Behavior in groups (fonte)

The social-psychological study of behaviour in groups is a large area of research. The foci of this chapter are behaviour in the presence of others, structural features of groups, group performance and decision making, competition and cooperation in groups, and group leadership.

Behaviour in the Presence of Others

The mere presence of other people can have seemingly contradictory effects on our behaviour. In some cases, our performance improves when others are present, an effect known as social facilitation. In other cases, however, our performance actually worsens when others are present, an effect known as social loafing.

Social facilitation has long been of interest to social psychologists. Early in social psychology's history, both physical (Triplett, 1898) and mental (Allport, 1920, 1924) tasks were shown to be performed more quickly in the presence of others. Since these early studies, researchers have shown social facilitation effects both when others are merely present and when they are performing the same task. Even non-human animals are now known to show the social-facilitation effect (e.g., Chen, 1937).

Sometimes, however, the quality of performance diminishes when others are present. One explanation for this effect of social inhibition of performance is that the presence of others arouses our motivation to perform. This heightened arousal, however, leads to better performance on easy or well-learned tasks, but leads to worse performance on difficult tasks (Zajonc, 1965). A second explanation is that evaluation apprehension increases arousal enough to interfere with performance. A third view is expressed in the distraction- conflict model (Baron, 1986), which holds that the presence of others leads to a conflicting desire of performers to attend to their task on the one hand, and their audience on the other. All three models may contribute to explaining human performance in different situations.

Social inhibition refers to the effects of others' presence on an individual's behaviour. Social loafing, on the other hand, occurs when the presence of others prevents individual performance from being evaluated. In such cases, individuals often perform less well than they would if alone. In a recent meta-analysis of 78 social loafing studies (Karau & Williams, 1993), social evaluation was found to be key. When people believe their performance will be "lost in the crowd", performance diminishes. However, if individual performance can be evaluated by others, social loafing decreases. Social loafing also decreases when the group's goal is highly valued by the individual in question, or when the group's task is very difficult or complex (Jackson & Williams, 1985).

Another effect that sometimes occurs when people work in groups is social compensation, working harder to compensate for others in the group. Social compensation is more likely to occur when we care about our group's performance, or when we suspect that other group members are unable or unwilling to do their share of the work (e.g. Williams & Karau, 1991). Although there is evidence for social compensation and social loafing, the effects may be stronger in the US and other individualistic cultures (e.g., Gabrenya et al., 1985).

Social Impact Theory

According to social impact theory (Latane, 1981), the impact of others on performance depends on three attributes of the observers or evaluators of behaviour: (1) their number, (2) strength or importance and (3) immediacy, or closeness in time and space. Empirical support for the impact of group sized is good, but the other two factors await further testing.

Deindividuation

Observers of human behaviour have long noted that people do things when they are part of a crowd that they would not ordinarily do. Social psychologists believe that deindividuation, the temporary replacement of personal identity with group identity, may be the cause. Experiments have shown that anything that reduces the chance that individuals will be identifiable makes it more likely that they will experience deindividuation. Zimbardo (1970) showed that groups of women who were easily identifiable (wearing name tags) were more likely to deliver shocks than those who were relatively anonymous (wearing hoods and no name tags). Thus it is not being part of a group per se that leads to deindividuation, but rather the level of anonymity.

BASIC FEATURES OF GROUPS

Defining "Group"

Within the social sciences, the term group refers specifically to situations where "people are interdependent and have at least the potential for mutual interaction" (Taylor, Peplau & Sears, 1997, p. 286). In addition, most are characterised by regular face-to- face interaction. There are four important variables that define a group: (1) group size, (2) values and goals, (3) duration, and (4) breadth or scope of activities. Research on small groups has studied both natural and artificial groups that vary on these four dimensions.

Group Structure, Group Communication, and Group Cohesiveness

Over time, groups develop a social structure. A group's social structure can be formal or informal, and consists of social norms, social roles, and social status. A group's social structure can affect its communication. For example, status hierarchies like those in the military mean that communication is very limited. This type of communication network may lead to greater efficiency, but also to lower levels of morale and satisfaction with the group. Group morale and satisfaction are two components of group cohesiveness. Others include the amount of liking among group members, the effectiveness of group interactions, and barriers to leaving the group.

GROUP PERFORMANCE

High group cohesiveness usually leads to good group functioning. Yet if group norms include more social interaction than work, cohesiveness can lead to poor performance. A great deal of group research is based on identifying the factors that enhance or diminish group performance.

One such research area examines the various types of tasks in which groups engage. In additive tasks (e.g., a tug-of-war game), the group's effectiveness is a product of the sum efforts of its members. In conjunctive tasks (e.g., assembly-line production), the group can succeed only if all its members succeed. In disjunctive tasks (e.g., solving an equation), a group can be successful if just one of its members succeeds. Finally, in very complex tasks (e.g., a heart transplant), group productivity depends on the performance of individuals, but also on the coordination of their performance in achieving the group's goal.

GROUP DECISION MAKING

Groups typically use a set of decision rules in making decisions. These include the unanimity rule, the majority-wins rule, and the truth-wins rule. Groups adopt different decision rules depending on the situation. For example, when deciding matters of fact rather than opinion, a truth-wins rule is typically adopted (Laughlin & Adamopoulow, 1980). Knowing which rule a group is applying can help us to predict how long a discussion will take and how satisfied members will be with the decision.

One heavily-researched aspect of group decision making is known as group polarization. In the 1960s, many studies of group decision making found that groups arrived at more risky decisions than any of its individual members; this phenomenon was coined "risky shift" (Stoner, 1961). Today, however, it is believed that groups only make risky decisions when initial opinions are somewhat risky. On the other hand, groups make more conservative decisions when initial opinions are somewhat conservative. This phenomenon of groups amplifying the attitudes of their members is called group polarization. Three major explanations for group polarization have been put forward: (1) persuasive arguments, (2) social comparison and self- presentation, and (3) social identity processes.

GROUP INTERACTION: COMPETITION VERSUS COOPERATION

Much of the social psychological research on competition and cooperation has taken the form of laboratory experiments using games such as the trucking game and the prisoner's dilemma. In the trucking game (Deutsch & Krauss, 1960), each of two participants gains points by getting their own truck from point A to point B as quickly as possible. Despite the fact that both participants maximize their points if they cooperate by alternating use of the only short-cut road, little cooperation is in fact observed. Instead, players typically waste time by confronting one another on the shared short-cut road, thus decreasing points for both. In the prisoner's dilemma game, similar results obtain. Despite the fact that cooperation maximizes points, participants still persist in employing competitive strategies.

Researchers have found that the reward structure of a given situation or experiment largely determines whether cooperation or competition will result. In situations of competitive interdependence, one person's loss is another's gain. In situations of cooperative interdependence, the outcomes of group members are linked. In other situations, such as the trucking and prisoner's dilemma games, the reward structure is mixed or unclear, with choices about whether to compete or cooperate. In such cases, both cultural (e.g., Kagan, 1977) and individual differences (McClintock & Liebrand, 1988) in factors such as individualism account for the results. The same factors determine behaviour in social dilemmas, situations in which an individual's short-term interests are better served by competition, but the group's interests (and therefore the long- term interests of the individual) are better served by cooperation.

LEADERSHIP

The pattern of leadership, or leadership structure of a group is of interest to social psychologists. Major research areas in leadership structure include the formal versus informal leadership, paths to leadership, and task versus social leadership.

In addition to leadership structure within groups, social psychologists have focused on factors likely to be associated with leadership. Research on individual attributes has shown that leaders show high abilities in the relevant tasks, strong interpersonal skills facilitating group interaction, and motivation for recognition and prominence (e.g., Hogan et al., 1994).

Finally, research has focused on styles of leadership. According to one major perspective, the contingency model of leadership effectiveness (Fiedler, 1978, 1993), a leader's effectiveness is a product of the match between the leader's style (task- or situation-oriented) and the demands of the situation. Another perspective, the transactional approach emphasizes the role of followers' perceptions and attitudes in determining who becomes a leader (Hollander, 1993). Leaders or aspiring leaders, in turn, may adapt their leadership style in accordance with followers' perspectives.