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Group Influence
Question 1: Does the presence of others enhance or diminish performance?
Group Situation
Running a 50 meter
dash.
A group project for
class where
everyone gets the
same grade
Watching your
favorite basketball
team win the NCAA
tournament.
How is behavior
altered by presence of
others?
Work harder
Arousal
Sense of
Responsibility
Concept name
High
High
Social facilitation
Work less hard
Low
Low
Social loafing
Act crazy, uninhibited
High
Low
deindividuation
Social facilitation – the presence of others enhance performance (competitions, recitals, plays, speeches)
Social loafing – the presence of others diminishes performance (group project)
Deindividuation – the presence of others makes one act in unrestrained ways (fans at sports event)
Question 2: Who leans toward more cautious decisions: individuals or groups?
Group polarization – group discussion strengthens a group’s dominant point of view and produces a shift toward a
more extreme decision in that direction
groupthink – members of a group emphasize concurrence at the expense of critical thinking in arriving at a decision
Factors that contribute to groupthink:
1. high degree of group cohesiveness (people in the group like each other and the group)
2. group works in isolation
3. individual members don’t share information unique to them
4. high decision stress
5. Dominating leadership
6. lack of standard procedures for appraisal
Question 3: What is the best way persuade someone of your beliefs?
Persuasion – Two methods of persuading others:
 Central route to persuasion – the person ponders the content and logic of message.
o Example: You should buy this car because __________________________________________
 ____________________________________ -- the individual is encouraged to not look at the content of the
message, but at the source. Factors such as the attractiveness and expertise of the source, the mere number of
the arguments presented, stimuli such as music played with the ad, and _________________.
o Example: You should buy this type of car because _____________________________________
Attitudes changed through the __________________ route to persuasion are strong, stable, predictive of behavior
and resistant to change, while attitudes formed through the ___________________ route are weak. However, the
central route requires active processing. Thus, the peripheral route is more effective when the subject doesn’t want to
put forth the effort to process (such as for low-impact decisions, like what shoes to wear today).
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Normative social influence - influence resulting from a desire to gain approval of others.
Informational social influence - influence resulting from one’s willingness to accept others’ opinions