Chapter 19: Group Interaction

Section 1

Exploring Psychology Reading

I.  What are Groups

  1. Group – A collection of people who interact, share common goals and influence how members think and act
  2. Members are interdependent
  3. Interaction is the key factor in forming a group
  4. Interdependence – when any action by one member will affect or influence the other members
  5. Communication
  6. Critical to the functions of a group
  7. Shared Goals
  8. Groups are usually created to perform tasks or to organize activities that no individual can handle alone
  9. Groups tend to serve 2 types of purposes:
  10. Task functions – those directed toward getting some job done
  11. Social functions – those directed toward filling the emotional needs of members

II.  How Groups are Held Together

  1. Factors that hold a group together
  2. Norms – unwritten rules that govern the behavior and attitudes of group members
  3. Include rules – shared beliefs about the correct way to behave and what to believe
  4. May be like tendencies or habits
  5. Ideology – having common ideas, attitudes and goals
  6. Leaders, heroes, heroines, rallies, books, pamphlets, slogans and symbols all help popularize ideologies
  7. Commitment
  8. The requirement of personal sacrifice increases individual commitment
  9. Paying money, enduring hardship, undergoing humiliation all increase commitment
  10. Participation also strengthens group commitment
  11. Actively participating in group decisions and sharing the rewards of the group’s accomplishment, makes one feel better toward membership
  12. Types of groups
  13. 4 types of groups
  14. In-group – when group members identify with their group
  15. Out-group – everyone not a member of the in-group, will be rejected and can be hostile to the in-group
  16. Primary group – group of people who interacts daily, face to face (family)
  17. Secondary group – larger group of people with whom you might have more impersonal relationships (co-workers, classmates)
  18. Social Facilitation versus Social Inhibition
  19. Social facilitation - tendency to perform better in the presence of a group
  20. Social inhibition – the times when one performs poorly in front of crowds
  21. Many times how you perform in front of a crowd depends on what you are doing
  22. The effect of a crowd on your behavior may also be a reflection of your concern about being evaluated
  23. Interactions within groups
  24. Group structure – the overall interconnection of the roles various members play in the group and how the roles are interrelated
  25. Personal relationships between individual members, the rank of the member on a particular dimension and the roles they play
  26. Role – behavior the is expected of an individual in a group
  27. Role conflict – when roles conflict due to the change in environment or change in group membership
  28. Decision Making
  29. Group polarization – theory that group discussion reinforces the majority’s point of view and shifts group member’s opinions to a more extreme position
  30. But, if opinions of a group are equally split on an issue before a discussion, the group discussion usually then results in compromise
  31. Groupthink – poor group decision making that occurs as a result of a group emphasizing unity over critical thinking
  32. Communication Patterns
  33. Sociogram – a diagram that represents relationships within a group, especially likes and dislikes of members for other members
  34. Helps psychologists predict how individuals will likely communicate with other group members
  35. Leadership
  36. All groups have leaders, those who embody norms, ideals of the group and represents the group to outsiders
  37. Initiates action, gives orders, make decisions and settles disputers; very influential
  38. 3 Leadership styles

a.  Authoritarian

  1. Leader makes all the decisions and assigns tasks to group members

b.  Laissez-faire

  1. Leader is only minimally involved in a group’s decision making
  2. Group’s goals not the leader’s are pursued
  3. Group members make all the decisions

c.  Democratic

  1. Leader encourages group members to come to decisions through consensus
  2. Viewed as supportive but not good decision makers

Movie – The Wave

Movie – The Outsiders

Section 2

I.  Group Pressure to Conform

  1. Conformity – involves any behavior that you engage in because of direct or indirect group pressure
  2. Solomon Asch found that people conform to other people’s ideas of the truth, even when they disagree, Asch Experiment
  3. Why do people conform
  4. According to some experiments:
  5. Moscovici (1985) – Sometimes a minority view can come to win over a larger group
  6. By disagreeing with the majority view, a person can reduce the pressure that others feel to conform
  7. A minority dissenter may also serve an informational purpose by making others question whether the majority view is actually right
  8. When people hear a dissenting opinion, they are more likely to examine the issue more closely, which can lead to a better solution
  9. Asch (1952) – participants conformed, they responded to match the other group member’s responses (although they may not have changed their actual belief)
  10. Video Clips
  11. ..\..\Video Clips\Group Conformity\Asch Conformity.flv
  12. ..\..\Video Clips\Group Conformity\Elevator Psychology Conformity.flv
  13. This characterized the contrast between public behavior and private belief
  14. Compliance – when we respond to the request of another person without necessarily changing our beliefs
  15. Foot-in-the-door technique – occurs when you get a person to agree to a relatively minor request
  16. Salesmen

II.  Obedience to Authority

  1. Obedience – behavior in response to orders given by authorities which can be useful or destructive
  2. Gangs
  3. The Milgram Experiment
  4. Video Clips
  5. ..\..\Video Clips\Group Conformity\Milgram Shock Experiment.flv
  6. ..\..\Video Clips\Group Conformity\Stanley Milgram Go to 519.flv
  7. ..\..\Video Clips\Group Conformity\Milgram Shock Experiment (Debriefing).flv
  8. The Zimbardo Experiment
  9. Webquest/Worksheet
  10. Videos
  11. ..\..\Video Clips\Group Conformity\The Stanford Prison Experiment pt. 1 of 3.flv
  12. ..\..\Video Clips\Group Conformity\The Stanford Prison Experiment pt. 2 of 3.flv
  13. ..\..\Video Clips\Group Conformity\The Stanford Prison Experiment pt. 3 of 3.flv
  14. Stanford Prison Experiment http://www.prisonexp.org
  15. Cults/Manson
  16. Case Study: Your Stripes or Your Morality

Section 3

I.  Aggression

  1. What causes group violence
  2. L.A. Riots
  3. Would these people have committed the same crimes in a different, calmer atmosphere
  4. What causes humans to act in ways that harm others
  5. Aggression – any behavior that is intended to cause physical or psychological harm.
  6. Theories of Aggression
  7. Biological Influences
  8. Some animals are naturally aggressive; the response is an innate, biological reaction
  9. Some psychologists say that humans have this same biological factor or DNA marker, so to speak
  10. BUT, they also say that one can NOT label aggression as caused only by biological factors
  11. Cognitive Factors
  12. Children learn through observation and imitation of their parents
  13. Parents who use aggression (corporal punishment) to discipline their children may be teaching their children to use aggression
  14. The classic (take this anyway you want) TV, movies, music, video games may be teaching aggressive behavior to children
  15. They grow immune to the horror of violence, accept violence as a way to solving problems, imitate the violence they observe and identify with certain characters that could be victims or victimizers
  16. Doesn’t take into account the exceedingly majority of the population that are encapsulated in all of the above mentioned media yet do not become aggressive.
  17. Personality Factors
  18. Certain traits like impulsiveness with little empathy and liking to dominate can turn a person into a bully
  19. Aggressive people can be arrogant and egotistical
  20. People can strike out at others as an affirmation of their superiority
  21. Aggressive children tend to be aggressive adults
  22. Environmental Factors
  23. Frustration-aggression hypothesis – frustration or failure to obtain something expected leads to aggression
  24. Frustration doesn’t always lead to aggression, sometimes it leads to crying
  25. Revised to state that frustration leads to aggression only in certain circumstances

II.  Controlling Aggression

  1. One method to control aggression is through catharsis – releasing anger or aggression by letting out powerful negative emotions
  2. Lots of people believe that any expression of aggression is negative
  3. Expressing aggression could lead to more aggression
  4. Punish children for violent behavior and cutting down on violence they observe
  5. Being taught to control their aggression
  6. Accept frustration and move on
  7. React to disappointments in ways other than violence

III.  Altruism

  1. Altruism – helping another, often with a risk to oneself, for reasons other than the expectation of a reward
  2. Diffusion of Responsibility
  3. Kitty Genovese
  4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitty_Genovese
  5. James Bulger abduction and murder
  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_James_Bulger
  7. Diffusion of responsibility – the presence of others lessens an individual’s feelings of responsibility for his or her actions or failure to act
  8. Bystander effect – an individual does not take action because of the presence of others
  9. Social Loafing
  10. Social loafing – the tendency to work less hard when sharing the workload with others
  11. Deindividuation
  12. Deindividuation – when individuals behave irrationally when there is less chance of being personally identified
  13. People becoming involved in a riot
  14. People in the crowd feel anonymous