Social Psychology

Groups
5.3.1 Group Performance The prevalence of groups at all levels and in all contexts in society reflects two assumptions: first, individuals perform better when other people are around; and second, groups are better or more effective at performing a task than an individual working alone. Social Facilitation: the idea that individuals perform better when other people are around. First demonstrated by Travis (1925) who trained subjects on a hand-eye co-ordination task until a set standard of performance was reached. Subjects performed 10 more trials in front of a passive audience, and 18/20 performed better in front of the audience than by themselves. Zajonc (1965) suggests audiences increase arousal, and when a task is well learned this will facilitate behaviour. However audience arousal inhibits performance on a poorly learned task. Individual vs. Group problem solving: Shaw (1932) gave individuals and four-person groups eureka-type problems to solve e.g. 3 missionaries and 3 cannibals trying to get to other side of river with a boat that can only carry 2 people. All missionaries and one cannibal can row, but at no time must cannibals outnumber missionaries. (Problem is to get everyone across the river in fewest number of trips.) Shaw found groups solved more problems in a given time than individuals; this was because errors were identified more quickly and incorrect solution rejected faster by groups than individuals. So groups may be better in terms of number of problems solved in given time, but they are less efficient in number of man-hours. Brainstorming: where a group attempts to solve problems in new and creative ways, and has found to be most effective when; a) no comment or evaluation of an idea is given b) evaluations are only given when no new ideas are forthcoming c) elaboration of all ideas is encouraged by all group members and in the absence of criticism. Osbourne (1957) who introduced this approach claimed groups would be better at producing more creative ideas but support has been mixed. Taylor et al (1958) compared a group of 4 with 4 individuals and found that the individuals produced a greater number of novel ideas. But, if a group has been trained in brainstorming, or is allowed to choose group members then performance is superior to individuals. In summary, research does not consistently support the view that working in the presence of others results in better performance than when working alone. The nature of the task, previous experience and how better is defined (quantity of ideas, or man-hours) all have to be taken into account Group composition: Size and membership (who is in group) have important influences on group performance. Individual satisfaction with the group is likely to decrease as size increases. Greatest satisfaction is found in group of 5, larger groups became more competitive and impulsive (Slater 58). A low level of satisfaction can cause decrease in group motivation. In large groups some people speak a lot, and some hardly ever, in small groups contributions by each individual are more uniform (Bales). Group size may both facilitate and inhibit individual performance: Gibb (1951) found that whilst larger groups produced more ideas, productivity (time taken to come up with ideas) decreased. Interviews with individual members revealed greater experiences of being inhibited about contributing and participating in discussion and group size increased. Similarity (homogeneous) vs. Compatible (heterogeneous) members: groups composed of individuals with similar attitudes towards authority show less internal conflict, less disruption and are more

productive. A general mix of personalities results in better task performance overall e.g. All dominant members would result in conflict, all submissive may result in poor performance since no one takes a dominant role. Overall, the search for consistent correlations between effective group performance and individual abilities, personality and IQ has been disappointing. Therefore a group must be more than a collection of individual abilities, which leads us to look at groups as a whole, and not as collections of individual members. Group Cohesiveness: the extent individual members of a group are attracted to each other and attracted to the group as a whole. Highly cohesive groups use we more often. Cohesiveness is important for group performance because if group members dont like each other the group would perform ineffectively and not stay together long. Highly cohesive groups may perform badly e.g. Groupthink. (You have covered this in PS3) Roles: A role is the behaviours expected of a person occupying a certain position in a group. Shaw distinguishes between expected role (behaviours thought appropriate by group members), perceived role (what the individual perceives the role to be) and enacted role (what behaviours are actually shown. The role a person adopts can affect patterns of communication in the group e.g. Communications to a deviate (with an extreme view) will initially be high, to persuade that person to change opinion. If the deviate retains an extreme view, communications will cease as group members realise they cant change his opinion. Role conflict: A person usually occupies different roles in different groups: when behaviours demanded of each role differ but occur at the same time there will be role conflict. This is resolved by the person enacting the role in the group which has greatest importance for him or her. Status: the role or position a person occupies in a group has an evaluation attached to it, this is the status of that position. Ascribed status - comes from age, sex or social standing of the family. Achieved status - reflects achievements and abilities of person. Status of a person influences extent to which they conform to group norms (high status people both conform to, and deviate more from group norms than low-status people. Status of person affects group communications. Kelly (1951) found that a) low-status people make more comments irrelevant to the group task b) less criticism of a role is made if it is occupied by a high rather than low status person. The status of the person can influence opinions of group members. Strodbecks study on the status of jurors found that high socio-economic status jurors were more likely to be elected as a chairperson, they participated more, and they were liked better than low status jurors. Group decision making: Most decisions cannot be easily compared to an objective standard therefore it is often difficult to decide whether the decision was good or not. A strategy for assessing whether individuals or groups make higher quality decisions is to compare their performance on a task with expert opinion (e.g. Moon task - subjects have crash landed on moon 200 miles from mothership, and they have to rank objects in order or importance for their trek across the moon. Answers can be compared to NASA ratings.) Groups tend to perform better than individuals, although the best individual usually produces a higher quality decision than the group. Most research confirms that groups produce better quality decisions than the individual with the exception of group think. Groupthink: Coined by Janis after disaster at Bay of Pigs off Cuba. Was a result of a highly cohesive group striving for unanimity of opinion, rather than realistic appraisal of situation. Can occur due to high cohesiveness, isolation of the group from outside criticism, lack of methodical procedures to assess decisions, and high stress to find a solution. Groupthink can be spotted by several symptoms such as putting pressure on dissenters in group, illusion of unanimity (those who disagree with decisions dont let their views be known), and self appointed mind-guards (members of group who protect the group from criticism). Any group showing symptoms of group think is likely to make defective decisions.

5.3.2. Group Structure

many aspects e.g. personality of leader, structure and function of group etc. A three part definition of leadership seems to have evolved: a) Social influence: the extent to which someone can control others by changing opinion. b) Behaviour: what the leader does in terms of making decisions and clarifying group objectives. c) Authority: the power the leader is invested with (or is perceived to have) However, this definition does not tell us what makes leaders effective in some situations but not in others (e.g. Churchill was a smashing leader during W.W.II, but a bit of a numpty before and afterwards). Personality of leaders: Mann (1959) correlated personality traits with leadership, by reviewing over 100 studies and found weak evidence to support the claim that leaders are more intelligent, extrovert, dominant, and more sensitive than non-leaders. However the trait approach has been fairly unsuccessful as there are no agreed personality traits on which to compare non-leaders with leaders, there is no agreed definition of leadership, the situation is generally ignored, and as you discovered while doing a Bales analysis for PS2 two types of leaders often emerge in a group. There is some evidence to suggest that situations often make leaders (Hamblin 58): not because of any personality characteristics but because the situation demands greater directiveness e.g. in times of crisis. The emergence of a leader may just be because the person talks and contributes the most. Leadership style: affects task performance, morale and cohesiveness of the group. Hemphill conducted study in which subjects rated leaders behaviour on over 1000 different aspects. Two important behavioural dimensions emerged: a) Group centred: warmth of personal relationships, trust, willingness to listen to followers, and a democratic approach to decision making (similar to Bales socio-emotional leader) b) Directive behaviours: maintenance of standards, assigning tasks to members, making sure members conform to group norms (similar to Bales task-oriented leader). Lewin et al (1939) demonstrated how leadership style affects group performance; Groups of 10 year old boys working in groups where they had to carve models from bars of soap, were exposed to 3 different leadership styles: authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire. Authoritarian leaders made all the decisions for the group, did not participate in group activities, assigned boys to tasks without saying why. Democratic leaders made decisions only after consultation with the group, were friendly, and gave reasons for praise and criticism. Laissez-faire leaders played a passive role, did not attempt to direct or co-ordinate the group and made neither positive or negative evaluations of the group. Democratic style produced the highest morale and greatest co-operation, but produced fewer models than under authoritarian leadership, although their models were of a higher standard. The authoritarian style resulted in high productivity, but misbehaviour occurred when the leader was absent. Poorest performance was the laissez-faire, where there were fewest models and misbehaviour all the time . The boys preferred the democratic style the most! Fiedlers contingency theory: a highly influential theory of leadership effectiveness has been proposed by Fiedler (71) which takes both style and situational factors into account. There are 3 situational factors: a) leader-follower relations b) task structure: high= well defined task for group, low= task vaguely defined. c) power of the leader. The possible ratings of these three factors can lead to 8 different combinations or octants as Fiedler calls them, and thus the overall favourableness of the situation can be assessed e.g. Good leaderfollower relations + high task structure + strong leader position power = Extra high situational favourableness. We also need to know leadership style. This is measured by asking the leader to think of the leastpreferred co-worker (LPC) and then fill in a set of semantic differential scales (friendly.............unfriendly) for that person. For Fiedler a high LPC score indicates a relationsoriented (social-emotional leader) and a low LPC a task-oriented leader. Task-oriented leaders will be most effective in very favourable or very unfavourable situations; relations-oriented leaders will be most effective where the situation is moderately favourable. Why should this be? Fiedler argues that when conditions are unfavourable the group would be willing to overlook interpersonal conflicts and tensions in order to get on with task therefore a task-leader is appropriate. In favourable conditions the leader can get on with the task since the situation is positive and there will be little intragroup conflict, again suitable for a task leader. However, when the

situation is only moderately favourable, conflict and tension in the group may be the biggest problem and so a relations-oriented leader is needed to sort them out.