Psychology 2070A/B Chapter 8: Textbook Chapter 8
20 Nov 2016
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Chapter 8 – Group Processes
A. What is a Group?
• Group: A collection of 3+ people who interact with one another and are interdependent, in the sense
that their needs and goals cause them to rely on one another.
o Dyad: With only 2 person in the group
o Characteristics
▪ Interact together
▪ Together for a common purpose (e.g. Citizens meeting to solve a community problem)
▪ Interdependent: They are influencing you and you, at the same time, are influencing them
a. Why People Join Groups
• The need to belong
o An innate need for survival
o Consistent with all cultures
• A tool to define who we are and who we expect to be in the future
o Research – James Cameron @ Mount Allison University @ 1999
▪ Ask students how much they agreed w/ statements such as )n a group of Mount Allison
students, ) really feel that ) belong.
▪ The more the students feel like the belong to the group, the higher their self-esteem and
well-being, and the more they believe they could be who they want to be in the future.
• Motivate people to involved in a social change and help establishing social norms
o People who identified most strongly w/ their group were most likely to engage in social action.
b. The Composition and Functions of Groups
• Most social groups range in size from 3~6 members Keep the interaction flows!
o E.g. University is not a social group → Impossible to interact w/ every student.
• Members tend to alike in age, sex, beliefs, and opinions with the reasons that
o Many groups attract people who are already similar before they join
o Groups operate in ways that encourage similarity in the members.
i. Social Norms (A powerful determinant of our behavior)
• Social Norms: Implicit or explicit rules that specify how group members should behave.
ii. Social Roles
• Social Roles: Shared expectations by group members about how particular people, who occupy
certain positions in the group, are supposed to behave.
• Pros: Clear on what to expect from each other → The person tend to be satisfied and perform well.
• Cons: People lost their own personality and personal identity. → Social Roles > Personal Role
o Research – Philip Zimbardo and his colleagues @ Stanford University
▪ Randomly assign students into guards or prisoners, and dressed w/ relative clothing
▪ Results:
• Guards: become abusive, thinking creative ways to verbally harass and humiliate the
prisoners.
• Prisoners: Become passive, helpless and withdrawn
▪ Findings: People embraced their roles to an extent that their personal identities and sense
of decency were lost.
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iii. Gender Roles
• All societies have expectations based on how people who occupy the roles of women and men should
behave. (E.g. women → The role of wife & mother, limited opportunities to pursue other careers)
o Research – Lupaschuk and Yewchuk @ rural community in Alberta @ 1998
▪ Asking children in grades 4~12 imagine what would happen if their gender changed the
next day when they woke up
▪ Findings:
• Occupational aspirations of boys and girls are influence by traditional gender-role
expectations.
• Women are still constrained by the expectations that they will pursue traditional
occupations (i.e. child care and housework)
• Problem: Women earn significantly less than men, and has to work for traditional occupations
o 70% of Part-time worker and 60% of minimum-wage earners, all of which do not come with
employee benefits or job security.
o Less time for housework → Solution: Get husband involved!
▪ The more the husband does chores, the better their wives’ emotional health and boost the
couple’s sex life
iv. Group Cohesiveness
• Group Cohesiveness: Qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking among
them.
o If a group has formed primarily for social reason, the more cohesive the group is.
▪ A group of friends going for movies together vs. A group of strangers going for movies
together.
o The more cohesive a group is, the more its members are likely to stay in the group, take part in
group activities and try to recruit like-minded members.
• Problems: Too focus on getting the cohesiveness and maintaining good relations rather than getting
the problem solved.
B. How Groups influence the Behaviour of Individuals
a. Social Facilitation: When the Presence of Others Energizes Us
• The presence of other people can mean 1 of 2 thing
o Performing a task w/ others who are doing the same thing you are
o Performing a task in front of an audience that is not doing anything except observing you.
• The cockroaches study – Robert Zajonc and colleagues (P. 242 Figure 8.1)
o Placed a bright light at the end of a runway and timed how long it took a roach to escape the light
by running to the other end, where it could scurry into a darkened box
o The experiment is tested w/ audience & will be randomly assigned to simple or complex task
o Result:
▪ Simple Task → Performed the task faster when they were in the presence of other roaches
▪ Complex Task → Performed the task faster when they were alone.
i. Arousal and the Dominant Response
• Reasons behind the result:
o The presence of others increases physiological arousal (i.e. more energized)
o Social Facilitation: The tendency for people to do better on simple task, but worse on complex
tasks, when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated.
▪ A dominant response → Putting the spotlight on you, making you aroused.
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ii. Why the Presence of Others Causes Arousal (P. 244 Figure 8.2)
• 3 Reasons of why the presence of others is arousing → Causing Social Facilitation
o Other people cause us to become particularly alert and vigilant
▪ Worry that he or she will do something that requires us to respond.
o They make us apprehensive about how we are evaluated
▪ Evaluation Apprehension: The worry or anxiety of being judged.
o They distract us from the task at hand
▪ Any source of distraction (e.g. human, noise) will put us in a state of conflict, not sure what
to concentrate on.
• Not necessarily be any real person → Same result for TV character or celebrities.
b. Social Loafing: When the Presence of Others Relaxes Us
• Social Loafing: The tendency for people to do worse on simple tasks, but better on complex tasks,
when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance cannot be evaluated.
o Research – Max Ringelmann @ 1913
▪ Observing a group of men to pull a rope w/ or w/o the presence of others.
▪ Each individual exerting less effort than when he did it alone.
▪ Reason: When our performance in a group cannot be identified, we become more relaxed;
therefore, we are not putting effort for simple task but less tense up for complicated task.
• Solution for Social Loafing: Letting each person to stay anonymous to avoid evaluation apprehension.
o Problem: Increase the quantity but decrease the quality of the suggestion.
i. Gender and Cultural Differences in Social Loafing: Who Slacks off the Most?
• Research – Karau and Williams @ 1993
o Review more than 150 studies of social loafing
o Social Loafing is stronger in
▪ Men → Women tend to be higher than men in relational interdependence
• Relational interdependence: tendency to focus on and care about personal relationships
w/ others.
▪ Western culture: Asians are more likely to have an interdependent view of the self
• Interdependent view of the self: Defining oneself in relation to other people
c. Deindividuation: Getting Lost in the Crowd
• Deindividuation: The loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people are in a group, leading
to an increase in impulsive and deviant acts.
o The more people there were in the mob, the greater the savagery and viciousness with which they
killed their victims, esp. when they stay anonymous.
i. Why does Deindividuation Lead to Impulsive Acts?
• The presence of others, or the wearing of uniforms and disguises, makes people feel accountable
for their actions
o Reduces the likelihood that any individual will be singled out and blamed.
o Increases our aggressiveness
▪ Ask students to play hockey with one group of students wearing uniform and the other
group not. The group of students who wear uniform has higher rate of aggression, esp. when
the color of the uniform is black → Related to evil and death.
• The presence of others self-awareness, causing less attention on their moral standard.
o A difficult to focus inward on ourselves and outward on the world at the same time.
• the extent to which people obey the group’s norms
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