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Compare and contrast formal and informal groups, and in groups and out groups.
Formal Groups:
(i) The functions of a formal group are explicitly stated, as in an office organization, or social work club.
(ii) They have rigidly stated functions and the roles of the members are well-defined or imposed.
(iii) Formal groups have a chain of command for decision-making, e.g., military or bureaucracy.
Informal Groups:
(i) Informal decision-making process may exist as parallel mechanisms.
(ii) Members of informal groups usually feel more comfortable to take decision in informal settings, e.g., tea time group or lunch group.
(iii) There are no elicit rules and regulations for informal group.
In-group:
(i) It is generally considered as 'me, my, we, or our' group.
(ii) People in in-group are viewed as having desirable behaviour and admirable traits.
(iii) It is always good, strong, cohesive, kind-hearted, open, relaxing and cool.
Out-group:
(i) It is considered as 'they' group.
(ii) Members are often perceived negatively.
(iii) It is always bad, dirty, damaging, dangerous and has people with negative emotions.
Are you a member of a certain group? Discuss what motivated are you to join that groups.
Definitely I am member of various groups. In other words, I will say that there is no dimension of life where I am not related to a group because we all are social beings and for everything, we are dependent on this or that group. There are various reasons which motivate me and everybody to join a group. Some of them are as follows:
(i) Security: Groups reduce the feeling of insecurity. Being with people gives a sense of comfort and protection.
(ii) Status: When the group is perceived as important high profile and well known, then the members also feel recognized and 'experience a sense of power', e.g., being a student of high profile school.
(iii) Self-esteem: Being a member of a prestigious group enhances the individual's self-concept.
(iv) Satisfaction of one's Psychological and Social Needs: Groups satisfy one's social and psychological needs such as sense of belongingness, giving and receiving attention, love and power.
(v) Group Achievement: Groups help in achieving the goals which cannot be attained individually.
(vi) Provide Knowledge and Information: Group membership provides us knowledge and information and broadens our views.
How does Tuckman's stage model help you to understand the formation of groups?
According to Tuckman, group formation takes place in following stages:
(i) Forming Stage: When group-members first meet, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the group, the goal, and how it is to be achieved.
(ii) Storming: There is a stage of intergroup conflict. There is conflict among members about how the target of the group is to be achieved, who is to control the group and its resources, and who is to perform what task.
(iii) Norming: Group-members by this time develop norms related to group behaviour. This leads to development of a positive group identity.
(iv) Performing: At this stage, the structure of the group has evolved and is accepted by group-members. The group moves towards achieving the group goal.
(v) Adjourning Stage: In this stage, once the function is over or goal is achieved, the group may be disbanded.
These stages help in group formation. Which occurs on the basis of following factors:
(i) Proximity: Individuals with similar background, living in the same complex (e.g., going to the same school) may form groups on the basis of proximity.
(ii) Similarity: It has been observed that more the similarity in the attitudes, interest, beliefs and value system of two persons, greater the likelihood that they would form a group.
(iii) Common Motives and Goals: When a number of people have common objectives or goals, they tend to get together and form a group.
How do groups influence our behaviour?
• 'Social facilitation' is a form of group influence.
• 'Social facilitation' refers to a concept that performance on specific task is influenced by the mere presence of others.
• Norman Triplett observed that individuals show better performance in presence of others, than when they are performing the same task alone.
Better performance in presence of others is because the person experiences arousal, which makes the person react in a more intense manner.
The arousal is because the person feels he or she is being evaluated. Cottrell called this idea evaluation apprehension. The person will be praised if performance is good (reward), he/she will be criticised if it is bad (punishment). We wish to get praise and avoid criticism, therefore we try to perform well and avoid criticism. As in case of complex task, the person may be afraid of making mistakes. And the fear of criticism or punishment is stronger.
If the others present are also performing same task, this is called a situation of co-action. When task is simple or a familiar one, performance is better under co-action than when the person is alone.
Task performing can be facilitated and improved or inhibited and worsened by the presence of others. If we are working together in a larger group, the less effort each member puts in. This phenomena is called social loafing, based on diffusion of responsibility.
Diffusion of responsibility can also be frequently seen in situations where people are expected to help.
• 'Social loafing' refers to reduction in motivation when people are functioning collectively.
• It is a form of group influence.
(i) Group members feel less responsible for the overall tasks being performed and therefore exert less effort.
(ii) Motivation of members may decrease because they realize that their contributions cannot be evaluated on the individual basis, so to why to work hard.
(iii) The performance of the group is not to be compared with that of the other groups.
(iv) There is improper co-ordination (or no co-ordination) among members. Group polarization is a group influence which refers to the tendency.
The tendency of group-members, as a result of group discussion to shift towards more extreme positions than those which they initially held.
In group polarization, it has been found that groups are more likely to take extreme decisions than individuals alone, e.g., a decision is to be taken whether a school has to be established in a village or not. Group polarization occurs due to the following:
(i) In the company of like-minded people, people are likely to hear newer arguments favouring their view-points.
(ii) When people find others also favouring their view-point, they feel that their view is validated by the public. This is a sort of bandwagon effect.
(iii) When people find others having similar views, they are likely to perceive them as in-group.
How can you reduce social loafing in groups? Think of any two incidents of social loafing in school. How did you overcome it?
Social loading is a negative group influence. For the quality performance of the group, it should be reduced. It can be reduced through the following methods:
(i) By making the efforts of each person identifiable.
(ii) increasing the pressure to work hard (making group-members committed to successful tasks performance).
(iii) increasing the apparent importance or value of a task.
(iv) making people feel that their individual contribution is important.
(v) strengthening group cohesiveness which increases the motivation for successful group outcome.
How often do you show conformity in your behaviour? What are the determinants of conformity?
Conformity: It is a most indirect form of social influence in which individuals change their behaviour or beliefs to correspond more closely to the behaviour of others in the group. It essentially involves yielding to group pressure.
• People conform because it is comfortable.
• Non-conformity is socially undesirable and many a times punishable offence.
• Most people believe that majority is always right, so it is better to conform.
• Whenever individual gets confused and not confident he/she conforms.
• Conformity provides assurance that individual is right.
People conform because of two types of influences:
1. Informational Influence, i.e., influence that results from accepting evidence rather than reality.
• It is social influence based on individuals desire to be correct—to possess accurate perceptions of the social world.
We conform because we have a strong desire to hold the right views. We want to be correct about various matters so we turn to other persons for guidance as to what is appropriate, e.g., if children see that, in the colony, no body is playing in the park then they get information from the actions of others that park should not be used as playground. This is behaving according to evidence then from reality.
2. Normative influence, i.e., influence based on a person's desire to be accepted or admired by others. Individual follows the reality and conforms.
We conform in order to meet other's expectations and so to gain their approval, e.g., if we see rules written on the board outside the park that playing in the park is prohibited then children avoid playing there.
Sheriff's experiment known as auto-kinetic effect and Asch's experiment prove that people do get carried away by the social influence whenever taking decisions. Determinants of Conformity:
The degree of conformity among the group-members is determined by many factors which are as follows:
1. Size of the Group:
(i) Conformity is greater when the group is small. It happens because it is easier for a deviant member to be noticed in a small group,
(ii) In a large group, if there is strong agreement among most of the members, conformity makes the majority and its norms stronger. In such a case, the minority would be more likely to conform because the group pressure would be stronger.
2. Size of the Minority: When the deviating minority size increases, the likelihood of conformity decreases.
3. Nature of the Task:
• Where there is something like a correct or an incorrect answer, conformity is more.
• Where answers can vary widely without any answer being correct or incorrect, conformity would be less.
4. Public or Private Expression of Behaviour:
• If the group-members are asked to give their answers publicly, conformity is more.
• Less conformity is found under private expression.
5. Personality Characteristics:
• Some individuals have a conforming personality that is tendency to change their behaviour according to what others say or do in most situations and vice-versa.
Why do people obey even when they know that their behaviour may be harming others? Explain.
Obedience: It is most direct form of social influence. Obedience refers to accepting commands/orders from the authority. Authority refers to a person who has inherent power to give reward or punishment.
If a person has power over another, obedience can be demanded; such a person usually has the means to enforce orders.
• Milligram's studies seem to suggest that the ordinary people are willing, may be with some reluctance, to harm an innocent person if ordered by someone in authority.
It has been observed that obedience to authority relieves the individual from the responsibility of their actions.
• Individual believes that if he/she will not obey then it will attract penalty.
• Authority commands for destructive obedience are gradually increased from lesser to greater levels of violence.
Sometimes events involved in destructive obedience move so quickly, that the people obeying orders have little time for thinking logically.
What are the benefits of co-operation?
Groups may be co-operative or competitive. Technically, the behaviour that yields maximal joint profit for all the parties involved is called co-operation. The behaviour that yields maximal relative gain is labelled competition.
• Co-operative goals are those, which are defined in such a way that each individual can attain the goal if other members are also attaining their goals. There is interdependence in goal attainment.
Effects of co-operation:
• Goal achievement becomes easy.
• Interpersonal relations get strengthened.
• Cohesiveness rises in the group.
• Group-members become ready to work for others.
• Willingness to accept other's divergent view-point.
How is one's identity formed?
• Identity refers to the aspect of one's self-concept that is based on group-membership.
• Our identity tells us what we are in a larger context.
• After one develops an identity, he/she internalises the norms emphasized in a group and adopts them.
• Identity provides a member of a group with a shared set of values, beliefs and goals about the social world.
• Identity helps to co-ordinate attitude and behaviour.
• The development of identity leads to the devaluation of the out group.
What are some of the causes of intergroup conflict? Think of any international conflict. Reflect on the human price of this conflict.
• Conflict is a process in which either an individual or a group perceives that the others have opposite interest, and both try to contradict each other.
• In such conflicts intense feeling of 'We' and 'They' dominate.
• Both the groups believe that only their group (in group) will protect their interest. Individual group conflict occurs when the individuals, needs are different from the group's needs, goals or norms. Intergroup conflict refers to the situation of conflict between groups. It often occurs to maintain the identity of the group different and stronger than the other groups.
Some Major Reasons for Group Conflicts:
1. One major reason is lack of communication and faulty communication between both parties. This kind of communication leads to suspicion, i.e., there is a lack of trust, and hence, conflict results.
2. Another reason for intergroup conflict is relative deprivation. It arises when members of a group compare themselves with the members of another group, and perceive that they do not have what they desire to have, which the other group has. In other words, they feel that they are not doing well in comparison to other groups. This may lead to feelings of deprivation and discontentment, which may trigger conflict.
3. Another cause of conflict arises when one party believes that it is better than the other, and what it is saying should be done. When this does not happen, both parties start accusing each other.
4. A feeling that the other group does not respect the norms of my group, and actually violates those norms, can cause conflict
5. Desire for retaliation for some harm done in the past could be another reason for conflict.
6. Biased perceptions are at the root of most conflicts.
7. Research has shown that when acting in groups, people are more competitive as well as more aggressive than when they are on their own. Groups compete over scarce resource, both material resources (e.g., territory) and money as well as social resources (e.g., respect and esteem).
8. Perceived inequality is another reason for conflict.
9. According to Gardener Murphy most conflicts begin in the minds of men and then go to the field.
Gardener Murphy, in his book 'In the Minds of Men', explains intergroup conflicts at three levels:
(a) Structural Level: It includes high rates of poverty, economic and sound stratification, inequality, limited political and social opportunity, e.g., Tribal areas of Jharkhand and West Bengal becoming fertile ground for Naxal movement.
(b) Group Level: Social identity, realistic conflict between groups over resources and unequal power relations between groups lead to conflicts, e.g., Dalits in India or Women Empowerment Movement.
(c) Individual Level: It includes beliefs, biased attitudes and personality characterstics. These are important determinants.
What are the characteristics of a group?
(a) Group is a social unit consisting of two or more individuals who perceive themselves as members of the group.
(b) Individuals must interact with each other either directly or indirectly.
(c) Individuals must be interdependent—what one is doing must have some consequence on the other.
(d) The members of a group have common motives and goals. Group functions as a unitary system. All members work towards the same goal.
(e) Members should follow group structure, i.e., status, role, norms and cohesiveness.
(f) Group has a leader who is responsible to attain the goal.
What are the important elements of group structure?
(i) Status: It refers to the position or rank within a group. Different roles or positions in a group are associated with different levels of status. Members of groups which are high in status are viewed favourably by others. For example- the captain of a cricket team has a higher status compared to the other members, although all are equally important for the team's success.
(ii) Role is set of behaviours which the individuals occupying specific position within a group are expected to perform. e.g., father as a bread-earner.
(iii) Norms: Norms are expected standards of behaviour and beliefs established, agreed upon and enforced by group-members. e.g., in family, there are norms which guide the behaviour of family-members.
(iv) Cohesiveness: All forces (factors) that cause group-members to remain in the group, such as liking for the other members and the desire to maintain or increase one's status by belonging to the 'right groups'.
What are the factors influencing cohesiveness?
The factors influencing cohesiveness are:
• Attractiveness: It includes dimensions like:
(a) attraction of the members to each other:
(b) attraction of the individual members towards the activities and functions of the group; and
(c) the extent to which the individual is attracted to the group as a means of satisfying his/her own needs.
• Amount of Effort: The amount of effort required to gain entry into the group, influences group cohesiveness. More the effort made for joining the group, higher would be attraction of members towards the group.
• External Threats and Severe Competition: Group cohesiveness increases in face of threats from outside the group such as loss of privileges, violence, etc. It helps in providing togetherness at the times of danger.
• Group Belongingness: It implies the emotional attachment among the group-members. The interpersonal ties between group members lead to cohesiveness.
Differentiate between conformity, compliance and obedience.
Conformity, compliance and obedience—all three have a common factor; they indicate the influence of others on an individual's behaviour, but all the three are significantly different.
Obedience is the most direct form of social influence in which one person simply orders one or more others to perform some action.
Compliance is less direct than obedience. It is a form of social influence involving direct request from one person to another.
Conformity is the most indirect form because the individuals change their behaviours or attitude in order to adhere to existing social norms.
How Kelman has classified social influences?
According to Kelmans following are the social influences:
Compliance: A form of social influence in which one person attempts to influence another in order to get them comply with a request.
1. Identification:
• A type of social influence which is brought about by a person's desire to be like another person or to be a part of a particular group.
• It may not give us rewards but it is satisfying to be like those with whom we are identifying.
• This is identity seeking or agreement seeking social influence.
2. Internalization:
• It is a type of social influence which is born out of desire to be right in our values and opinions.
• If we consider another person as trustworthy and also of good judgment, then we are more likely to accept their opinion and values and to integrate them into our own.
• It is information-seeking social influence.
What is group think?
• Group think is a consequence of extreme cohesiveness. So the members never criticise the leader and try to defend him.
• Group think is the name given to the tendency for certain types of group to reach decisions that are extreme and which tend to be unwise or unrealistic.
• Group-members may ignore or discount information that is inconsistent with their chosen decision and express strong disapproval against any group-member who might disagree.
• The eventual decisions are taken without criticism. The social and political consequences of group think may be far-reaching; and history has many examples of major blunders that have been the results of decisions reached in this way.
Following steps can be taken to reduce it:
• Encouraging and rewarding critical thinking. e.g., 'Best criticism award'.
• Encouraging groups to present alternative courses of action.
• Making outside expert to evaluate group decisions.
What is compliance? What techniques can be used for gaining compliance?
Compliance: It is a form of social influence which refers to accepting request made by some one. Following techniques are used for gaining compliance:
(i) The Foot-in-the-Door Technique: The person begins by making a small request that the other person is not likely to refuse. Once the other person carries out the request, a bigger request is made. Simply because of the other person has already complied with the smaller request, he or she may feel uncomfortable refusing the second request. e.g., someone may come to us on behalf of a group and give us a gift (something free), saying that it is for promotion. Soon afterwards, another member of the same group may come to us again, and ask us to buy a product made by the group.
(ii) The 'Deadline' Technique: In this technique, a 'last date' is announced till which a particular product or 'an offer' will be available.
(iii) The 'Door-in-the-Face' Technique: In this technique, you begin with a large request and when this is refused a later request for something smaller than the one that was actually desired, is made, which is usually granted by the person, e.g., a child may ask for permission to attend a night party with friends and coming back at 3 a.m. in the morning knowing very well that this request will not be granted by the parents. After a lot of efforts and persuation, he may request to get permission for attending the party and coming back home by 11 p.m. which now may be very happily accepted by the parents.
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What are co-operation and competition? Discuss the effects of co-operation and competition.
Groups may be co-operative or competitive. Technically, the behaviour that yields maximal joint profit for all the parties involved is called co-operation. The behaviour that yields maximal relative gain is labelled competition.
• Co-operative goals are those, which are defined in such a way that each individual can attain the goal if other members are also attaining their goals. There is interdependence in goal attainment.
It is working together to attain the shared goals.
• Co-operative goals increase interpersonal relations among the members as they progress towards the goal.
• In co-operative groups, victory belongs to each member because of group affiliation.
• Co-operation leads to harmony, sacrifice and positive emotions.
• In co-operative groups, people communicate and develop cohesiveness.
• Competitive goals involve situations where all goals are defined in such a manner that there is only one winner and others are looser.
• Competition among individual members tend to produce disharmony and conflict that threatens the organization of group.
• Competition leads to distinct and poor interpersonal relations which cause hostility and rivalry.
• In competition, individual works to attain the goal for himself.
• Competitive group leads to lack of communication or miscommunication towards out-group.
Effects of Co-orperation:
• Goal achievement becomes easy.
• Interpersonal relations get strengthened.
• Cohesiveness rises in the group.
• Group-members become ready to work for others.
• Willingness to accept other's divergent view-point.
Effects of Competition:
• Distance and disharmony increase in the group because of lack of communication.
• Cohesiveness within a group develops but rivalry increases with the out-group.
• Healthy competition in a conducive environment increases efficiency and sharpens the rate of growth and development.
Determinants of Co-operation and Competition:
1. Reward Structure: In co-operation, reward structure is such that there is promotive interdependence, i.e., each member is beneficiary and reward is possible only if all contribute.
In competition reward structure is one in which one can get a reward only if others do not get it.
2. Interpersonal Communication: Co-operation leads to communication which facilitate interaction and discussion.
3. Reciprocity: It means people feeling obliged to return what they get. Initial cooperation leads to more co-operation whereas competition provokes more competition.
Discuss conflict resolution strategies.
(i) Introduction of Super-ordinate Goals: By introducing super-ordinate goals, intergroup conflicts can be reduced. A super-ordinate goal is mutually beneficial to both parties, hence both groups work co-operatively.
(ii) Altering Perception: Conflicts can also be reduced by altering perceptions and reactions through persuasion, educational and media appeals and portrayal of groups differently in society. Promoting empathy for others should be taught to everyone from very beginning.
(iii) Increasing Inter-group Contact: Conflict also be reduced by increasing contacts between the groups. This can be done by involving groups in conflict on neutral grounds through community projects and events.
(iv) Redrawing Group Boundaries: This can be done by creating conditions where group boundaries are redefined and groups come to perceive themselves as belonging to a common group.
(v) Negotiations: Conflict can also be resolved through negotiations, which involves arbitration, mediation and third party intervention. Warring groups can resolve conflict by trying to find mutually acceptable solutions. This requires understanding and trust.
(vi) Structural Solutions: Conflicts can also be reduced by redistributing the societal resources according to principles based on justice. e.g., equality (allocating equally to every one) need, allocating on the basis of needs and equity (allocating on the basis of contributions of members).
(vii) Respect for Other Group's Norms: In a pluralist society like India, it is necessary to respect and be sensitive to the strong norms of various social and ethnic groups. It has been noticed that a number of communal riots between different groups have taken place because of such insensitivity.
Discuss consequences of intergroup conflict.
Deutsch identified the following consequences of intergroup confect:
• Poor Communication: The groups do not trust each other and develop suspicion towards an other group.
• Tendency to Magnify their Differences: Each group starts perceiving their behaviour as fair and the others behaviour as unfair.
• Tendency of Each Side to Increase its Own Power and Legitimacy: This leads to intense conflict shifting from few specific issues to much larger issues.
• Increased Ingroup-Outgroup Rivalary: It leads to intense desire to retaliate and take revenge.
Enumerate the four stages of group formation.
A group may be defined as an organized system of two or more individuals, who are interacting and interdependent, who have a common motive, have a set of role relationships among its members.
Stages of Group information:
Explain briefly PASS model of intelligence.
PASS Model of Intelligence developed by J P Dass, Jack Naglieri & Kirby in 1994.
This model is comprised of the following-
P – PLANNING
A – AROUSAL / ATTENTION
S – SIMULTANEOUS
S – SUCCESSIVE
Planning: After the information is attended to and processed, planning is activated. For example, planning a time schedule for gyming.
Arousal/Attention: An optimal level of arousal focuses our attention to the relevant aspects of a problem. Too much or too little arousal would interfere with attention.
Simultaneous and Successive Processing: Information is integrated into our knowledge system simultaneously or successively. In this process, relations among various concepts are integrated into a meaningful pattern for comprehension.
Explain crowding
Crowding refers to the feeling of discomfort because there are too many people or things around us, giving us the experience of physical restriction and sometimes the lack of privacy.
Describe crowding tolerance.
Crowding Tolerance is defined as:
What are norms?
Norms: Norms are expected standards of behaviour and beliefs established, agreed upon and enforced by group members. They may be considered as a group's “unspoken rules”.
Describe any two elements of group structure.
The two elements of group structure are as follows:
Roles: Roles are socially defined expectation that people are expected to live up to in a given situation. Roles portray a particular behaviour and describe a person under the given circumstances. For eg. one may have the role of a daughter or a son and with this role comes the role expectations, i.e., the behaviour expected of somebody in particular role. As a daughter or son, one is expected to listen to one's parents, respect them and show responsibility towards one's studies.
Norms: These are standards of behaviour and behaviour, respect, created, agreed upon and implemented by group members. They are considered to be the tenet rules of a group. Norms guide the behaviour of the group.
How are IQ scores distributed in a population?
Intelligence Quotient (IQ). IQ refers to mental age divided by chronological age, and multiplied by 100.
Distribution of IQ score in a population-
IQ scores are distributed in such a way that the IQ scores of most people tend to fall in the middle range of the distribution. Most people show a moderate level of performance i.e. in the middle range of the distribution.
Very few are on extremes showing:-
a) Extreme high (excellent) performance (2.2%)
b) Extremely low (very poor) performance (2.2%
Frequency distribution of IQ Scores – tends to approximate a bell-shaped curve. It is called Normal Curve where the curve does not touch the x-axis.There is no one with 0 IQ.
State three conditions which facilitate group formation.
People join groups because groups satisfy a range of needs.
Conditions which facilitate group formation:
What is social loafing ? How can social loafing be reduced in group work ?
Social Loafing: It has been found the individuals work less hard in group than they do when performing alone. This points to a phenomenon referred to as social loafing. It is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task, i.e, one in which outputs are pooled with those of other group members. An example of such a task is the game of tug -of-war.
Ways of reducing social loafing:
Explain in term obedience.
Obedience is a form of behaviour in response to a person in authority. In obedience, one does not necessarily follow a group norm but carious out an order or instruction.
Explain instrumental perspective of human-environment relationship.
The instrumental perspective of human-environment relationship says that the physical environment exists chiefly for use by human beings for their comfort and well-being. The impact of human activities on the environment reflects the instrumental perspective.
Give two characteristics of groups.
Group information.
Explain factors that influence attitude change.
An individual's attitude may not always be exhibited through behaviour. Likewise, one's actual behaviour may be contrary to one's attitude towards a particular topic. Psychologists have found that there would be consistency between attitude and behaviour when:
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What is meant by 'Social Loafing'?
It has been found the individuals work less hard in a group than they do when performing alone. This point to a phenomenon referred to as social loafing. It is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task, i.e., one in which outputs are pooled with those of other group members. An example of such a task is the game of tug-of-war.
It is not possible for us to identify how much force each. Member of the team has been exerting.
They varied the group six, individual were either alone or in a group of two, four and six. The results of the study showed that although the total amount of noise rose up, as sixes increased, the amount of noise produced by each participant dropped.
What is social loafing?
It has been found, that the individuals work less hard in a group than they do when performing alone. This points to a phenomenon referred to as social loafing. It is a reduction in individual effort when those of other group members. An example of such a task is the game of tug-of-war.
Discuss any two determinants of conformity.
The following are the determinants of conformity:
1. Size of the group: Conformity is greater in a small group. It is easier to label a deviant member in a small group than a larger one. However, in a large group is there is a strong agreement among most members, then the minority is likely to conform because of the group pressure.
2. Nature of the task: In tasks that involve opinion about some topic, conformity will be more when opinion involves answers that may be either correct or incorrect and not strictly correct or incorrect.
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