1. Group Processes
•Fundamentals of Groups
•Individuals & Groups
•Group Performance
•Conflict

2. • I Fundamentals of Groups

3. Group- two or more people, who for
longer than a few moments, interact
and influence one another and perceive
one another as “us”.
Collectives & assemblages- gym
membership, etc…

4. Joining Groups
• Meet the demands of life.
• Innate social need (social brain
hypothesis)
• Personal & social identity
• Fear of isolation (being alone)

5. • Tuckman’s Stages of Group Development (1965)
1. Forming- members get to know each other.
2. Storming- Members try to shape the group to fit their personal
needs.
3. Norming- Members attempt to reconcile and compromise
4. Performing- members adopt their assigned roles & try to
carry those roles out.
5. Adjourning- Members distance themselves from the group
when the group costs more than the benefits that are yielded.

6. • Roles- set of expected behaviors.
• Formal or informal
The more ambiguous one’s role, the
worse one’s performance (Lu et al.,
2008)

7. • Abillities & Roles (Woolley, 2007)
• Participants work in 2 person teams.
• One member works on an object identification task, the other on
a sptial relationship task.
• Three teams: Homogenous, Incongruent, congruent.
• Homogenous team- two individuals both good at the same task.
• Incongruent team- two people, both good at the other person’s
task.
• Congruent team- two members, both matched roles to strengths
• Congruent teams performed significantly better.

8. • Norms- rules of conduct for members
• Formal or informal
• A group norm for individualism can be
formed, resulting in members who
conform to the norm of not conforming
(McAuliffe, 2003).

9. • Cohesiveness- feelings of intimacy,
unity, and commitment to group goals
that brings group members together.

10. • Mullen & Cooper (1994) found stronger
evidence that performance affects
cohesiveness than cohesiveness
affects performance. We more often
bond because we win, not win because
we bond.

11. • Culture (collectivist/individualist)
• Nibler & Harris (2003)
• 5, 2 person groups, strangers, 1 from China &
1from US.
• Asked to rank 15 items to be taken on a
lifeboat.
• CONFLICT & DISAGREEMENT
• China/US disagreement interfered with group
performance.
• US/US groups, viewed as debate & freedom
of expression.

12. • II Individuals in Groups

13. • Social Facilitation- presence of others
enhances performance on easy tasks,
but impairs performance on difficult
tasks.
• Triplett (1897) bicycle racing.

14. • Robert Zajonc (1965) on individual
performance within a group:
• Presence of others creates arousal.
• Arousal decreases performance on
tasks that one is not excellent at &
increases performance on tasks that
one is excellent at.

15. • People relate to TV characters.
• Knowles (2008) People demonstrated
social facilitation with a photo of their
favorite TV character present.
• Catrambone (2007) demonstrated
social facilitation with virtual person.

16. Other theories of Social Facilitation
• Mere Presence Theory- mere presence of
another.
• Evaluation apprehension theory- social
facilitation only occurs when being judged.
• Distraction-Conflict theory- social facilitation
effects only present if interference &
distraction from evaluator.

17. • Social Loafing- A group produced
reduction in individual output on tasks
where contributions are pooled.
• 1880s Ringelmann (France) found that farm
production decreased when working in groups.
• Ingham (1974) in a rope pulling task, subjects pulled
20% harder when they thought they were alone.
• Latané (1979) social loafing term originators: people
cheered & clapped louder if the were the only fan at
an event.

18. How to reduce social loafing.
People believe their performance is identifiable.
Task is important to the individual.
Group anticipates punishment for poor performance.
Small group.
High group cohesiveness.
CYBERLOAFING- personal web-surfing at work.

19. • Collective Effort Model
People will put forth an effort to the
degree that they feel their effort is
important.
(Karau & Williams, 2001)
Sucker Effect -people put in less effort
when they see others loafing.

20. Culture & Social Loafing
Universal but less common in collectivist
cultures.

21. Deindividuation
Loss of a sense of individuality and reduction of
normal constraints on behavior. (Festinger,
1952)
Zimbardo (1969) reduced feelings of
responsibility when in a group.
ARROUSAL+ANONYMITY= REDUCED
SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY

22. Prentice-Dunn & Rogers (1983)
Two cues for deviant behavior:
Accountability cues
Attentional cues
If accountability is low & attention is on
something other than self, mob
mentality occurs.

23. Diener & Beaman (1976)
Trick or treaters asked name & address.
Or
Trick or treaters anonymous.
Invited to take 1 item from a bowl.
Group + anonymous = 50% took more
than 1 treat.

24. Social identity model of deindividuation
effects (SIDE)-
Model describing the process of shifting
from “I” to “we”.
Can result in good or bad.

25. • III Group Performance

26. Process loss- reduction in group
performance due to group processes,
dynamics, or structure (Steiner, 1972).
Additive task- performance sum of all.
Conjunctive task -worst performing
individual.
Disjunctive task - assessed on best
performing group member.

27. Brainstorming
• Attempts to increase performance by
increasing members of a team (two
heads are better than one).
• (Osborn, 1953)
• Express all ideas
• More is better
• All ideas belong to the group
• No good or bad ideas

28. Brainstorming Problems &
Solutions
1. Production blocking- waiting turn, forget or lose
idea. - write down ideas.
2. Free riding- let others do the thinking- keep track of
each members input.
3. Evaluation apprehension- fear of ridicule for ideas -
anonymous idea suggestion.
4. performance matching- work only as hard as
others work. - share other’s ideas with the group to
motivate.

29. Group Polarization
• Majority idea highjack the meeting.
Initial majority attitudes determine ideas
& outcomes that are supported or
rejected by the group.

30. Groupthink
• The desire to agree & have a good
feeling in the group leads to agreeing
on mediocre ideas.

31. Escalation Effects
• Becoming more committed to a failling
idea to justify the resources already
invested in it.
• “Saving face” by “staying the course”.
• The honor of commitment & sticking to
one’s ideals.
• Foolish consistency.