensus is assumed. - Historical American foreign policy examples where
groupthink occurred - 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion (John Kennedy)
- 1965 Vietnam escalation (Lyndon Johnson)
- 2003 Iraq invasion (George Bush)
- In each of these historical blunders, either the
President permitted little disagreement (thus
encouraging groupthink) and/or groupthink emerged
among the inner circle of policy advisors.
25Groupthink
- Policy Implication
- Beware of leaders who surround themselves with
members who dont like to rock the boat. - Their decisions may be bold, but wrong. Their
decisions may be overly risky, they are overly
certain that they are right, and their decisions
may be a product of groupthink.
26Group Conformity
- The smaller the group, the greater the intensity
of social interaction. Therefore the pressure to
conform is particularly powerful in the small
group due to the intense atmosphere. - This insight was confirmed by the research of
Solomon Asch (1951, 1955, 1956). - Asch found that unanimous group pressure of 4 or
more people to conform to a wrong answer swayed
one-third of his subjects away from their
(obviously) right answer to the (obviously) wrong
unanimous group answer.
27Soloman Asch on group conformity
- Subjects were shown lines of different lengths
and asked to match the lines. Without group
pressure they did fine. But when the subject
witnessed others mis-matching the lines, there
was group pressure on the subject to conform to
the groups mismatched lines. In one-third of
the cases, the subjects over-rode their own
assessment and adopted the unanimous wrong
assessment held by the others.
28Soloman Asch on group conformity
- Conclusion group pressure can override an
individuals own physical senses. People may
yield to the group by giving the answer they
think the group wants. - They may suspect or know it to be the wrong
answer, or they may allow the group to override
their own assessment and believe they are wrong.
29Soloman Asch on group conformity
- Why did some of the people conform to the wrong
answer? - Researchers asked the subjects this question and
learned that - 1. People want to be well liked, so they conform
to the group rather than rock the boat. - 2. People doubt their own correct answers when
everyone else provides a consistently wrong
answer. - The group pressure implied by the opinion of
others can lead to self-modification, effectively
making you see almost anything. - Later psychological research suggests that the
actual perception of line length changed as a
function of exposure to others views of its
length. It is less of a conscious judgment.
30Solomon Asch on group conformity
- Asch varied the number of conspirators who gave
the wrong answers between 1 and 15. - He found that the subjects conformed to a group
of 3 or 4 as readily as they did to a larger
group. - Researchers varied the Asch experiment to address
the issue of unanimous group consensus. - If the group was not unanimous, then subjects
felt much freer to stick to their original
opinion. All it took was one other person
disagreeing with the group, and under this
circumstance less than 10 of subjects adjusted
their opinion to the majority group (wrong)
opinion.
31Group Pressure and Obedience
- Both the Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram studies
suggest that - 1. People tend to obey legitimate authority
figures even when there is evidence it may be
wrong behavior. - 2. Some people will conform to group pressure
even when there is physical evidence such
conformity may be incorrect. - In the Asch experiments, people did not attribute
their wrong behavior to an authority figure.
Rather, they attributed their wrong behavior to
misjudgment or poor eyesight. - This misjudgment can occur at the perceptual
level, causing people to doubt their own senses
in favor of the group definition. The group has a
powerful effect on perception.
32Obedience the Zimbardo research
- Another famous study which contributes to why
people conform was done by Philip Zimbardo. - Zimbardo learned that people do not just obey
from the pressure of authority and/or from group
pressure - they also obey from the pressure of
particular social situations and their implied
statuses and roles. - Role expectations play an important part in how
we behave.
33Philip Zimbardo Status and Role in a Mock Prison
(1971)
- Zimbardo set up a social psychological experiment
that quickly went awry. He had undergraduates
play the role of prisoners and prison guards in a
mock prison environment. - What is the role expectation of prison guard or
prisoner? - The experiment was cut short after only 6 days
because those playing the role of prison guard
quickly became mean and sadistic, while the
prisoners became depressed and passive. - Link to youtube clip The Stanford Prison
Experiment
34Zimbardo
- Zimbardo found that even the temporary adoption
of a status can quickly affect ones personality. - At the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq (2004), American
guards quickly became sadistic in much the same
way that the student guards did back in 1971. - Conclusion
- The social situation and its implied roles are
powerful influences of how people can be expected
to behave. - Good people can do harm to others if they find
themselves in particular social situations within
the context of socially approved roles, rules,
norms, a legitimizing ideology, and institutional
support that transcends individual agency. - See Zimbardos recent book, The Lucifer Effect,
for more information.
35Ingroups and Outgroups
- Every group has membership boundaries.
- Note that these boundaries may be vague in some
cases (like peer groups). - All groups tend to maintain their boundaries by
developing a sense of us and them. - Ingroup a social group commanding a members
esteem and loyalty. - Outgroup a social group one does not belong to
toward which one feels competition or opposition.
- People tend to regard their ingroups as special.
By the same token, they regard the outgroup as
less worthy or perhaps even with hostility.
36Ingroups and Outgroups
- The very presence of an enemy outgroup tends to
promote ingroup solidarity or loyalty. - Thus, conflict between groups increases the
loyalty and solidarity of members within each
group.
37Social Networks
- Social networks are webs of relationships that
link the individual directly to other people, and
through them, indirectly to even more people. - An individuals social network is not a group
because its members dont all interact together. - Social networks provide access to resources and
are helpful in getting jobs and solving problems
requiring special resources. - In modern industrial societies the average
individual has a network of roughly 500-2500
acquaintances. The rise of the Internet and links
like My Space have greatly helped
computer-literate people widen their social
networks. - Today it is relatively easy to find other people
interested in the same obscure topic or
underground band, thanks to Internet resources.
38Reference Group
- A reference group is a group which people compare
themselves with when they evaluate themselves. - We constantly evaluate ourselves. We do this by
comparing ourselves with others and the standards
of other groups. - The verdict of our evaluations is strongly
influenced by the reference groups we choose to
compare ourselves with (or the one we are
provided with to compare). - If a trainee evaluates their performance by
referencing the performance of experienced
veterans, their self evaluation will be low. - Similarly, commercial culture teaches young women
to rely on runway models as their reference group
which guarantees she will feel she needs
improvement, and thus buy something. - It is important to use realistic reference groups
and realistic role models.
39Formal Organizations
- Until a century ago, nearly all social life took
place in primary groups. - Today the social setting is dominated by large,
impersonal, formal organizations. - Today, we are likely to be born in a formal
organization, just as we are likely to die in
one. - A formal organization is a large secondary group
that is deliberately and rationally designed to
achieve specific objectives.
40Formal Organizations
- In formal organizations, rights and
responsibilities are attached mainly to the
office or role a person occupies and not to the
person as an individual. - Formal orgs are a double edged sword
- On the one hand we need them for our material
standard of living, yet on the other hand their
size, impersonality, and power can be
dehumanizing. - Max Weber believed that much of the feeling of
alienation (powerlessness) of industrial
societies stems from the rise of bureaucracies.
41Bureaucracy
- A bureaucracy is a formal organization with an
authority structure that is hierarchical. - Bureaucracies are shaped like a pyramid, where
there are a few people with a lot of power at the
top, and there are many people with little power
at the bottom of the pyramid. - Those at the top command the behaviors of those
at the bottom, making them efficient. - The bureaucracy is highly efficient and rational.
Many people can be processed efficiently,
thereby allowing mass access to education,
government, and other resources. - Bureaucracies uphold the values of rationality,
productivity, efficiency, obedience, and
meritocracy. - Because they value meritocracy and achieved
statuses, they liberate us from the traditional
values of ascription, racism, sexism, and other
non-rational bigotries.
42Six Characteristics of Bureaucracy
- 1. Specialized tasks within the organization.
- 2. Hierarchy of statuses and offices.
- 3. Rules and regulations that serve as rational
guides for behavior. - 4. Technical competence to perform specialized
tasks used as a criteria of evaluation. - 5. Impersonality, where rules take precedence
over feelings. - 6. Formal, written records to assure rationality.
43Max Webers Analysis
- While Max Weber appreciated the rational nature
of bureaucracies, he also found them problematic. - To Weber, the world was becoming disenchanting as
it became increasingly rationalized. - Rationalization refers to the replacement of
traditional, primary group based interaction
(spontaneous, rule-of-thumb, emotionalized) with
abstract, explicit, carefully calculated rules
and procedures that are associated with secondary
group interaction. - Weber argued that the modern world was becoming
increasingly dull, with its mystery and beauty
being replaced by the new values of technical
rationality, efficiency, predictability,
productivity, and other dehumanizing values.
44Max Weber on Bureaucracy
- Bureaucracies bring the subordination of humans
to the interests of impersonal, technical goals.
The spirit of humanity, to Weber, was trapped in
the iron cage of bureaucracy. - Within the bureaucracy, people are treated
impersonally as cases or numbers. - The members of the bureaucracy are expected to
remain impersonal in their contacts with the
public to be detached from their own
humanity. Feelings interfere with the efficiency
of the system.
45The Informal Structure of Bureaucracy
- Despite Webers concerns about the cold-hearted
nature of bureaucracies, there is also an
informal side, where primary groups reside. - Within all bureaucracies, informal networks
develop and primary groups emerge. - Therefore, all bureaucracies consist of a bundle
of formal rules and regulations mixed with a
bundle of informal norms and relationships. - These informal norms are created by the members
themselves and are a source of humanity within
the machine. - Note - The 1970s TV show MASH captured this
informal side.
46The Informal Structure of Bureaucracy
- In reality, the formal structure of a bureaucracy
provides only a general framework for social
interaction. - Ultimately it is the people who create and
operate an organization, and in essence the
bureaucracy is a negotiated reality. - Within the larger structure of a bureaucracy,
members will negotiate informal norms and
patterns that have little relationship to the
formal hierarchy.
47Dysfunctions of Bureaucracy
- Max Weber appreciated the paradox of
bureaucracies. In a mass society a bureaucracy is
functional for most people, yet it is
dehumanizing too. - Weber was especially interested in how
bureaucracies dehumanize us they detach us from
our humanity by turning us into cold technocrats.
- Weber and other researchers have identified a
number of dysfunctions of bureaucracies.
48Dysfunctions of Bureaucracy
- 1. Inefficient in unusual cases.
- 2. Inability to be innovative.
- 3. Goal displacement.
- 4. Bureaucratic enlargement.
- 5. The bureaucratic personality detached, a
technocrat. - 6. Oligarchy (rule by the few) and its
anti-democratic, authoritarian nature. - 7. De-humanization.
49McDonaldization
- George Ritzer recently expanded on Webers
concerns about over-rationalization. He argues
that our society is increasingly organized around
four principles that McDonalds has perfected - 1. Efficiency. Both product and service are
guided by this value. - 2. Calculability fixed amounts of product for
fixed prices. - 3. Uniformity and predictability. Every product
is made the same way. - 4. Control through automation. The human element
is eliminated as much as possible through
assembly lines, computers and automation.
50Other Forms of Organization
- Most formal organizations are similar in
structure, but there are some variations. - The Japanese Corporation
- The extraordinary achievements of Japan are
largely due to the unique features of the
Japanese industrial corporation. - Emphasis upon the group over the individual.
- Membership is a reciprocal lifetime contract,
providing job security to workers. - All promotions are from within.
- Workers are organized into small teams, and it is
the team not the individual which is
evaluated. Each individual may belong to
different teams over the years.
51The Japanese Corporation
- The top managers are not paid that much more than
the bottom workers, perhaps 3 to 5 times more,
but nothing like the American system where the
top makes 400 times more. - Decision-making is collective and discussion
occurs from the bottom up. Top officials merely
ratify. - Japanese corporations go beyond strictly business
to offer their workers welfare, including
housing, recreation, health care, education, day
care, etc. - They fuse leisure activities with work
activities. - In turn, Japanese workers show great loyalty to
the firm.
52The Collective
- Collectives are nonbureaucratic organizations
often associated with progressives seeking to
affirm participatory democracy. They have several
features - Little division of labor. The individual usually
has a variety of tasks. - Generally authority is democratic and arises from
consensus, with a democratic leadership style. - Individual initiative is valued.
- Members treat each others is equals.
- Strength affirms democracy and equality.
- Weakness less efficient, and only applicable to
relatively small scale enterprises. The larger a
collective gets, the more bureaucratic it is
likely to get.
53Organizational Reform
- The rise of humanism during the 1960s resulted in
the criticism of bureaucracies because of their
tendency to stifle personal growth, and because
of their oligarchy-emphasis. As a result, there
has been a call to reform bureaucracies with new
policies like - flextime,
- periodic sabbaticals,
- paternity leave,
- job security,
- and a more egalitarian division of labor.
54Organizational Reform
- Ultimately the most significant reforms will be
those that allow greater social control over the
affairs of bureaucracies. - We need to develop a means of making
bureaucracies more accountable to the public
interest and to their workers. - In the final analysis organizations exist for the
benefit of people, not the other way around.
55Humanizing the Bureaucracy
- There are at least 3 ways to make bureaucracies
more humane - 1. Social inclusiveness. The organization should
make everyone feel included, and work to minimize
outgroup hatreds. - 2. Sharing responsibilities. Reduce rigid,
oligarchal structures by spreading power more
widely and keeping lines of communication open
between super- and sub-ordinates. - 3. Expanding opportunities for advancement.
Reduce the number of workers stuck in dead end
jobs and encourage new means of upward mobility.
56End of Chapter 7