Summary Group dynamics
Week 1: Chapter 3: Inclusion and identity
Do humans, by nature, seek solitude or inclusion in groups?
Three interrelated processes determine the relationship of individuals to groups:
- Inclusion and exclusion
- Individualism and collectivism
- Personal identity and social identity
Baumeister and Leary suggest that much of human behaviour is motivated by the need to
belong, the generalized desire to seek out and join with other people, which, when
unsatisfied, causes a state of tension and want. Solitude is sometimes rewarding, but most
adults prefer the company of others. Most adults live with others, spend time with others, and
a lot of groups exist.
Social capital is the degree to which individuals, groups, or larger aggregates of people are
linked in social relationships that yield positive, productive benefits; analogous to economic
capital (prosperity), but determined by the extensiveness of social connectedness. Putnam
suggests that levels of social capital are decreasing due to reductions in involvement in
groups, but these shifts probably indicate changes in the kinds of associations people seek.
Groups help members avoid basic forms of loneliness:
- Emotional loneliness is when the problem is a lack of a long-term, meaningful intimate
relationship with another person.
- Social loneliness is when people feel cut off from their network of friends,
acquaintances, and group members.
Loneliness seems to spread within groups and depends on the degree of separation, the
number of people in the sequence linking a person to another.
Ostracism, the deliberate exclusion from groups, often by ignoring, shunning or banishing, is
highly stressful (indicated by self-reports of negative affect in everyday situations and
people’s reactions in experiments).
- The temporal need-threat model
of ostracism by Williams
identifies a three-stage
response to exclusion: reflexive,
reflective and resignation.
- Individuals who exhibit a fight-
or-flight response to exclusions confront or withdraw from the group and, in some
cases of extreme or unexpected exclusion, may display a freezing response.
- Individuals who exhibit a tend-and-befriend response to exclusion seek social
reconnection. It is a physiological, psychological, and interpersonal response to
stressful events characterized by increased nurturing, protective and supportive
behaviors (tending), and initiating and strengthening relationships with other people
(befriending).
- Men are more likely to fight-or-flight, while women tend and befriend. Women are
more likely to blame themselves for their rejection and compensate.
- Studies by Gaertner, Leary and colleagues trace some violent attacks of individuals
to ostracism, also illustrated in the Noise Tolerance test.
, - Individuals also react negatively to exclusion from computer-mediated interaction or
cyberostracism.
Evolutionary psychology suggests that the need to belong (the herd instinct) results from
natural selection as individuals affiliated with groups were more likely to survive.
- Sociometer theory developed by Leary explains the relationship between exclusion
and self-esteem by hypothesizing that self-esteem provides individuals with feedback
about their inclusion (acceptance) in groups.
- The intensely negative reactions most people experience when they feel excluded
are associated with specific hormonal and neurological processes.
- Studies of the brain using fMRI technology (Eisenberger: anterior insula and dorsal
cingulate cortex) and the effects of analgesics on emotional reactions following
rejection suggest that the pain of exclusion is maintained by the same biological
systems responsible for the experience of physiological pain.
When do people put the group’s needs before their own?
Individualism and collectivism are distinguishable in their relative emphasis on individuals
and the collective across people (the micro level), groups (the meso level), and cultures (the
macro level):
- Micro level: individuals differ in their conception of themselves as individuals or
members of the collective: A person’s conception of his or her self includes both
individualistic elements (personal identity) and collectivistic elements (social or
collective identity).
Individualists (independents/idiocentrics) stress personal qualities, independence,
personal goals, competition, uniqueness, need for privacy, self-knowledge, directness
in communication, whereas collectivists (interdependents/allocentrics) emphasize
relationships, belong, duty, harmony, seeking advice, context hierarchy, and their
groups’ goals and needs.
The sexes do not differ reliably or substantially in individualism/collectivism.
Twenge: younger individuals (Millenials) may be shifting in a more individualistic
direction.
Brewer: optimal distinctiveness theory suggests that individuals strive to maintain an
optimal balance between their personal identity (rational self) and collective identity.
- Meso level: the group culture determines the group’s emphasis on the individual
members or the group as a whole: A collectivistic orientation stresses hierarchy and
reacts more negatively to nonconformity. Collectivism’s emphasis on relationships is
manifested in the emphasis on communal relationships over exchange relationships
and differences of resources in the Ultimatum Game.
o Communal relationship is a reciprocal interdependency that emphasizes
meeting the needs and interests of others rather than maximizing one’s own
personal outcomes.
o Exchange relationship is a reciprocal interdependency that emphasizes the
trading of gratifying experiences and rewards among members.
o The Ultimatum Game is an experimental bargaining situation in which one
individual, the allocator, must propose a division of a shared resource to other
members; if they reject the allocator’s proposal, no one receives any of the
resource.
- Egocentric (self-serving) tendencies are more likely in individualistic settings in
contrast to the sociocentric (group-serving) tendencies seen in collectivistic settings.
, The norm of reciprocity is implemented differently in individualistic and collectivistic
groups, with the former following the equity norm (outcome in proportion to input) and
the latter the equality norm (all group members equal share of the payoff).
Collectivists are more likely to favour members of the ingroup.
- Macro level: cultures and subgroups within countries vary in their emphasis.
Triandis: people in collectivistic cultures (Asian, Eastern European, African, and
Middle Eastern countries) think of themselves as group members first and individuals
second, whereas people who live in individualistic cultures (Western countries) are
self-centered rather than group-centered.
Certain subgroups and geographic regions within a larger area may display more or
less collectivism: Southern portion United States and Asian and Hispanic Americans.
Cohen and Nisbett: on culture of honour suggest that white southern males in the US
are more likely to respond aggressively when their honour is challenged, but
individuals raised in dignity and face cultures do not:
o Culture of honour: emerge in rural economies where civil authority is too weak
to protect individuals from harm.
o Dignity cultures: emerge in more economically prosperous, individualistic
cultures, for they stress the importance of personal integrity. Each individual
has inherent value, the quality of their character is not defined by others.
o Face cultures: characterized by hierarchy, humility, and harmony. They value
respect and deference, but individuals cooperate together to maintain one
another’s respectability. One doe not take matters in one’s own hands (selfish
and disrupts harmony and circumvents system of social hierarchy).
Core features of individualism and collectivism:
What processes transform an individual’s sense of self to a collective, social identity?
Social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner) traces the development of a collective identity back
to two key processes (categorization and identification) that occur even in minimal intergroup
situations (gatherings of two groups of volunteers with no history, no future, and no real
connection to one another).
- Social categorization involves automatically classifying people into categories. We
have stereotypes (prototypes), beliefs describing typical characteristics of people in
various social groups and how one group differs from another (metacontrast
principle).
o Through self-categorization, individuals classify themselves into categories.
o Self-stereotyping (or autostereotyping) occurs when individuals apply (accept)
stereotypes based on those categories to themselves.
- Social identification occurs when the individual accepts the group and its
characteristics as an extension of the self (Hogg). Identification and categorization
, become more likely when outgroups are salient and when people are members of
smaller groups.
- Social identity assumes individuals are
motivated to maintain self-esteem and to
clarify their understanding of themselves
and other people (Hogg).
o Self-esteem is related to
membership in higher status
groups and to collective self-
esteem, an individual’s overall assessment of that portion of their self-concept
that is based on their relationships with others and membership in social
groups (Crocker and Luhtanen).
o Members of stigmatized groups, failing groups, or groups that are derogated
by nonmembers often protect their self-esteem by:
Rejecting negative information about their group
Basking in reflected glory (BIRGing): seeking (in)direct association with
prestigious or successful groups or individuals.
Cutting off reflected failure (CORFing): distancing oneself from a group
that performs poorly.
Stressing the relative superiority of their group (the ingroup-outgroup
bias): the tendency to view the ingroup, its members, and its products
more positively than other groups, their members, and their products.
Ingroup favouritism is more common than outgroup rejection.
Selectively focusing on their group’s superior qualities (social
creativity): restricting comparisons between the ingroup and other
groups to tasks and outcomes when the ingroup is more successful
than other groups and avoiding areas in which other groups surpass.
o When stereotype threat (vs stereotype verification) is high, members become
concerned that they will be stereotyped if considered a member of a particular
group. They often end up performing less: becoming self-fulfilling prophecy.
o In general, personal failure is more troubling than collective failure. Individuals
will minimize their association with groups that are performing poorly or will
resign from the group to minimize the threat to individual self-esteem
(individual mobility).
