Group Behaviour

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Lecture 10

• Group Behaviour

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Outline

• Introduction What is a group?
• Effects of Mere Presence
• Social facilitation
• Social loafing
• Working in Groups
• Leadership

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What is a Group?

• A group is two or more interacting persons who
  share common goals, have a stable relationship,
  are somehow interdependent (what happens to one
  must affect what happens to the other), and
  perceive that they are in fact a part of a group
  (Paulus, 1989).

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Effects of Mere Presence

• Social facilitation
• Any increment of individual activity resulting
  from the presence of another individual
• Social inhibition
• A decrease in performance in the presence of
  others

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Effects of Mere Presence, cont.

• When we direct our attention to well-learned
  tasks, other people usually enhance performance
  When we direct our attention to other people, or
  if the task is new, other people detract from our
  performance.

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Effects of Mere Presence, cont.
Seconds to Complete Task
Experimental Condition
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Effects of Mere Presence, cont.

• Drive theory of social facilitation (Zajonc,
  1965)
• The presence of others leads to uncertainty and
  uncertainty leads to arousal
• Evaluation apprehension theory of social
  facilitation (Cotrell, 1972)
• Arousal is due to a learned expectation that the
  audience will evaluate your performance
• Distraction-conflict theory (Baron, 1986)
• Distractions, such as other individuals, cause
  conflict in the performers attention to the task
  leading to arousal

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Effects of Mere Presence, cont.

• Social Loafing
• A decrease in individual effort when people work
  in groups as compared to when they work alone.
• The tendency for people to do worse on simple
  tasks but better on complex tasks when they are
  in the presence of others and their individual
  performance cannot be evaluated.

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Types of Tasks

• Divisible versus Unitary Tasks
• For divisible tasks a breakdown into sub-tasks is
  possible, but for unitary tasks no breakdown is
  possible

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Types of Unitary Tasks

• Additive tasks
• A task in which all group members perform
  basically the same job and the final product is
  the sum of all their contributions.
• Conjunctive tasks
• A task in which performance depends on how well
  the least talented member does.
• Disjunctive tasks
• A task in which group performance depends on how
  well the most talented member does.

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Working in Groups

• Problem-solving
• Brainstorming
• Production Blocking
• Decision-making
• Group polarization (risky shift)

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The stages of groupthink
Poor decisions
ANTECEDENT CONDITIONS
SYMPTOMS OF GROUPTHINK
DEFECTIVE DECISION- MAKING
CONSEQUENCES
Isolated,cohesive Homogeneous Decision-making Grou
p Lack of impartial Leadership High stress
Closed-mindedness Rationalization Squelching of
dissent Mindguards Feelings of righteousness
and invulnerability
Incomplete examination of alternatives Failure to
examine Risks and contingencies Incomplete
search for information
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Distributive Justice within Groups

• Outcome Justice
• The balance between the contributions made to a
  group and the outcomes received in return.
• Procedural Justice
• The procedure followed in the allocation of
  available rewards
• Interpersonal Justice
• Considerateness and courtesy shown to us by the
  parties responsible for dividing the available
  rewards.

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Some Suggested Characteristics of Successful
Leaders (Kirkpatrick Lock, 1991)

• Drive
• Honesty and integrity
• Self-confidence
• Cognitive ability
• Creativity
• Flexibility
• Expertise

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Types of Leaders

• Task-oriented leader
• A leader who is concerned more with getting the
  job done than with the feelings of and
  relationships between the workers.
• Relationship-oriented leader
• A leader who is concerned primarily with the
  feelings of and relationships between the workers.

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Fiedlers Contingency Theory of Leadership (1967,
1978)