PYB202 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Divergent Thinking, Convergent Thinking, Ingroups And Outgroups
4 Jul 2013
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Document Summary
Norms are the attitudinal and behavioural uniformities that define group membership and differentiate between groups: reference groups and membership groups. Kelley (1952) has made a valuable distinction between reference groups and membership groups. Reference groups are those which are psychologically significant to a person. Membership groups are those to which we belong according to some subjective criterion or social consensus: an example of a membership group could simply be a young girl belonging to the group females" because of her gender. While a positive reference group which is also our membership group is a source of conformity and is socially validated, a negative reference group which is also a membership group will have enormous coercive power to produce compliance. The membership group of lecturer" would be a more suited and positive reference group however it is not the student"s membership group.
