SOCIAL – GROUP PROCESSES, NORMS, ROLES, ATTITUDES, PREJUDICE AND PERSUASION

Social Relations
Page | 1 1. Group Dynamics
WHAT IS A GROUP?

A collection of two or more people who define themselves as members of the same
entity which is also recognized as existing by at least one other person
A group is an organized, stable collection of individuals in which the members are aware
of and influence one another and share a common identity
Groups members are thus interdependent — the behavior of one group member affects
the behavior of the other members
We join different groups for different reasons
Looking for company (friendship groups, hobby groups)
Trying to get something done (work groups, professional organisations)
Identify with large groups or ‘social categories’ (gender, nationality, and ethnicity)

GROUP DEVELOPMENT

Tuckman’s 5 stage model (1965)

Forming = initially people orient themselves towards something

Storming = they then struggle with one another over leadership and group definition
Norming = this leads to agreement on norms and roles
Performing = the group is now well regulated internally and can perform efficiently
Adjourning = this final stage involves issues of independence within the group and
possibly group dissolution

GROUP DECISION MAKING

Groups make very important decisions, selection panels, Juries, Parliament

There are different strategies that groups can adopt in making decisions
Davis (1973) identifies 5, which he calls group decision schemes

Decision making rules

Unanimity – discussion serves to pressurise deviants to conform

Majority wins – discussion simply confirms the majority position which is then adopted
as a the group position
Truth wins – discussion reveals the position that is demonstrably correct
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Two-thirds Majority – unless there is a two thirds majority, the group is unable to reach a
decision.
First shift – the group ultimately adopts a decision consistent with the direction of the
first shift in opinion as shown by any group member
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Which ‘rule’ will the group adopt?

Depends on the task

Intellective tasks (where there’s a demonstrably correct answer, e.g. a maths puzzle)
groups tend to adopt the ‘truth wins rule’
Judgemental tasks (no demonstrably correct answer, e.g. aesthetic preference), groups
tend to adopt the ‘majority-wins rule’ (Laughlin 1980)

Rules differ according to

Strictness – in terms of the amount of agreement required (unanimity extremely strict)

Distribution of power – one member or all members equally powerful
A trade off
The stricter the rule, the longer it takes to reach a decision, but the more content
members tend to feel with that decision

GROUPTHINK

Group decisions that resulted in negative outcomes

Groups can become too cohesive and single-minded, and the group’s decision making
can lead to disaster. The goal of achieving a consensus among all group members
overrides the need to realistically appraise alternative courses of action.
A form of faulty group decision making that occurs when group members strive too hard
for unanimity (Irving Janis, 1972).
E.g. the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, 1941 defence of pearl harbour
These bad decisions tended to come about through the same process, which Janis
termed ‘groupthink’
‘A mode of thinking in highly cohesive groups in which the desire to reach a unanimous
decision overrides the motivation to adopt proper rational decision-making procedures.’
(Hogg and Vaughn 2002)
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Conditions that set the stage for groupthink

A directive leader
High group cohesiveness
High stress from external threat and task complexity
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Ideological homogeneity of membership (strong similarity in group members’
backgrounds and ideologies)
Insulation of group from external information and influence
Lack of impartial leadership and of norms encouraging proper procedure

Symptoms of Groupthink

Feelings of invulnerability, unanimity and have an unquestioned belief in the group’s

inherent morality.
Unquestioning belief that the group must be right
Tendency to ignore or discredit information contrary to groups position; members
protect the group from information that might shatter the shared conviction that their
decisions are effective and moral
Direct pressure against any member who expresses strong disagreement
Stereotyping of outgroup members (Janis, 1982).

Safeguard against groupthink

The leader of the group should encourage members to air objections and doubts and
should accept criticisms of the group’s judgments
Various group members should be assigned the role of “devil’s advocate, ”arguing
against the group’s favoured position
Outside experts should be invited to group meetings and encouraged to challenge the
group’s core views and decisions
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GROUP PRODUCTIVITY

The optimal group size for productivity depends on the task at hand (Steiner, 1972)
Additive task: the members must perform parallel actions. For example, to clear a
property of snow after a storm, all members of a work crew must shovel snow. For such
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tasks, group productivity increases directly with group size
Conjunctive task: a group is only as productive as its weakest member. If, for example, a
group is hiking, they can travel only as fast as the slowest person in the group; greater
number of group members does not necessarily yield better performance.
Disjunctive task: requires a single solution and the most competent person in the group
is likely to provide it. Larger groups are typically more productive for disjunctive tasks,
because a larger group is more likely to have a superstar member who can solve the
problem at hand.
Divisible task: involves the simultaneous performance of several different activities.
When groups confront such tasks, no single person works on all phases of the
undertaking; thus, the different strengths of group members complement one another.
Larger groups tend to be more productive.

SOCIAL FACILITATION

The presence of others can enhance individual performance (cyclists tend to go faster
when in the presence of other cyclists than when alone—even when they are not in
competition with one another)
For some tasks, and for some people, performing in the presence of others can impair—
rather than enhance—performance
Robert Zajonc (1965) proposed that the presence of others elevates our arousal level,
which in turn facilitates performance on simple, well-learned tasks but interferes with
performance on complicated tasks
Individuals’ interpretations of and reactions to the presence of others:
o If individuals do not like or trust other persons in their group, their own contributions
to a group project may suffer
o If people believe that other group members are disregarding their ideas or efforts,
their own performance in the group may decline

SOCIAL LOAFING

Groups are often formed in hopes that an interconnected body of people can energize
and motivate every individual member. However, these hopes are not always realized.
Social loafing—also known as free riding—refers to the phenomenon in which people
exert less effort on a collective task than they would on a comparable individual task
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It is most likely to occur when certain group members lack motivation to contribute, feel
isolated from the group, calculate the cost of contributing as too high, or view their own
contributions as unnecessary
People from Western cultures are more inclined to display social loafing than people
from Eastern cultures, and men are more likely to do so than women (Fiske, 2004).
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It can be reduced:
o When groups are highly cohesive—when group members all desire and value
membership in the group—the social loafing phenomenon all but disappears
o When group members are each explicitly reminded of their uniqueness and
importance
o When they are given specific and challenging goals
o When the output of each member is publicly identified
o When the members are given clear norms and comparison standards for their work
o Alertness tends to decrease social loafing, whereas fatigue tends to increase it

GROUP POLARIZATION

Group polarization occurs when an initial tendency of individual group members is

intensified following group discussion
Example: you talked about one of your favourite bands with a bunch of friends with
similar musical tastes and found yourself liking the band even more by the end of the
conversation
This phenomenon is not simply an example of conformity.
The attitudes and inclinations of the individual group members are already in place, and
they become more intense and more extreme as a result of the group interaction
Example: researchers have placed individuals with highly prejudiced attitudes in a group
to discuss racial issues, the attitudes of the individuals tend to become still more
prejudiced
The attitudes of women with moderate leanings toward feminism become more strongly
feminist following group discussions (Myers, 1975).
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2. NORMS
Scale of values which defines a range of acceptable (and unacceptable) attitudes &
behaviours for members of a social unit
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Provide order and predictability
Examples: how to dress; what to think about social issues; how to drive
Descriptive – agreed-on expectations about what members of a group do
Prescriptive / Injunctive – agreed-on expectations about what members of a group
ought to do
Explicit – stated openly
Implicit – not openly stated, but we are still aware of them: you probably weren’t taught
as a child to face the front of an elevator, for instance, but when’s the last time you
stepped into an elevator where all the passengers had their backs to the doors?
People are more likely to abide by injunctive norms if the norms are called to their
attention
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3. Social ROLES
A social role is a set of norms ascribed to a person’s social position—expectations and
duties associated with the individual’s position in the family, at work, in the community,
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and in other settings
Roles = patterns of behaviour that distinguish between different activities within a group
and help to give the group an efficient structure
The role of police officers, for example, is to maintain law and order. The role of parents is
to nurture, rear, and teach their children and prepare them for life outside the family.
Are critical for the smooth functioning of society
Can, however, also confine people
Gender Roles: Traditional Western gender roles are oppressive for women: gender roles
ascribe more communal characteristics to women — associated with the welfare of
other people—and more agentic characteristics to men—that is, those associated with
assertiveness, control, and confidence. In short, women in the West are expected to be
caring and men to be assertive and self-assured.
According to social role theory, people are inclined to behave in ways that are consistent
with the expectations tied to their roles

ZIMBARDO ET AL (1972) – THE STANFORD PRISON

EXPERIMENT

Student volunteers recruited through newspaper advert

$15 per day for 2 weeks
From 100 volunteers 25 were selected following clinical interviews to assure they were
emotionally stable, ‘normal’ on personality tests, physically healthy and had no criminal
record.
They were allocated to role of prisoner or guard based on the flip of a coin (and they
were aware of this)

The experiment

On Sunday morning the prisoners were arrested on campus (driven away in an old police
car). They were charged, read their rights, finger printed and handcuffed. Then
blindfolded and driven to basement of university basement 9made to look like a prison).
Here they were stripped, skin-searched, deloused and given uniform and bedding.

Prisoners and guards

Prisoners wore loose smocks, stocking Guards given khaki uniform, reflective
over hair, chain bolted on their ankle sunglasses, and carried, whistles, clubs
and were identified by number and handcuffs
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Behaviour of the guards

Following an initial rebellion, Guards came down hard on prisoners: forcing them back
into their cells with fire extinguishers, stripping them and removing their bedding
Page | 8 They then proceeded to break prisoner unity by rewarding some with ‘privileges’
Prisoner harassment, increasing the humiliation they made the prisoners suffer, forcing
them to do menial, repetitive work such as cleaning out toilet bowls with their bare
hands. The guards had prisoners do push-ups, jumping jacks, whatever the guards could
think up, and they increased the length of the counts to several hours each.

Effect on the prisoners

The prisoners became ‘servile dehumanised robots’

One prisoner had to be released following uncontrollable crying and fits of rage, this was
later observed in 3 more prisoners
A fifth prisoner developed a rash over his whole body when his ‘parole’ was denied.
The experiment was abandoned on day 6
http://www.prisonexp.org/

What can we make of this?

Power corrupts? The overwhelming influence of certain situations?

Problems: the role of the experimenter – clearly involved in the running of the prison
and also affected by this role
Later replications by Reicher and Haslam found different effects. Prisoners uniting,
attempts to establish harmony.
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4. Attitudes
An observed change in the mental disposition of a person toward an object
Relatively stable and enduring evaluations of things and people
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Process that includes:
o Attention
o Comprehension
o Acceptance
o Retention
Attitudes have 3 components – the ABC model of attitudes
- The affective component — how we feel toward an object
- The behavioural component — how we behave toward an object
- The cognitive component — what we believe about an object
You might generalize individual experiences into an overall attitude about the value of
what you are doing (your mother or father praised you for your grades or punished you
for not doing your homework)
As children mature, their peers, their teachers, and the media influence their attitudes
more prominently (e.g. seeing a favourite television character get whatever he wants by
bullying people might foster an attitude that aggression is an acceptable way to achieve
one’s goals)
When we are subtly manipulated into doing or saying something that is contrary to our
private attitudes, we often change our attitudes to match the new action or statement
(Merrill Carlsmith, 1959)
In a study, Festinger and Carlsmith had research participants engage in a number of
repetitive and boring tasks, such as spending an hour slowly turning square pegs on a
board or adding spools to a tray and then removing them. After the tasks were done, the
experimenters told the participants that the experiment was over and that they would
be allowed to go home shortly—but in truth the experiment had just begun! Each
participant was next told that a new group of individuals would soon arrive—individuals
who would be performing the same tedious tasks but would be told ahead of time that
the tasks were actually “fun” and “intriguing.” The experimenter further asked each
participant to help out by describing the upcoming tasks as fun and exciting to one of the
new individuals. (All of the new individuals were in fact confederates collaborating with
the experimenters.) In almost all cases, the participants agreed to prepare the new
individuals for an enjoyable experience. In addition, some of the participants were told
they would be paid one dollar for helping out in this way, while others were told they
would receive twenty dollars. After presenting the positive spiel about the tedious tasks
to the new individuals, the participants were interviewed by the experimenters about
how enjoyable they themselves actually believed the tasks to be. This was, in fact,
Festinger and Carlsmith’s central area of interest. Many of the participants reported that
 SOCIAL – GROUP PROCESSES, NORMS, ROLES, ATTITUDES, PREJUDICE AND PERSUASION

they actually had found the tasks to be quite enjoyable! Even more fascinating, it was
those who had been paid one dollar for “talking up” the tasks who reported the tasks to
be most enjoyable—not those who had been paid twenty dollars.

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Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger, 1957)
When we hold two contradictory beliefs, or when we hold a belief that contradicts our
behavior, we experience a state of emotional discomfort, or cognitive dissonance.
This state is so unpleasant that we are motivated to reduce or eliminate it.
One way of removing dissonance is to modify our existing beliefs.
In Festinger and Carlsmith’s study, cognitive dissonance theory would hold that the
conflict between the participants’ initial attitudes about the tasks (that the tasks were
boring and trivial) and their later behavior (telling someone that the tasks were
enjoyable) resulted in cognitive dissonance, and this unpleasant state motivated them to
change their attitudes about the tasks in positive directions.
But what about the differing results for the participants in the one-dollar condition and
those in the twenty-dollar condition? According to dissonance theory, the participants in
the twenty-dollar condition experienced less dissonance because they had sufficient
justification for their behavior. Since they were well paid to say that the tasks were
enjoyable, they could tell themselves, “I said the experiment was fun because I got
money for saying it.”(Twenty dollars was quite a bit more money in the late 1950s than it
is today.) Thus, these participants experienced little or no discrepancy between their
attitudes and their behavior.
In contrast, those who received only a dollar for their positive statements had
insufficient justification for their behavior and so experienced a marked discrepancy and
uncomfortable feelings of dissonance. These participants managed to reduce the
uncomfortable feelings by modifying their beliefs about the tasks— that is, by later
reporting (and indeed, believing) “the tasks really were kind of interesting.”
Significant implications for many events and strategies in real life. For example, a
growing number of today’s parents financially reward their children for working on their
homework. The parents’ hope is that such rewards will move doing homework ahead of
attractive alternatives, and that the children will come to willingly complete and even
enjoy homework. However, cognitive dissonance theory warns that such strategies are
likely to backfire. Children who are given explicit financial rewards—especially sizeable
ones—will likely know exactly why they are doing their homework. That is, they will
experience little or no dissonance between their attitude toward homework (“homework
is the pits!”) and their act of doing homework. In turn, they will not be inclined to change
their unfavourable view about doing homework.
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The Self-Perception Alternative (Bem, 1972)

Cognitive dissonance theory fits some instances of attitude change, but not others. In
many cases, we seem to form and change attitudes in the absence of internal
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discomfort.
You might think, for example, that you are alert, but after yawning, you might decide,
“I’m tired”—not because of a need to reduce emotional tension brought about by the
discrepancy between the attitude (“I’m alert”) and the behavior (a yawn) but simply
because the yawn was informative.
This theory minimizes the role of emotional discomfort and suggests that when we are
uncertain of our attitudes, we simply infer what our attitudes are by observing our own
behaviour, much as outsiders might observe us.
Our behaviours are often clues from which we deduce our attitudes—we might decide
we like roller coasters because we keep riding them, or we might decide we hate spinach
because we keep spitting it out.
Which is correct—the cognitive dissonance or the self-perception explanation of attitude
change? Historically, this has been a source of great debate in social psychology, but
research has clarified that each may be more relevant in particular situations.
Festinger’s theory of cognitive dissonance seems more applicable to situations in which
we behave in ways that are strikingly out of character for us, whereas Bem’s self-
perception theory may be at work in situations where we behave only slightly out of
character or our attitudes are not all that clear to begin with.

Do Attitudes Influence Behavior?

The attitudes people express are not necessarily related to how they actually behave
o In the 1930s, a time when many Americans held very negative attitudes toward the
Chinese, sociologist Richard LaPiere conducted a field study in which he had a Chinese
couple travel across the United States and visit over 250 hotels and restaurants
(LaPiere, 1934).Although managers at over 90 percent of the establishments indicated
in a questionnaire that they would not serve Chinese guests, only one of the
establishments visited by the Chinese couple actually refused them service. In fact,
most of the hotels and restaurants provided above-average service.
Attitudes do sometimes predict behavior
o One of the leading factors is attitude specificity.
- The more specific an attitude, the more likely it is to predict behavior. If a young
woman specifically loves Justin Timberlake, for example, she is more likely to
download his album the first day it is released than someone who loves pop music
more broadly.
o Another factor is attitude strength.
- Stronger attitudes predict behavior more accurately than weak or vague attitudes.
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Are People Honest About Their Attitudes?

One reason that attitudes fail to consistently predict behaviours is that people often
misrepresent their attitudes. Why would people misrepresent their attitudes? There
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appear to be several reasons.

The Social Desirability Factor

People state attitudes that are socially desirable rather than accurate: a person who
privately does not trust people of a particular ethnic background, for example, may not
acknowledge having this attitude for fear of being judged unfavourably by others.
To eliminate the social desirability factor and measure people’s attitudes, psychologists
have sometimes employed the bogus pipeline technique (Jones & Sigall, 1971).
o A research participant is connected to a non-functioning device that looks like a
polygraph (lie-detector machine) and is told that the device can detect deception.
o When individuals are connected to such a device, they are more likely to report their
attitudes truthfully
o In one bogus pipeline study, investigators asked students about socially sensitive
issues, such as how frequently they drank, smoked, had sex, and used illicit drugs.
The students hooked up to the machine reported performing socially sensitive
behaviours relatively frequently. Control participants, who were not hooked up to
the device, answered in more socially desirable ways, reporting lower frequencies of
the behaviours in question.

Implicit Attitudes
People are not always aware of their true attitudes.
o In their own minds, employers may believe that applicants of all ethnicities deserve
a fair interview process. But when interviewing individuals from ethnic backgrounds
other than their own, the same employers may, in fact, engage in less eye contact,
maintain greater physical distance, and offer less interview time. In such cases, the
employers may have difficulty trusting people of different backgrounds, but this
attitude has not reached their conscious awareness.
These are called implicit attitudes. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell
even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his
mind. (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
To get at implicit attitudes, researchers have employed the Implicit Association Test
(IAT), which uses a person’s reaction times to help gauge his or her implicit attitudes. The
IAT consists of three stages.
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o First, a person is exposed to two broad categories — say, “dog” and “cat.” The person
is asked to categorize certain words as belonging in the “dog” category or the “cat”
category — for example, “fire hydrant” and “litter box”.
o Next, the person is asked to categorize words as either pleasant or unpleasant. These
words are again fairly obvious, such as “poison” and “happiness”.
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o Finally, the categories are combined, and the person is asked to identify a series of
words as either more dog-related/pleasant or more cat-related/unpleasant; the
categories are later reversed to be cat/pleasant and dog/unpleasant. The assumption
is that if a person implicitly believes that dogs are more desirable than cats, the
person should be quicker to identify pleasant words during the dog/pleasant
combination, because the association between pleasant things and dogs is stronger.
It will take this person slightly longer to make the dog/unpleasant association
because it requires more effort. Similarly, cat people should respond quicker to the
cat/pleasant combination.
The IAT has also been used by researchers to detect bias against people of other races,
elderly people, overweight people, women, and other groups.

5. PREJUDICE
Social identity theory emphasizes social cognitive factors that come into play in prejudice. It
proposes that prejudice emerges through three processes:

Social categorization, in which a person affiliates with a particular group as a way of

figuring out how to act and react in the world.
Social identity, in which the person forms an identity within the group.
Social comparison, in which the group member compares the group favourably with
other groups and in turn derives a sense of positive well-being from looking at himself or
herself as superior in some way.
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6. Persuasion
Yale Programme
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Early work – end of WW2 to investigated use of wartime propaganda
Work continued – politically motivated - the cold war
Key researcher: Hovland
Fundamental elements in the study of persuasive communications: source, message,
audience

Characteristics of the Source

Are they an expert? – Prise winning scientist more persuasive on recommending amount
of sleep than manager of YMC
Are they attractive? – Students were more likely to sign a petition when the request
came from an attractive person
Are they like us? – Generally more similar more persuasive but it depends on topic
Are they articulate? – People who speak quickly are more persuasive (Miller et al 1976)

Characteristics of the Message

What is the perceived intention? – If we think someone’s trying to persuade they’ll be

less effective.
How is it presented? – Video better than audio better then written. Unless content
difficult.
Is it repeated? – The more something is repeated the more we judge it to be true

Characteristics of the Audience

Distracted audience often are more easily persuaded

Women are more easily persuaded than men (Cooper, 1979)
People with low self-esteem are persuaded more easily than those with high self-esteem
(Janis, 1954)
No, it’s just that those with high self-esteem don’t admit it!
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Dual Process Models of Information Processing

Two theories propose that the extent to which we are susceptible to these persuasion
cues as well as to attitude change in general depends on how the information is
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processed.
Both distinguish between an effortful but accurate process and an easier but more easily
biased one

Elaboration-likelihood model (ELM)

Petty and Cacioppo (1986)

Central vs. peripheral route (decisions based on central routes are more likely to last
than decisions based on the peripheral route)

Central route Peripheral route

Emphasizes the content of the Effortless, but often inaccurate

message, using factual Relies on more superficial
information and logical information
arguments to persuade Responding to such factors as
Requires a fair amount of effort how attractive the
on the receiver’s part spokesperson is and how
More commonly used for amusing or engaging the
matters of some significance message is

The heuristic-systematic model (HSM)

Chaiken (1980, 1987)

Heuristic versus systematic process
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Techniques of persuasion
The foot-in-the-door technique involves getting someone to agree to a small request
and then following up with a much larger one. The idea is that the person will be
inclined to grant the second request because of having granted the first one.
The door-in-the-face technique reverses this behavior. The technique involves
making an absurd first request that will obviously be turned down and following it
with a more moderate request.
Appeals to fear can be powerful. We frequently see these appeals in antismoking
campaigns and the like. In order to work, however, an appeal to fear must make
receivers truly believe that something bad will happen to them if they don’t comply
with the source’s request.

Barriers to Persuasion
Forewarning an audience that you will be trying to persuade them of something will
immediately raise their defences. Although listeners in this situation may make subtle
shifts toward your way of thinking, they are unlikely to change their attitudes as
much as individuals who are not told that they are about to hear a persuasive
speech.
Beginning with a weak argument instead of a strong one can make subsequent
arguments seem weaker. Starting off a request to your professor for a paper
extension by arguing that you simply need to catch up on your sleep might lead the
professor to interpret your subsequent (stronger) argument—that you’ve been up
for days working on midterms in three other classes—as more of an excuse than a
valid argument.

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