HOORCOLLEGE 1
Learning goals:
1. Define groups and identify different types of groups.
2. Describe, apply and analyze the research tools in social psychology studies of groups.
3. Illustrate and apply the theories and findings regarding social inclusion, social affiliation, and motivation loss and gain.
4. Illustrate, apply, and analyze social influence processes and consequences.
5. Identify and compare the factors predicting leadership emergence and leadership effectiveness.
6. Recognize the underlying mechanisms of group decision making and conflicts.
7. Analyze group phenomenon from the real world by applying insights from the course material.
How does being included vs. excluded from a group shapes feelings and behaviors in the group?
How do people influence each other in a group?
Do groups make better/worse decisions than individuals?
How to build good and effective groups?
What makes a good leader in a group?
Our intuitions can be wrong, inaccurate or incomplete.
1. Do people become more or less helpful after being excluded?
More helpful/less helpful; why?
After being excluded, people want to be part of a group and become more helpful vs shutting down (third response).
2. Do students become more or less 'group-seeking' under stress?
More group seeking/less group seeking.
More because: connecting and sharing with people help coping with stress.
Less because: avoiding distraction by groups.
3. Which group is more productive: strong or weak ties? -> depends on group norms
Strong ties: with important group norms for cooperation this can be very productive.
Weak ties: depends on norms and goals.
4. Will group conflict improve or diminish group performance? -> depends on what type (and to what extend/amount) of
conflict
Improve: sharing opinions
Diminish: individual conflict is personal
5. How can we reduce negative views of outgroup members? -> types of othering
• Age
• Sexual orientation
• Religion
• Gender identity
• Skin color
• Political affiliation
Working towards the same goal (elevated version contact theory)
How would you define a group?
Two or more people who are connected and are inter-dependent, in the sense that their needs and goals cause them to influence
each other.
- 2 or more individuals: groups come in a staggering assortment of shapes and sizes, dyads (2) and triads (3) to huge
crowds, mobs. James: groups tend to gravitate to the smallest size, 2 members. But groups that had been deliberately
created for some specific purpose tended to be larger.
- Who are connected: definitions of the word group are as varied as groups themselves, but a commonality shared by
many of these definitions is an emphasis on social relations that link members to one another.
- By and within social relations: the relations that link the members of groups aren’t of one type. Every individual member
of the group doesn’t need to be linked to every other person in the group.
Not one definition can capture the many nuances of the word group.
Examples?
• 4 people surfing on the internet on different computers on different websites at the same place -> no interaction, so
there is missing information (maybe working on group project)
• 11 people playing football -> dependent on each other with same goal, so yes this is a group.
• 3 people often going out together -> yes this is a group, a goal or tasks together isn't necessary.
, • 610 inhabitants of Tilburg who like playing poker -> not a group, it's a category. To turn them into a group requires them
all to participate in the same poker club and play together.
Varieties of groups:
1. Primary: small, long-term groups (families, close friends, combat squads).
Horton: the small, intimate clusters of close associates, like families, good friends or cliques of peers. These groups
profoundly influence the behavior, feelings, and judgements of their members, since the members spend much of their
time interacting face-to-face with one another, with many of the other members present too. Even when group is
dispersed, members feel they are still ‘in’ the group, and the group is very important to them. Group continues with
more or less the same people in them for a long time. People only belong to a very small number of primary groups.
Cooley: primary because they transform individuals into social beings. Primary groups protect members from harm, care
for them when ill, and provide them which shelter when needed. According to Cooley they also create the connection
between the individual and the society at large. Peope acquire their attitudes, values, identities, skills and principles in
groups.
2. Social/secondary: small, interacting over long time (coworkers, study groups).
Emerged to structure the wider range of less intimate, more public settings, interactions. Larger and more formal than
primary groups. Membership is shorter and less emotionally involving. Boundaries are more permeable, so easy to leave
old groups and join new ones, since not as much commitment is needed as in primary groups. People can belong to a
variety of social groups.
3. Collective: large, similarities in actions & outlook (movie audience, crowd watching a fire, people in a line); when moving
away you aren't part of it anymore; inter-dependent because of a reaction that might influence other's reaction.
Any gathering of individuals. Larger, les intricately interconnected associations among people. People are joined by
common interest or shared actions, and often owe little allegiance to the group. Created by happenstance, convenience,
or a short-lived experience; therefore, relations dissolve as soon as members separate.
4. Categories: large, only have common attribute (people who live in NL (‘the Dutch’), men/women).
Collection of individuals who are similar to one another in some way. Without social implications, it only describes
individuals who share a feature in common. These categories however set personal/interpersonal processes in motion
(eg: celebrating St. Patrick’s Day because of Irish heritage). Then a category may be transformed into a highly influential
group. A category shares a common identity with one another -> social identity. They know who is/isn’t in their category,
and what qualities are typical in/outsiders. ‘’Social identity is that part of an individual’s self-concept which derives from
his knowledge of his membership of a social group(s) together with the emotional significance attached to that
membership’’. Social categories can cause people to rely on stereotypes when they encounter ‘’those people’’ that aren’t
part of the category. This way, divisions between people are created, which van result in a sense of ‘we/us’ vs
‘they/them’.
(Some) characteristics of groups:
• Type of group interaction
• The way in which group members are interdependent.
• Group unity
• Group origin
• Group structure
Type of group interaction: (Bales)
• Task interaction: focused on group's work/project/goal, coordination is needed.
• Relationship interaction/socioemotional interaction: emotional & personal bonds; sustaining or undermining actions
(social support but also criticism)
• Interdependency: how people depend on each other
o Symmetric interdependence with reciprocity.
o Hierarchical interdependence without reciprocity
o Hierarchical interdependence with (unequal)
reciprocity
o Sequential interdependence without reciprocity
• Group unity:
o Cohesiveness: solidarity and unity of a group. The
strength of ties in a group.
• Little turn over.
• Little intragroup conflict
• Often based on commitment to the
group's purpose (group members don’t have to like each other very much to be very cohesive)
o Entitativity: the perceived cohesiveness of a group; the extent to which a group seems to be a single, unified
entity. Campbell theory of entitativity: affected by similarity, proximity, and common fate, as well as perceptual
cues (pragnanz/good form and permeability). Mostly for people outside of the group. Lickel: people are more
, likely to consider aggregations marked by strong bonds and frequent interactions to be a group (not crowds,
ques, sex or nationality) Thomas theorem: if men define situations/groups as real, they are real in their
consequences.
• Group origin: how group originated?
o Planned: deliberately formed by the members or an external authority EG team football
• Organized
• Task-focused
• Formal
• Clear boundary (who belongs to the group)
o Emergent: comes into existence spontaneously (e.g., people find themselves in the same location or gradually
over time interact with one another repeatedly) EG spontaan sneeuwballengevecht
• Not explicitly organized.
• Unclear boundaries
• Unwritten norms
• Group structure: how is the group organized. Who (dis)likes who? Who talks to whom? Roles, norms and relationships
between group members that organize the group. Roles: leader, follower, information seeker/giver, compromiser.
Norms: defined and re-negotiated over time, conflicts often emerge as members violate the norms. You learn the most
about groups by studying its structure.
Why should we care?
Knowing about these (and other) dimensions allow us to predict outcomes. How group members feel? How well do they work
together? What are the outcomes?
How does different characteristics of a group make them better/worse?
Hierarchical culture values predict success and mortality in high-stakes teams (Anicich, Swaab, Galinsky)
Culture value of hierarchy: ''a cultural emphasis on the legitimacy of an unequal distribution of power, roles and resources''
(Schwartz)
Advantage hierarchy for people:
• Clear defining roles in a group
• Facilitate coordination and the integration of information.
• Reduced intra-group conflict.
Disadvantages:
• Limit low-ranking members from voicing opinions and concerns.
• Impairs group communication and performance.
• Reduces feelings of psychological safety
EG: climbing Himalaya. highly experienced mountain climbers form 27 countries. What is the team's expected level of
coordination, psychological safety, and information sharing (1-7)?
Egalitarian groups have low hierarchy. Groups high on hierarchy coordinate better. But psychological safety and extend to which
they share information is higher for egalitarian groups.
After this questionnaire, they analyzed data of previous people, from all over the world, climbing the mountain. (Schwartz &
Hofstede). They predicted the number of summits and number of deaths. The higher they score on hierarchy, the higher the
success rate. So high hierarchy predicts success. But it also predicts death. Also, the taller the mountain, the less people make it to
the top and the more people die. Need for harmony (not disturbing situation) has also got a positive relation to success and
death; it is similar to hierarchy.
Critique/alternative explanations?
What if it has nothing to do with a group? Analyzing solo expeditions. The direct effect of the hierarchy measure wasn't
significantly associated with either summiting or dying for solo expeditions.
Groups vs teams (H11 book)
• All teams are groups, but not all groups are team.
, • Teams are groups that purses performance goals through interdependent interactions.
• Highly interdependent, common goals, work together to achieve these goals.
• Intensive interactions among individuals and highly meaningful connections between members
• Team usually has a small number of individuals (due to high interdependence)
• 100 people can be a group, but not likely to be a team.
HOOFDSTUK 1: Introduction to group dynamics
A group is boundaried in a psychological sense; people being included/excluded because they are recognized as in/outgroup
members. Some of these boundaries are publicly acknowledged, some aren’t (secret societies). A group’s boundary may be
relatively permeable. In open groups, membership is fluid: members may voluntarily come and go as they please without
consequences. Open groups are unlikely to reach a state of equilibrium, since members recognize that they may lose their place
within the group at any time. Their membership can be dependent on voting/standards, causing people to be monitoring actions
of others more. In closed groups, changes happen slowly, are more cohesive as competition for membership is irrelevant.
è In closed groups, individuals are more likely to focus on the collective nature of the group and to identify with the group.
Networks lack clear boundaries that define who is (not) in the network. Social networks are more fluid with membership than
groups and can attract more diverse members to their ranks.
The maximum number of ties within a group in which everyone is linked to everyone else is n(n-1)/2. N is number of people in the
group. Once the group surpasses 150 individuals, members can’t connect which every member anymore. Social brain hypothesis:
group life is more psychologically demanding than a more isolated, independent one (Dunbar).
è In larger groups, members are connected to one another indirectly.
Group members are connected to one another in
organized and predictable patterns, not at random.
McGrath’s task circumplex model distinguishes between
conceptual-behavioral tasks and cooperation-conflict
tasks. Conceptual is high information exchange, social
influence, process oriented. Behavioral are producing
things or perform services. Conflict tasks pit individuals
and groups against each other. Cooperative tasks require
collaboration.
Planned groups are formed by its members or an
external authority for some purpose. Emergent groups
arise when individuals spontaneously join in the same
physical location repeatedly.
Arrow et al made a taxonomy of groups:
a. Concocted groups: planned by
individuals/authorities outside of the group (eg
flight crew of an airplane)
b. Founded groups: planned by 1(>) individuals
who remain within the group (eg study group)
c. Circumstantial groups: emergent, external situational forces set the stage to join (eg a group of travelers stranded
together when their bus breaks)
d. Self-organizing groups: emergent, aligning activities in a cooperative system of interdependence (eg parties)
Tuckman’s 5 process stages in theory of group development:
1. Orientation/forming phase: group members become oriented towards one another.
2. Conflict/storming phase: conflicts arise for status and the group sets its goals.
3. Structure/norming phase: standards emerge and group becomes more structured.
4. Performance phase: group moves beyond disagreement and organizational matters to concentrate on the work to be
done.
5. Dissolution/adjourning stage
Fundamental attribution error (FAE): perceivers are more likely to attribute a person’s actions to personal, individual qualities
rather than external, situational force – including groups.
Hofstede: theory of national cultures: identifying similarities and differences in values and cultural norms.
a. Power Distance Index (PDI): inequality within a culture
