PSY220: Group and Culture

Groups §

Influence on the individual §

Group §

---

• A collection of individuals that are interdependent to each other in some degree
• A collection of individuals who perceive some level of entitativity (a group considers themselves to be a entity with unity and coherence)

---

• Ultrasociality - a collective organization with full division of labour
  • 1000 (or more) individuals living together
  • In all other ultrasocial species, most individuals are cloesly related (genetically)
  • Groups are an adaptation that enables humans to be ultrasociality
• Advantage of group living (evolution + psychological)
  1. Protection from predators
  2. Easier to obtain resources
  3. Assistance in child rearing
  4. Defense against other groups
  • Also fulfills the psychological need to belong
• Disadvantage of group living
  • Intergroup competition and status differentials can emerge
  • Dominant and dominated groups can emerge (race, socioeconomic status)
  • Intergroup bias (stereotyping, prejudice, discrimination)

Zajonc’s Model (social facilitation) ★ §

Answers: do we behave better when others are present

Others presence => Arousal => Strengthens dominant responses

• Dominant response is correct (enhance easy behavior)
• Dominant response is incorrect (impairing difficult behavior)

• This implies that when there are mere presence of others, people do better or simple or well-learned tasks, and worse for difficult or novel tasks
• Related Study The cockroach study

Other aspect of social facilitation §

• Evaluation Apprehension - concern about looking bad in eyes of others (sense of Social Comparison Theory)
• Social loafing - the tendency to exert less effort when working on a group where individual contributions cannot not be monitored
• Deindividuation - the reduced sense of individual identity ans self control that occurs in large groups (impulsivity, irrationality, emotionality, antisociality)
  • Individuation - enhanced individual identity produced by focusing attention of the self
• Spotlight effect - conviction that other people are paying attention to them more than they actually are

Group decision-making §

Group Think §

• Conditions to make group think worse:
  • High cohesiveness, Insulation, Lack of procedures for search and appraisal of information, High stress, strong leaders
  • Emotional factor is dominant
• Symptoms
  • Illusion invulnerability/moral superiority, Pressure on dissenters/self-censorship, Collective rationalization< Stereotypes out-groups,Illusion of unanimity
• Effects
  • Poor information search
  • Shallow examination of information
  • Narrow consideration of alternatives
  • Bias in processing information
  • Failure to work out contingencies
• Preventing
  • Leader refrains from making opinions known
  • Introduce people into the group at different stages
  • Designate a devil’s advocate
• Summarize: group decision making sometimes can be bad
• Connected to the thesis of the book: 乌合之众

Polarization §

• Group Polarization - tendency for group decision to be more extreme than those made by individual
• Connected to the thesis of the book: 乌合之众

Group organization §

Leadership types §

• Almost all groups have hierarchies (leader would likely to emerge)
• Characteristics of leader
  • Relevant skills
  • Good social skills
  • Altruistic
• Different types of ways for leader to emerge
  • Authority - power drives from institutionalized roles
  • Dominance - behavior enacted with the goal acquiring or demonstrating power
  • Status - evaluation by others (been respected, and have prominence)
  • Power - ability to control one’s own outcomes and those of others

Danger of power §

• Power vs Status

  • Low status and high power can be threatening and aversive
  • High status and low power can result n people acting o their internal states and feelings

• Approach/inhibition Theory

  • High-power people inclined to go after their goals and make quick (sometimes rash) judgments (approach)
  • Lower-power inclined to constrain their behavior & pay careful attention to others (inhibition)

• Alternative idea: power makes people more like who they really are

Cultural §

Human Capacity for culture §

• Cultural Psychology - The study of psychology and behavior are influenced by culture

Cultural dimensions §

Hofsted's IBM Study

1. Power distance - extend to which power and status differences are accepted and sanctioned in society
2. Uncertainty Avoidance - extend to which uncertainly and ambiguity are tolerated
3. Masculinity/Femininity - extend to which traditional masculine values, like aggressiveness and assertiveness are valued
4. individualist cultures/collectivistic cultures - extend to which the self or the Group and Culture constitutes the center point of identification for the individual

• Criticism
  • Single company’s data (strong corporate culture, western company)
  • There are other dimensions
  • Partial geographic coverage
  • Measures are attitudinal not behavior

Bicultural People §

Naive Dialecicism §

1. Principle of change - reality is not static but in process of constant change
2. Principle few contradiction - reality is not precise and clear, but is full of contradictions
3. Principle of Context (or holism) - parts are meaningful only in their relations

Many types of cultures §