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Group Influence
Social Psychology
by David G. Myers 9th Edition
Group Influence
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
What Is a Group?
Group Influence
• Group
– We are all involved in
groups
– Two or more people
– Interact with and influence
each other
• Intellectuals hang out with
other intellectuals
• Deviants hang out with
other deviants
– Perceive one another as
“us”
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Groups
Group Influence
• How do you think groups affect our
attitudes?
• Do groups influence individuals or do
individuals influence groups?
– Example: Do people who are deviant seek out
deviant groups, or do they become deviant
because they are part of the deviant group?
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Social Facilitation
Group Influence
•
The presence of others
– Triplett (1898): noticed that
cyclists pedaled faster when up
against other cyclists, than when
up against the clock.
– People also figure out
multiplication problems and are
more accurate in the presence of
others
– This effect has been found for
animals also
– The presence of others may also
hinder performance: learning
nonsense syllables, mazes, and
performing complex
multiplication.
– Zajonc (1965) arousal enhances
performance on easy or dominant
tasks
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Social Facilitation
Group Influence
• Crowding: The presence of many others
• We are aroused in the presence of others
– Having your extended family attend your first piano
performance probably will not boost your performance
– Being in a crowd intensifies positive or negative
reactions
• When they sit together friendly people are liked even more,
and unfriendly people are disliked even more
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Social Facilitation
Group Influence
• Why are we aroused in the presence of others?
• Evaluation apprehension: we wonder how others are
evaluating us
• Driven by distraction: when we wonder how co-actors are
doing or how the audience is reacting we become distracted.
The conflict between paying attention to others or the task
overloads our system, causing arousal.
• Mere presence: just the mere presence of someone causes
arousal
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Social Facilitation
Group Influence
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Group Work
Group Influence
• What are your thoughts on group work?
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Social Loafing
Group Influence
Social Loafing: the tendency for people to exert less
effort when they pool their efforts toward a
common goal than when they are individually
accountable
• Many hands make light work:
– Ringelmann researched tug of war efforts and found
that group members may be less motivated when
performing additive tasks.
– Ingham: people pulled 18% harder when they thought
they were pulling alone
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Social Loafing
Group Influence
• Social loafing in everyday life:
– Assembly line workers produced 16% more
when their individual output was identified
– People tend to slack off when their efforts are
not individually measured or rewarded
– However, on challenging tasks people may
perceive their efforts as indispensible
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Social Loafing
Group Influence
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Social Facilitation or Social Loafing?
Group Influence
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Deindividuation
Group Influence
• Doing together what we would not do alone
– Group size: a group can arouse its members, but also to render
them unidentifiable
– Physical anonymity:
• The KKK
• When asked to deliver an electric shock, women wearing white
coats and hoods pressed the button twice as long as women who
were visible and had name tags.
– Arousing and distracting activities
• Aggressive outbursts by large groups are often by minor actions
that arouse and divert people’s attention
• Diminished self-awareness: group experiences that
diminish self-awareness tend to disconnect behavior
from attitude
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Group Polarization
Group Influence
• Group polarization: group produced enhancement
of members’ preexisting tendencies
• The case of the “risky shift”
– Group decisions are usually riskier in some situations
• Do groups intensify opinions?
– Group polarization experiments
• Discussion can strengthen attitudes
– Group polarization in everyday life:
• In everyday life people associated mostly with those whose
attitudes are similar to their own
• Do nerds become nerdier and jocks jockier?
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Group Polarization
Group Influence
• Explaining polarization
– Informational influence: group discussions lead
to a pooling of ideas, most of which favor the
dominant view point.
• Active participation may lead to more attitude
change
– Normative influence: we are most persuaded by
people we identify with
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Group Polarization
Group Influence
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Groupthink
Group Influence
• Groupthink: the mode
of thinking 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
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Groupthink
Group Influence
• Symptoms of groupthink:
– Groups can overestimate their group’s might and right
• An illusion of invulnerability
• Unquestioned belief in the group’s morality
– Group members become close-minded
• Rationalization: justify their decisions
• Stereotyped view of the opponent
– The group suffers from pressures of uniformity
•
•
•
•
Conformity pressure
Self-censorship
Illusion of unanimity
Mindguards: some group members protect the group from info that
would call into question the effectiveness and morality of their
decisions
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Groupthink
Group Influence
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
Minority Influence
Group Influence
• Consistency
• Self-confidence
• Defections from the majority
Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.