COMU1010: Interpersonal

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COMU1010 Interpersonal Intercultural
CommunicationWeek 7 21st April

• Group Processes

Dr. Tim Grice Centre for Social Research in
Communication School of Psychology, Uni of Qld
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Lecture Overview

• Definitions of groups/teams
• Types of groups
• Stages of group development
• Roles and Norms
• Group performance
• Social influence
• Group decision-making
• Creating successful groups

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Classic Definition of Social Psychology

• the scientific attempt to understand and
  explain how the thoughts, feelings and behaviours
  of individuals are influenced by the actual,
  imagined or implied presence of other human
  beings (Fiske, 2004, p. 4 Allport, 1954,
  p. 5)

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Definition of a Group

• What is a group?
• Classical definition A dynamic social entity
  composed of two or more individuals, interacting
  interdependently in relation to one or more
  common goals that are valued by its members, so
  that each member influences and is influenced by
  every other member, to some degree, through
  face-to-face communication. Over time, if the
  individuals who comprise the group continue to
  assemble they tend to develop means for
  determining who is and who is not a member,
  statuses and roles for members, and values and
  norms that regulate behaviour of consequence to
  the group.
• (Bertcher, 1979)

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Definitions (continued)

• What is a group?
• Any collection of people that perceive
  themselves to be a group (Handy, 1976)

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Work Groups Work Teams
Work Groups
Work Teams
(Robbins, 1999)
Collective Performance Positive Individual
Mutual Complementary
Share Information Neutral Individual Random
Varied
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Why Do People Join Groups?

• Goal achievement
• Security
• Status
• Self-esteem interconnectedness
• Needs for sameness and distinctiveness
• Power
• Self-actualisation
• Reduce uncertainty?

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Stages of Group Development
Stage I Forming
Prestage 1
Stage II Storming
Stage III Norming
Stage IV Performing
Stage V Adjourning
(Tuckman, 1965)
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Punctuated-Equilibrium (Gersick)
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What is group process?

• Patterns of communication and co-ordination
• Distribution of roles
• How decisions are being made
• Patterns of dominance (e.g. who leads, who
  defers)
• Balance of task focus vs. social focus
• Level of group effectiveness
• How conflict is handled
• Level of influence and persuasion

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Roles

• A pattern of behaviour (thinking, feeling doing)
  enacted by a person occupying a particular
  position in an organisation
• (Tyson, 1998)
• Task Roles Starter, information seeker,
  information giver, diagnoser, reality tester,
  technician
• Maintenance Roles Encourager, gatekeeper,
  communication helper, mediatory/harmoniser
• Dysfunctional Roles Lobbyist, recognition
  seeker, blocker, pessimist, aggressor.

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Roles and Stanford Experiment

• 2 week simulation at Stanford University
• Prison in basement of psych building
• 24 emotionally stable students
• Prisoners became increasingly passive, guards
  became increasingly aggressive
• Experimenters had to call of the experiment
  early.

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Group Norms

• Norms
• Acceptable standards of behaviour within a group
  that are shared by the groups members (Robb
  ins p. 386)
• Development of norms
• Explicit statement
• Critical events
• Primacy

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Types of Norms

• Descriptive Norms
• specify typical behavior in a given situation
  (e.g., most students dress casually for
  lectures).
• Injunctive Norms
• specify approved or accepted behavior in a
  situation (e.g., it is inappropriate to wear a
  cape to lectures).

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Group Performance

• Are groups the sum of their parts?
• What are the usual explanations (meta-theories)
  of human behaviour?
• Personality and individual differences
• Social cognition and self-interest
• Social organization and structures
• Can any of these explain group behaviour? (No!)

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Bystander Effect

• Bystanders dont tend to be the best sources of
  help
• Diffusion of responsibility
• The greater the number of people who witness an
  emergency, the less likely anyone of them is
  going to help the victim. Why?
• Consider the features of emergency situations
• They are unusual, unforseen, unplanned, dangerous
  and requires instant action
• Because of their nature, it is often unclear how
  people should act in emergency situations
  instead they look to others.

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Social loafing Reducing effort when in a group
Latané et al. (1979) Many hands make light the
work
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Social Facilitation Increasing effort when in a
group

• Triplett (1897) noticed that bicycle racers rode
  faster in competition than when training alone.
  He found the same results when children wound
  fishing reels as fast as they could.
• Why does the mere presence of others improve
  performance?

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Social Facilitation Increasing effort when in a
group
Social facilitation and social inhibition
Zajoncs solution
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Reconciling social facilitation and loafing
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Social Influence
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Sherifs (1935) autokinetic effect

• Sherif asked people to estimate how far the light
  moved on several trials
• Their estimates converged on an idiosyncratic
  value (typical to that individual).
• Sherif then asked people to estimate how far the
  light moved in groups of 2 or 3,
• their estimates converged on a normative value
  (typical to that group).
• When people were alone again, they continued to
  give estimates consistent with the group norm.

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The emergence of norms (Sherif, 1935)
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Whats going on?

• people need to be certain confident in the
  correctness of their actions
• The situation was ambiguous and uncertain
• People looked to others to help define reality
• Once developed, the norm persists beyond the
  immediate situation

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A Trial of the Asch (1951) Exp.
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A B C
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Results of Asch Studies

• On 11 different occasions, the confederates
  unanimously give what is clearly the wrong
  answer, before the participant has to give an
  answer.
• When asked their opinion, 75 of participants
  follow the group, and give the wrong answer, on
  one or more occasions.
• Conformity to majority increased with group size

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Results of Asch Studies (cont.)
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Results of Asch Studies (cont.)
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Results of Asch Studies (cont.)
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Whats going on?

• Unlike Sherif, Aschs task was not uncertain or
  ambiguous. However participants seemed willing
  to ignore the evidence of their own eyes to go
  along with the groups. Why?
• Some said they knew they were out of step with
  group, but felt their perceptions were inaccurate
  group was correct.
• Some said that they actually saw the lines as the
  group did.
• Some said they did not believe the group was
  correct but simply went along with the group in
  order to fit in.

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Forms of influence

• Informational influence
• Stemming from desire to be objectively correct
  when uncertain (Sherif, 1936)
• Normative influence
• Stemming from desire to be socially correct
  when uncertain (Asch, 1951)
• In both cases, conformity results from (i)
  uncertainty and (ii) a preference not to be seen
  to be wrong

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Moderators of majority influence

• 1. Group size.
• Diminishing returns in Asch paradigm.
• Wilder (1977).
• 2. Norm awareness.
• Prentice Miller (1996).
• 3. Consensus level.
• Any disruption of consensus reduces conformity to
  a majority
• ...especially when a consensual minority forms.

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Milgram Experiment (1955)
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Results of Milgram Studies
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Results of Milgram Studies (cont.)
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Results of Milgram Studies
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Minority Influence

• When numerical minorities persuade majority
  members to adopt their views.
• Minority influence occurs when minorities

• Hold steadily to their views
• At one time held a majority position
• Are willing to compromise
• Have some initial support from the majority
• Appear to have little personal stake
• Present their views as compatible w/ groups
• Are in a group that wants an accurate decision

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Group decision-making

• Problem-solving and decision-making is often
  conducted by a group of experts rather than by a
  single person.
• Is there anything special about group-decision
  making that cannot be understood in terms of
  individual decision making?
• Intuitively people think that two heads are
  better than one That is, group decisions are not
  just more but also better.

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Group Polarization

• When group discussion leads members to make
  decisions that are more extreme than most
  individuals in the group favored before the group
  discussion.

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Why polarize?

• Why do groups polarize after discussion?
• Persuasive Arguments given a slight bias in one
  direction, people hear more good arguments on the
  favored side.
• Social Comparison when members realize the group
  is leaning in one direction, they seek acceptance
  by moving in that direction.

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Groupthink

• A flawed style of group decision-making in which
  group members desire to agree and get along
  suppresses their tendency to generate, evaluate,
  and decide between different viewpoints.

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What causes groupthink?

• Symptoms
• Over-estimation of group worth
• Closed-mindedness
• Pressures toward uniformity

• Antecedents
• High cohesiveness
• Structural factors
• Contextual factors

Groupthink

• Consequences
• Limited attention to information
• Biased use of supporting facts
• Lack of alternative plans

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Solutions?

• According to Janis, the solution to the problem
  of group think is to get people to stop thinking
  and behaving as a group.
• For example by
• Encouraging group members to act as individuals
• critical thought and questioning
• Using external bodies to monitor group decisions
• Advice from outside experts
• Feedback from external bodies
• Maintaining flux in group membership
• Changing group membership periodically
• Dividing group into sub-groups

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Brainstorming

• Brainstorming
• Expressing all ideas, not criticizing others
  ideas, building on others (and your own) ideas.
• It is half as productive as the sum of the same
  individuals brainstorming alone, as individuals
  benefit from
• No production blocked (waiting your turn to
  speak), no free riding/social loafing, no
  evaluation apprehension, no performance matching
  (norm adherence).
• Electronic brainstorming (using computers)
• Eliminates the deficits of using a group.
• And lets you benefit from seeing others ideas.

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Successful Teams (West, 1996)

• Clear goals for both team and members
• Built in performance feedback
• Diversity in membership
• (background, style, tenure)
• Cohesiveness
• Skills for managing external boundaries
• Reflection on team processes, objectives
  and performance

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Group Cohesiveness

• Time spent together
• Severity of initiation
• Group size
• Gender of members
• External threats
• Previous successes
• Humour

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Process for setting up a team

• Goals and purpose (as high as can be reasonably
  committed to)
• Ground-rules for operation
• Task responsibilities and deadlines
• Problem-Solving e.g.. failure to meet deadlines,
  onerous work-loads, etc.
• Consider Intergroup Context

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Unfreezing-Changing-Refreezing Model (Kurt Lewin)

• Unfreezing
• Reducing or eliminating resistance to change by
  resolving fear and feelings about letting go of
  the old.
• Changing (or moving on to a new level)
• Moving on to other things through active
  participation in the change process.
• Refreezing
• Encouraging recognition of successful change and
  rewarding people for implementing the change.
• Force-field theory
• A organization simultaneously faces forces of
  change and of resistance to change.

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Process Consultation

• A widely used OD intervention in which the
  communication pattern of an organizational unit
  is examined by a process consultant.
• Consultants role is to observe and raise
  questions challenging the status quo and define
  what really is happening in the unit.

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Why Groups Resist Change

• Resistance comes from
• Fear of an unfavorable outcome (e.g., less money,
  personal inconvenience, more work)
• Disrupted social relationships at work
• Not wanting to break with well-established habits
• A general fear of the unknown and uncertainty
• Fear that an unrecognized weakness in the
  proposed change will result in unfavorable
  outcome.

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Gaining Support for Change

• Gaining Support for Change
• Allow for discussion and negotiation.
• Allow for participation by those affected by the
  change.
• Point out the potential benefits.
• Avoid change overload.
• Gain political support for the change.
• Provide education.
• Use manipulation and co-optation.
• Avoid poor performance as the reason for change.
• Use explicit and implicit coercion.