PS270 Final: final soc
Chapter 7- Group Influence
Group: "two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceive one
another as 'us'."
• A key feature in this definition is that people in a group are interacting with one another. They are not merely at the
same place at the same time. I
• Members of a group often share goals. For example, members of the animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical
Treatment of Animals) all share the goal of minimizing animal cruelty. If all the members had different goals (such as
people riding on an elevator together) they would most probably not consider themselves a group.
• Groups tend to be interdependent, if something significant happens to one member of a group, other members are
typically affected (to a varying degree).
o Consider the significance of one person in your study group not pulling his or her weight on the projects.
Because your group is interdependent and shares some goals it is probably going to impact you and your
emotional reaction is intensified because of the group affiliation.
Greenberg and Baron (1993) found that people joined groups for three major reasons:
1. To fulfill their psychological and social needs of belonging and affection.
2. To achieve secondary goals such as learning new things, increasing their feelings of security against their enemies and
to perform acts they could not be successful in as individuals.
• With our example of PETA, many of the members joined to help the plight of animals and felt they could
achieve more as part of a group than as an individual. By joining PETA they increase their chances of
achieving their goals.
3. To help develop a positive social identity. If someone is a member of many well-known and respected groups, others
will most likely respect him or her for his or her participation in these groups. This leads to a positive self-image, which
is very important to self-esteem. This provides an explanation as to why people get so upset when a group they belong
to is perceived negatively!
The groups that we belong to tend to have certain things in common.
1. They typically range from 2-6 members
2. They tend to be alike in terms of age, sex, beliefs, and opinions because they attract people who are similar and
like-minded
3. They tend to have some degree of group cohesiveness. Cohesiveness refers to the qualities that bind the group
together to create a sense of 'we' among the members. The more cohesive a group is, the more its members are
likely to want to stay a part of the group, participate in the group's activities, and recruit others who are similar.
Social Facilitation
• Originally defined as "the tendency of people to perform simple or well-learned tasks better when others are present
o Allport (1920) asked participants to come up with as many associations with a word as possible and found that 93
percent of participants came up with more words when completing the task in front of others than when
participants completed the experiment alone. These findings gave support to the theory that people tend to perform
better on simple tasks when there are others present.
o Later researchers who explored this topic began to find that social facilitation had an effect only some of the time.
o To explain these mysterious findings, Robert Zajonc developed the Drive Theory of Social Facilitation - a theory
suggesting that the mere presence of others is arousing and increases the tendency to perform dominant responses
o A dominant response is the response that is most natural or likely to occur in a given situation.
• This theory accounts for the findings that the presence of others can sometimes be helpful and sometimes be destructive.
• So let's consider the basketball example. Imagine you are an extremely talented player, and can shoot the ball through the
basket over 90% of the time. Since shooting baskets is easy for you, that's the dominant response for you. Now let's say that
I'm the one shooting baskets. I'm not at all good at getting the ball to go into the basket, but when I practise a lot, I can do it
approximately 45% of the time. If I am practising this in front of you, or a basketball coach, I am more likely to miss the
shot because that's the dominant response for me.
•
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Social Facilitation, "the strengthening of dominant (prevalent, likely) responses owing to the presence of others."(Myers,
Spencer, & Jordan, 2012, p. 233).
• So, where does this leave us regarding the final exam? Well, what it suggests is that if you know the material well, such
that it is relatively simple to recall (i.e., your dominant response is answering correctly), then the arousal produced by
the presence of other students should actually be beneficial to your performance and your grade. So you should take the
exam with everyone else. When the task is difficult, however, the dominant response is to answer incorrectly and thus
performance suffers in group
• This actually has an implication for studying the material for the final exam. Given that the material is new and
therefore more difficult when you are learning it for the first time, you should study alone. If you studied in groups, the
arousal caused by the mere presence of others would interfere with both concentration and ultimately with learning.
Three Things That Cause Arousal
1. Mere presence. This refers to the need to be alert in the presence of others, because others might do
something that requires you to react and respond in some way.
• For example, if you are just reading a book on your own, you can focus just on reading, but if you
were reading on a city bus, then you would be more aware of others since you might need to
respond to them in some way. This explains the cockroach behaviour - the cockroach running the
maze needed to worry what another cockroach might do.
2. Distraction. Like mere presence, any source of distraction will put you in a state of conflict, because it is
more difficult to focus on what you're doing when there are people distracting you (by making noise, etc.).
This may have affected the cockroaches in the cockroach experiment. Dividing your attention creates arousal
because it makes it more difficult to concentrate. Other distractions, such as a flashing light, can create the
same social facilitation effects.
3. Evaluation Apprehension. As far as we know, cockroaches don't get nervous in front of other roaches, but
people do. For example, if you are concerned that your performance might be evaluated by others, then this is
going to increase your state of arousal.
• Let's say that you are practicing your basketball shots. If you're doing this by yourself, you can just
concentrate on improving your skill, but if your coach and team-mates are watching you, then you
would likely be aware that your performance is being evaluated, and you could be embarrassed if
you do poorly. This state of heightened arousal is likely going to affect your performance. Whether
it improves it or hinders it depends on what the dominant response is.
Social Loafing
• If you have ever lifted something heavy such as a large piece of furniture or a canoe with a group of people you have
probably noticed that sometimes it seems like you are the only one lifting while other times it feels as though the others
in the group were trying so hard that you barely had to help at all.
Social Loafing is defined as "the tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than
when they are individually accountable."
• In general, social loafing is more likely to occur under certain conditions:
1. When individual output cannot be evaluated (i.e., when the effort of group members is anonymous).
2. When the tasks are low in meaningfulness or personal involvement.
3. When working with strangers
4. When individual group members expect their co-workers to perform well.
5. When their inputs to the collective outcome are redundant with those of other group members (Karau &
Williams, 1993).
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• Collective effort model (CEM), proposed by Karau and Williams (1993). suggests that "social loafing occurs because
individuals expect their effort to be less likely to lead to valued outcomes when working collectively than when
working alone
o When individuals work alone they know that their effort is the only factor affecting the outcome while in a
group there are many other factors that may affect the success of the endeavor. In addition, when people work
alone they are certain they will receive all the rewards of their hard work but when working in a group any
rewards will most likely be evenly divided amongst group members and individual members may not get
their fair share for the effort they put in. This could lead to less motivation for some and social loafing.
Deindividuation
• defined as "the loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster anonymity
and draw attention away from the individual"
o If you are in a group that diffuses personal responsibility social loafing can occur, but something more
ominous can also take place - normal inhibitions can diminish.
o As the phrase "getting lost in the crowd" suggests, individuals can be encouraged to engage in impulsive and
deviant behaviours in these groups that they would never do alone, ranging from food fights in the cafeteria
to turning over cars after a major sporting event, to very destructive and deadly events such as riots and
lynching’s.
o A couple of points to keep in mind when trying to understanding the potential occurrence of deindividuation
are
• The presence of others (or the wearing of disguises or uniforms) can foster anonymity which tends to lower personal
accountability because it reduces the likelihood that any one individual could be singled out and blamed
• The presence of others also lowers self-awareness, so that people's attention is shifted away from their personal moral
standards
• The presence of others is arousing. Deindividuation tends to be a very powerful and disturbing idea because it
suggests that, given the right set of circumstances, anyone is susceptible to deindividuation.
Research into the concept of deindividuation has been equally disturbing.
1. In 1970, Phillip Zimbardo asked female participants to either put on a large name tag or to put on a costume
that made them unidentifiable. When instructed to give shocks to another participant, the women who wore
the costumes gave much longer shocks than did the women who wore name tags. These results suggest that
the women who felt anonymous (in costume) were less inhibited and more willing to perform harmful acts
than those who were highly personalized (with name tags).
2. In 1976, Diener, Fraser, Beaman, and Kelem conducted a field study on Halloween night to assess two
variables thought to be important for deindividuation (anonymity vs nonanonymity, alone vs group).
Approximately 1300 trick-or-treating children were observed unobtrusively to see whether they would steal
candy given the opportunity. In the nonanonymous condition, children were asked their names and where
they lived, while in the anonymous condition children were not asked about their identity. The rationale here
was that if children were asked to identify themselves they would become more self-aware and feel more
responsible for their actions. Children were then invited to take one piece of candy from a full bowl and then
were left alone with the bowl. The hidden observers found that the children who were the most
deindividuated (masked, anonymous, and in groups) stole the most candy.
3. Zimbardo's infamous prison study, conducted in 1971 at Stanford University , represents one of the most
infamous of all social psychology studies ever performed. This study is a powerful demonstration of
deindividuation but it also represents a significant number of other social psychology concepts such as social
roles, social norms, conformity, obedience, authority figures, group dynamics, the use of uniforms, and
ultimately the power of the situation to get average university students into engage in less than honourable
acts of torture and humiliation.
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Document Summary
They are not merely at the same place at the same time. I: members of a group often share goals. For example, members of the animal rights group peta (people for the ethical. Treatment of animals) all share the goal of minimizing animal cruelty. Because your group is interdependent and shares some goals it is probably going to impact you and your emotional reaction is intensified because of the group affiliation. By joining peta they increase their chances of achieving their goals: to help develop a positive social identity. If someone is a member of many well-known and respected groups, others will most likely respect him or her for his or her participation in these groups. This leads to a positive self-image, which is very important to self-esteem. This provides an explanation as to why people get so upset when a group they belong to is perceived negatively!
