Social, Personality & Abnormal psychology Lecture 1:
Groups
A group is two or more people who share a common definition and evaluation of
themselves and behave in accordance with such definition- Hogg and Vaughan
Johnson and Johnson (1987)- a collection of individuals who interact with one
another, a social unit consisting of two or more individuals who perceive themselves
as belonging to a group, collection of individuals who join together to achieve a goal,
collection of individuals whose interactions are structured by norms and roles,
individuals who influence each other
Roles within groups can be defined in different ways: length of time/length of
commitment (peripheral-don’t always participate/prototype-fully engage and fill
group norms)
Groups and behaviour
Norman Triplett – when riding in a group speed was faster than when riding solo –
social Facilitation (1898)-examined child performance solo and in a group – 20
performed better, 10 performed worse (perhaps overstimulated), 10 no change
Drive theory (Zajonc,1965) presence of others to arousal to dominant responses if
correct performance increases and if incorrect performance decreases – this is
influence by how easy or how hard the task is perceived to be – when in presence of
others better performance with easy worse performance with hard
Virtual social facilitation/inhibition (Park and Catrambone, 2007) -examined SF in
presence of virtual human performed easy and hard tasks under three conditions:
alone, another present, avatar present. Performed easy tasks quicker with presence
of virtual or human-performed harder tasks slower in presence of virtual or human
People eat more in a group (Herman)/ competitive people perform better in sport in
presence of other (Snyder et al,2012)
Evaluation of social facilitation- Strobe (2005) statistical testing on Triplett’s raw
score found very small effect – Bond and Titus (1983) meta-analysis explained 0.3-
3.0% of variation in behaviour – gave foundation for further work – influential in
sport psychology – also lead to research on social loafing
Social loafing: when people work less hard on a task because they believe other are
working (the Ringelmann effect) – Ringelmann (1913) examined effort in a rope
pulling task in 1,2,3,8 person groups-force per person decreased with increasing
group size social loafing is a lack of effort in group tasks – Ingham et al. (1974)
compared real group to pseudo group (didn’t pull rope but pretended) large
reduction in force in real groups, but also in pseudo groups-no coordination issues in
pseudo groups, so must be due to lack of effort (motivation loss)
Karau and Williams (1993) meta-analysis on social loathing. Factors which effect
social loathing: evaluation potential, task valence, group valence, expectation of co-
workers’ efforts, uniqueness of individuals, gender, group size, culture (collectivist Vs
individualistic)
Belonging and ostracism
Feeling of belonging (Baumeister and Leary, 1995)- belonging is a fundamental
human need-people will seek out and form positive relationships with others and
Groups
A group is two or more people who share a common definition and evaluation of
themselves and behave in accordance with such definition- Hogg and Vaughan
Johnson and Johnson (1987)- a collection of individuals who interact with one
another, a social unit consisting of two or more individuals who perceive themselves
as belonging to a group, collection of individuals who join together to achieve a goal,
collection of individuals whose interactions are structured by norms and roles,
individuals who influence each other
Roles within groups can be defined in different ways: length of time/length of
commitment (peripheral-don’t always participate/prototype-fully engage and fill
group norms)
Groups and behaviour
Norman Triplett – when riding in a group speed was faster than when riding solo –
social Facilitation (1898)-examined child performance solo and in a group – 20
performed better, 10 performed worse (perhaps overstimulated), 10 no change
Drive theory (Zajonc,1965) presence of others to arousal to dominant responses if
correct performance increases and if incorrect performance decreases – this is
influence by how easy or how hard the task is perceived to be – when in presence of
others better performance with easy worse performance with hard
Virtual social facilitation/inhibition (Park and Catrambone, 2007) -examined SF in
presence of virtual human performed easy and hard tasks under three conditions:
alone, another present, avatar present. Performed easy tasks quicker with presence
of virtual or human-performed harder tasks slower in presence of virtual or human
People eat more in a group (Herman)/ competitive people perform better in sport in
presence of other (Snyder et al,2012)
Evaluation of social facilitation- Strobe (2005) statistical testing on Triplett’s raw
score found very small effect – Bond and Titus (1983) meta-analysis explained 0.3-
3.0% of variation in behaviour – gave foundation for further work – influential in
sport psychology – also lead to research on social loafing
Social loafing: when people work less hard on a task because they believe other are
working (the Ringelmann effect) – Ringelmann (1913) examined effort in a rope
pulling task in 1,2,3,8 person groups-force per person decreased with increasing
group size social loafing is a lack of effort in group tasks – Ingham et al. (1974)
compared real group to pseudo group (didn’t pull rope but pretended) large
reduction in force in real groups, but also in pseudo groups-no coordination issues in
pseudo groups, so must be due to lack of effort (motivation loss)
Karau and Williams (1993) meta-analysis on social loathing. Factors which effect
social loathing: evaluation potential, task valence, group valence, expectation of co-
workers’ efforts, uniqueness of individuals, gender, group size, culture (collectivist Vs
individualistic)
Belonging and ostracism
Feeling of belonging (Baumeister and Leary, 1995)- belonging is a fundamental
human need-people will seek out and form positive relationships with others and
