Groups, Networks, and Organizations

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Groups, Networks, and Organizations

• How do these groups affect the individual? How
  does the individual affect these groups?

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Social Groups

• Social groups are collections of people who share
  a sense of common identity and regularity
  interact with each other on the basis of shared
  expectations. These social groups shape nearly
  every experience in our lives. Among the types
  of social groups there are

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• In-groups groups toward which one feels loyalty
  and respect we belong
• Out-groups groups toward which one feels
  antagonism and contempt those people
• Primary groups includes family, friends, and
  other peer groups to which one belongs
• Secondary groups are large and impersonal and
  often involve fleeting relationships few
  emotional ties, powerful commitments, or an
  experience of unity.

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• Reference groups provide a standard by which we
  judge ourselves in terms of how we think we
  appear to others.
• Cooley called this the looking glass self
• Group size affects group dynamics
• Small groups are more intimate and have fewer
  numbers of relationships
• Large groups are more stable with far more
  relationships and complexity
• Groups of 12 or more usually have some formal
  structure
• Smallest group is a dyad

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• Leaders are able to influence other members of
  the group to what they want
• Transactional leaders involves routine leadership
  concerned with getting a job done
• Transformation leaders involve changing the very
  nature of the group itself
• Can you think of examples of each?

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• Research supports the idea that individuals in
  the group are highly susceptible to group
  pressure
• Solomon Asch (1952) Going along with the group
• Participants were shown a standard line and then
  three comparison lines. Their task was simply to
  say which of the three lines next to the standard
  line match it. When confederates gave false
  answers first, 75 of participants conformed by
  giving the wrong answer.

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• Experiments led by Solomon Asch asked students to
  participate in a "vision test." In reality, all
  but one of the participants were confederates of
  the experimenter, and the study was really about
  how the remaining student would react to the
  confederates' behavior.
• The participants the real subject and the
• confederates were all seated in a classroom
• where they were told to announce their judgment
• of the length of several lines drawn on a series
  of
• displays. They were asked which line was longer
• than the other, which were the same length, etc.
  
• The confederates had been prearranged to all
  give
• an incorrect answer to the tests.

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• - While most subjects answered correctly, many
  showed extreme discomfort, and a high proportion
  (32) conformed to the erroneous majority view of
  the others in the room when there were at least
  three confederates present, even when the
  majority said that two lines different in length
  by several inches were the same length. When the
  confederates were not unanimous in their
  judgment, subjects were much more likely to
  defect than when the confederates all agreed.
  Control subjects with no exposure to a majority
  view had no trouble giving the correct answer.

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• - One difference between the Asch conformity
  experiments and the Milgram experiment as carried
  out by Stanley Milgram (also famous in social
  psychology) is that the subjects of these studies
  attributed their performance to their own
  misjudgement and "poor eyesight", while those in
  the Milgram experiment blamed the experimenter in
  explaining their behavior. Conformity may be much
  less salient than authority pressure.

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• - A number of critiques have been lobbed against
  Asch's experiment including a question of the
  motivation of students to be accurate. Rather
  than testing conformity, Asch's study may have
  simply measured a disinterested student's
  reluctance to engage in conflict to get the
  answer right. Moreover, in Asch's experiments the
  subjects were not allowed to interact with
  confederates. When the experiment was conducted
  in which even one confederate was allowed to give
  the correct answer, confirming responses dropped
  significantly. This is consistent with Milgram's
  later findings of the effect of "role models for
  defiance" in his classic Obedience Experiment.
• - Asch's experiment only tested behavioral
  acquiescence and not attitude change.

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• Stanley Milgrams experiment on Obedience
• to Authority demonstrated that individuals
• will comply with others even when there is
• the possibility of harm to themselves or
• others

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• The Milgram experiment was a seminal series of
• social psychology experiments conducted by Yale
  
• University psychologist Stanley Milgram, which
• measured the willingness of study participants
  to
• obey an authority figure who instructed them to
  
• perform acts that conflicted with their
  personal
• conscience. Milgram first described his
  research
• in 1963 in an article published in the Journal
  of
• Abnormal and Social Psychology, and later
• discussed his findings in greater depth in his
  1974
• book, Obedience to Authority An Experimental
• View.

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• - The experiments began in July 1961,
• three months after the start of the trial
• of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann in
• Jerusalem. Milgram devised the
• experiments to answer this question
• "Could it be that Eichmann and his
• million accomplices in the Holocaust
• were just following orders? Could we call
• them all accomplices?

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• - Milgram summed things up in his 1974 article,
  "The Perils of Obedience", writing
• The legal and philosophic aspects of obedience
  are of enormous importance, but they say very
  little about how most people behave in concrete
  situations. I set up a simple experiment at Yale
  University to test how much pain an ordinary
  citizen would inflict on another person simply
  because he was ordered to by an experimental
  scientist.

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• - Stark authority was pitted against the
  subjects' participants' strongest moral
  imperatives against hurting others, and, with the
  subjects' participants' ears ringing with the
  screams of the victims, authority won more often
  than not. The extreme willingness of adults to go
  to almost any lengths on the command of an
  authority constitutes the chief finding of the
  study and the fact most urgently demanding
  explanation.

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• - Ordinary people, simply doing their jobs,
• and without any particular hostility on
• their part, can become agents in a
• terrible destructive process. Moreover,
• even when the destructive effects of their
• work become patently clear, and they are
• asked to carry out actions incompatible
• with fundamental standards of morality,
• relatively few people have the resources
• needed to resist authority.

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• - Groupthink Janis and Mann (1977) identified
  that members of a group ignore ways of thinking
  an plans of action that go against the group
  consensus.
• - Not only does groupthink frequently embarrass
  potential dissenters into conforming, but it can
  also produce a shift in perception so that
  alternative possibilities are ruled out without
  being seriously considered.
• - Groupthink can lead to quick decisions that may
  not be good ones

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Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by
group members who try to minimize conflict and
reach consensus without critically testing,
analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Groupthink may
cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions,
where individual doubts are set aside, for fear
of upsetting the groups balance. The term is
usually used as a derogatory term after the
results of a bad decision.
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Janis looked at the causes of groupthink. In his
book, Victims of Groupthink, he studied several
presidents foreign policy decisions. He examined
the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban missile
crisis, and the Korean and Vietnam wars. After
examining how these decisions were made, he
concluded that there were three main causes of
groupthink 1. Highly cohesive groups are
much more likely to engage in
groupthink. The closer they are, the less likely
they are to raise questions to break the
cohesion. 2. The group isolates itself from
outside experts. In order to make a well
informed decision, the group needs to invite
qualified experts to help weigh the possible
risks. 3. Strong leadership leads to
groupthink, because the leader is more
likely to promote his/her own solution.
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• Social psychologist Clark McCauley's three
  conditions under which groupthink occurs
• 1. Directive leadership.
• 2. Homogeneity of members' social
• background and ideology.
• 3. Insulation of the group from outside
• sources of information and analysis.

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Symptoms of groupthink In order to make
groupthink testable, Irving Janis devised eight
symptoms that are indicative of groupthink
(197). 1. A feeling of invulnerability
creates excessive optimism and encourages
risk taking. 2. Discounting warnings that
might challenge assumptions. 3. An
unquestioned belief in the groups morality,
causing members to ignore the
consequences of their actions. 4. Stereotyped
views of enemy leaders. 5. Pressure to conform
against members of the group who
disagree. 6. Shutting down of ideas that
deviate from the apparent group
consensus. 7. An illusion of unanimity with
regards to going along with the group.
8. Mindguards- self-appointed members who shield
the group from dissenting opinions.
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Space Shuttle Challenger disaster (1986) The
Space Shuttle Challenger disaster is a classic
case of groupthink. The Challenger exploded
shortly after liftoff on January 28, 1986
(Vaughan 33). The launch had been originally
scheduled for January 22, but a series of
problems pushed back the launch date. Scientists
and engineers throughout NASA were eager to get
the mission underway. The day before the launch
an engineer brought up a concern about the
o-rings in the booster rockets. Several
conference calls were held to discuss the problem
and the decision to go ahead with the launch was
agreed upon. The group involved in making the
Challenger decision met several of the symptoms
of groupthink. They ignored warnings that
contradicted the groups goal.
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• - The goal was to get the launch off as soon as
  possible, and it ended up being a fatal mistake.
  They also suffered from a feeling of
  invulnerability, up until that point NASA had an
  almost spotless safety record. They also failed
  to completely examine the risks of their
  decision they played it off as if it was nothing
  important. Another factor that had suppressed the
  few engineers who were "going against the grain"
  and "sounding the alarm" was that all eyes were
  on NASA not to delay the launch and that Congress
  was seeking to earmark large funding to NASA
  given the large amount of publicity on the
  Teacher in Space program. These misjudgements led
  to the tragic loss of several astronauts, and a
  huge black mark of NASAs near perfect safety
  record.

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• Networks constitute a broad source of
  relationships, direct and indirect, some of which
  may be especially important in business and
  politics.
• For example, the poor, individuals of color, and
  women often have less access to the most
  influential economic and political networks in
  society that white men are more likely to have
  access to.
• Is the internet a social network?
• Some limitations due to a lack of equal access,
  the lack of physical proximity but the internet
  helps to forge new relationships, the
  relationships can be very stimulating, and
  involve many shared interests.

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Organizations

• Organizations are groups with an identifiable
  membership that engages in concerted collective
  action to achieve a common purpose.
• Formal organizations are rationally designed to
  achieve its objectives, often by means of
  explicit rules, regulations, and procedures
• Informal organizations may not have explicit
  rules, regulations, and procedures but may be
  designed to achieve their own objectives.
• All modern organizations are, to some extent,
  bureaucratic. Can you think of examples of
  modern bureaucracies?

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• Bureaucracies are characterized by
• Having a clearly defined hierarchy of authority
• Written rules about the conduct of officials
• Separation between tasks of the officials within
  the organization and life outside of it
• Members dont own the material resources with
  which they operate
• Max Weber theorized about bureaucracies and
  believed that they were the most effective in
  organizing large numbers of people

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• Bureaucracies are supposed to be more efficient
  but seem to be detached and impersonal
• Informal networks appear to be as important as
  formal networks both within an organization and
  between organizations
• The physical setting of the organization strongly
  influences their social features.
• This includes the architecture of the
  organization and surveillance of individuals that
  interact with the organization
• Foucault calls surveillance the supervision of
  activities in organizations. These efforts apply
  to all members of the organization but especially
  those on the lower strata of the organization
• Prison design it an interesting example (Jeremy
  Benthams Panopticon in 1790)

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• Theory of Surveillance The PANOPTICON
• The PANOPTICON was proposed as a model prison by
  Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), a Utilitarian
  philosopher and theorist of British legal reform.
  
• The Panopticon ("all-seeing") functioned as a
  round-the-clock surveillance machine. Its design
  ensured that no prisoner could ever see the
  'inspector' who conducted surveillance from the
  privileged central location within the radial
  configuration. The prisoner could never know when
  he was being surveilled -- mental uncertainty
  that in itself would prove to be a crucial
  instrument of discipline.
• French philosopher Michel Foucault described the
  implications of 'Panopticism' in his 1975 work
  Discipline Punish The Birth of the Prison --

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Theories of Organizations

• Max Weber identified the tension between the
  organizing forces of centralizing power in the
  bureaucracy and the expanding pressures in
  society of democracy.
• Can you think of examples?

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Gender and Organizations

• It is clear that modern society has divisions
  within it for men and for women
• Often, women occupy occupations that support the
  careers of men
• More women have advanced into the professions
  occupied by men but have used the same management
  styles that men have to make their advances
• Can you think of how men and women have been
  treated differently in organizations?
• Are there alternatives to bureaucracy?

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Alternatives

• Efforts to increase the flexibility of
  organizations
• Adopting Japanese styles of management to involve
  workers lower down in the organization
• Bottom-up decision making
• Less specialization
• Job security
• Group Orientation
• Merging of work and private lives
• Improvements in pay and responsibility that are
  based on seniority.
• Group rather than individual performance
  appraisal.
• Modern use of technology can dramatically change
  the way that organizations work. The limitation
  of time and space are challenged.

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Global Organization

• The United Nations is an example of a global
  organization that involve governmental groups.
• There are concerns about the rate of
  globalization and the difficulties in organizing
  both governmental and non-governmental
  organizations.
• What do you think about the McDonaldization of
  society and the world?