What is a group?
Two or more individuals in a face-to-face interaction, each aware of his and others’ membership to the group and of their positive interdependence as they strive to achieve mutual goals.
Individuals within a group have entitativity - A property which makes the group appear distinct, coherent and bounded.
2 types of groups:
- Based on close interpersonal bonds (towards which women were more attached)
- Based on more familiarized impersonal associations (men scored high on both, they care more about common identity)
Group v. aggregate? An aggregate is made of unrelated individuals.
What are the effects of groups (audience) on individual performance?
- Social facilitation - Improvement, for easy/familiar tasks
- Social inhibition - Deterioration, for difficult/unfamiliar tasks
- Mere presence is enough
Why are we influenced by an audience on individual performance?
- Drive theory - Because of arousal
- Evaluation apprehension
- Distraction-conflict theory (you are distracted away from the task by the audience)
- Self-awareness theory - You compare your actual self with your ideal self
- Self-discrepancy theory - If the discrepancy (difference) between your actual self and your ideal self is not too high (like on easy tasks), you are motivated to improve. If it is too high (like on difficult tasks), you are demotivated and you give up.
- Self-presentation - To make the best possible impression
- The relationship you have with the audience will matter
Classification of group tasks
- Divisible or unitary?
- Maximising or optimizing?
- Additive (sum), compensatory (mean), disjunctive (one individual’s input), conjunctive (the least able member) or discretionary (the group decides on the course of action)?
What are the negative effects of working in group?
- Process loss
- Coordination loss
- Motivation loss (= social loafing)
- Free-rider effect
Why do we loaf?
- Output equity - We believe that others loaf too - Sometimes the opposite happens, we will try to compensate for anticipates loafing!
- Evaluation apprehension - When in group we cannot be identified, we relax and loaf
- Matching to standard - We are unsure about the group’s standards or norms so we prefer not to act
- Deindividuation - We loose ourselves within the group (you also forget your personal norms and adopt the group norms)
How can you prevent loafing?
- Group size matters
- Personal identification
- Partner effort
- Intergroup comparison
- Attractiveness of the task
What is group cohesiveness?
The property of a group which affectively binds people and give them a sense of solidarity and oneness - Based on the attractiveness of the group and its members and on the degree to which it satisfies individual goals (difference between personal attraction and social attraction)
How are groups formed? What process do they follow?
Tuckman’s five stage developmental sequence of group socialization:
- Forming (meeting stage)
- Storming (conflict stage)
- Norming
- Performing
- Adjourning
How does a group change?
A group can be influenced by new members through:
- Evaluation - Comparison of the past, present of future rewards of the group, all individual members are evaluated in terms of their contribution to the group and rewarded/punished via social (dis)approval
- Commitment - Evaluation affects the commitment of the individual to the group
- Role transition - Sharp change in the type of role a member occupies
Different roles: Prospective member -> New member -> Full member -> Marginal member -> Ex member
What are initiation rites?
Often painful and embarrassing public procedure to mark group members’ movements from one role to another:
- Symbolic function
- Apprenticeship
- Loyalty elicitation
These rites can create cognitive dissonance (‘Why am I going through all of this? Because I really want it!’) - The more unpleasant the rite, the more positive the evaluation of the group
How is a group structured?
Different roles for:
- Division of labour
- Clear-cut social expectations
- Gives members of the group a self-definition and a place within the group
Because of correspondence bias, we tend to assume that we got this role because we deserved it (we make an internal attribution).
Role identity theory - Roles can actually influence who we are
What is status?
It is the evaluation of a group or a role within that group based on consensual prestige and the tendency to initiate ideas and activities.
How do you obtain status?
- Specific status-characteristics - Attributes which are directly linked to the ability on the group task
- Diffuse status-characteristics - Attributes which do not relate directly to the task but are rather generally positively or negatively evaluated by society
How does communication network influence a group?
- For simple tasks, greater centralization is better
- For more complex tasks, you need less centralisation
- If you are a central person, you will feel more autonomous and more satisfied, but if you are at the end of the chain, you feel bad. So that centralization can reduce group satisfaction, harmony and solidarity.
- Now it’s easier with electronic communication, everyone can be included
Groups and subgroups
Usually groups have subgroups (think tutorial group, we have the subgroup FaSOS, FOL, SBE, FPN…). A schism happens when a subgroup feels like he is no longer represented by the group.
What about deviant and marginal members?
They are treated as black sheeps, almost traitors. Because they threaten the integrity of the group norms and thus the identity of the group (according to subjective group dynamics). They can also make the group change, because they critique the group norms and that they are taken more seriously, as in-group members.
2 types of deviants:
- Anti-norm deviant - Divergence from the group norm towards an outgroup (leaving the room)
- Pro-norm deviant - Away from the outgroup (entering the room)
Why do people join groups?
- Physical proximity
- Similar interests, attitudes, beliefs…
- Mutual goal and interdependence
- Need to belong, need for social interaction
- Terror management theory
- Uncertainty-identity theory (to feel more confident about who we are)
- Because some groups are positively evaluated
Why not join groups?
Don’t! It’s dangerous! You will be sad and self-conscious and embarrassed and in pain :(
