Group Processes—chapter 9.ppt

What is a group? Which of these are meaningful groups? Members of your fraternity/sorority Your family Members of the St. Louis Cardinals Fans watching a Cardinals game Males Social psychologists A group of people occupying the same elevator People who like watching The Sopranos People who own sexy red sports cars People who wear glasses People who wear funny-looking glasses People who notice other people’s funny-looking glasses People who are sick of my “funny glasses” example An index of “groupiness”: entitativity Campbell, 1958 what specific factors lead to perceptions of high entitativity? At least three: Similarity, interaction, common goals Which of these are meaningful groups? Members of your fraternity/sorority Your family Members of the St. Louis Cardinals Fans watching a Cardinals game Males Social psychologists A group of people occupying the same elevator People who like watching The Sopranos People who own sexy red sports cars People who wear glasses People who wear funny-looking glasses People who notice other people’s funny-looking glasses People who are sick of my “funny glasses” example Social facilitation Classic paradigms in social facilitation Perform task in Private, versus: “co-actor” “audience” you plus others watching Brief overview of social facilitation literature Is performance improved or impaired in “public” audience or co-actor conditions ? Decades of confusing results Resolution: Zajonc 1965 Dominant habitual, well-learned responses more likely in public If dominant response yields correct answer: helps performance If dominant response yields incorrect answer: hurts performance Zajonc study Pronounce words between 1 and 16 times Creates “dominant” response: Words pronounced most frequently dominant Words flashed very quickly: 1/100 second Participants guess word If others are present, more likely to guess “dominant” words Findings replicated across dozens of studies Is social facilitation peculiar to hu