Group Processes

1. Group Processes • October 14th, 2009 : Lecture 10

2. Group Processes • Groups • Destructive Groups (“cults”) • Deindividuation • Social Facilitation and Social Loafing • Group Decision Making • Decision Making in Juries • Leadership

3. Types of Groups • Differentiating elements of Nonsocial vs Social Groups: • Interaction • Interdependence

4. Social Groups • Groups have social norms to guide behavior • Groups have well-defined social roles • Vary in level of group cohesiveness

5. Social Norms • The implicit or explicit rules of a group about the acceptable behaviours, values, and beliefs of its members • Group members are expected to conform to these norms • Members who deviate from norms are punished or rejected UC Berkeley’s “Naked Guy”

6. Social Roles • Shared expectations about how particular group members should behave • Potential costs: • Individual personality may be taken over by power of role • Violation of social roles meets with censure from other group members

7. Group Cohesiveness • The degree to which a group IS or IS PERCEIVED TO BE close knit and similar • Promotes liking and ingroup favouritism • Affects stereotyping of the group by outsiders

8. Destructive Cults • A group of great devotion to a person/idea/thing that employs unethical techniques of manipulation or control

9. Jim Jones and “The People’s Temple” • November 18th, 1978 • Rep. Ryan and party are gunned down • Jones orchestrates mass suicide • Fruit punch is laced with potassium-cyanide • 913 people drink punch • 276 children

10. Destructive Cults • Defining characteristics: • Charismatic leader(s) • Leaders are self-appointed • The leader is the focus of veneration • Group culture tends toward totalitarianism • Group usually has 2 or more sets of ethics • Group presents itself as innovative and exclusive • Main goals: Recruitment & Fundraising

11. Deindividuation • The state in which a person loses the sense of him or herself as an individual • Occurs: • In crowds • When physically anonymous • Group chanting or stomping

12. Effects of Deindividuation • Brandon Vedas, a 21 year-old man in a chatroom • Took a fatal overdose of pills while others egged him on

13. Social Facilitation and Social Loafing • Effects of groups on individual performance • Created by an interaction of three factors: • Individual Evaluation • Arousal • Task complexity

14. Social Facilitation • Tendency for performance to be: • improved when doing well-learned or dominant behaviours in the presence of others • inhibited when doing less practised or difficult tasks in the presence of others

15. Social Loafing • Tendency for people to perform worse on simple tasks and better on complex tasks if they are in a group and not being individually evaluated

16. Social Loafing • Tendency for people to perform worse on simple tasks and better on complex tasks if they are in a group and not being individually evaluated

17. Evaluation • Evaluation Apprehension • Concern about being judged/evaluated • Socio-evaluative Threat • Extreme Evaluation Apprehension • Body responds with the stress hormone, cortisol • Cortisol constricts blood vessels in hippocampus, inhibiting memory and linguistic complexity

18. Putting it All Together • Evaluation, Arousal, and Task Complexity ... • How do they contribute to Social Facilitation and Social Loafing?

19. Arousal Relaxation Evaluation Apprehension Impaired Performance on Complex Tasks Enhanced Performance on Simple Tasks Impaired Performance on Simple Tasks Enhanced Performance on Complex Tasks Complex Complex Simple Simple No Evaluation Apprehension Putting it all Together Evaluation Arousal Task Complexity Presence of Others

20. Group Decision Making • Group Polarization • Group Think • Jury Decision Making

21. Group polarization • Tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of their members • Can be a shift to either greater risk or greater caution • Has both informational and normative explanations

22. Group Think • “A mode of thinking that people engage in when they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when the members' strivings for unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative courses of action” • Extreme form of Group Polarization

23. Challenger Disaster • January 28, 1986, 11:39am • Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian to go into space • Many children watched the lift off in schools

24. Rogers Commission “A launch should be canceled if there is any doubts of its safety” -NASA policy • Day before launch, engineers warn about O-rings • Never tested below 53ºF • Launch would be around 40ºF • Engineers’ warnings suppressed • O-ring warning never mentioned to higher-ups

25. Characteristics of Group Think Antecedents Symptoms Consequences • Highly cohesive • Isolation • Directive leader • High stress • Non-structured decision-making procedures • Illusion of invulnerabilityGroup is morally correctOut-group is stereotypedSelf-censorshipPressure for conformityIllusion of unanimityMindguards • Incomplete survey of alternativesFailure to look at risks of favored alternativesPoor information searchNo contingency plans

26. Exploding Whale • Group Think at its Viral Video Best

27. preventing Group Think • Apriori assign someone to play “Devil’s Advocate” • Everyone must know that this person was assigned this role • Leader remains impartial • Seek feedback from people outside the group • Begin by creating subgroups which suggest ideas to the group as a whole • Anonymous opinions from group members (e.g., ballots)

28. Jury Decision Making • Group Decision Making and Juries • Value of Unanimity • 12 person versus 6 person juries

29. Jury Decision Making • Group Polarization and Group Think • Across 200 jury trials, 97% of juries ended with the decision favoured by majority on the initial vote • Called “Predeliberation Errors” • Cascade Effect • Judgements of initial speakers shape successors, who do not disclose what they know or think

30. Unanimous Decisions • Requirement of Unanimity forces group to be extra cohesive • Group Think is amplified • HOWEVER, lack of unanimity requirement increases rates of guilty verdicts • Just World Hypothesis applied to a defendent • Predeliberation errors are biased toward belief of defendant's guilt

31. Jury Composition • How many people are ideal? • 6-person vs. 12-person juries • 6 person juries convict more often • 12-person juries acquit or are “hung” more often • 12-person juries are more likely to have a dissenter

32. Leadership • Who Should Lead? • Who Does Lead?

33. Who Should Lead? • Anyone, really • “Great Person Theory” … big bust • Effective leadership uncorrelated with personality • One trait stands out: • Integrative Complexity • The ability to simultaneously hold, consider, and integrate multiple perspectives on an issue

34. Who Does Lead? • All the same, (relative to nonleaders) leaders tend to be: • More intelligent • Socially skilled, charismatic • Driven by power • Adaptive and flexible • Confident in their leadership abilities • Trait dominance

35. Next Lecture (10/16):Emotions • Project on mind and Law at Harvard Law School: • www.thesituationist.com