ALHT106 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Social Influence, Social Forces, Social Facilitation
Group Dynamics
Lecture 1
• What are groups
o A collection of individuals who have relations to one another that make them
interdependent to some significant extent
o Interdependence
• Some form of exchange or mutual reliance in a social domain
• Pooled
▪ Shared resources and outcomes
▪ No structure or roles
▪ Low conflict but often ineffective
• Sequential
▪ Asymmetrical chain of one-way interactions
▪ Later stages depend heavily on early stages
• Reciprocal interdependence
▪ Expectation-governed interactions between multiple specialised roles
▪ Vulnerable to poor coordination
▪ When they work well, they are the most effective
o This social interdependence is not always directed towards shared, external goals
o Even very innocuous or 'casual' social groups, such as peer groups and immediate
families, operate in interdependent ways around implicit goals, most notably they
intuitively strive for intra-group Cohesion and Harmony
• Decision-making in groups
o These background concerns of Cohesion and Harmony are present in all groups,
even those specifically formed around accomplishing a specific task or reaching a
collective decision
o The psychological pressure exerted by this need for Cohesion and Harmony often
comes into conflict with other deliberative processes that are made on the group-
level, and give rise to 2 emergent phenomena
• Groupthink
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
▪ Most common, maladaptive phenomenon that can occur on the level of
the group, whenever a group is required to make a decision via
consensus
▪ Describes the overall reduction in critical scrutiny and consideration
that occurs when members of a group are reluctant to risk group
cohesion by expressing disagreement
▪ The effects and limitations are generally explored in experiments where
participants (who must reach a group decision by consensus) are asked
to record their own thoughts and preferences privately, in addition to
participating in the group discussion
▪ It is common for the majority of the group to notice problems, but say
nothing about them, in an attempt to avoid conflict
▪ This self-censorship for the sake of maintaining Cohesion is often so
persuasive, the individual group members become convinced that
everyone else unanimously agrees on the flawed course of action,
which researchers call a False Consensus effect
▪ In some cases the entire group may say nothing in objection to an
obvious problem, owing to the perceived false consensus, causing a
group-level knowledge deficit called Pluralistic Ignorance
• Group polarisation
▪ Shifts the character of a group's consensus to increasingly extreme
options
▪ Not necessarily 'riskier' decisions, but rather the average character of
the group will naturally lean in a particular direction on whatever
matter is being evaluated, and it is that initial bias that is magnified and
taken to extremes
▪ Risky groups get riskier, cautious groups get more cautious
▪ Normalisation
• When groups are homogeneous
• Constant exposure to an 'echo-chamber' of similar perspectives lets
us lose perspective on what wider, contradictory alternatives exist
• Value affirmation - expressing extreme attitudes signals loyalty
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
• Social facilitation and interference
o Interpersonal social processes can also have profound influences on how we
perform at a variety of tasks, both on the individual and group levels
o We are sometimes even encouraged by 'life-hack' themed media sources to exploit
the presence of others to specifically increase our motivation and/or performance in
ways thought to be categorically unavailable when we are alone
o Social forces that influence performance
• Social facilitation - performance improves in presence of others
▪ Co-action effects - changes in behaviour caused by presence of visible
others simultaneously engaged in same activity
▪ Audience effects - changes in behaviour caused by presence of a
number of visible, passive spectators
▪ The cocept of 'copetitie isticts' could’t accout for hy i soe
tasks, the presence of peers and especially an audience, actual impair
performance (social interference) relative to the same task performed
alone
• Social interference - performance is impaired in presence of others
• Social loafing - motivation to perform is reduced when only group outcomes
are assessed, reducing actual output
o The conflict of competitive instincts was resolved in the 1960s by Robert Zajonc's
Mere Presence Theory
• Suggested that the mere presence of others to witness one's performance
causes heightened physiological arousal
• Higher arousal improves performance on easy or well-learned tasks, but
impairs performance at difficult or novel tasks
o Evaluation Apprehension Theory
• Addition of cognitive considerations
• Whether you believe an audience is evaluating your performance
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Lecture 1: what are groups, a collection of individuals who have relations to one another that make them interdependent to some significant extent. Some form of exchange or mutual reliance in a social domain: pooled. Shared resources and outcomes: no structure or roles. In some cases the entire group may say nothing in objection to an obvious problem, owing to the perceived false consensus, causing a group-level knowledge deficit called pluralistic ignorance: group polarisation. Social interference - performance is impaired in presence of others. Social loafing - motivation to perform is reduced when only group outcomes are assessed, reducing actual output: the conflict of competitive instincts was resolved in the 1960s by robert zajonc"s. Loafing is also reduced by investment in group-level competition: most relevant in pooled interdependence, without well-defined or differentiated roles, dividing collective efforts into discrete roles can increase individual accountability, and allocate talent to where it is needed.
