Performance in Groups

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Performance in Groups

• Social Facilitation
• Social loafing
• Collective behavior
• Brainstorming

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Activity

• Task
• Using two pencils in one hand (like chopsticks)
  individually pick up jellybeans from one cup and
  place them in the other cup.

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Tripletts (1898) study

• Triplett
• Noticed bicyclists performed better when riding
  with others
• Study with children performing simple task either
  alone or with others.
• Results
• Children performed better when in the presence of
  others compared to when alone

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I. Social Facilitation

• Enhancement and impairment performance effects
  resulting from the presence of one or more
  persons
• Social facilitation
• Performance enhancement
• Social inhibition
• Performance impairment

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The Scope of Social Facilitation

• Many contradictory findings
• Sometimes people performed better in the presence
  of others and sometimes people performed worse
• Interest in social facilitation dwindled (40s
  50s)
• Zajonc integrated the divergent results
• Distinction between dominant and nondominant
  responses

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Social Facilitation a la Zajonc

• Dominant response
• Well-learned or instinctive behaviors that the
  organism has practiced and is primed to perform
• Nondominant response
• Novel, complicated, or untried behaviors that the
  organism has never performed (or performed
  infrequently)
• Presence of others increases our tendency to
  perform dominant responses

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Research Examples

• Cockroach study (Zajonc et al. 1969)
• Not limited to humans!
• Cockroaches performed simple or difficult task
• Runway or maze
• Measured speed when alone or with fellow roaches
  present
• Presence of other roaches facilitated performance
  on easy task and hampered it on difficult task

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Cockroach study
Seconds
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Research Examples

• Pool room study (Michaels et al., 1982)
• Players identified as above or below average
• Research team of 4 approached the table and
  observed playing
• Found classic facilitation/inhibition effects

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Pool room study
shots made
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The Social Facilitation Effect
Performance Improves
Know the task well
Perform task in presence of audience
Do not know the task well
Performance Declines
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Why Does Social Facilitation Occur?

• Three basic processes highlighted
• Arousal
• Evaluation apprehension
• Distraction-conflict theory

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Increased arousal
Evaluation Apprehension
Social Facilitation of Dominant Responses
Presence of Other People
Cognitive conflict
Distraction
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II. Social Loafing

• Ringlemann effect
• Social loafing
• Members work below their potential when in a
  group
• i.e., people getting lazy in groups

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The Social Loafing Effect
High
The greater the number of people who work on a
group task, the smaller the contribution any
one member of the group will make
Amount of Individual Effort Exerted
Low
One person working alone
Small groups
Large groups
Number of People Working
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Research Example

• Shouting experiment (Latane, Williams, Harkins)
• SS separated into rooms with headphones
• Led to believe they were shouting alone or with
  others
• Results
• Groups of 2 shouted at 66 capacity
• Groups of 6 at 36 capacity
• People exhibit a sizable decrease in individual
  effort when performing in groups compared to alone

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Ways to Reduce Social Loafing

• Identify individual performance.
• Form smaller work groups.
• More task structure and specialized roles
• Direct and immediate feedback
• Increased personal involvement
• Group cohesion

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III. Collective Behavior
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Collective Behavior

• Deindividuation
• Loss of sense of individuality. This loss reduces
  constraints against "deviant" behavior.
• Conditions promoting deindividuation
• When you feel anonymous unlikely to be caught
• When environment focuses your attention away from
  the self

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Zimbardos (1969) Model of Deindividuation
Crowd ? Reduced self-awareness ? Disinhibition R
educed accountability
Output behaviour Emotional, impulsive,
irrational, regressive and extreme
behaviour Uncontrolled behaviour Distorted
memory/ perception Hyper-responsiveness to
immediate surroundings Liking for
group Destruction of traditional forms and
structures
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Classic Studies

• Focused on anonymity and its effects

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Research Examples
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Research Examples

• Trick or treat study (Diener et al. 1976)
• Children trick or treated alone or in group
• 1/2 Trick or treating children asked name
  other 1/2 not
• All children given the opportunity to steal extra
  candy

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Trick or Treat Study
transgressing
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Another Account of Collective Behavior

• Social Identity explanation
• In the crowd the person doesnt lose a sense of
  individuality rather the person transitions from
  a personal identity to a social identity
• Social identity
• When social identity is made salient, people
  internalize group norms as their own. If group
  members behave normatively, collective behavior
  results.

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Research Examples

• KKK vs. nurses study (Johnson Downing 1979)
• Participants identified by name or anonymous
• Participants wore KKK or nurses costumes
• Then given opportunity to shock

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Deindividuation Effects Depend on Normative Cues
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Collective Behavior Explanations Compared

• DEINDIVIDUATION
• Cause Anonymity, arousal, noise, other external
  factors demanding attention
• Process Loss of identity, decreased (self)
  awareness
• Outcome Disinhibition, anti-normative behavior,
  suggestibility

• SOCIAL IDENTITY
• Cause Factors inducing identity salience
• Process Transition from individual to social
  identity
• Outcome Normative behavior, responsiveness to
  group norms

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Brainstorming

• Brainstorming groups often create fewer ideas
  than individuals because
• social loafing
• blocking (because of waiting turns, ppl forget
  ideas or decide not to share)
• evaluation apprehension
• social matching (lower standards of performance
  are matched)
• What can be more effective?

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Brainstorming ExercisePage 302

• "Each year a great many Americans go to Europe to
  visit. Now suppose that Americans want to entice
  Europeans to come to America. What steps would
  you suggest to get more Europeans to visit
  America?"

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Post Performance Review

• 1. How many ideas do you think you, as an
  individual, generated while brainstorming?
• 2. In general, do you believe you would produce
  more ideas alone or by brainstorming in a group?
• 3. In general, do you believe you would produce
  more creative ideas by alone or by brainstorming
  in a group?
• 4. Evaluate the process your group used to
  generate its ideas.
• a. Did the production of ideas change over time?
• b. Did some individuals in the group produce more
  than others?
• c. Did your group follow the rules of
  brainstorming?
• 5. Did any of the following coordination and
  motivational factors influence your group's
  performance?
• a. Social loafing
• b. Evaluation apprehension
• c. Blocking
• d. Social matching