Psychology 2720A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Neutral Party, Ripeness, Problem Solving

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2720A/B
• Professor: Isaacs

Document Summary

A group is two or more individuals who influence each other in some way. Formal groups have: common motives and goals, roles (division of labour, status and relationships, norms and values, rules of praise/punishment. First, the presence of an audience tends to improve our performance on simple, familiar tasks, but decrease our performance on more complex, unfamiliar tasks: this is known as social facilitation. When working together in a group, social loafing may occur. In addition, social loafing is less likely to occur when group members are friends and when there is high commitment to the group. Groupthink: groupthink is a term used to describe decision-making in groups in which agreement among group members and group cohesion are so important that diverse options are not given full consideration and poor decisions result. Individuals who excel at task leadership often are directive, giving orders and ensuring that the group stays focused on the task at hand.