Yerkes-Dodson Law- Explains the relationship between physiological arousal and performance (related to glucocorticoids- stress hormone) *Chart about stress and stuff

Deindividuation- Loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension; occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad; Leads to loosening normal constraints on behavior and an increase in impulsive and deviant acts

Factors: Group size, Physical Anonymity, Arousing and Distracting Activities

Groups

Benefits:

  1. Providing info
  2. Helping us define our identity
  3. Establishes social norms for behavior

Functions:

  1. Social Norms: guidance as to which behaviors are acceptable

(consequences of violating these behaviors)

  1. Social Roles: Provide well-defined roles, or shared expectations about how particular people are supposed to behave (Advantages: Roles facilitate social interaction; Disadvantages: Loss of personal identity, Acting inconsistently with social roles may have severe consequences)
  2. Group Cohesiveness: The qualities of a group that bind members together and promote liking between group members. (Negatively correlated with group attrition, participating in group activities, recruiting new members??) Can interfere with task performance

Group effects on an individual’s behavior

Social Facilitation– by the mere presence of others, dominant responses are strengthened whether correct or incorrect; occurs when individual efforts can be evaluated

-Improves performance on simple, well-learned tasks

-Impairs performance on complex, unfamiliar tasks

Zanonc’s theory of Social Facilitation:

  1. Alertness- Peoples behavior isn’t perfectly predictable, vigilance is required for potential interactions
  2. Evaluation Apprehension- Concern for how individuals are evaluating your performance
  3. Distraction- Divided attention: attending to task and presence of others

Social Loafing- Tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal; Occurs when individual efforts can NOT be evaluated.

-Impairs performance on simple tasks

-Improves performance on complex tasks

Group effects on an Individual’s Opinion

Group Polarization- Group produced enhancement of members’ preexisting tendencies; a strengthening of member’ average tendency, not a split within the group

Theories:

Persuasive Arguments Interpretation-Occurs because individuals present their most persuasive arguments favoring their initial judgments and that individuals will thereby be confronted with arguments they have not previously considered

Social comparison Interpretation- in order to be liked, people first check out how everyone else feels and then take a position similar to everyone else’s but a little more extreme

Pluralistic ignorance- a false impression of what most other people are thinking or feeling, or how they are responding

Group Think- mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action

Janis’s theory of Groupthink:

Factors

  1. Cohesiveness of the group
  2. Isolation of the group from dissenting viewpoints
  3. Directive Leaders (makes his or her wishes known)
  4. Poor decision–making procedures
  5. High stress situation

Symptoms:

  1. An illusion of invulnerability
  2. A belief in the moral correctness of the group
  3. Stereotyped views of the out-group
  4. Self-censorship
  5. Direct pressure on dissenters to conform (mind guards)
  6. Mind guards, appointed to protect the leader from contrary viewpoints
  7. An illusion of unanimity

Why groupthink results in poor decision-making

  1. Poor information search
  2. Failure to examine the risks of the favored alternative
  3. Failure to develop contingency plans

Prevention

  1. Be impartial
  2. Encourage critical evaluation
  3. Occasionally subdivide the group, then reunite and air differences
  4. Welcome critiques from outside experts and associates
  5. Call a second-chance meeting