Chapter 1: Group processes and performance
Definition of a group:
A group is two or more individuals in face-to-face interaction, each aware of his or her
membership in the group, each aware of the others who belong to the group, and each
aware of their positive interdependence as they strive to achieve mutual goals.
- Entitative groups: seen as a single entity, instead of being made of different
individuals
- Types of groups:
1. Intimacy groups
2. Task groups
3. Social categories
4. Loose associations
Effects of a group on individual performance
1. Triplett: cyclist performances
- Competition> paced> alone
- The presence of audience ‘energised’ performance on motor tasks
- However, he
• didn’t statistically analysed the data and data isn’t significant,
• didn’t compare social vs alone in the experiment
• social presence social facilitation and inhibition
2. Floyd Allport: termed Triplett’s phenomenon Social facilitation
- Suggested more generalized effect: ‘mere presence’
- Mere presence: an entirely passive and unresponsive audience that is only physically
present
- Improvement in performance due to mere presence of people
3. Zajonc: Drive theory
- Mere presence of others increased arousal if dominant response is correct
(facilitate performance); if incorrect (inhibit performance)
- Dominant response: what us typically done in that situation, i.e., a well-learnt
response
Eg. A sport player playing on a team, if using very familiar tactic (well-learnt), given that
there will be a crowd watching likely to be social facilitation
4. Cottrell: Evaluation apprehension
- Perception of an ‘evaluating’ audience creates arousal, not mere presence
- Social facilitation is an acquired effect based on perceived evaluations of others
5. Markus: Social facilitation & Evaluation apprehension
- Easy task/ familiar task: attentive audience facilitates performance (Evaluation
apprehension)
- Difficult task/ unfamiliar: incidental audience and attentive both inhibit performance
(Social facilitation)
,The ringelmann effect:
- Exerted less force in proportion to the number of people in the group (pulling rope)
Reasons:
• Coordination loss
• Motivation loss (Social loafing)
Social loafing (Latane et al.):
- Reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task compared with
working either alone or coactively.
Reasons:
• Matching to standard
• Evaluation apprehension
• Output equity
- Can reverse (increased effort), when task is important to compensate for anticipated
loafing by others (social compensation)
Group decision making
1. Brainstorm:
- Uninhibited generation of as many ideas as possible in a group in order to enhance
group creativity
- But, nominal groups *2 creative as groups that interact
Reasons:
• Prediction matching
• Production blocking
• Evaluation apprehension
• Social loafing
2. Polarisation
- Tendency for group discussion to produce more extreme group decisions that the
mean of members’ pre-discussion opinions, in the direction favoured by the mean”
Reasons:
• Associative meaning
• Paired distinctiveness
3. Groupthink
- “A mode of thinking in highly cohesive groups in which the desire to reach
unanimous agreement overrides the motivation to adopt rational decision making
procedures”
, Chapter 2 Attitudes & Attitudes Change
Attitudes: three component model
1. Affective: expressions of feelings towards an attitude object
2. Behavioural: overt actions/ verbal statements concerning behaviour
3. Cognitive: expression of beliefs about an attitude object
Where do attitudes come from:
1. Mere exposure effect
- Repeated exposure of a stimulus enhancement of preference for that stimulus
2. Classical conditioning
- Repeated association previously neutral stimulus elicit reaction that was
previously elicited only by another stimulus
3. Instrumental conditioning
- Behaviour followed by +ve consequences more likely to be repeated
- -ve consequences less likely
4. Self-perception theory (Bem)
- Gain knowledge of ourselves by making self-attributions
- Infer attitudes from our behaviour
Functions of attitude:
1. Knowledge function:
- Organise & predict social world, provides a sense of meaning & coherence
2. Utilitarian function
- Help people achieve positive outcomes and avoid negative outcomes
3. Ego-defensive
- Protecting one’s self-esteem
4. Value expressive
- Facilitate expression of one’s core values and self-concept
Measures of attitude:
1. Self-report and experimental paradigms
2. Physiological measures
3. Measures of overt behaviour
Attitudes & Behaviour
- LaPiere: Responses did not reflect behaviour
- Wicker: Attitudes weakly correlated with behaviour (average correlation was .15)
- Gregson and Stacey (1981): Small positive correlation between attitudes & alcohol
consumption.
- Other variables
Definition of a group:
A group is two or more individuals in face-to-face interaction, each aware of his or her
membership in the group, each aware of the others who belong to the group, and each
aware of their positive interdependence as they strive to achieve mutual goals.
- Entitative groups: seen as a single entity, instead of being made of different
individuals
- Types of groups:
1. Intimacy groups
2. Task groups
3. Social categories
4. Loose associations
Effects of a group on individual performance
1. Triplett: cyclist performances
- Competition> paced> alone
- The presence of audience ‘energised’ performance on motor tasks
- However, he
• didn’t statistically analysed the data and data isn’t significant,
• didn’t compare social vs alone in the experiment
• social presence social facilitation and inhibition
2. Floyd Allport: termed Triplett’s phenomenon Social facilitation
- Suggested more generalized effect: ‘mere presence’
- Mere presence: an entirely passive and unresponsive audience that is only physically
present
- Improvement in performance due to mere presence of people
3. Zajonc: Drive theory
- Mere presence of others increased arousal if dominant response is correct
(facilitate performance); if incorrect (inhibit performance)
- Dominant response: what us typically done in that situation, i.e., a well-learnt
response
Eg. A sport player playing on a team, if using very familiar tactic (well-learnt), given that
there will be a crowd watching likely to be social facilitation
4. Cottrell: Evaluation apprehension
- Perception of an ‘evaluating’ audience creates arousal, not mere presence
- Social facilitation is an acquired effect based on perceived evaluations of others
5. Markus: Social facilitation & Evaluation apprehension
- Easy task/ familiar task: attentive audience facilitates performance (Evaluation
apprehension)
- Difficult task/ unfamiliar: incidental audience and attentive both inhibit performance
(Social facilitation)
,The ringelmann effect:
- Exerted less force in proportion to the number of people in the group (pulling rope)
Reasons:
• Coordination loss
• Motivation loss (Social loafing)
Social loafing (Latane et al.):
- Reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task compared with
working either alone or coactively.
Reasons:
• Matching to standard
• Evaluation apprehension
• Output equity
- Can reverse (increased effort), when task is important to compensate for anticipated
loafing by others (social compensation)
Group decision making
1. Brainstorm:
- Uninhibited generation of as many ideas as possible in a group in order to enhance
group creativity
- But, nominal groups *2 creative as groups that interact
Reasons:
• Prediction matching
• Production blocking
• Evaluation apprehension
• Social loafing
2. Polarisation
- Tendency for group discussion to produce more extreme group decisions that the
mean of members’ pre-discussion opinions, in the direction favoured by the mean”
Reasons:
• Associative meaning
• Paired distinctiveness
3. Groupthink
- “A mode of thinking in highly cohesive groups in which the desire to reach
unanimous agreement overrides the motivation to adopt rational decision making
procedures”
, Chapter 2 Attitudes & Attitudes Change
Attitudes: three component model
1. Affective: expressions of feelings towards an attitude object
2. Behavioural: overt actions/ verbal statements concerning behaviour
3. Cognitive: expression of beliefs about an attitude object
Where do attitudes come from:
1. Mere exposure effect
- Repeated exposure of a stimulus enhancement of preference for that stimulus
2. Classical conditioning
- Repeated association previously neutral stimulus elicit reaction that was
previously elicited only by another stimulus
3. Instrumental conditioning
- Behaviour followed by +ve consequences more likely to be repeated
- -ve consequences less likely
4. Self-perception theory (Bem)
- Gain knowledge of ourselves by making self-attributions
- Infer attitudes from our behaviour
Functions of attitude:
1. Knowledge function:
- Organise & predict social world, provides a sense of meaning & coherence
2. Utilitarian function
- Help people achieve positive outcomes and avoid negative outcomes
3. Ego-defensive
- Protecting one’s self-esteem
4. Value expressive
- Facilitate expression of one’s core values and self-concept
Measures of attitude:
1. Self-report and experimental paradigms
2. Physiological measures
3. Measures of overt behaviour
Attitudes & Behaviour
- LaPiere: Responses did not reflect behaviour
- Wicker: Attitudes weakly correlated with behaviour (average correlation was .15)
- Gregson and Stacey (1981): Small positive correlation between attitudes & alcohol
consumption.
- Other variables
