A social interaction within a group of two or more people creates a group environment. These groups create a social power, or group dynamic, that influences the perceptions of the individuals of the group (Myers, 2010). The dynamic is directly related to the behaviors and actions of individual group members. Each interaction between group members has the potential to impact…
What is the influence of other group member's opinions on the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of an individual. What if we are not sure how to act in a certain situation. As stated in the text "we know other people conform, we underestimate the extent to which we can be induced to follow the group" (Aronson, p.23,2012). Groups have influence on ambiguous and unambiguous situations. In an individualistic culture, such as that of the US, conformity connotes something negative. However as a society we still need to master the world, and be connect by others. Thus people conform to the opinion of other group members and yield to social norms. As stated by Aronson,…
Group size has an unprecedented impact on the nature of social interaction. Studies have shown that as group size increase individuals typically reduce their efforts. Imagine something as gigantic as our government, between the House and the Senate there are five hundred and thirty five members in the United States Congress. Groups of that magnitude fall victim to groupthink, or decision making that ignores alternate solutions in order to keep group harmony. Although after reading this article I highly doubt there will be any harmony between the two political parties anytime soon. The article describes how members of Congress followed the example of their party instead of looking for alternative solutions.…
Diffusion of Responsibility: weakening of each group member's obligation to act when responsibility is perceived to be shared with all group members…
The aim was to show conformity to a group rather than staying individual and the findings showed this almost perfectly with only three acceptations. The findings support the hypothesis strongly and show that Jenness’s theory was corrects that and individual will conform to the group in an ambiguous situation.…
People can change based on the personalities contained in a group. For example, if the personalities in a group are positive and supportive, then each person’s self-esteem is boosted up and he or she will speak his or her mind. However, if the personalities in a group are aggressive or assertive, then each person might be less willing to speak his or her mind and go along with the group. Not only that, but a typical person wouldn’t stand up for something alone. He/she would instead go with the majority of people. In a group of 100 people, each person with his/her opinion, at least 30 % of those 100 would stand up against everyone else.…
One strength of this theory is that it has research to support it from Asch's 1951 study into conformity. The interviews that were taken after the experiment had finished, stated that there were two main reasons that the participants conformed. The first reason was that they didn't want to be ridiculed by the rest of the group from differing in opinions. They wanted to fit in so went along with the majority group, typical of normative social influence. The second reason was that they honestly thought that the rest of the group knew better than them and that their own judgements were incorrect, typical of informational social influence.…
Group norms can affect the development of a team When individuals are in groups there are forces at work that shape their behavior. All individuals have their own separate traits, way of thinking and doing tasks, however when they are contributing together as a team they enviably start to exhibit different behaviors which are based on the group norms. For example a team member may not be a brave outspoken individual on their own but when in a group may exhibit more aggressive outspoken tones feeling they are stronger united so to speak as they are trying to fit in as individuals we become influence by others whether this is consciously or subconsciously done this can cause conflict within a team environment. In most team dynamics especially…
explains why people behave differently than normal when they are amongst a group of people.…
[ 3 ]. Solomon E. Asch, "Group Forces in the Modification and Distortion of Judgments," in Social Psychology, ed. Solomon E. Asch (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1952), 451-57.…
When a group makes unreliable decisions that were lead by group pressures and leads to a worsening of mental performance, reality testing, and moral judgement, it is known as groupthink. When members from a group are similar in background, or when they are insulted from outside opinions, and when there are no clear rules for decision making is when the group is especially vulnerable to groupthink. As for individual humans, they are as well easily susceptible to groupthink because they’re afraid to be themselves, believe in the rightness of their cause, and are under pressure not to express arguments. Often times people find themselves in situations where they’re afraid to be themselves. When they find themselves in this place they choose…
The author does a really good job getting her point across throughout the paper. "When were in a group, we tend to think as that group does:" She also brings up the fact of joining a group to find people like ourselves, but that group might start to change our opinions or views. Another interesting point is the experiment that is brought up. The experiment had to do with two boards at different lengths but the lengths were not easily noticeable. A group of a few people would be instructed that the boards were the same and they would argue in favor of this. A pair of people wouldn't be instructed and would find out for themselves that the boards aren't the same.…
One of the main topics James Surowiecki concentrates on is, “group polarization.” This is when a few members of the small group takes a side on the extreme opposites. Some of the group might be on the extreme yes side, while others are on the extreme no side. Surowiecki touches on the downfalls of group polarization in small groups by saying, “Deliberation does not moderate, but rather radicalizes people’s point of view.” (Surowiecki Page 479)What Surowiecki is saying is that when in a discussion in a small group the topic of deliberation makes people side with an extreme, there really is no middle ground when people make their decisions. Group polarization is so common among small groups there have been…
The second example of Groupthink as Irving Janus identified it is Illusions of Unanimity. In the meeting we all kept silent and in doing so gave Susan the impression that we agreed with her. This is particularly dangerous in some respects because it causes each person to suppress their feelings and to go along with the status quo. We don’t think about the cost of going along with Susan, we only worry about the here and now of arguing with her or disagreeing with her opinion. As Ben Carlson wrote “Be aware of the consequences if/when the group is wrong.” We can’t worry about the consequences if we don’t state our…
Group polarization is the tendency for individuals to form and make decisions that are more extreme than they would in individual situations. For instance, if a number of individuals who support abortion sat down and discussed their perspectives, at the end of the discussion each person would have a stronger, more extreme opinion of why abortion is acceptable. As individuals who support the procedure will typically support their arguments with points such as “the woman should have autonomy over her body,” “a fetus is not yet a child,” etc. Because they all agree on these ideas already, it is not likely that they will discuss that some individuals consider a fetus to be a child, in fact, they may purposefully avoid this point in order to come to a conclusion more easily. In order to advance as a society on the issue of abortion, we need to see and accept other people’s views and opinions and not just our own, so we can come to a middle ground agreement about the polarizing…