Social Psychology

6th edition Social Psychology Elliot Aronson University of California, Santa Cruz Timothy D. Wilson University of Virginia Robin M. Akert Wellesley College slides by Travis Langley Henderson State University

Chapter 9 Group Processes: Influence in Social Groups “The only sin which we never forgive in each other is difference of opinion.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson Society and Solitude, 1870

Image ID: 38625, Published in The New Yorker April 23, 1979

What Is a Group? Group Two or more people who interact and are interdependent in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence each other. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Why Do People Join Groups? Groups have a number of other benefits: • Other people can be an important source of information, helping us resolve ambiguity about the nature of the social world. • Groups become an important part of our identity, helping us define who we are. • Groups also help establish social norms.

The Composition and Functions of Groups • Most groups have 2 to 6 members. • This is due in part to our definition of groups as involving interaction between members. • If groups become too large, you cannot interact with all the members. • Group members tend to be alike in age, sex, beliefs, and opinions.

The Composition and Functions of Groups There are two reasons for the homogeneity of groups: • Many groups tend to attract people who are already similar before they join. • Groups tend to operate in ways that encourage similarity in the members.

Social Norms Social Roles Shared expectations in a group about how particular people are supposed to behave. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Social Norms Social Roles Shared expectations in a group about how particular people are supposed to behave. There are potential costs to social roles. For one thing, people can get so far into a role that their personal identities and personalities get lost. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Zimbardo’s Prison Simulation Zimbardo and colleagues randomly assigned male volunteers to play the roles or either guards or prisoners in a 2-week prison simulation experiment. The students quickly assumed these roles—to such an extent that the researchers ended the experiment after only 6 days. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Zimbardo’s Prison Simulation Zimbardo and colleagues randomly assigned male volunteers to play the roles or either guards or prisoners in a 2-week prison simulation experiment. The students quickly assumed these roles—to such an extent that the researchers ended the experiment after only 6 days. Many of the guards became quite abusive, thinking of creative ways of verbally harassing and humiliating the prisoners. The prisoners became passive, helpless, and withdrawn. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Prison Abuse at Abu Ghraib In 2004, it came to light that American military guards had been abusing prisoners in Abu Ghraib, a prison in Iraq. A report written by U. S. Major General Taguba, who investigated the claims of abuse, documented numerous cases of physical beatings, sexual abuse, and psychological humiliation. The American public was shocked by pictures of U. S. soldiers smiling as they stood in front of naked Iraqi prisoners, as if they were posing in front of local landmarks for the folks back home.

Prison Abuse at Abu Ghraib Did a few bad apples happen to end up in the unit guarding the prisoners? “What's bad is the barrel,” Zimbardo argued. The military guards at Abu Ghraib were under tremendous stress, had received little supervision, and were asked to set their own rules for interrogation. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Prison Abuse at Abu Ghraib Did a few bad apples happen to end up in the unit guarding the prisoners? “What's bad is the barrel,” Zimbardo argued. This is not to say that the soldiers should be completely excused for their actions. The abuse came to light when one of the guards reported what was happening, and as in Zimbardo’s study, there were some guards who treated the prisoners well. The military guards at Abu Ghraib were under tremendous stress, had received little supervision, and were asked to set their own rules for interrogation.

Gender Roles All societies have expectations about how people who occupy the roles of women and men should behave. Source of images: Microsoft Office Online.

Gender Roles Changing roles cause conflict. They can even affect our personalities. Source of images: Microsoft Office Online.

Women’s ratings of assertiveness have mirrored societal trends: • As women’s role in the United States changed from independent to dependent, their ratings of assertiveness dropped. • Then, as they became more independent, their ratings of assertiveness increased.

Group Cohesiveness Group Cohesiveness Qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking between members.

Group Cohesiveness Group Cohesiveness Qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking between members. 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 new like-minded members.

Group Cohesiveness • If a task requires close cooperation between the group members, such as a football team executing a difficult play, cohesiveness helps performance. • If maintaining good relations among group members seems more important than finding good solutions to a problem, however, cohesiveness can get in the way of optimal performance. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Groups and Individuals’ Behavior Do you act differently when other people are around? Simply being in the presence of other people can have a variety of interesting effects on our behavior. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Social Facilitation: When the Presence of Others Energizes Us Social Facilitation The tendency for people to do better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when they are in the presence of others and their individual performance can be evaluated. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Social Facilitation: When the Presence of Others Energizes Us The presence of others can mean one of two things: (1) Performing a task with co-workers who are doing the same thing you are, or (2) Performing a task in front of an audience that is not doing anything but observing you.

Social Facilitation: When the Presence of Others Energizes Us Dozens of studies have been done on the effects of the mere presence of other people, involving human beings as well as other species, such as ants and birds. The findings of these studies are remarkably consistent: As long as the task is a relatively simple, well-learned one—as escaping a light is for cockroaches—the mere presence of others improves performance.

Social Facilitation: When the Presence of Others Energizes Us In one of the first social psychology experiments ever done, Norman Triplett (1898) asked children to wind up fishing line on a reel, either by themselves or in the presence of other children. They did so faster when in the presence of other children than when by themselves. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Simple versus Difficult Tasks When working on a more difficult task, however, the opposite pattern of results often occurs: A task can take longer to solve or perform when others are present than when performing alone. Many studies have found that people and animals do worse in the presence of others when the task is difficult.

Arousal and the Dominant Response In an influential article, Robert Zajonc (1965) offered an elegant theoretical explanation for why the presence of others facilitates a well-learned response but inhibits a less practiced or new response. • The presence of others increases physiological arousal (i.e., our bodies become more energized). • When such arousal exists, it is easier to do something that is simple but harder to do something complex or learn something new.

Arousal and the Dominant Response In an influential article, Robert Zajonc (1965) offered an elegant theoretical explanation for why the presence of others facilitates a well-learned response but inhibits a less practiced or new response. • The presence of others increases physiological arousal (i.e., our bodies become more energized). • When such arousal exists, it is easier to do something that is simple but harder to do something complex or learn something new. This phenomenon became known as social facilitation: The tendency to do better on simple tasks and worse on complex tasks when are in the presence of others and when individual performance can be evaluated.

Why the Presence of OthersCauses Arousal Researchers have developed three theories to explain the role of arousal in social facilitation: • Other people cause us to become particularly alert and vigilant. • They make us apprehensive about how we’re being evaluated. • They distract us from the task at hand.

Why the Presence of OthersCauses Arousal • Other people cause us to become particularly alert and vigilant. Because other people can be unpredictable, we are in a state of greater alertness in their presence. This alertness, or vigilance, causes mild arousal.

Why the Presence of OthersCauses Arousal • They make us apprehensive about how we’re being evaluated. When other people can see how you are doing, you feel like they are evaluating you. Evaluation apprehension can cause mild arousal.

Why the Presence of OthersCauses Arousal • They distract us from the task at hand. Divided attention produces arousal, as any parent knows who has ever tried to read the newspaper while his or her 2-year-old clamors for attention. Consistent with this interpretation, nonsocial sources of distraction, such as a flashing light, cause the same kinds of social facilitation effects as the presence of other people.

Social Loafing: When the Presence of Others Relaxes Us When people are in the presence of others, however, their individual efforts often cannot be distinguished from those of the people around them. These situations are just the opposite of the kinds of social facilitation settings we have just considered. In social facilitation, the presence of others puts the spotlight on you, making you aroused. But if being with other people means we can merge into a group, becoming less noticeable than when we are alone, then we should become relaxed.

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. The question of how working with others would influence performance on such a task was first studied in the 1880s by a French agricultural engineer, Max Ringelmann (1913). He found that when a group pulled on a rope, each individual exerted less effort than when doing it alone. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Arousal enhances performance on simple tasks but impairs performance on complex tasks. By the same reasoning, becoming relaxed impairs performance on simple tasks—as we have just seen—but improves performance on complex tasks.

In a review of more than 150 studies of social loafing, the tendency to loaf was found to be stronger in men than in women. Women tend to be higher than men in relational interdependence, which is the tendency to focus on and care about personal relationships with other individuals. Perhaps it is this focus that makes women less likely to engage in social loafing when in groups. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

The tendency to loaf is stronger in Western cultures than Asian cultures, which may be due to the different self-definitions prevalent in these cultures. Asians are more likely to have an interdependent view of the self, which is a way of defining oneself in terms of relationships to other people. This self-definition may reduce the tendency toward social loafing when in groups. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

We should not, however, exaggerate these gender and cultural differences. • Women and members of Asian cultures do engage in social loafing when in groups. • They are just less likely to do so than men or members of Western cultures. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Deindividuation: Getting Lost in the Crowd Deindividuation The loosening of normal constraints on behavior when people can’t be identified (such as when they are in a crowd), leading to an increase in impulsive and deviant acts. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Deindividuation: Getting Lost in the Crowd Throughout history, there have been many examples of groups of people committing horrendous acts that no individual would do on his or her own: • Massacre at My Lai during the Vietnam War. • Mobs of soccer fans sometimes attacking each other. • Hysterical fans at rock concerts who trampled each other to death. • Lynching of African Americans by people cloaked in the anonymity of white robes. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Reason #1: Deindividuation Makes People Feel Less Accountable Deindividuation makes people feel less accountable for their actions because it reduces the likelihood that any individual will be singled out and blamed. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Reason #2: Deindividuation Increases Obedience to Group Norms Meta-analysis of more than 60 studies found that becoming deindividuated increases the extent to which people obey the group’s norms. Meta-analysis of more than 60 studies found that becoming deindividuated increases the extent to which people obey the group’s norms. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Deindividuation Deindividuation does not always lead to aggressive or antisocial behavior. It depends on what the norm of the group is. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Deindividuation in Cyberspace Before blogs and internet chat rooms became popular, angry readers could have written letters to the editor or vented feelings to coworkers at the water cooler. Their discourse would have likely been more civil than that of people who now post comments on blogs, in no small part because people are not anonymous in these settings. (Most newspapers require people to sign letters to the editor.) Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Deindividuation in Cyberspace The internet has provided new ways in which people can communicate with each other anonymously. Just as research on deindividuation predicts, in these settings people often feel free to say things they would never dream of saying if they could be identified. There are advantages to free and open discussion of difficult topics, but the cost seems to be a reduction in common civility. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Group Decisions:Are Two (or More) Heads Better Than One? Most important decisions in the world today are made by groups because it is assumed that groups make better decisions than individuals. In general, groups will do better than individuals if they rely on the person with the most expertise and are stimulated by each other’s comments. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Group Decisions:Are Two (or More) Heads Better Than One? Most important decisions in the world today are made by groups because it is assumed that groups make better decisions than individuals. In general, groups will do better than individuals if they rely on the person with the most expertise and are stimulated by each other’s comments. Several factors can cause groups to make worse decisions than individuals.

Process Loss: When Group Interactions Inhibit Good Problem Solving One problem is that a group will do well only if the most talented member can convince the others that he or she is right. You undoubtedly know what it’s like to try to convince a group to follow your idea, be faced with opposition and disbelief, and then have to sit there and watch the group make the wrong decision.

Process Loss: When Group Interactions Inhibit Good Problem Solving Process loss can occur for a number of reasons: • Groups might not try hard enough to find out who the most competent member is. • The most competent member might find it difficult to disagree with everyone else. • Communication problems can arise. Process Loss Any aspect of group interaction that inhibits good problem solving.

Failure to Share Unique Information Groups tend to focus on the information they share and ignore facts known to only some members of the group. Source of image: Microsoft Office Online.

Social Psychology