UNIT 1.

THE SOCIAL GROUPS

1. What is a group
2. Group effects on individual performance
3. Group norms
4. Group structure and roles

Even when we have never met a person, we directly assign them different attributes,
quickly placing them in a position in our personal like /dislike scale. That will affect our
relationship with them. How that may happen and why?

We learn who we are through social interaction

1. WHAT IS A GROUP

General definition of social group:

Two or more people who share a common definition and evaluation of themselves and
behave in accordance with such definition (Hogg and Vaughan, 2018).

Other definitions (according to the factors most relevant to different approaches):

•Individuals interacting with each other •Individuals perceiving group pertenence
•Individuals who are interdependant •Individuals joining to reach a common goal
•Individuals satisfying needs through their joint association •Individuals with a set of
roles and norms that structure them as a group •Individuals influencing each other.

• Social groups may vary from very small (a nuclear family) to large groups (e.g., a
nation, a gender).
• Social categories may also be considered social groups. The individuals within a social
category may build a sense of group when acquiring entitativity, understood as the
property of a group that makes it appear to be a distinct, coherent and bounded
entity. For a group to reach entitativity it has to share a social category (with at least
one or more social attributes).

Common-bond groups. Based on the relationship among the members of the group
(e.g., families, small communities). Based on personal goals. Individuals know each
other.
Common-identity groups. Based on one or several social attributes or categories that
are shared by all group members. Individuals may not know many of the group
members. More altruistic motivations.

Types of group tasks:

• Divisible vs. unitary
• Maximizing vs. optimizing
• Additive
• Compensatory (averaging)
• Disjunctive (selection of one alternative solution coming from one member)
• Conjunctive (a solution is taken and performed by all members)
• Discretionary (the group can freely decide the solution or result)

GROUP COHESIVENESS:
• The property of a group that affectively binds people as group members to one
another and to the group as a whole, giving the group a sense of solidarity and
oneness. Social attraction: Liking of somebody based on their group prototycality
(regarding some group attribute).

Social attraction is the liking aspect of group membership. You can like someone as a
group member and not as an individual level. This group attraction is the one that
affects group cohesiveness (and not individual attraction). Social attraction increases
cohesiveness either in small or large groups (such as nations).

Interpersonal attraction within members of the group does not seem to affect social
attraction and cohesiveness, more related to identity attributes assigned to the group.

GROUP STATUS
Consensual evaluation of the prestige and power of a role or role occupant in a group,
or of the prestige of a group and the members as a whole. Higher status usually imply
higher initiative when starting a new task or activity.
Expectation states theory: Members in a group assign status (and roles) to other
members based on (specific and diffuse) characteristics of the member related to such
status (or role).
Communication networks:
• Centralized network: Improves simple tasks as central, hub person is able to
integrate and pass the information while the peripheral persons can focus on their
tasks. For more complex tasks that is not possible.
• Centralized networks may produce more internal conflicts.
• Computer – mediated communication brings more quantity of information being
communicated but also may amplify communication and group biases.

GROUP SOCIALIZATION:
• Dynamic relationship between the group and its members that describes the passage
of members through a group, in terms of commitment and of changing roles.
• Group building through group socialization (Tuckman, 1965):
1. Forming
2. Storming
3. Norming
4. Performance
5. Adjourning

• Individual socialization through the group:

(Moreland and Levine, 1982):
1. Investigation
2. Socialization
3. Maintenance
4. Resocialization
5. Remembrance

2. GROUP EFFECTS ON INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE

Social facilitation: The presence of the group makes individual´s performance to

increase. Triplett (1898): People cycled faster in group. Children perform better in
competitions when doing in groups. Why and when:
1. The mere presence of the group increases performance
2. The group increases performance when it increases a motivational arousal (drive) if
the individual dominant response is the correct one for the group. If it is not the
correct one it reduces performance (Zajonc (1963).
3. The group activates our evaluation apprehension, producing an arousal.
4. Attentional conflict between people and task increases arousal, which will increase
performance if the task is easy.
5. Self-presentation and self-awareness. People are motivated to show themselves as
closer to the ideal self in front of the group.
6. Attentional overload makes the person focus on central cues, increasing
improvement under easy tasks.
7. The type of relationship of the individual with the group is the key point.

Social loafing: A reduction of individual effort when working on a collective task (in
which the individual outputs are pooled together). A tendency for individuals to work
less hard on a task when they believe that others are also working on the task.

Free-riders: Those individuals who do not contribute when in the group.

Why and when:

- Coordination loss
- Motivation loss
- Output equity (by thinking others loaf too)
- Reduction of evaluation apprehension
- Ambiguous sense of group´s standards

Factors afecting loafing:

Diffusion of individual responsibility grows with group size
Reduces loafing:
• Personal identification with the goals / task / group
• Inter-group comparisons and competition
• Expectations of poor performance of other group members
• Placing greater value to the group than to the individual (eg. Collective cultures)
• Perceived collective self-efficacy in achieving goals
• Group vital to the individual´s self-concept and social identity

3. GROUP NORMS

Attitudinal and behavioural uniformities that define group membership and

differentiate between groups.
Rules and standards that are understood by members of a group and that guide and/or
constrain social behaviour without the force of laws.
• The may be explicit or implicit, unobserved (unconscious), taken-for-granted.
• Norms capture attributes that describe a group distinguishing from other groups,
telling how the group is and how to behave in the group. Norms define group
stereotypes.
• Norms provide a frame of reference to locate own behaviour.
• Norms may influence individual behaviour even if the group is not present.
• Norms about goals make members to work harder.
• High status members can get away with more than lower-status members and
followers.
• Moral norms are usually central in the group, especially when the group is compared
or confronted to other groups, who are usually considered morally lower.

4. GROUP STRUCTURE AND ROLES

Roles: Patterns of behaviour that distinguish between different functions within the
group, and that interrelate to one another for the greater good of the group.
Roles:
• Represent a division of labour
• Furnish clear-cut social expectations
• Furnish members with a self-definition and a place within the group. We all have a
tendency to assign stable, internal roles to individuals within a group (related to the
correspondence bias).
Difficulties in role performance

Role conflicts:
1. Inter-role conflict: When two or more roles performed by the same person are
incompatible.
2. Intra-role conflict: When the intrinsic tasks within a role are incompatible

Role ambiguity:
3. Poor knowledge (or outcomes compared to expectancies) of the role which leads to
frustration.

Role overload or unload:

4. When the activities and tasks needed to correctly perform the role exceeds or does
not reach the expected effort.

In the next cases, write down the type of role difficulty (1-4) that may be happening:
1. An executive who has to enforce new unpleasant norms among his/her
subordinates.
2. A worker who is unmotivated because the tasks are very simple and repetitive.
3. A worker who has problems reconciling family life with work.
4. A student who is “free-riding” because nobody explained what s/he has to do in the
group project.
5. A school teacher with anxiety because s/he does not know how to solve the
problem of lack of interest of the students in learning.

Group status

Consensual evaluation of the prestige and power of a role or role occupant in a group,
or of the prestige of a group and the members as a whole. Higher status usually imply
higher initiative when starting a new task or activity.

Expectation states theory: Members in a group assign status (and roles) to other
members based on (specific and diffuse) characteristics of the member related to such
status (or role).

Communication networks:
• Centralized network: Improves simple tasks as central, hub person is able to
integrate and pass the information while the peripheral persons can focus on their
tasks. For more complex tasks that is not possible.
• Centralized networks may produce more internal conflicts.
• Computer – mediated communication brings more quantity of information being
communicated but also may amplify communication and group biases.

Deviation and marginal members

Deviant or marginal members usually show poor group prototypicality and therefore
have lower influence in the group. Marginal members meet different functions in the
group:
• They show what it is to be part of the group and what not, relieving less marginal
members.
• Pro-norm deviants (coming from outgroups) are more accepted than anti-deviants
(being away from the central group prototypicality) may be an agent of social change
within the group.
• Groups accept better the criticism of deviant group members than the members of
outgroups, this way being more open to take needed changes.

Reasons to join groups:

• Similar interests, attitudes, beliefs.
• Share goals requiring interdependence
• Mutual positive support and the pleasure of affiliation;
• Self-protection
• Emotional support in times of stress
• Connection produces a powerful sense of self-esteem and self-worth (especially
when the group has a higher status)
• Reduction of fear of death and uncertainty after deathby connection to systems that
outlive individuals.
• Provides social identity.
• Ostracism brings a lack of feeling of meaningful existence and can cause aggression.
??????

Presentación 2

Concept of group dynamic

We define group dynamic as the group transformation in which, starting in inicial
individual positions (opinions, behaviours…) we get group products that bring a change
in these individual positions.
The concept of group dynamic is linked to the concept of action-reasearch, defined by
Kurt Lewin, an important social psychologist.
There are different purposes to design a group dynamic: for group building, group
cohesion, group decision-making, group creativity and innovation, mutual support,
individual growth…

Some keys to design techniques for group dynamics

• There are many types and examples of group techniques, but no one will exactly fit
our needs and purposes. Each case will need a new design, although we can use
already existing examples for orientation.
•We can use a combination of techniques in order to boost the group steps and
process needed to achieve our goals.
• One tip is to let the group address, think, find out and work on the difficult parts of
the process.

• Identifying and breaking down the main features of the process:

(1) Problem definition
(2) Goals
(3) Required elements and materials needed for the technique(s)
(4) Detection and description of the basic steps of the process to get the goals
(5) Expected results and changes
In order to prevent bias…

Common techniques based on group dynamics

• There is a myriad of group techniques for all sorts of group goals, but the best idea is
to design our own group technique(s) based on our goals and detected processes.
Well-known techniques may be a good help for orientation.
Common techniques :
• Nominal group
• Philips 6.6
• SWOT matrix (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats)
• Forum
• Flowcharts
• Conceptual, cognitive, affective maps
• Sociogram, diagramas
• Ishikawa diagram
• Problems-solutionsTrees
• Network analysis
• Delphi group
• Brianstorming
• Transect
• Coffee –house debate
• Simulation
• Rol – playing
• Sociodrama
• Group documentary
• Future and present scenes matrix