Transcript Chapter 14: Groups - Donna Vandergrift

Chapter 14 - Groups
• Obedience/Cooperation
• What Groups Are and Do
• Groups, Roles, and Selves
• Group Action
• How Groups Think
• Power and Leadership
Tradeoffs - Prisoner’s Dilemma
• Choice is between cooperative response and
•
•
an antagonistic response
Choice is between what is best for one
person versus what is best for everyone
Non-zero-sum game
Obedience
• Following orders from an authority figure
• Milgram (1963)
– Majority of participants delivered extreme
shocks to a screaming victim in obedience
to an authority figure
The Milgram Experiments:
Results
• Approximately 65% punished learners with
the highest shock intensity (450 volts)
Learners’ Responses
• Learner protests
•
more and more as
shock increases
Experimenter
continues to
request obedience
even if teacher is
unsure
120 “Ugh! Hey this really hurts.”
150 “Ugh! Experimenter! That’s all.
get me out of here. I told you
I had heart trouble. My heart’s
starting to bother me now.”
300 (agonized scream) “I absolutely
refuse to answer any more.
get me out of here You can’t hold
me here. Get me out.”
330 “(intense & prolonged agonized
scream) “Let me out of here.
Let me out of here. My heart’s
bothering me. Let me out,
I tell you…”
Factors in Blind Obedience
• Propaganda
• Socialization
• Lack of Social Comparison
• Perception of legitimate authority
• The foot-in-the-door technique
• Inaccessibility of values
• Buffers
Obedience
• Milgram’s research represented obedience as
•
•
a negative (negative outcome)
Without obedience, society would not function
Obedience fosters
– Social acceptance
– Group life
What Groups Are
• Groups are two or more people doing or
being something together
– Groups feel similar to one another
– Presence of an outgroup
– Direct interactions with each other over a
period of time
– Joint membership in a social category
based on sex, race, or other attributes
– A shared, common fate, identity, or set of
goals
What Groups Do
• In human evolution
– Safety in numbers
– Help others find food
– Accomplish tasks that are too difficult for
the individual
Why Join a Group?
• The complexities and ambitions of
•
•
human life
require that we work in groups
Humans have an innate need to belong to
groups
– Social brain hypothesis
May not only protect against physical threat,
but also help gain personal and social identity
Stages of Group Development
What Groups Do
• Cultural groups
– Preserve information and pass it along to
future generations
– Use information to organize themselves
– Benefit from role differentiation and division
of labor
Group Roles
• People’s roles in a group can be formal or
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•
informal.
Two fundamental types of roles:
– An instrumental role to help the group
achieve its tasks
– An expressive role to provide emotional
support and maintain morale
Beneficial to match roles to each member’s
characteristics and skill set
Groups, Roles and Selves
• One main function of a group is to accomplish
something.
• Having unique roles help us work together
• Roles are defined by the system; exist
independent of the person in that role
• People need to be flexible to take on and
drop roles
Groups, Roles, and Selves
• Deindividuation vs. Differentiation
•
•
– Is it best to be anonymous or openly
identified?
Example
– Voting – We keep our vote private to
protect ourselves
Problems with Deindividuation
– Aggression, Antisocial behavior
– Individual beliefs become lost
Groups, Roles, and Selves
• Optimal distinctiveness theory
•
– Tension between the need to be similar to
group members and distinctive from them
– If we feel too similar, we try to become
different. If we feel too different, we try to
become similar.
Identifying people in groups and holding them
accountable produces better results
Deindividuation and Mob Violence
• Problems with Deindividuation
•
•
– Aggression, Antisocial behavior
– Individual beliefs become lost
Deindividuation can lead to antisocial behavior
– Being anonymous to outsiders makes
people more willing to violate norms
– Stop worrying about what others think of
them – more willing to behave badly
Accountability is best predictor of aggression
Deindividuation Theory
• Deindividuation theory is a social
•
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psychological account of the individual in the
crowd
Deindividuation is a psychological state of
decreased self-evaluation, causing antinormative and disinhibited behavior
Zimbardo, Haney, Banks, & Jaffe (1973)
– One of the all-time great psychological
experiments
– Illustrates deindividuation
Question…
If you could be totally invisible for 24 hours and
were completely assured that you would not
be detected or held responsible for your
actions, what would you do?
Stanford Prison Experiment
• Thirty years ago, a
group of young men
were rounded up by
Palo Alto police and
dropped off at a new
jail -- in the Stanford
Psychology
Department
These were just like real arrests…
•
•
On a quiet Sunday
morning... each was
arrested for violation of
Penal Codes 211, Armed
Robbery or Burglary, a 459
PC
Some arrested still vividly
remember the shock of
having neighbors come out
to watch the commotion as
TV cameras recorded the
hand-cuffing for the
“nightly news”
The deindividuation process starts
• Guards
– Uniforms
– “Weapons”
– Glasses
• Prisoners
– Stripped
– Numbered
– Humiliating attire
Treated poorly from the start…
• Strip searched,
sprayed for lice and
locked up with chains
around their ankles,
the "prisoners" were
part of an experiment
to test people's
reactions to power
dynamics in social
situations
Don’t mess with us…
• Other college student
volunteers -- the
"guards" -- were
given authority to
dictate 24-hour-a-day
rules
Soon, they were humiliating the prisoners
And it got worse and worse…
It didn’t take long…
• Less than 36 hours
into the experiment,
Prisoner #8612
began suffering from
acute emotional
disturbance,
disorganized
thinking,
uncontrollable crying,
and rage…he was
released
A final note…
• No guards left the experiment – most seemed
•
to enjoy it
The prisoners were abused – some sobbed
their way out
It’s all in the “uniform”?
• Does the traditional police
or military uniform
bring about a sense of deindividuation?
When else do people wear uniforms?
Group Norms
• Groups establish norms or rules of conduct
•
for members.
Norms may be either formal or informal.
Group Cohesiveness
• The forces exerted on a group that push its
•
members closer together.
Cohesiveness and group performance are
causally related.
– But relationship is complex
Individuals in Groups:
The Presence of Others
Groups Action
• Theory of social facilitation (Zajonc, 1965)
– Presence of others increases arousal
– Arousal increases dominant response
– Triplett’s study of cyclists
• Presence of others can improve people’s
performance, especially familiar, easy tasks
Groups Action
• Theory of social facilitation (Zajonc, 1965)
– Social Inhibition
– Presence of others increases arousal
– Arousal decreases a non-dominant
response
– Study of cockroaches (1969)
• Presence of others can decrease people’s
performance on unfamiliar, difficult tasks
Social Loafing
“Free Rider Problem”
• Ringelmann (1913)
– Farm workers – as number of workers
increased, output did not increase as much.
• People reduce effort when working in a group
– Not individually identified or accountable
– Not wanting to be a ‘sucker’
– Bad apple effect
Social Loafing
“Free Rider Problem”
• Loafing is more likely to occur
•
– When members are deindividuated: No
individual accountability
– When others are loafing
– In men
Loafing is less likely to occur
– When one’s cooperation is unique to the
group
– When the group is meaningful & cohesive
Punishing Cheaters and Free Riders
• Altruistic punishment
– People will sometimes sacrifice their own
gain, to benefit all, by punishing free riders
– Goes against Economic theory which
suggest we want to maximize our payoffs
• May be considered guarding the culture
– Culture depends on a system; cheat the
system, ruin it for all
Shared Resources and
the Commons Dilemma
• Costs of private ownership
– Inequality
– Ambition, greed
• Cost of communal ownership
– Lack of preserving care
– Commons dilemma
• Squandering of shared resources
Shared Resources and
the Commons Dilemma
• Conflicts within commons dilemma
•
– Social conscience versus selfish impulse
– Time (Now versus tomorrow)
Factors influencing commons dilemma
– Communication
– Behavior of others
How Groups Think
• Brainstorming
– A form of creative thinking
– People enjoy the process and evaluate it
favorably
– Individuals want to participate in
brainstorming
– BUT: Output is lower than individuals
working alone
Group Decision Making
• Most major decisions in the world are made by
groups
– United Nations, Courts (e.g. U.S. Supreme Court)
– Elected bodies (e.g. Parliament, Congress)
– Presidents rarely make decisions completely alone
• WHY?
• Are groups always better than single individuals?
– Huge scientific literature on exactly this question!
Group Decision Making
• Collective wisdom of group is better than
individual experts
– People must act as independent members
of a group and share their diverse
information
Teams/Committees
• Many people believe teams
– Make better decisions
– Improve performance
• People enjoy working on teams
– Satisfies their need to belong
– Feel confident, effective and superior
Groupthink
• Tendency of group members to think alike
– Specifically group clings to shared but
flawed view rather than being open to the
truth (Janus, 1972, 1982)
– Based in desire to get along (Normative
Social Influence)
Groupthink
• Probably most famous process loss
• Definition: people begin to value group
•
cohesiveness and solidarity more than the
need to consider the facts in a realistic
manner.
Can lead to disastrous decisions
– JFK’s decision to invade Cuba
– Challenger disaster (1986)
– Possibly, Columbia accident (2003)
The road to groupthink
Antecedents
– Group is (already)
cohesive
– Isolated
– Directive leader
– Stress
– Poor decision-making
rules
Symptoms
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Illusion of invulnerability
Moral certainty
Stereotyped view of outgroup
Self-censorship
Direct pressure to conform
Illusion of unanimity
Mindguards
Defective decision making
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Incomplete survey of alternatives
Failure to examine risks of favored alternative
Poor information search
Few contingency plans
Groupthink
• Factors that encourage groupthink
– Fairly similar and cohesive group to start
– Strong, directive leader
– Group is isolated in some sense from others
– Group regards itself as superior
– High Stress
Groupthink
• Signs of groupthink
– Pressure toward conformity
– Appearance of unanimous agreement
• Self-censorship
– Illusion of invulnerability
– Sense of moral superiority
– Tendency to overestimate opponents
Avoiding Groupthink
• Leader should be nondirective
• Norm of openness should be established
• Outside evaluators should make
unannounced visits to observe group
dynamics
Group Polarization and Risky Shift
• Risky shift
– Group is willing to take greater risks than
individuals (on average)
• Group polarization effect
– Movement toward either extreme (risk or
caution) resulting from group discussion
Committees
• Why aren’t committees effective?
– The desire for group harmony stifles free
exchange of information
– Focus on common knowledge rather than
unique information people have
Committees
• How can they be effective?
– Respect each other’s knowledge
– Share individual knowledge
– Allow each member to be individually
responsible for one task / piece of
information
Leadership
• Defining a leader
– someone who holds a formal position of
authority
– someone who is identified as such by the
group members
– someone who has impact on the group
• transformational leadership describes
this last characteristic
Leadership Functions
• Task leadership
– getting the job done
• Socioemotional leadership
– maintaining group harmony and
cohesiveness
Measuring Leadership Effectiveness
• Production
– is the job getting done?
• Satisfaction
– are the group members happy?
• Impact
– does the leader move the group toward
achieving its goals?
Great Person Approach to
Leadership
• “Great leaders are born to their leadership”
– leaders possess some trait that followers
do not
– height and intelligence are examples
– extraversion, conscientiousness, flexibility
predict the emergence of leaders
Situational Explanations for
Leadership
• Situational factors influence the selection of a
leader
– seating arrangements
– external threat
– seniority
Leadership: Person X Situation
Interaction
• Contingency model of leadership
effectiveness
– the effectiveness of a particular style
of leadership is dependent on
situational factors
Leadership
• Traits of successful leaders
•
– Humble and modest
– Extreme persistence
Traits of people perceived as good leaders
– Decisive
– Competent at group tasks
– Possess integrity
– Honest and good moral character
– Have vision
Power
• One person’s control over another
• Many powerful seek additional power
– Relation between power and belongingness
Morgenthau (1963)
Effects of Power on Leaders
• Five crucial effects
– Feels good
– Alters attention to rewards and punishment
– Changes the relationships between people
– Makes people rely more on automatic
processing
– Removes inhibitions against taking action
Effects of Power on Followers
• Followers pay extra attention to the powerful
•
•
person and try to understand him/her
People with less power will be prone to
fostering peace and harmony
People low in power adapt to the expectations
of high-power people
Legitimate Leadership
• Maintenance of power is often dependent on
legitimizing myth
– Explanation and justification of why powerful
people deserve to be in power