Week 5 Group process

Question 1

Example team winning/losing

Answer 1

We have emotional reactions to the failure or success of our team because our self-esteem gets tied into our team’s performance
- When the team does poorly, we might reject that part of our identity

Question 2

Tuckman’s 5 stages of group development

Answer 2

• Forming
• Storming (starts working together)
• Norming (Cohesion, purpose emerges)
• Performing (Works smoothly, shared norms and goals)
• Adjourning (Dissolution of the group because it has accomplished its goals or because members have lost interest)

Question 3

Group norms

Answer 3

Common behaviours and attitudes that define group membership and differentiate each groups

Example norms in the work place: conflict, aggression, absenteeism

Question 4

How does groups affect performance?

Answer 4

• Social facilitation: Improvement in the performance of easy or well-learned tasks
• Social inhibition: Deterioration in the performance of difficult tasks
• Drive theory: the presence of others increases our level of arousal (heart-beat)

Question 5

Social loafing

Answer 5

tendency for individuals not to work as hard on a task when they believe that others are also working on the task

Question 6

Ringelmann effect

Answer 6

The Ringelmann effect describes that individual effort on a task decreases as group size increases

Explications: Possible coordination or motivation loss

Question 7

Ringlemann effect reasons

Answer 7

Reasons : their effort and input can not be distinguished from others

• Output equity (people believe others are also loafing)
• Evaluation apprehension (being anonymous gives less motiviation to individuals)
• Matching to standard: No individuals goals

Question 8

How to prevent social loafing

Answer 8

• Set group goals
• Increase intergroup competition
• Select members who already have high motivation

Question 9

How to improve brainstorming effectiveness

Answer 9

• Electroning brainstorming instead of physical

- Make heterogeneous groups for more diverse ideas

Question 10

Group polarisation

Answer 10

People take more extreme decisions when they are in groups rather than alone

Question 11

Group norms experiment

Answer 11

Sherif, 1936

obj: measure the influence of others opinion as frame

• ask what participants how much did the light move
• in uncertain situatinos, people use opinion of others as a frame of reference to converge to group norm
• group norm persists even when people are alone