GROUP BEHAVIOR:Applied Social Psychology Lab, Basic Features of Groups

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Lesson 39

GROUP BEHAVIOR

A few topics from previous topic (Prosocial Behavior)

Any gender differences in helping?

Alice Eagly and Maureen Crowley's (1986) indicate that men and women differ in their willingness to

engage in certain prosocial actions:

Eagly & Crowley's (1986) meta-analysis of 172 studies:

� Men are more likely to engage in helping that is heroic and chivalrous.

� Men are more likely to help strangers--especially if the person needing help is female, if there's an

audience, and if the situation is dangerous.

� Women are more likely than men:

� to provide social and emotional support to others (Shumaker & Hill, 1991)

� More willing to serve as caretakers for children and the elderly (Trudeau & Devlin, 1996).

� Although these differences appear real, the help men render apply most to nonroutine prosocial

acts such as offering help to strangers in distress. When other forms of prosocial behavior--

such as helping a friend or caring for children--are studied, women generally prove to be more

helpful than men.

� These differences become stronger from childhood to adulthood and are most apparent when

gender roles are salient.

Applied Social Psychology Lab

Can social psychology knowledge enhance prosocial behavior?

� Learning about the barriers to helping: (Arthur Beaman & his colleagues (1978) randomly assigned

students to listen to either a lecture on bystander intervention or a neutral topic.

� A total of 43% learning about the paralyzing effects of fellow bystander stopped to help a person

lying on the ground 2 weeks later.

� Jane Piliavin says that in our society we are trained to leave people alone and mind our own

business.

� In their classes when Jane Piliavin and her colleagues discussed this research students repeatedly

report an increased attentiveness and responsiveness to emergencies. Make people aware of

barriers and unlock their prosocial tendencies

� Jane Piliavin stressed the need of knowledge-created awareness of the social dynamics of

emergency situations so that people could unlock their prosocial tendencies.

Group Behavior Lesson 39

Aims

To introduce the psychological effects of being in a group and of interacting with others on an inter-

individual level

Objectives

�

To describe basic features of groups

�

To discuss effects of group on individuals

�

Describe social facilitation

Chapter Summary

This chapter presents several topics related to group behavior, including the effects of the presence of

others on an individual's performance; key features of groups; group performance and decision-making;

competition, cooperation, social dilemmas; and leadership. Social facilitation, social inhibition, and social

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

loafing are discussed and compared in terms of how behavior can be affected by the presence of others and

by the complexity of the task. Evaluation apprehension and the distraction-conflict model are presented in

this context. Social impact theory is put forth as a general explanation for the influence that others have

upon us, noting how the strength, number, and immediacy of observers can influence behavior. The effects

of crowding and deindividuation are also noted. A group is defined as a social unity in which people are

interdependent and interacting, and is distinguished from a crowd, an audience, or other collections of

individuals. The basic features of groups are their structure (roles, norms, and status) and their

cohesiveness. How groups perform on tasks, including performance and decision-making, is discussed,

with a focus on biased use of information in groups, potentially leading to group polarization and

groupthink. Cooperation and competition and their determinants, including reward structure, personal

values, communication patterns, and reciprocity, are also described, and social dilemmas are considered.

Finally, the topic of leadership is discussed from the standpoint of personality characteristics, situational

demands, and the interaction between the two. The chapter concludes with a presentation of recent

research on gender and leadership.

What is a group?

� Two or more people who interact with one another, share common goals, are somehow

interdependent, and recognize that they belong to a group

�

Here the focus is on the effects of physically interacting regularly in a work group, team, etc. and

the effects this has on productivity (i.e., vs. social categorization)

Basic Features of Groups

Social norms are shared rules and expectations about how group members should act. Some groups have

norms for personal appearance, opinions (no involvement in religious or political activities in universities,

etc.) behavior (smoking prohibition in university). Sometimes written guidelines are provided regarding

these norms, while on other occasions they are learned through everyday conversation. For example, in

Sherif's Robber's Cave experiments norms were developed in "Rattlers" and "Eagles" soon after

construction of their groups. Social norms increase conformity and reduce deviancy within group. They

also enhance performance by rewarding efficiency, effort, and quality.

Social roles are clusters of socially defined expectations that individuals in a given situation are expected to

fulfill. Sometime social roles evolve during group interaction; sometime people import their role into their

new group that they enjoyed playing in previous groups.

Social status refers to social position based on prestige and authority and distribution of power among

members. You can tell who has higher status in a group by paying attention to verbal and nonverbal

behavior. Usually people with higher status maintain great eye contact, stand more erect, are more likely to

criticize and command, and not only speak more but are also spoken to more. The social status often is

ascribed rather than earned. There are many advantages to having high status in a group. These people have

high self-esteem, are better liked by others, and are more satisfied with their group relations. However, in

case of bad decisions causing negative group consequences, they are judged rather harshly.

Cohesiveness refers to forces that cause members to remain in a group. As group cohesiveness increases,

people feel, think, and act more like group members and less like isolated members. This cohesiveness

allows the group to exert its influence on members, which increases productivity.

Positive factors associated with cohesiveness:

� Liking of members for each other

� Extent to which members act effectively together

� Success of group in meeting goals

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Negative factors associated with cohesiveness:

� Cost of Leaving

� Lack of Alternatives

� Group influence on individual behavior

Group affecting individuals

The following three phenomena can occur with minimal interaction (minimal group situation)

Social facilitation

An individual performing an activity in the presence of an audience

Social loafing

An individual performing an activity as part of a larger group of performers

Deindividuation

May occur in crowded, anonymous situations when people lose a sense of responsibility for their own

actions and feel free to express aggressive and sexual impulses

Social Facilitation

� The enhancement of dominant responses due to the presence of others

� Norman Triplett (1897) conducted one of the first experiments investigating whether the presence

of others enhance performance (cyclists).

� Subsequent studies conducted during the first quarter of the 20th century found that the presence of

others enhances the speed with which people perform simple tasks, but inhibits task efficiency in

more complex tasks (Allport, 1920)

� Observed also in animals (Chen, 1937) such as dogs, rats, fish, birds, and even ants and

cockroaches

Explanations of social facilitation effects

� Drive theory

� Evaluation-apprehension

� Distraction-conflict

� Mere exposure

Drive theory of social facilitation (Zajonce, 1965)

� Researchers attempted to answer that presence of others should affect differently in case of easy

and complex tasks. Zajonce proposed a theory to reconcile the contradictory findings.

�

All animals are genetically predisposed to become physiologically aroused when around

conspecifics (members of one's own species) because they receive most of the rewards and

punishments from them, and have developed an innate arousal response due to their mere presence

�

Correct responses are dominant in case of easy tasks, but correct responses are not dominant in

case of difficult, unless memorized, like math test or learning maze (difficult) vs. clapping (easy).

�

Increased arousal enhances performance on easy task, increased arousal promotes incorrect

responding in case of complex tasks.

�

This, in turn, increases the tendency to make a dominant (well learned) response.

�

If the response correct - social facilitation, if incorrect - inhibition

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Figure 1: Zajonce's theory of social facilitation

Processes Leading to Social Facilitation versus

Social Inhibition

� Zajonc's theory:

If dominant

response correct,

SOCIAL

FACILITATION

Presence

Dominant

If dominant

Arousal

of other s

R esponse

response wrong,

SOCIAL

INHIBITION

Further research to test Zajonce's theory

Two separate meta-analyses of more than 300 experiments involving more than 25,000 participants

confirmed (Bond & Titus, 1983; Guerin, 1986)

Michaels et al. (1982)

� A study of pool players in a college student union

� Unobtrusively identified students either above or below average in their ability to shot (without an

audience present); students' shooting accuracy was recorded.

� Then several rounds with 4 confederates closely watching

� Good players' accuracy in making shots increased (from 71% to 80%) while others observing,

while that of poor performers deteriorated (from 36% to 25%)

� In probably the most novel extension of all, Zajonce demonstrated that facilitation and inhibition

were not limited to humans. He placed cockroaches on either runways (a simple task) or in mazes

(a complex task) and measured their running speed when either alone or in the presence of a gallery

of other roaches. Supporting previous research, the presence of other roaches did indeed facilitate

performance on the runway task, whereas it hampered performance in the mazes.

� We become energized in front of others unless we are self conscious or hyperaroused.

Evaluation apprehension

� Concern over being judged by others (Cottrell, 1972)

Cottrell et al., 1968

� Counter to the `mere-presence' effect

� Performance was evaluated in three different conditions: working alone, in the presence of

confederates working on the same task, in the presence of blindfolded who supposedly were

performing for a perception test

� As compared to being alone, with seeing subjects, participants were having both evaluation

apprehension and mere exposure.

� With blindfolded, however, no evaluation apprehension as blindfolded could not evaluate the

participant's performance.

� If people present, but not evaluating, no social facilitation occurs

Distraction-conflict explanation

� Social facilitation also found in animals. Does this mean that insects worry about other insects

evaluating them? This probability is unlikely.

� Conflict is a well-documented source of arousal, and in such a situation it is the distraction conflict

alone that creates arousal.

� Heightened arousal occurs due to conflict between the task at hand and attending to others in the

immediate surroundings (Baron, 1986)

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

�

Can explain social as well as non-social `distractions' (e.g., loud noises, flashing lights, etc.)

�

Overall, all three theories (drive, evaluation apprehension, and distraction conflict) can contribute

to the explanation of social facilitation/ inhibition

Distraction-conflict theory

Presence of others

or novel stimuli

Distraction

Attention conflict

Heightened

arousal

If dominant

If dominant responses

Enhancement of

responses are

are incorrect in present

Dominant responses

Correct in present

Situation

Performance is

inhibited

enhanced

Mere presence

� Zajonce contends that even without evaluation apprehension and arousing distraction, mere

presence of others produces some arousal.

� People's colour perceptions are stronger when they make judgments with others present (Goldman,

1967)

� Most joggers are energized when jogging with others even without any competition

�

� Current trend in organizations is to have an "open-office plan". Rather than private offices, open

areas are divided with low partitions. The presence of others may boost the performance of well-

learned tasks, but disrupt creative thinking.

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Social Psychology (PSY403)

Activity: Recognizing a group

1. Audience in a large auditorium

2. A family eating dinner together

3. All members of the rotary club

4. Residents of the same dorm

5. Members of a cricket team

6. A construction crew building a highway

7. People riding an elevator together

8. Acquaintances standing in line for tickets

9. All citizens of Pakistan

10. All people in cars waiting to pay their tolls at motorway

11. A mob of protestors at a demonstration

12. Two strangers speaking on the telephone

Note: Those underlined in the above list satisfy the criteria required for considering a collection of

individuals as a group.

Reading

� Franzoi, S. (2003). Social Psychology. Boston: McGraw-Hill. Chapter 10.

Other Readings

� Lord, C.G. (1997). Social Psychology. Orlando: Harcourt Brace and Company. Chapter 8.

� David G. Myers, D. G. (2002). Social Psychology (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.

� Taylor, S.E. (2006). Social Psychology (12th ed.). New York: Prentice Hall.

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