Groups and Individuals: The

Consequences of Belonging

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 Groups and Individuals
• Groups: Why We Join…And Why We Leave
• Effects of the Presence of Others
• Coordination in Groups: Cooperation or
Conflict?
• Perceived Fairness in Groups
• Decision Making by Groups

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 Groups
• Group—collection of persons who are
perceived to be bonded together in a
coherent unit (entiativity) to some degree
– Some common characteristics
• Frequent interaction
• Group is considered important
• Shared goals
• Members are similar to each other

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 Groups
– Some basic aspects
• Roles—set of behaviors that individuals occupying
specific positions within a group are expected to
perform
• Status: position or rank within a group
• Norms—rules within a group indicating how its
members should (or should not behave)
• Cohesiveness—forces that cause group members to
remain in the group
– Influenced by:
» Status within the group; effort needed to become a group
member; existence of competition; size of group

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 Groups
– Benefits of joining groups
• Gain self-knowledge
• Boost one’s status
– Status is more important to people who seek group membership
as a way to increase self-enhancement (versus self-
transcendence).
• Accomplish social change
– Costs of joining groups
• Membership often limits personal freedom
• Groups make demands on members that must be met
• Members may disapprove of group’s policies
– Disapproval and the belief that the group and its members have
changed significantly can result in withdrawal from the group.

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 Effects of the Presence of Others
• Social Facilitation—effects upon performance
resulting from the presence of others
– Presence of others can either result in better or
impaired task performance
• Drive Theory of Social Facilitation (Zajonc)—mere
presence of others is arousing and increases tendency
to perform dominant responses
– Performance will improve if dominant responses are correct
(task is easy for person).
– Performance will worsen if dominant responses are incorrect
(task is difficult for person).

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Effects of the Presence of Others
• Presence of others can increase evaluation
apprehension
• Distraction-Conflict Theory—suggests that social
facilitation stems from conflict produced when
individuals attempt to pay attention to both the
audience and the task
• Social facilitation effects are due to increased arousal
and cognitive factors.

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Effects of the Presence of Others

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 Effects of the Presence of Others
• Social Loafing—reductions in motivation and
effort when individuals work collectively in a
group compared to when they work individually
or as independent co-actors
– Common with Additive Tasks—tasks for which
the group product is the sum or combination of
the efforts of individual members
• Occurs with both cognitive and physical tasks
• Occurs in children and adults
– However, it is slightly less common in women and does not
appear to occur in collectivist cultures.

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 Effects of the Presence of Others
• Why social loafing occur?
- Realization that our contribution cannot be identified.
- As group size increases, responsibility decreases
- The task is boring/ uninspiring
- Working with others we are not familiar with or do not respect
Collective Effort Model (CEM) provides an explanation of social
loafing by suggesting that the perceived links between individual
efforts and their outcomes are weaker when individuals works
together in group.

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Effects of the Presence of Others
– Decreasing social loafing
• Increase accountability by making contributions
identifiable
• Increase commitment to the success of the group’s task
• Increase the importance of the task
• Increase the perception that contributions of each
member are unique and necessary

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 Effects of the Presence of Others
• Another potential effect of the presence of others
is Deindividuation—characterized by reduced
self-awareness and reduced social identity,
brought on by external conditions such as being
an anonymous member of a large crowd. E.g
members of the crowd shout obscenities to the
referees.
– Increases the tendency to follow the norms of the
group (the crowd), which can result in negative or
positive behaviors
– Results in behaviors that individuals in the group often
would not perform by themselves

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 Coordination in Groups
• Cooperation—behavior in which groups work
together to reach shared goals
– It often provides benefits to group members, but
does not always happen especially in situations
involving social dilemmas.
• Social dilemmas—situations in which each person can
increase his or her individual gains by acting in a
selfish manner, but if all (or most) persons do the
same thing, the outcomes experienced by all are
reduced.
– Involve mixed motives: cooperation or competition
– Example is the prisoner’s dilemma
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Coordination in Groups

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 Coordination in Groups
– Factors influencing cooperation in social dilemmas:
• Reciprocity—basic rule suggesting that individuals should
treat others as they have treated them (reciprocal altruism)
• Personal orientation towards cooperation. Three distinct
personal orientations:
– Cooperative (maximize everyone’s gain)
– Individualistic (maximize own gains)
– Competitive (maximize own and lower others’ gains)
• Communication
– Can increase cooperation when individuals are committed to
cooperate and the personal norms to honor commitment are
strong

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 Coordination in Groups
• Conflict—individuals or groups perceive that others
have taken or will soon take actions incompatible with
their own interests
– Causes of conflict (both social and cognitive)
• Incompatibility
• Faulty attributions—incorrectly blame others for negative outcome
• Faulty communication—receiving destructive criticism
• Belief that own views are objective, while others’ are biased, which is
more likely in powerful groups
• Personal traits - Type A personality (individuals who are highly
competitive and irritable) tend to be involved in conflict more often.
• When initial group performance is poor and negatively evaluated – it
may be threatening to members and leads the to blame each other.

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– Resolving Conflicts
• Bargaining (negotiation)—process in which opposing sides
exchange offers, counteroffers, and concessions, either directly or
through representatives.
The factors that determine the outcomes of bargaining:
– Tactics adopted - Outcomes are influenced by tactics adopted,
which tend to focus on reducing the opponent’s aspirations
(hopes or goals).
» Tactics that are ethically questionable are attacking
opponent’s network, making false promises,
misrepresentation, and inappropriate information
gathering.

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 – Outcomes also determined by the orientation of the
bargainers to the process: negotiations are “win-lose”
situations or are potential “win-win” situations.
» Example of win-win situations are integrative
agreements, in which joint benefits are achieved.
• Induce superordinate goals—goals that both sides
seek that tie their interests together
– Can reduce tendencies to exaggerate differences between
one’s group and the opposing side and to derogate members
of outside groups

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 Perceived Fairness in Groups
• Rules for Judging Fairness
– Distributive Justice—individuals’ judgments about
whether they are receiving a fair share of available
rewards
– Procedural Justice—judgments concerning fairness of
procedures used to distribute available rewards
• The judgments are based on consistency of procedures ,
accuracy, opportunity for corrections, bias suppression, and
ethicality
– Interactional (Interpersonal) Justice—extent that
decisions regarding the distribution of rewards are
explained and courtesy is shown toward those who
receive the rewards

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 Perceived Fairness in Groups
• Factors Affecting Judgments of Fairness
– Affective states
• People use their current emotions as a guide
– Status
• Focusing on status in a group leads to a concern about
the fairness of procedures used to distribute rewards
• Reactions to Perceived Unfairness
– Change the balance between contributions and
outcomes
– Engage in covert actions (e.g., employee theft)
– Change perceptions about fairness

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 Decision Making by Groups
• Decision Making—processes involved in
combining and integrating available
information in order to choose one out of
several possible courses of action
– How groups attain consensus
• Social Decision Schemes—rules relating the initial
distribution of member views to final group decisions
• The schemes are:
– Majority-wins rule—group adopts whatever decision majority
agreed with initially
– Truth-wins rule—group eventually adopts correct decision
– First-shift rule—group adopts decision consistent with direction
of first shift in opinion shown by any member

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 Decision Making by Groups
– Group Polarization—tendency of group members to shift toward
more extreme positions after group discussion
• Causes include:
– Social comparison
» Attempt to hold views that are “better” (often more
extreme) than other group members
– Persuasion via the central route due to hearing arguments
that favor the group’s initial preference
– Normative social influence – based on our desire to be liked
or accepted. Members may be boycotted if they decide
otherwise.
– Informational social influence – based on our desire to be
right. Members will feel humiliated or ridicules if they decide
otherwise.
• Can interfere with ability to make correct decisions

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Decision Making by Groups

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 Decision Making by Groups
– Potential dangers of group decision making
• Groupthink—members of highly cohesive groups
assume that their decisions can’t be wrong, that all
members must support the group’s decision strongly,
and that information contrary to it should be ignored
– Why does it occur?
» High cohesiveness among group members
» Emergent group norms that suggest group is infallible and
morally superior (no further discussion is needed)
» Rejection of opposing views made by outside sources

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 Decision Making by Groups
– Potential dangers of group decision making
• Biased processing of information
– Group members process information in ways that allow them
to reach desired decisions.
• Failure to share information
– Groups members do not always share information unique to
each member and only discuss information known by all.

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 Decision Making by Groups
– Improving group decisions
• Encouraging dissent (to express different opinion)
through:
– Devil’s Advocate Technique—one group member is assigned
the task of disagreeing with and criticizing whatever plan or
decision is under consideration
– Authentic Dissent—one or more group members (without
assignment) disagree with the group’s initial preference
• Call outside expert to give opinion
• Make sure the group pools all available information.

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