Foundations of Group Behavior

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Foundations ofGroup Behavior

• November 7, 2009
• Robbins, chapter 7

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Announcements

• Groups and Teams tonight
• Case and readings
• Presentations tonight
• Jason
• Samantha
• Nikki
• Next week (Leadership)
• Luke
• Tim
• Shanon
• Jason
• John
• Andria

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Groups

• Two or more individuals, interacting and
  interdependent, who come together to achieve
  particular objectives
• Formal or informal
• All teams are groups not all groups are teams

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Four Types of Groups

• Command
• Task
• Interest
• Friendship

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Why People Join Groups
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Group Impact on Individuals

• Much of our interest in groups and group
  membership lies in the impact that group
  membership has on individuals

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Group Impact on Individual Behavior

• Groups provide immediate context for individual
  thought and action
• Groups arouse or depress member arousalinterest,
  enthusiasm, commitment, and motivation toward
  group goals and outcomes
• Groups directly and contingently reinforce
  specific individual behaviors
• Groups affect behavior indirectly by shaping
  beliefs and attitudes
• Groups create and maintain normative structures
  that efficiently and powerfully shape and
  constrain behavior

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Group Impact on Individual Behavior

• Groups provide immediate context for individual
  thought and action
• Attributes of people in a group, characteristics
  of the task, the type of leadership, the physical
  location all provide a stimulus-rich context for
  individual behavior
• Ambient stimuli provide clues about outcomes,
  arouse or depress motivation, and provide group
  members with direct satisfaction and frustration

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Group Impact on Individual Behavior

• Groups arouse or depress member arousalinterest,
  enthusiasm, commitment, and motivation toward
  group goals and outcomes
• performance is directly related to levels of
  arousal

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Group Impact on Individual Behavior

• Groups directly and contingently reinforce
  specific individual behaviors
• Messages of approval/disapproval, rewards
  (money), instructions, model behavior
• Application of discretionary stimuli shapes
  member behavior in real time

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Group Impact on Individual Behavior

• Groups affect behavior indirectly by shaping
  beliefs and attitudes
• since individuals try to reach consistency
  between behavior and attitudes/beliefs,
  group-induced attitude/beliefs changes will
  impact behavior group membership will influence
  attitudes and values
• impact of group on beliefs and attitudes is slow
  and may not occur if group is not a reference
  point for the individual

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Group Impact on Individual Behavior

• Groups create and maintain normative structures
  that efficiently and powerfully shape and
  constrain behavior
• Norms are incredibly efficient and powerful
  mechanism for controlling behavior

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Basic Group Concepts

• Roles
• Norms
• Status
• Cohesiveness
• Size
• Composition

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Roles

• Engage in a set of expected behavior patterns
  that are attributed to a given position in a
  social unit
• People play multiple roles
• People learn roles from the stimuli around them
• People shift roles rapidly according to
  situational demands
• People experience conflict when one role
  contradicts another

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Roles

• Psychological contract
• Unwritten agreement that exists between employees
  and their employer
• Sets out mutual expectations

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Norms

• Acceptable standards of behavior within a group
  that are adopted and shared by the groups members

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The Hawthorne Studies

• Series of studies at Western Electric Companys
  Hawthorne Works, Chicago
• Examined the relation between the physical
  environment and productivity
• Researchers findings contradicted their
  anticipated results

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The Hawthorne Studies

• Concluded that a workers behavior and sentiments
  were closely related
• Group influences were significant in affecting
  individual behavior.
• Group standards were highly effective in
  establishing individual worker output.
• Money was less a factor in determining worker
  output than were group standards, sentiments, and
  security.

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Examples of Cards Used in Asch Study
X
A
B
C
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Conformity and the Asch Studies

• Demonstrated that subjects conformed in about 35
  of the trials
• Members desire to be one of the group and avoid
  being visibly different
• Members with differing opinions feel extensive
  pressure to align with others

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Status

• Status - a socially defined position or rank
  given to groups or group members by others

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What Determines Status?

• The power a person wields over others
• A persons ability to contribute to a groups
  goals
• An individuals personal characteristics

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Status

• The importance of status varies between cultures

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Cohesiveness

• The degree to which members of the group are
  attracted to each other and motivated to stay in
  the group

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Relationship of Cohesivenessto Productivity
Cohesiveness
High
Low
Strong increaseinproductivity
Moderate increaseinproductivity
High
Alignment of group and organizational goals
Decreaseinproductivity
No significanteffect onproductivity
Low
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How Can Managers Encourage Cohesiveness?

• Make the group smaller
• Encourage agreement on group goals
• Increase the time spent together
• Increase the status and perceived difficulty of
  group membership

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More Ways Managers Can Encourage Cohesiveness

• Stimulate competition with other groups
• Give rewards to the group rather than members
• Physically isolate the group

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How Size Affects a Group

• Smaller groups are faster at completing tasks
• Large groups may be better at problem solving
• Increases in group size are inversely related to
  individual performance

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Group Size Issues Social Loafing

• Tendency to expend less effort in a group than as
  an individual

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Composition

• When a group is diverse, there is an increased
  probability that it will possess the needed
  characteristics to complete its tasks
  effectively.
• Diversity promotes conflict, which stimulates
  creativity, which leads to improved decision
  making

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Individual versus Group Decision Making

• Individual
• More efficient
• Speed
• No meetings
• No discussions
• Clear accountability
• Consistent values

• Group
• More effective
• More information and knowledge
• Diversity of views
• Higher-quality decisions
• Increased acceptance

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Symptoms of Groupthink

• Group members rationalize any resistance to their
  assumptions
• Members pressure any doubters to support the
  alternative favored by the majority
• Doubters keep silent about misgivings and
  minimize their importance
• Group interprets members silence as a yes vote
  for the majority

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Variables Influencing Groupthink

• Groups cohesiveness
• Leaders behavior
• Insulation from outsiders
• Time pressures
• Failure to follow methodical decision-making
  procedures

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Groupshift

• Decision of the group reflects the dominant
  decision-making norm that develops during the
  groups discussion

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Selecting the Best Decision-Making Technique

• Brainstorming
• Nominal group technique
• Electronic meetings