Chapter 7 — Social Influence and Group Processes

A group is an organised system of two or more individuals who are interacting and interdependent, have common motives, a set of role relationships among members, and norms that regulate the behaviour of its members.

A crowd is a collection of people assembled by chance with no structure, no belongingness, and irrational behaviour where members are not interdependent. An audience assembles for a special purpose and is generally passive but can turn into a mob. Groups, by contrast, have mutual interdependence, defined roles, status differentials, and expectations among members.

People join groups for security (comfort and protection), status (recognition and sense of power from valued membership), self-esteem (positive social identity), satisfaction of psychological and social needs (belongingness, love, attention), goal achievement (tasks that cannot be accomplished alone), and knowledge and information (broader view through shared information).

Tuckman suggested groups pass through: forming (initial uncertainty, members get to know each other), storming (intragroup conflict over leadership and tasks), norming (group norms develop and positive group identity emerges), performing (group works toward its goal), and adjourning (group disbands after its purpose is achieved, e.g., a school function organising committee).

The four elements are: roles (socially defined expectations for individuals in a given situation), norms (expected standards of behaviour agreed upon and enforced by members, the group's unspoken rules), status (relative social position — either ascribed such as seniority or achieved through expertise), and cohesiveness (togetherness, binding, and mutual attraction that creates 'we feeling').

Groupthink was identified by Irving Janis. It is a process in which a cohesive group's concern for unanimity overrides the motivation to realistically appraise courses of action, resulting in irrational and uncritical decisions. Groupthink occurs in socially homogenous, cohesive groups isolated from outsiders. The Vietnam War escalation from 1964 to 1967 under President Lyndon Johnson, which resulted in the loss of 56,000 American and more than one million Vietnamese lives, is cited as an example.

Groupthink can be counteracted by: encouraging and rewarding critical thinking and disagreement among members, encouraging groups to present alternative courses of action, inviting outside experts to evaluate the group's decisions, and encouraging members to seek feedback from trusted others.

Social loafing is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task where outputs are pooled. Latane and his associates asked male students to clap or cheer as loudly as possible in varying group sizes — alone, or in groups of two, four, and six. Although total noise rose with group size, the noise produced by each participant dropped, showing each person put in less effort as the group grew larger.

The Minimal Group Paradigm was developed by Tajfel and his colleagues to identify the minimal conditions for intergroup behaviour. British schoolboys were divided into groups based on their preference for paintings by Kandinsky or Klee. Although groups were formed on this trivial criterion with no past history or future, children still favoured their own group when distributing money, demonstrating that even minimal group membership triggers ingroup favouritism.

Group polarisation is the strengthening of a group's initial position as a result of group interaction and discussion, leading to more extreme decisions. It occurs because: members hear newer arguments favouring their existing viewpoint, finding others with similar views creates a bandwagon validation effect, and perceiving similar people as ingroup increases conformity, further strengthening the original position.

Primary groups such as family, caste, and religion are pre-existing formations given to the individual; they feature face-to-face interaction, close physical proximity, warm emotional bonds, and less permeable boundaries. Secondary groups such as a political party are joined by choice, have more impersonal and indirect relationships, and are easier to leave or join.

Social loafing can be reduced by making each person's efforts identifiable, increasing pressure to work hard and members' commitment to task performance, increasing the apparent importance or value of the task, making people feel their individual contribution matters, and strengthening group cohesiveness to increase motivation for successful group outcome.

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