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The social-psychological study of behaviour
in groups is a large area of research. The foci of this chapter
are behaviour in the presence of others, structural features
of groups, group performance and decision making, competition
and cooperation in groups, and group leadership.
Behaviour in the Presence of Others
The mere presence of other people can have
seemingly contradictory effects on our behaviour. In some
cases, our performance improves when others are present, an
effect known as social facilitation. In other cases,
however, our performance actually worsens when others are
present, an effect known as social loafing.
Social facilitation has long been of interest
to social psychologists. Early in social psychology's history,
both physical (Triplett, 1898) and mental (Allport, 1920,
1924) tasks were shown to be performed more quickly in the
presence of others. Since these early studies, researchers
have shown social facilitation effects both when others are
merely present and when they are performing the same task.
Even non-human animals are now known to show the social-facilitation
effect (e.g., Chen, 1937).
Sometimes, however, the quality of performance
diminishes when others are present. One explanation for this
effect of social inhibition of performance is that
the presence of others arouses our motivation to perform.
This heightened arousal, however, leads to better performance
on easy or well-learned tasks, but leads to worse performance
on difficult tasks (Zajonc, 1965). A second explanation is
that evaluation apprehension increases arousal enough
to interfere with performance. A third view is expressed in
the distraction- conflict model (Baron, 1986), which
holds that the presence of others leads to a conflicting desire
of performers to attend to their task on the one hand, and
their audience on the other. All three models may contribute
to explaining human performance in different situations.
Social inhibition refers to the effects of
others' presence on an individual's behaviour. Social
loafing, on the other hand, occurs when the presence
of others prevents individual performance from being evaluated.
In such cases, individuals often perform less well than they
would if alone. In a recent meta-analysis of 78 social loafing
studies (Karau & Williams, 1993), social evaluation was found
to be key. When people believe their performance will be "lost
in the crowd", performance diminishes. However, if individual
performance can be evaluated by others, social loafing decreases.
Social loafing also decreases when the group's goal is highly
valued by the individual in question, or when the group's
task is very difficult or complex (Jackson & Williams, 1985).
Another effect that sometimes occurs when people
work in groups is social compensation, working harder
to compensate for others in the group. Social compensation
is more likely to occur when we care about our group's performance,
or when we suspect that other group members are unable or
unwilling to do their share of the work (e.g. Williams & Karau,
1991). Although there is evidence for social compensation
and social loafing, the effects may be stronger in the US
and other individualistic cultures (e.g., Gabrenya et al.,
1985).
Social Impact Theory
According to social impact theory (Latane,
1981), the impact of others on performance depends on three
attributes of the observers or evaluators of behaviour: (1)
their number, (2) strength or importance and (3) immediacy,
or closeness in time and space. Empirical support for the
impact of group sized is good, but the other two factors await
further testing.
Deindividuation
Observers of human behaviour have long noted
that people do things when they are part of a crowd that they
would not ordinarily do. Social psychologists believe that
deindividuation, the temporary replacement of personal
identity with group identity, may be the cause. Experiments
have shown that anything that reduces the chance that individuals
will be identifiable makes it more likely that they will experience
deindividuation. Zimbardo (1970) showed that groups of women
who were easily identifiable (wearing name tags) were more
likely to deliver shocks than those who were relatively anonymous
(wearing hoods and no name tags). Thus it is not being part
of a group per se that leads to deindividuation, but rather
the level of anonymity.
BASIC FEATURES OF GROUPS
Defining "Group"
Within the social sciences, the term group
refers specifically to situations where "people are interdependent
and have at least the potential for mutual interaction" (Taylor,
Peplau & Sears, 1997, p. 286). In addition, most are characterised
by regular face-to- face interaction. There are four important
variables that define a group: (1) group size, (2) values
and goals, (3) duration, and (4) breadth or scope of activities.
Research on small groups has studied both natural and artificial
groups that vary on these four dimensions.
Group Structure, Group Communication, and
Group Cohesiveness
Over time, groups develop a social structure.
A group's social structure can be formal or informal, and
consists of social norms, social roles, and social status.
A group's social structure can affect its communication. For
example, status hierarchies like those in the military mean
that communication is very limited. This type of communication
network may lead to greater efficiency, but also to lower
levels of morale and satisfaction with the group. Group morale
and satisfaction are two components of group cohesiveness.
Others include the amount of liking among group members, the
effectiveness of group interactions, and barriers to leaving
the group.
GROUP PERFORMANCE
High group cohesiveness usually leads to good
group functioning. Yet if group norms include more social
interaction than work, cohesiveness can lead to poor performance.
A great deal of group research is based on identifying the
factors that enhance or diminish group performance.
One such research area examines the various
types of tasks in which groups engage. In additive tasks (e.g.,
a tug-of-war game), the group's effectiveness is a product
of the sum efforts of its members. In conjunctive tasks (e.g.,
assembly-line production), the group can succeed only if all
its members succeed. In disjunctive tasks (e.g., solving an
equation), a group can be successful if just one of its members
succeeds. Finally, in very complex tasks (e.g., a heart transplant),
group productivity depends on the performance of individuals,
but also on the coordination of their performance in achieving
the group's goal.
GROUP DECISION MAKING
Groups typically use a set of decision
rules in making decisions. These include the unanimity
rule, the majority-wins rule, and the truth-wins rule. Groups
adopt different decision rules depending on the situation.
For example, when deciding matters of fact rather than opinion,
a truth-wins rule is typically adopted (Laughlin & Adamopoulow,
1980). Knowing which rule a group is applying can help us
to predict how long a discussion will take and how satisfied
members will be with the decision.
One heavily-researched aspect of group decision
making is known as group polarization. In the 1960s,
many studies of group decision making found that groups arrived
at more risky decisions than any of its individual members;
this phenomenon was coined "risky shift" (Stoner, 1961). Today,
however, it is believed that groups only make risky decisions
when initial opinions are somewhat risky. On the other hand,
groups make more conservative decisions when initial opinions
are somewhat conservative. This phenomenon of groups amplifying
the attitudes of their members is called group polarization.
Three major explanations for group polarization have been
put forward: (1) persuasive arguments, (2) social comparison
and self- presentation, and (3) social identity processes.
GROUP INTERACTION: COMPETITION VERSUS COOPERATION
Much of the social psychological research on
competition and cooperation has taken the form of laboratory
experiments using games such as the trucking game and the
prisoner's dilemma. In the trucking game (Deutsch & Krauss,
1960), each of two participants gains points by getting their
own truck from point A to point B as quickly as possible.
Despite the fact that both participants maximize their points
if they cooperate by alternating use of the only short-cut
road, little cooperation is in fact observed. Instead, players
typically waste time by confronting one another on the shared
short-cut road, thus decreasing points for both. In the prisoner's
dilemma game, similar results obtain. Despite the fact that
cooperation maximizes points, participants still persist in
employing competitive strategies.
Researchers have found that the reward structure
of a given situation or experiment largely determines whether
cooperation or competition will result. In situations of competitive
interdependence, one person's loss is another's gain.
In situations of cooperative interdependence, the
outcomes of group members are linked. In other situations,
such as the trucking and prisoner's dilemma games, the reward
structure is mixed or unclear, with choices about whether
to compete or cooperate. In such cases, both cultural (e.g.,
Kagan, 1977) and individual differences (McClintock & Liebrand,
1988) in factors such as individualism account for the results.
The same factors determine behaviour in social dilemmas,
situations in which an individual's short-term interests are
better served by competition, but the group's interests (and
therefore the long- term interests of the individual) are
better served by cooperation.
LEADERSHIP
The pattern of leadership, or leadership
structure of a group is of interest to social psychologists.
Major research areas in leadership structure include the formal
versus informal leadership, paths to leadership, and task
versus social leadership.
In addition to leadership structure within
groups, social psychologists have focused on factors likely
to be associated with leadership. Research on individual attributes
has shown that leaders show high abilities in the relevant
tasks, strong interpersonal skills facilitating group interaction,
and motivation for recognition and prominence (e.g., Hogan
et al., 1994).
Finally, research has focused on styles of
leadership. According to one major perspective, the contingency
model of leadership effectiveness (Fiedler, 1978, 1993),
a leader's effectiveness is a product of the match between
the leader's style (task- or situation-oriented) and the demands
of the situation. Another perspective, the transactional
approach emphasizes the role of followers' perceptions
and attitudes in determining who becomes a leader (Hollander,
1993). Leaders or aspiring leaders, in turn, may adapt their
leadership style in accordance with followers' perspectives.
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