An unfortunate example is the use of suicide bombers by terrorist organizations. In situations involving intergroup competition, members may distance themselves from a group when it is performing less well than others.
Alternatively, when a group receives threats from factions external to the group, members may react by increasing identification to protect the value of the group. Michael Hogg suggests that the specific strategies a group uses are a function of how a group is organized e. A growing body of research indicates that social context is an important factor in the process of group identification. Penelope Oakes contends that perceptions of similarity to other people in a given social context provide a basis for construing oneself as being part of a group.
In her view, people focused on exchanging information, speculating on who was responsible and discussing how the city would handle this crisis. Focusing on a particular type of group identity, organizational membership, Bartel investigated how experiences in community outreach affected the identity process of employee volunteers.
She found that intergroup comparisons with clients emphasizing differences and intragroup comparisons with other members of the organization emphasizing similarities changed how members construed the defining qualities of their organization. Supervisors reported higher interpersonal cooperation and work effort for members whose organizational identification became stronger. What is a group? What kind of groups are you a part of? What group has the most influence over you? Discussion 2.
What kinds of factors influence level of identification with a group? Social psychologists view compliance as a means of social influence used to reach goals or attain social or personal gains.
In studying compliance, social psychologists aim to examine overt and subtle social influences and their relationship to compliance. Individuals can be coaxed into compliance in a number of ways, which we will discuss next.
In addition to these factors, the following techniques have been proven to effectively induce compliance from another party. In using the foot-in-the-door technique, the subject is asked to perform a small request, and after agreeing, a larger request is made. Because the subject complied with the initial request or requests, he or she is more likely to feel obligated to fulfill additional favors. She says yes, and later he asks if he can stay the night.
This technique begins with an initial large request that the subject is not expected to comply with. The large request is then followed by a second, more reasonable, request. For instance, Jane asks her parents to pay for her vacation to Australia. They flat-out refuse, because it is extremely expensive.
The same request made in isolation, however just asking for a trip to New York , would not have been as effective. This technique is frequently employed by car salesmen.
Low-balling gains compliance by offering the subject something at a low initial cost. The cost may be monetary, time related, or anything else that requires something from the individual. After the subject agrees to the initial cost, the requester increases the cost at the last moment. The subject is more likely to comply with this change in cost since he or she feels like an agreement has already occurred. Low-balling : Low-balling is a tactic frequently used by salesmen. They will initially quote a deceptively low offer and raise the price dramatically after an informal agreement has taken place but before a contract is signed.
For example, before Anna goes to ask for time off from her manager, Anthony, she does a little research and discovers that he enjoys golfing. When she sees Anthony next time, she starts out talking about her golfing trip last weekend, and later in the conversation she requests time off.
Since Anna has now ingratiated herself with Anthony, he is more likely to comply with her request. This is based on the social norm that people will return a favor when one is granted to them. In psychology, conformity is defined as the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms.
Conformity is the most common and pervasive form of social influence. It is informally defined as the tendency to act or think like members of a group. While conformity is often viewed as a negative characteristic in American culture, it is very common. While high levels of conformity can be detrimental, a certain amount of conformity is necessary and normal, and even essential for a community to function. It is generally distinguished from obedience behavior influenced by authority figures and compliance behavior influenced by peers.
Conformity may result from either subtle, unconscious influences or direct and overt social pressure. It does not require the physical presence of others to occur—that is, knowledge of public opinion may cause an individual to conform to societal norms even when alone.
There are two major motivators to conformity: normative influence and informational influence. Normative influence occurs when an individual conforms in order to gain social acceptance and avoid social rejection. Both men and women will conform to current norms in order to be accepted by society and avoid social rejection.
Informational influence occurs when individuals seek out members of their own group to obtain and accept accurate information about reality. The opposite effect is true as well: if Susan has been unemployed for a long time, employers may assume it is because others have not wanted to hire her.
They will, therefore, try harder to find flaws in her and her application. A number of factors are known to increase the likelihood of conformity within a group.
Some of these are as follows:. His initial experiment in was set up as follows. The participant would enter a room and sit at a table with several other people. These people were confederates , or individuals who were posing as other participants but were really working for the researchers. The concept of entitativity is an important one, both in relation to how we view our ingroups, and also in terms of our perceptions of and behavior toward our outgroups.
With our outgroups, our perceptions of their entitativity can influence both our prosocial and antisocial behaviors toward them. One determinant of entitativity is a cognitive one—the perception of similarity. As we saw in our discussions of liking and loving, similarity is important across many dimensions, including beliefs, values, and traits.
A group can only be a group to the extent that its members have something in common; at minimum, they are similar because they all belong to the group. If a collection of people are interested in the same things, share the same opinions and beliefs, or work together on the same task, then it seems they should be considered—by both themselves and others—to be a group.
However, if there are a lot of differences among the individuals, particularly in their goals, values, beliefs, and behaviors, then they are less likely to be seen as a group. Given the many differences that we have discussed in other chapters between members of individualistic and collectivistic cultures in terms of how they see their social worlds, it should come as no surprise that different types of similarity relate more strongly to perceptions of entitativity in each type of culture.
People, then, generally get together to form groups precisely because they are similar. For example, perhaps they are all interested in playing poker, or follow the same soccer team, or like martial arts. Although similarity is important, it is not the only factor that creates a group. Although communication can occur in groups that meet together in a single place, it can also occur among individuals who are at great distances from each other. The members of a research team who communicate regularly via Skype, for instance, might have frequent interactions and feel as if they are a group even though they never or rarely meet in person.
Interaction is particularly important when it is accompanied by interdependence — the extent to which the group members are mutually dependent upon each other to reach a goal. In some cases, and particularly in working groups, interdependence involves the need to work together to successfully accomplish a task. Individuals playing baseball are dependent upon each other to be able to play the game and also to play well.
Each individual must do his or her job in order for the group to function. We are also interdependent when we work together to write a research article or create a class project.
When group members are interdependent, they report liking each other more, tend to cooperate and communicate with each other to a greater extent, and may be more productive Deutsch, The relevant social norms for groups include customs, traditions, standards, and rules, as well as the general values of the group. Particularly important here are injunctive norms , which specify how group members are expected to behave.
Some of these are prescriptive norms, which tell the group members what to do , whereas some are proscriptive norms, which tell them what not to do. In general, the more clearly defined and the widely agreed upon the norms in a group are, the more entitativity that the group members will feel. Effective groups also develop and assign social roles the expected behaviors to group members. For instance, some groups may be structured such that they have a president, a secretary, and many different working committees.
Different roles often come with different levels of status, or perceived power, and these hierarchies. Also, if members have more than one role, for example, player and coach, it is important that these roles are compatible rather than contradictory. High-performing groups are thus able to avoid placing members under r ole stress.
This occurs when individuals experience incompatible demands and expectations within or between the roles that they occupy , which often negatively impacts their ability to be successful in those roles Forsyth, Although cognitive factors such as perceived similarity, communication, interdependence, and structure are often important parts of what we mean by being a group, they do not seem to always be necessary.
In some situations, groups may be seen as groups even if they have little independence, communication, or structure. Partly because of this difficulty, an alternative approach to thinking about groups, and one that has been very important in social psychology, makes use of the affective feelings that we have toward the groups that we belong to.
As we have read, social identity refers to the part of the self-concept that results from our membership in social groups Hogg, Generally, because we prefer to remain in groups that we feel good about, the outcome of group membership is a positive social identity—our group memberships make us feel good about ourselves.
According to the social identity approach, a group is a group when the members experience social identity—when they define themselves in part by the group that they belong to and feel good about their group membership Hogg, This identity might be seen as a tendency on the part of the individual to talk positively about the group to others, a general enjoyment of being part of the group, and a feeling of pride that comes from group membership. Because identity is such an important part of group membership, we may attempt to create it to make ourselves feel good, both about our group and about ourselves.
Perhaps you know some people—maybe you are one—who wear the clothes of their sports team to highlight their identity with the group because they want to be part of, and accepted by, the other group members. Although many groups are basically static, performing the same types of tasks day in and day out, other groups are more dynamic. In fact, in almost all groups there is at least some change; members come and go, and the goals of the group may change.
And even groups that have remained relatively stable for long periods of time may suddenly make dramatic changes; for instance, when they face a crisis, such as a change in task goals or the loss of a leader. Groups may also lose their meaning and identity as they successfully meet the goals they initially set out to accomplish. One way to understand group development is to consider the potential stages that groups generally go through.
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