Group Influence Content

(GROUP INFLUENCE) CONTENT OUTLINE What is a group? (Daniel) Group dynamics expert Marvin Shaw (1981) argued that all groups have one thing in common: Their members interact. Therefore, he defines a group as two or more people who interact and who influence one another. A pair of jogging companions, then, would indeed constitute a group. Different groups help us meet different human needs—to affiliate (to belong to and connect with others), to achieve, and to gain a social identity (Johnson et al., 2006). Unlike the great apes, we humans are < the cooperative animal= (Tomasello, 2014). From our early ancestors to the present, we have intentionally collaborated to forage and hunt. Also, they gathered together to establish a small community sharing the same goal but different roles. Basically, a group is two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceive one another as < us.= Group does not limit to classrooms or projects only. We can observe them everywhere such as in politics, businesses, or even in our community itself. It is because people tend to perceive that the more people gathered to achieve a common goal the more powerful and influential it is. Though a group creates issues with other entities, it is still an establishment of trust, authority, cooperation, and individual influences. As such, they are aspects of why a group influences individualities. Social facilitation: How are we affected by the presence of others? (Lyll Faith) ● ● ● ● ● ● Social facilitation can be defined as an improvement in individual performance when there is the presence of other people doing the same task rather than doing it alone (co-actor effect), or by the mere presence of others (audience effect). In an experiment, scientists (Triplett) noticed that cyclists performed better whenever they were in a group as opposed to cycling alone. In another experimental setting where children were asked to wind up some fishing line, Some children worked alone while others completed the task in front of another child. And Triplett observed that the children who were in the presence of others actually worked faster at the time. The influence of other people in your surroundings is significant on your own performance. However, this does not mean that they all lead to better performance of your own because others’ presence sometimes facilitates performance and sometimes hinders it Researchers found that one can only improve their performance when doing simple work, which is either habitual without much complexity, or already well-learned. Social loafing: Do individuals exert less effort in a group? (Kristine) Social Loafing -Social loafing describes the tendency of individuals to put forth less effort when they are part of a group. Because all members of the group are pooling their effort to achieve a common goal, each member of the group contributes less than they would if they were individually responsible. -Social loafing is the perceived psychological phenomenon that team members do less in a group setting. The social loafing effect states that individuals don’t pull their own weight when they’re judged as part of a group. Ringelmann's Rope-Pulling Experiments -The first experiment of Social Loafing was conducted by French agricultural engineer, Max Ringelmann in 1913. He asked participants to pull on a rope both alone and in groups. He found that when people were part of a group, they made less of an effort to pull the rope than they did when working individually. Types of Social Loafing Free-rider effect When one or more members of the group develop a casual attitude to their responsibilities. They do not pay much attentions and considers that their role is not at all compulsory. Sucker effect This effect occurs when the members of the group whose performance is up to mark also begins to underperform, because of the behavior of the free-riders. Causes of Social Loafing Motivation- This can play an important role in determining whether social loafing takes place. People who are less motivated by a task are more likely to engage in social loafing when they are part of a group. Diffusion of Responsibility- People are more likely to engage in social loafing if they feel less personally accountable for a task, and know their individual efforts have little impact on the overall outcome. This is often used to explain the bystander effect, or the tendency to be less likely to help a person in need when others are present. Group size- In small groups, people are more likely to feel their efforts are more important and will, therefore, contribute more. The larger the group, however, the less individual effort people will extend. Expectations- If you expect other people to slack off, you probably will as well since you don’t want to get stuck doing all of the work. On the other hand, if you are in a group of high-achievers who seem to be in control of everything, you might also be more likely to kick back and let them handle all the work. Although social loafing is a common occurrence, it doesn’t always happen. People may, however, put forth even more effort in a group when the goal is important, rewards are significant, and team spirit exists. Deindividuation: When do people lose their sense of self in groups? (Paul) Deindividuation - Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad. - Social facilitation experiments show that groups can arouse people, and social loafing experiments show that groups can diffuse responsibility. When arousal and diffused responsibility combine, and normal inhibitions diminish, the results may be startling. It’s in group situations that people are more likely to abandon normal restraints, to forget their individual identity, to become responsive to group or crowd norms—in a word. Group Size - When the crowd was small and exposed by daylight, people usually did not try to bait the person with cries of < Jump!= But when a large crowd or the cover of night gave people anonymity, the crowd usually did bait and jeer. People’s attention is focused on the situation, not on themselves. And because < everyone is doing it,= all can attribute their behavior to the situation rather than to their own choices. Anonymity The Internet offers similar anonymity. Millions of those who were aghast at the looting by the Baghdad mobs were on those very days anonymously pirating music tracks using file-sharing software. With so many doing it, and with so little concern about being caught, downloading someone’s copyrighted property and then offloading it to an MP3 player just didn’t seem terribly immoral. Internet bullies who would never say, < Get a life, you phony,= to someone’s face will hide behind their anonymity. Example : Children were more likely to transgress by taking extra Halloween candy when in a group, when anonymous, and, especially, when deindividuated by the combination of group immersion and anonymity. AROUSING AND DISTRACTING ACTIVITIES - - Aggressive outbursts by large groups are often preceded by minor actions that arouse and divert people’s attention. Group shouting, chanting, clapping, or dancing serve both to hype people up and to reduce self-consciousness. Impulsive group action absorbs our attention. Sometimes. At other times we seek deindividuation group experiences—dances, worship experiences, team sports—where we can enjoy intense positive feelings and closeness to others. DIMINISHED SELF AWARENESS - Group experiences that diminish self-consciousness tend to disconnect behavior from attitudes. Research by Ed Diener (1980) and Steven Prentice-Dunn and Ronald Rogers (1980, 1989) revealed that unself-conscious, deindividuated people are less restrained, less self-regulated, more likely to act without thinking about their own values, and more responsive to the situation. SELF AWARENESS - - A self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself. It makes people more sensitive to their own attitudes and dispositions. is the opposite of deindividuation. People made self-aware are also less likely to cheat (Beaman et al., 1979; Diener & Wallbom, 1976). So are those who generally have a strong sense of themselves as distinct and independent (Nadler et al., 1982). The principle: People who are self-conscious, or who are temporarily made so, exhibit greater consistency between their words outside a situation and their deeds in it. Group polarization: Do groups intensify our opinions? (Alfeyah) Group polarization is the tendency for groups to show a shift towards the extremes of decision-making when compared to decisions made by individuals. ● Risky shift - occurs when a group collectively agrees on a course of action that is more extreme than they would have made if asked individually. ● Cautious shift - is a form of group polarization where people make more cautious decisions under the influence of a group than by themselves, the opposite of risky shift. Let's have this example of group polarization A crowd of angry football fans, often referred to as hooligans, taking extreme measures to destroy public property just because their team lost a Saturday night game. If it would have been one angry fan, his anger won’t be extreme enough to take such a measure. But because he was part of a large group, he, and hundreds others like him became a party to a public crime. The chaos caused by angry fans is a clear example of group polarization. Being part of a group can push people into exhibiting violent behavior. It highlights how the thoughts and actions of a group are more impactful than the views and ideas of individual team members. For instance, if the members of a group are cautious, the final decision is likely to be incredibly conservative. Or say, if most of the group members are people who indulge in risky and extreme behavior, the final outcome may be destructive. Two theories explains how the process occurs: Normative Influence - influence based on a person's desire to be accepted or admired by others. ● Social Comparison - evaluating one’s opinions and abilities by comparing oneself with others. ● Pluralistic ignorance - a false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding. For example, a person may feel pressured to smoke because the rest of their friends are smoking. Normative Social influence tends to lead to compliance because the person smokes just for show but deep down they wish not to smoke. Going along with the group so they will like you. Sometimes you change your actions to match the group even though you do not agree with them. Informational Influence - influence that results from accepting evidence about reality. - mainly occurs because we wish to be correct. In situations where we are unsure of our own knowledge, we look to others for information they might have. An example of informational influence is when you don't know the answer to a question in class so you listen out for others talking about it, assuming they might be correct. < If everyone is doing it, does that make it right?= Do groups intensify opinions? Group interaction tends to intensify opinions. This group polarization phenomenon provided a window through which researchers could observe group influence. Involving people who will be affected by a decision in the decision-making process will allow those individuals to have a greater understanding of the issues or problems and a greater commitment to the solutions. Well, it’s all because of group polarization. Individually, a person may hold a mild opinion about issues but when these people form a group, their opinions transpire into actions and become more powerful. < If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples, then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.= —Charles F. Brannan, Secretary of Agriculture, 1949 Groupthink: Do groups hinder or assist good decisions? (Daniel) ● Analysis of several international fiascos indicates that group cohesion can override realistic appraisal of a situation. This is especially true when group members strongly desire unity, when they are isolated from opposing ideas, and when the leader signals what he or she wants from the group. - Social psychologist Irving Janis (1971, 1982) wondered whether such phenomena might help explain good and bad group decisions. He analyze these following fiascos; - Pearl Harbor - Military commanders in Hawaii received a stream of information about Japan’s preparations for an attack on the United States somewhere in the Pacific. Air reconnaissance could have spotted the warning. But complacent commanders decided against such precautions. - The Bay of Pigs Invasion - President John Kennedy and his advisers tried to overthrow Fidel Castro by invading Cuba, resulting into mass exodus of invaders and Cuba allying with the former USSR. - The Vietnam War - The US advisers escalated the war in Vietnam, hoping to bring them down into the peace table. They continued the escalation despite warnings so the ● ● ● war killed many troops. Symptomatic of this overriding concern for harmony, labeled groupthink, are (1) an illusion of invulnerability, (2) rationalization, (3) unquestioned belief in the group’s morality, (4) stereotyped views of the opposition, (5) pressure to conform, (6) self-censorship of misgivings, (7) an illusion of unanimity, and (8) < mindguards= who protect the group from unpleasant information. Critics have noted that some aspects of Janis’s groupthink model (such as directive leadership) seem more implicated in flawed decisions than others (such as cohesiveness). Both in experiments and in actual history, however, groups sometimes decide wisely. These cases suggest ways to prevent groupthink: upholding impartiality, encouraging < devil’s advocate= positions, subdividing and then reuniting to discuss a decision, seeking outside input, and having a < second-chance= meeting before implementing a decision. Research on group problem solving suggests that groups can be more accurate than individuals; groups also generate more and better ideas if the group is small or if, in a large group, individual brainstorming follows the group session. The influence of the minority: How do individuals influence the group? (Yuri) THE INFLUENCE OF THE MINORITY: HOW DO INDIVIDUALS INFLUENCE THE GROUP? (Page 248-253) Minority influence is a type of social impact that is ascribed to being exposed to a constant minority perspective in a group. Minority influence is often felt only after a length of time, and it tends to result in private acceptance of the minority's beliefs. CONSISTENCY Even when people in the majority know that the disagreeing person is factually or morally right, they may still, if refusing to change, dislike the person (Chan et al., 2010). Being a minority inside a group may be an unpleasant experience. Minority views provide a more thorough examination of ideas, which typically leads to improved innovation. Deviant (minority) beliefs might make you unpopular, especially if you are on the outside of a community. They can, however, boost creative innovation. Synchronic Consistency: Diachronic Consistency: They all say the same thing They’ve been saying the same thing over time. (Protest) SELF-CONFIDENCE Consistency and persistence convey self-confidence. Furthermore, Nemeth and Joel Wachtler (1974) Consistency and persistence convey self-confidence. By being firm and forceful, the minority's apparent self-assurance may prompt the majority to reconsider its position. This is especially so on matters of opinion, rather than facts. DEFECTIONS FROM THE MINORITY A persistent minority punctures any illusion of unanimity. Once defections begin, others often soon follow, initiating a snowball effect. Unanimity: < an agreement by all people involved; consensus=. Snowball Effect: “A snowball effect, metaphorically, is a process that begins with a tiny amount of importance and grows in size, becoming potentially harmful or devastating, yet it may also be helpful.= Snowball (Bad Effect) to the minority: When the persistent minority punctures any agreement and yet did not think well while deciding. Defections begin the agreement that was eventually not good at all, becomes dangerous resulting in a bad effect to the whole group depending on how big the defection is. Snowball (Good Effect) to the minority: However, when the minority agreed to a major decision that led to a non-defection of the minority. The agreement is yet to be helpful at all. The Importance of Decision Making to lessen any defection from the minority: According to Sir Girad: < Make decisions from the heart, and use your head to make it work out.= Decision making is important when talking about defections of minorities, because this is where it all starts. From the moment you decide something, expect for an unexpected good or bad effect from your decision. Roy Disney once said: < It's not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are= When you know your value is good then expect a good outcome of your decision, but when you don’t know your values expect a bad effect of your decision. IS LEADERSHIP MINORITY INFLUENCE? What makes for good leadership? The best person to lead the engineering team may not make the best leader of the sales force. Leaders are appointed or elected; others emerge informally as the group interacts. Focus On: TRANSFORMATIONAL COMMUNITY LEADERSHIP Transformational Leadership: Leadership that, enabled by a leader’s vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence Social Leadership: Leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support Task leaders generally have a directive style, which can work well if the leader is bright enough to give good orders. Others excel at social leadership, which builds teamwork, mediates conflicts, and offers support. Experiments show that the combination of task and social leadership is more effective. Effective leaders represent, enhance, and champion a group's identity (Haslam et al., 2010). Leaders engender trust by consistently sticking to their goals, and they often exude a self-confident charisma that kindles the allegiance of their followers. Effective leaders typically have a compelling vision of some desired state of affairs, especially during times of collective stress. In organizations, the frequent result of such leadership is a more engaged, trusting, and effective workforce. When an apt combination of intelligence, skill, determination, self-confidence, and social charisma meets a rare opportunity, the result is sometimes a championship, a Nobel Prize, or a social revolution. To have a Winston Churchill or a Thomas Jefferson, a Napoleon or an Adolf Hitler, an Abraham Lincoln or a Martin Luther King, Jr., takes the right person in the right place at the right time. Smart leaders usually remain with the majority and spend their influence prudently, notes Dean Keith Simonton (1994). HOW DO INDIVIDUALS INFLUENCE THE GROUP? Through their task and social leadership, formal and informal group leaders exert disproportionate influence. Those who consistently press toward their goals and exude a self-confident charisma often engender trust and inspire others to follow. Postscript: Are groups bad for us? (Phineas) Being in a group is either positive or negative. Groups can either help you reach your goals or it will help you fail. That is why you must choose wisely your groups. In groups we become more aroused, more stressed, more tense, more error-prone on complex tasks. Police brutality, lynchings, gang destruction, and terrorism are all group phenomena. Discussion in groups often polarizes our views, enhancing mutual racism or hostility. Self-help groups strengthen resolve to stop drinking, lose weight, and study harder. In kindred-spirited groups, people expand their spiritual consciousness. Being in a group is not always bad because Groups fulfill our want to belong, provide us with information and insight through social comparison, define our sense of self and social identity, and help us attain goals that we might not be able to reach if we worked alone. Groups can help you grow as a person and help you improve in so many ways. We can achieve anything we desire in life if we have the influences and attitude. Control your group, and you'll control your life. Make your life easier by surrounding yourself with people who will raise you up and bring you greater joy, because in life there are always obstacles that you can’t handle alone.