Social Facilitation: Affected By The Presence Of Others

Chapter 8: Group Influence  Group Influence What Is a Group?

 Two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as “us” Social Facilitation: How Are We
Affected by the Presence of Others?
 The Mere Presence of Others
 Social facilitation
 Strengthening of dominant responses whether correct or incorrect in the presence of others
 Boosts performance on easy tasks
 Impairs performance on difficult tasks Social Facilitation: How Are We
Affected by the Presence of Others?
 Crowding: The Presence of Many Others
 Effect of others’ presence increases with their number
 Being in a crowd intensifies positive or negative reactions
 Enhances arousal
Social Facilitation: How Are We
Affected by the Presence of Others?
 Why Are We Aroused in the Presence of Others?
 Evaluation apprehension
 Concern for how others are evaluating us
 Driven by distraction
 When we wonder how co-actors are doing or how an audience is reacting, we become distracted
 Mere presence
 Can be arousing even when we are not evaluated or distracted Social Loafing: Do Individuals Exert
Less Effort in a Group?
 Social Loafing
 Tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable Social Loafing: Do Individuals Exert
Less Effort in a Group?
 Many Hands Make Light Work
 Effort decreases as group size increases
 Free riders
 People who benefit from the group but give little in return Social Loafing: Do Individuals Exert
Less Effort in a Group?
 Social Loafing in Everyday Life
 People in groups loaf less when the task is
 Challenging
 Appealing
 Rewards are significant
 Involving
 Team spirit Deindividuation: When Do People
Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
 Deindividuation
 Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad Deindividuation: When Do People
Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
 Doing Together What We Would Not Do Alone
 Group size
 Larger the group the more its members lose self-awareness and become willing to commit atrocities
 People’s attention is focused on the situation, not on themselves
 “Everyone’s doing it” attitude
 They contribute their behavior to the situation rather than to their own choices Deindividuation: When Do People
Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
 Doing Together What We Would Not Do Alone
 Anonymity
 Being anonymous makes one less self- conscious, more group conscious, and more responsive to cues present in the situation, whether negative or positive Children were more likely to transgress by taking extra
Halloween candy when in a group, when anonymous, and, especially, when deindividuated by the combination of group immersion and anonymity. Deindividuation: When Do People
Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
 Doing Together What We Would Not Do Alone
 Arousing and distracting activities
 When we act in an impulsive way as a group, we are not thinking about our values; we are reacting to the immediate situation
 Impulsive group action absorbs our attention Deindividuation: When Do People
Lose Their Sense of Self in Groups?
 Diminished Self-Awareness
 Tend to increase people’s responsiveness to the immediate situation, be it negative or positive Group Polarization: Do Groups
Intensify Our Opinions?
 Group Polarization
 Group-produced enhancement of members’ preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of the members’ average tendency, not a split within the group Group Polarization: Do Groups
Intensify Our Opinions?
 “Risky Shift” Phenomenon
 Occurs not only when a group decides by consensus; after a brief discussion, individuals, too, will alter their decisions
 Juries
 Business committees
 Military organizations
 Teen drivers Group Polarization: Do Groups
Intensify Our Opinions?
 Do Groups Intensify Opinions?
 Group polarization experiments
 Moscovici and Zavalloni (1969)
 Mititoshi Isozaki (1984)
 Markus Brauer, et al. (2001) Group Polarization: Do Groups
Intensify Our Opinions?
 Do Groups Intensify Opinions?
 Group polarization in everyday life
 Schools
 Accentuation effect
 Communities
 Self-segregation
 Internet
 Terrorists organizations Group Polarization: Do Groups
Intensify Our Opinions?
 Explaining Polarization
 Informational influence
 Arguments
 Active participation Group Polarization: Do Groups
Intensify Our Opinions?
 Explaining Polarization
 Normative influence
 Social comparison
 Evaluating one’s opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others
 Pluralistic ignorance
 A false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or
Assist Good Decisions?
 Mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action
 Caused by
 Cohesive group
 Isolation of the group from dissenting viewpoints
 Directive leader Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or
Assist Good Decisions?
 Symptoms of Groupthink
 Following lead group members to overestimate their group’s might and right
 Illusion of invulnerability
 Unquestioned belief in the group’s morality Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or
Assist Good Decisions?
 Symptoms of
Groupthink
 Following leads group members to become closed- minded
 Rationalization
 Stereotyped view of opponent Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or
Assist Good Decisions?
 Symptoms of Groupthink
 Following leads group to feel pressure toward uniformity
 Conformity pressure
 Self-censorship
 Illusion of unanimity
 Mindguards Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or
Assist Good Decisions?
 Critiquing Groupthink
 Directive leadership is associated with poorer decisions
 Groups do prefer supporting over challenging information
 Groups make smart decisions by widely distributed conversation with members who take turns speaking
 Group acceptance, approval, and social identity, suppress disagreeable thoughts among members
 Diverse groups produce more creativity
 Groups may not always benefit from all that members know Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or
Assist Good Decisions?
 Preventing Groupthink
 Be impartial
 Encourage critical evaluation
 Occasionally subdivide the group, then reunite to air differences
 Welcome critiques from outside experts and associates
 Call a second-chance meeting Groupthink: Do Groups Hinder or
Assist Good Decisions?
 Group Problem Solving
 Combine group and solitary brainstorming
 Have group members interact by writing
 Incorporate electronic brainstorming The Influence of the Minority: How
Do Individuals Influence the Group?
 Consistency
 Minority slowness effect
 Self-Confidence
 Portrayed by consistency and persistence
 Defections from the Majority
 Minority person who defects from the majority is more persuasive than a consistent minority voice The Influence of the Minority: How
Do Individuals Influence the Group?
 Is Leadership Minority Influence?
 Leadership
 Process by which certain group members motivate and guide the group
 Formal and informal group leaders exert disproportionate influence The Influence of the Minority: How
Do Individuals Influence the Group?
 Is Leadership Minority Influence?
 Task leadership
 Organizes work, sets standards, and focuses on goals
 Social leadership
 Builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support
 Transformational leadership
 Enabled by a leader’s vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence