Group Processes Research Paper

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Social psychologists have long recognized that in a variety of settings, people behave differently in groups than they would by themselves. At times, people perform more effectively and make better decisions when part of a group. Often, however, being part of a group results in reduced performance, poorer decisions, and sometimes-tragic consequences (see Janis, 1972, for examples). That groups often place great pressure on individuals to exhibit specific behaviors is particularly evident in gangs, where the consequences of defying group authority can be brutal. In other cases, group influence is subtle, and an individual may change his or her behavior because the situation is ambiguous and because the influence of others leads to alternate action (or even inaction when a response is appropriate). Group processes have received significant attention in the field of psychology over the last century and are likely to remain an important area of study. This chapter will provide an overview of theory and research pertaining to the influence of group membership on productivity, decision making, and individual behavior.

What Is A Group?

The answer to the question of what constitutes a group might seem obvious at first. Intuitively, a group exists when two or more people are in the same place. However, shared location constitutes an incomplete definition for most social psychologists. Several people waiting for a bus might not be considered part of a group because there are no immediate demands on them that require action (or interaction with one another). If a house nearby suddenly erupted in flames, however, the individuals would likely look to one another for information on how to interpret the situation and how to react. Members of a group are likely to respond to such a situation differently than each of them would individually. Although we are social creatures and being part of groups is critical for our well-being, the presence of others in situations such as that already described sometimes leads to confusion and inaction.

Groups can be small or large, fleeting or long-lasting, formal or informal. Although researchers have conceptualized groups in contrasting ways, a common perspective is that a set of individuals becomes a group in the psychological sense when they become interdependent. Kurt Lewin (1948) noted that a group comes into being when multiple individuals share an “interdependence of fate” (p. 165). Lewin explained that a person may share more in common with a member of another family than with members of his or her own family, but that the common fate shared within the family creates unique dynamics that are not present when such a shared fate is lacking. Brown (2000) elaborated by outlining complementary perspectives that define groups based on the presence of social structure that dictates members’ roles, and he acknowledged the view that any set of people may be considered a group when the members view themselves as belonging to the same category.

Researchers have approached the topic of behavior in groups from a variety of theoretical perspectives. Some researchers have addressed potentially harmful and destructive characteristics that sometimes follow from collective behavior (e.g., Freud, 1922), while other researchers have viewed groups differently and have identified many potential benefits of group membership (e.g., Yalom, 1985). Regardless of one’s initial perspective, decades of attention to psychological processes in groups have produced a wealth of fascinating and often surprising conclusions.

Social Impact Theory

A useful theoretical framework for understanding the influence that groups have on individuals is known as social impact theory (Latane, 1981). From this perspective, the power of group influence, whether beneficial or detrimental in effect, is a function of three interrelated characteristics. The first of these is the strength of influence presented by observers in one’s environment. Observers who are older, wealthier, or more powerful are likely to be more influential than other observers. The second characteristic, immediacy, refers to the degree of closeness between the observers and the individual. A major-league baseball player is likely to be more influenced by the fans in the stadium with him than by the many millions of people watching on television. The third characteristic concerns the number of observers. In general, greater numbers of observers equals greater influence. This social impact framework will be useful to keep in mind as you consider the group process theory and research that follows.

Deindividuation

Imagine that you are living in a large city, and one night you hear a woman screaming for help outside your apartment window. Her screams go on for several minutes, and it seems clear that she is in great distress. Would you call the police or go to the woman’s aid, or would you decline to get involved? An interesting set of psychological studies followed just such a real-life scenario. In 1964, Kitty Genovese was brutally murdered outside her New York City apartment building. Although the event was certainly tragic, it was the behavior of bystanders that attracted the attention of social psychologists. Initial news reports suggested that the attack took approximately 30 minutes to complete and that Genovese’s screams were heard by dozens of people, but no one called the police or intervened in any meaningful way until it was too late. Although later reports raised questions about the actual events that night, the reported inaction of bystanders provided the impetus for a great deal of subsequent research.

More than a decade before the murder of Kitty Genovese, researchers began examining the ways in which people’s level of self-awareness changes when others are present.

Leon Festinger and his colleagues (Festinger, Pepitone, & Newcomb, 1952) found that being part of a short-lived informal group was enough to reduce personal inhibition in members’ behavior, resulting in a willingness to engage in behaviors ordinarily prohibited by personal values. Early researchers assumed that this pattern of deindividuation resulted from a loss of awareness of individual identity and a consequent abandonment of personal values. However, later researchers argued that, in fact, the change occurs because of a shift in focus from personal identity to identification with group norms, which may differ significantly from personal values (Postmes & Spears, 1998). People rioting after a favorite sports team wins a championship may be acting in accordance with situational behavioral norms rather than simply abandoning their own identities. To summarize, some researchers have argued that deindividuation reflects a loss of identity when part of a group, whereas others have argued that it reflects a shift from individual identity to group identity. Following the Genovese murder, psychologists wondered how normal people could stand by while another person was victimized. Subsequent research on deindividuation illuminated details of what has come to be known as the bystander effect.

The bystander effect reflects how well-meaning individuals can be driven to inaction in the face of an emergency. It was first formally discussed in a now-classic study of helping behavior. John Darley and Bibb Latane (1968) recruited college students to participate in a study ostensibly about college life. The participants engaged in a discussion over an intercom system, but soon heard another participant suffer an apparent seizure. Among participants who believed that no one else was aware of the seizure, 85 percent reported the emergency. Among those who believed that other participants had heard the seizure, only 31 percent reported the emergency. This study was the first of many studies illustrating that bystanders are far less likely to intervene in a possible emergency when other bystanders are present (see Latane & Nida, 1981, for a summary). Darley and Latane concluded that bystanders were sensitive to the suffering of another person, but that “indecision and conflict” (p. 382), probably resulting from situational ambiguity, prevented them from intervening when an emergency occurred. In a follow-up study investigating the likelihood that participants would report a possible fire (Latane & Darley, 1968), the researchers concluded that bystanders are likely to look to those around them to decide what action is appropriate. Thus, inaction is contagious, in that each bystander is likely to follow the lead of others who are also inactive.

The bystander effect is not inevitable, and two key factors appear to be critical in promoting inaction among group members. One of these factors is the situational ambiguity that arises when it is not clear that action is required. The bystander effect is less likely to occur when it is clear that there is an emergency (L. Z. Solomon, H. Solomon, & Stone, 1978). The other factor is diffusion of responsibility. When part of a group, people feel less obliged to act because responsibility for action is perceived to be divided among those present. A person who is alone and witnesses an accident may feel compelled to provide assistance. When part of a group, that same person feels far less pressure to act because the responsibility is diluted. Anyone who has taken a Red Cross CPR training course will note that instructors tell students to select a specific member of any observing group of people to call for assistance. A shout of “You! Call for help!” is far more likely to result in quick action than a call of “Somebody, call for help.” The former is an effective way to overcome ambiguity and the diffusion of responsibility that promotes the bystander effect.

There are additional consequences of deindividuation beyond those consistent with the bystander effect. Individuals who are aware that their identities are not readily available to others may commit all sorts of acts that they would avoid if their identities were known. For example, Zimbardo (1969) reported that the duration of electric shocks that participants administered to another person when the participants were hidden in laboratory coats and hoods was double that of the shocks given by participants who could be identified. Another study revealed that children trick-or-treating on Halloween were more likely to steal candy and money when they were part of a group, and this tendency was magnified when the children’s identities were hidden (Diener, Fraser, Beaman, & Kelem, 1976). Finally, a fascinating study by David Dodd (1985) illustrated that people are often willing to admit that they would commit social and legal transgressions if they could be certain that they would not be caught. Dodd asked college students and prison inmates what they would do if they could be invisible for 24 hours and would not be detected regardless of what they did. He found no significant differences between the responses of the students and the inmates, with 36 percent of all responses involving some type of antisocial behavior such as criminal and deviant sexual acts. These studies and others illustrate the dramatic consequences that can occur when individual identities are obscured by group membership or other situational factors. The effects of deindividuation also occur when people work or make decisions as part of a group.

Group Performance And Productivity

Social Loafing, Inhibition, and Facilitation

Social loafing refers to a frequently observed pattern of behavior in which individuals expend less effort on a task when working as part of a group than when working alone. Max Ringelmann, an engineer, conducted the first formal study of this phenomenon in the late 1800s by comparing levels of effort expended by people pulling on a rope (Kravitz & Martin, 1986). Ringelmann found that people expended more effort when pulling the rope by themselves than they did when someone else was pulling at the same time. This finding was replicated in a later study (Ingham, Levinger, Graves, & Peckham, 1974). Many other researchers have reported a similar reduction in effort among members of groups. For example, Latane, Williams, and Harkins (1979) asked participants to clap and cheer as loudly as they could. The researchers found that participants produced significantly less sound when part of a group, and this result was true whether participants were actually in the room with others or were simply led to believe that they were part of a group effort. Social loafing has also been observed in naturalistic settings. Wicker (1969) found that members of small church congregations were more active and made greater financial contributions than members of larger congregations. Using meta-analysis to examine a large number of existing studies, Karau and Williams (1993) found social loafing to be a very common phenomenon that is present across a variety of tasks and regardless of the gender or cultural composition of the group.

Karau and Williams (1993) reviewed many explanations for social loafing that have emerged in the research literature. One explanation is that individuals expend less effort in groups because they experience less motivating arousal when they share responsibility for a task. A second explanation is that group members exert less effort when they believe their contributions are not necessary for successful completion of the group product. A third explanation is that people working in groups may expect other members to expend less effort and therefore they themselves expend less effort to avoid an unfair allocation of work. This outcome has been labeled the “sucker effect” (Kerr, 1983). A fourth perspective addressed by Karau and Williams proposes that social loafing results from individual effort being lost as part of a group product: Group members may work less hard because their individual contributions cannot be evaluated and properly credited, or to avoid being seen as responsible if the group does not perform well. A final perspective suggests that people are less aware of their own identity when working in a group and are therefore less motivated by their own usual standards of performance. All of these explanations may have merit depending on the situation and the nature of the task.

Like other social behavior, social loafing is avoidable. Social loafing is less likely among individuals with high achievement motivation (Hart, Karau, Stasson, & Kerr, 2004), in groups that are smaller in size or more cohesive (Liden, Wayne, Jaworski, & Bennett, 2004), in situations where the effort of individual group members can be identified (Williams, Harkins, & Latane, 1981), and when individuals see the group task as meaningful (Karau & Williams, 1993). There are some limited situations in which individuals may in fact work harder when part of a group in a deliberate effort to overcome the unsatisfactory performance of other group members (Williams & Karau, 1991).

A concept closely related to social loafing that also addresses ways that individual performance may be compromised in group situations is social inhibition. Whereas social loafing occurs on group tasks where individual effort is not readily observable, social inhibition occurs when such effort can be directly observed and is therefore subject to evaluation. For example, a vocalist might sing a song perfectly while practicing in the shower, only to sing off key when performing the same song before an audience. Social inhibition is more commonly referred to as “choking,” whereby performance suffers when pressures from being observed are high. Davis and Harvey (1992) found that highly skilled major-league baseball players performed below their usual levels at points in the game when there was greater pressure on them from observers to perform well.

Of course, individual performance does not always decline when a task is completed in the presence of others. Over 100 years ago, Triplett (1898) observed that bicycle riders rode faster when racing against other riders than they did when racing against the clock. A thorough review of nearly a century of empirical work following Triplett’s study (Guerin, 1993) demonstrated that people (and even animals) often work harder to complete a task when other individuals are present than they do when completing the task alone. This tendency to work harder and perform better in the presence of others is known as social facilitation.

Given the apparent discrepancy between social inhibition and social facilitation effects, researchers found it necessary to examine the factors that determine whether the presence of others enhances or hinders performance. Research in this area suggested that the crucial factors are the nature of the task at hand and whether individual effort is apparent to others. Zajonc (1965) proposed a theory to integrate these two factors. He suggested that the presence of others causes arousal and that this arousal can have positive or negative effects depending on what behavior is required. In the case of simple or very well learned tasks, the added arousal may lead to enhanced performance. When the task is more complex or is not well learned, arousal is likely to hinder performance. Bond and Titus (1983) examined over 200 studies of social facilitation and found significant support for Zajonc’s proposals. For example, in one study researchers unobtrusively observed college students playing pool and recorded players’ performance under different conditions. They reported that when an audience was present, skillful players performed even better but the performance of unskilled players suffered (Michaels, Blommel, Brocato, Linkous, & Rowe, 1982, as cited in Kimble & Rezabek, 1992). Baron (1986) explained that the presence of others and the consequent potential for evaluation causes distraction from the task. Attention is divided between the task and the audience, which results in greater arousal. Consistent with Zajonc’s (1965) analysis, this arousal may help or hinder performance, depending on the task. Some researchers have proposed that the mere presence of observers is enough to trigger social facilitation or social inhibition, but other researchers have asserted that the observers must possess some evaluative capacity. Geen’s (1991) review provides support for both proposals and offers an integration of the perspectives. For an alternative finding and interpretation, see Kimble and Rezabek (1992).

Brainstorming

In the 1950s, an advertising executive named Alex Osborn developed a method of idea generation within groups that he called brainstorming. Although Osborn (1957) believed that individual effort and thought were critical to the production of ideas, he asserted that groups often are more effective at producing novel solutions to problems and that collaboration among members of a group promotes greater effort on the part of each member. Osborn proposed guidelines that he thought would maximize the effectiveness of brainstorming. He suggested that leaders of brainstorming groups encourage members to produce as many novel ideas as possible and insisted that participants could build on one another’s ideas but should never criticize others during the session. Osborn’s goal was a kind of group synergy, where the whole productivity would be greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Despite the intuitive appeal and widespread application of brainstorming in many contexts, evidence that working as a group produces more or better ideas than the same number of individuals do working alone is lacking. An important early study (Taylor, Berry, & Block, 1958) found that compared with individuals working alone, people working in brainstorming groups produced fewer total solutions to a problem, fewer novel solutions, and lower quality solutions. Subsequent researchers have reached similar conclusions, and a meta-analysis integrating numerous studies (Mullen, Johnson, & Salas, 1991) led its authors to conclude that “the long-lived popularity of brainstorming techniques is unequivocally and substantively misguided” (p. 18). The many negative findings, however, did not necessarily dissuade people from believing in the efficacy of brainstorming (Paulus, Dzindolet, Poletes, & Camacho, 1993).

Researchers have offered several explanations for the relative ineffectiveness of brainstorming, and many of these explanations are consistent with the phenomenon of social loafing discussed earlier. According to Brown and Paulus (1996), some members of a brainstorming group may not work as hard when other members are performing well, and fear of evaluation may prohibit members from expressing unique ideas. Brown and Paulus also explained that the social tendency of group members to match one another’s performance may lead highly productive individuals to tone down their contributions to avoid working too hard while others are loafing. On an even more practical level, problems may arise when only one person can express an idea at a time. Because members must put their ideas on hold while others are talking, many solutions may be forgotten before they can be expressed and recorded. Members also may forget or discard ideas prior to disclosure when they perceive ideas to be too different from those already expressed.

It is probably the case that many of these factors affect brainstorming groups. A recent finding, however, suggests that group members do in fact benefit from and build upon the ideas of other group members but only in situations that deliberately enhance participants’ ability to pay attention to these ideas (Dugosh, Paulus, Roland, & Yang, 2000). A paradigm for electronic brainstorming utilized by Dugosh et al. may help identify ways to overcome the weaknesses of traditional brainstorming by allowing participants to read the suggestions of other participants while simultaneously generating their own ideas.

Decision Making In Groups

The research cited thus far illustrates that as members of groups, people occasionally exceed but often fall short of what they might accomplish alone. Although the ramifications of such tendencies may be important in many environments, the stakes are sometimes much higher when individuals come together to make critical decisions. Various social pressures may prevent important information from being adequately considered when members of a group share responsibility for a decision. The consequences of these processes may be minor, as when someone must pay more than his or her share when having dinner with friends. However, they may be much more severe when groups are forced to make life-or-death decisions.

Social Dilemmas

One interesting facet of decision making that has received significant attention involves the ways in which people deal with social dilemmas. According to Brewer and Kramer (1986), a social dilemma occurs when one must choose between one’s own interest and that of a collective group. Social dilemmas force group members to choose whether to pursue short-term individual benefit or long-term common good. An extreme example occurs when soldiers in combat face a dangerous situation in which members of the group are likely to be injured or killed. In such cases, an individual may have the opportunity to cause a distraction that reduces the likelihood that others will be injured. However, such a move often results in much greater individual risk. In essence, the risk shared by the entire group becomes focused on a single member who promotes the well-being of the group at his or her own expense. A more common example involves the familiar scenario of a group of people having dinner at a restaurant who agree to evenly share the cost of the meal. Some people might take the opportunity to order an expensive dish, knowing that the cost would be shared. However, if everyone uses this strategy, the overall cost to the group will be quite high (Dawes & Messick, 2000).

Researchers have identified two types of social dilemmas that differ based on the nature of the decision demanded from participants (Levine & Moreland, 2006). One variety involves behaviors that are beneficial to individuals but that cause problems for everyone when too many people engage in them. Levine and Moreland observed that fishermen often overfish, which increases individual profits but decreases supplies (and profits) for everyone in subsequent years. The second variety of social dilemma involves situations where it is to the individual’s advantage to avoid some cost but the collective suffers when too many people engage in such avoidance. Take, for example, investment in public television—it is tempting to avoid any personal cost from making a contribution, but everyone suffers from decreased programming when too many people avoid the cost (Dawes & Messick, 2000). At its core, a social dilemma raises questions about whether to cooperate or compete with other members of a group, and a number of researchers have examined the ways in which people solve such dilemmas and the factors influencing their decisions.

A classic paradigm for studying what makes people compete or cooperate is the prisoner’s dilemma. Parks and Sanna (1999) outlined one variation of the procedure as follows: As a participant in a study using the prisoner’s dilemma, you would be asked to play the role of one of two suspects arrested for a crime. You would have no contact with the other suspect, but you would be aware that the police knew you were involved. You would then be given the opportunity to confess (or not) to having planned the crime. If neither you nor your partner confesses, the likely sentence you’ll both receive is three years. If both of you confess you’ll each receive two years. Finally, if only one suspect confesses, the confessor will receive a four-year sentence while the other will receive only one year. The consequences are therefore based on the cooperative and competitive tendencies of both participants, and maximizing one’s personal outcome involves some guessing about how the other person is likely to respond.

Research using variations on the prisoner’s dilemma and other scenarios has demonstrated that even when cooperation would result in a better outcome, competitive tendencies are often overpowering (Deutsch & Krauss, 1960). An integrated strategy known as “tit-for-tat,” in which participants initially cooperate but on subsequent rounds respond in kind to the partner’s previous action, is not unusual and may, in fact, promote group harmony. People employing a tit-for-tat strategy are viewed as more honest, fair, reasonable, and intelligent than those who are chronically competitive, and such a strategy appears to promote greater cooperation (McClintock & Liebrand, 1988). Such findings are useful, given the many benefits of building groups that maintain cooperative rather than competitive norms. Groups influenced by cooperative norms tend to have members who are more supportive of one another, who are better able to appreciate others’ viewpoints, and who feel more positively about one another and the demands required of the group (Deutsch, 1993).

Researchers have identified several additional factors that influence people’s resolution of social dilemmas. Reno, Cialdini, and Kallgren (1993) studied the dilemma of public littering, where the short-term convenience of the individual is pitted against the benefit of society. The researchers demonstrated that shifting people’s attention toward collective benefit reduces self-focus in social dilemmas. Levine and Moreland (2006) summarized a variety of studies indicating that social dilemma resolution is affected by individual characteristics such as one’s gender, cultural background, expectations of how others will respond, personality, and level of group identification, as well as situational characteristics such as the size of the group, the salient social norms, and other environmental factors.

Group Polarization and Risky Shift

Whereas social dilemmas involve a decision between the good of the individual and the good of some larger collective, group polarization and risky shift are phenomena that emerge when a joint decision is called for after group members discuss an issue. Risky shift, first observed by Stoner (1961, as cited by Brown, 2000), refers to the tendency of groups to make riskier decisions than would be expected based on the initial views of group members. Stoner’s observation sparked a great deal of subsequent research because it contradicted the assumption that a group of people would arrive at a more logical, rational, and cautious decision than would a single person.

Many early studies confirmed that in many cases, groups do indeed shift toward less cautious decisions after members discuss an issue. For instance, Wallach, Kogan, and Bem (1962) presented participants with a number of theoretical situations in which a person could choose a more risky or a more conservative option. Examples used by the researchers included a story about a man who was offered a job with better pay but no job security. Another example involved a story about a college student choosing between graduate study at a prestigious university where success would be unlikely and a poorer school where most students succeed. Wallach et al. found that both the shared group decision and the views of individual group members reflected less caution after engaging in group discussion. Further work by the same researchers offered additional support, and they observed the risky shift whether participants actively engaged in group discussion or simply observed others discussing an issue (Kogan & Wallach, 1967). Despite these early findings, researchers began to question whether risky shift was restricted to the laboratory (where research was dominated by a particular methodological approach and decisions were ultimately artificial), but replications revealed the phenomenon in natural settings as well (e.g., Blascovich, Ginsburg, & Howe, 1975; Malamuth & Feshbach, 1972).

Subsequent investigations into group decision making began to raise questions about earlier conclusions, and researchers identified many exceptions to the risky shift phenomenon. For example, Knox and Safford (1976) studied betting behavior at a racetrack and concluded that people in a group often make more conservative decisions than they would if forced to make an individual decision. Such findings initially seemed at odds with earlier work, but researchers soon realized that group discussion does not automatically cause more risky or more cautious decisions. Rather, it causes groups to shift toward more extreme views in whichever direction the members already leaned. This tendency is called group polarization. An initial study of group polarization demonstrated that participants discussing current political issues not only arrived at more extreme group decisions, but also that individual members adopted the more extreme collective views on a personal level (Moscovici & Zavalloni, 1969). In a very interesting follow-up study, researchers placed participants into high- and low-prejudice groups based on participant responses to a survey measuring racial attitudes (Myers & Bishop, 1970). Each group discussed several racial attitude items for two minutes and then marked their individual responses to the items. The group discussion amplified the existing polarization and made the groups even more distinct. Thus, groups whose members were initially low in prejudice reported even less prejudice, and groups whose members were initially high in prejudice reported even more prejudiced views following group discussion.

Several theoretical explanations for group polarization have emerged. Myers and Lamm (1976) outlined the two accounts that have received the greatest empirical support. The persuasive arguments perspective attributes polarization to the fact that members acquire new information from group discussion. This new information often comes in the form of repeated persuasive testimony that causes group members to shift their attitudes more dramatically in the direction already favored. Research has indeed shown that repetition of attitudes within a group discussion often leads the group to more extreme views (Brauer, Judd, & Gliner, 1995). If a group has an initial tendency toward a particular attitude, group discussion is likely to produce a variety of arguments in favor of this perspective and few arguments in opposition. Exposure to such repeated arguments may then cause individuals to shift toward more extreme views.

Another perspective is that group polarization results from social comparison among group members, which occurs when a group member realizes that others share similar opinions but that some have more polarized views. Imagine a woman who attends a party and expresses a slightly negative attitude about a political candidate. She then discovers that others at the party share similar attitudes, and she quickly realizes that the group norm is more polarized against the candidate than she first thought. She may then express more extreme views in order to keep up with or exceed the perceived norm of the group, which of course is likely to lead to further group polarization. A review of numerous studies provided evidence for both the social comparison and persuasive arguments views and illustrated how the two processes may interact to promote polarization (Isenberg, 1986). Although these are the two most common explanations for group polarization effects, others have offered additional viewpoints (see Brown, 2000).

Groupthink

A frequently discussed issue concerning group dynamics has to do with the ways in which members of groups share ideas and make critical decisions. Irving Janis (1972) chronicled many incidents from United States history that he argued illustrate the operation of groupthink. These incidents have generally become infamous as much for the manner in which leaders reacted and made decisions as for the objective historical significance of the events. Janis discussed decision-making flaws that hindered U.S. preparedness for the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and similar flaws that characterized the U.S.-supported invasion of Cuba known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the escalation of the war in Vietnam during the 1960s. A later study revealed that groupthink may have played a role in the 1986 decision to launch the Space Shuttle Challenger, which exploded shortly after liftoff (Moorhead, Ference, & Neck, 1991). In all these cases, group processes that emerged as individuals came together to make decisions compromised the decisions of government leaders. Also in each case, the consequences were tragic.

Perhaps the most important characteristic of groupthink is the tendency for group members to abandon critical thinking and engage in especially risky courses of action. This trend is analogous to risky shift. In addition to promoting riskier decisions, groupthink may manifest itself in a tendency to see the group as infallible, a tendency to avoid expressing dissenting opinions within the group, and a general disregard for dissenting opinions from outside the group. Such a closed-minded “us versus them” mentality may cause decision-making bodies to ignore critical evidence, as occurred in the historical examples noted above.

Janis (1972) argued that groupthink occurs for many reasons. In some cases, a leader who is highly directive may compel subordinates to go along with his or her risky plan and may deter them from expressing dissenting views. Research has supported the perspective that groups with highly directive leaders make poorer decisions than groups with leaders who are participative (Chen, Lawson, Gordon, & Mcintosh, 1996). Another important factor is the level of value that members place on group membership and their degree of commitment to the group, also known as the group’s cohesiveness. Although some have argued that cohesiveness is desirable because it enhances group productivity (Mullen & Copper, 1994), Janis asserted that highly cohesive groups promote conformity with group norms and a sense of security that deters overt disagreement that might threaten group solidarity. Group cohesiveness is further promoted when groups face some threat from an out-group. For example, military units whose members face extreme physical threats often display a very high level of cohesiveness. Research suggests that groupthink may be most likely in situations characterized by a combination of high cohesiveness and a powerful threat from a source outside the group. Other factors, such as the confirmation bias likely to result from the tendency of groups to discuss shared ideas rather than introduce novel concerns, are likely to play a role (e.g., Postmes, Spears, & Cihangir, 2001). Janis’s historical accounts suggest that the influence and ramifications of groupthink can be profound.

Researchers have offered several strategies for overcoming groupthink. For instance, Janis (1972) proposed that groupthink will be reduced when (a) members are explicitly instructed to raise objections, (b) leaders refrain from expressing their own views until after the discussion, (c) critical decisions are assigned to multiple independent groups so conclusions can be compared, and (d) nonmembers are periodically invited to attend group meetings and are encouraged to offer dissent or a group member is instructed to play devil’s advocate to anticipate potential problems. Others have added that groupthink is less likely when members believe they will be held accountable (especially individually accountable) for the group decision (Kroon’t Hart, & van Kreveld, 1991).

Despite intuitive appeal based on fascinating historical anecdotes, groupthink remains a controversial concept. The empirical research has produced inconsistent results (Levine & Moreland, 2006), and several researchers have reported findings that add to the complexity of groupthink conceptualizations (e.g., Choi & Kim, 1999; Tetlock, Peterson, McGuire, Chang, & Feld, 1992). Kramer (1998) reviewed literature on two of the historical events cited by Janis (1972) and concluded that groupthink concepts were inadequate for explaining the decision-making details of the events. An important consideration is the relative lack of research on groupthink resulting from the difficulty of producing artificial groups that can be studied but that share interaction processes similar to those of real groups making real decisions. Eaton (2001) observed that most groupthink research has relied upon case study evidence of historical decisions. Others have noted the shortage of empirical data and the need for additional research (e.g., Esser, 1998).

Methods

Researchers in the area of group processes employ a variety of procedures to study their subject matter. These procedures often include creating artificial groups in the laboratory, usually from involving individuals who do not know one another prior to their participation in the study. This approach has the advantage of controlling many extraneous factors that might influence the findings if group members had previous relationships with one another, but it is sometimes difficult to generalize the results to environments commonly encountered in real life. Many group process researchers have completed studies in more naturalistic settings in an effort to overcome this potential difficulty. For example, researchers studying deindividuation might create an artificial emergency in the lab and manipulate the number of bystanders, or they might discreetly observe as an assistant drops his or her books in public places with varying numbers of bystanders nearby. Those researchers studying social loafing might test individual output on a task as increasing numbers of people share responsibility, or they might compare the productivity of two existing classrooms where students in one classroom complete a task individually and those in another classroom do so in groups. Finally, those researchers studying social dilemmas might use the prisoner’s dilemma to enable greater experimental control, or they might simply survey people for reactions to various hypothetical social scenarios. Because group behavior is inherently a social process, researchers typically must find ways to isolate specific effects within the complex arena of social interaction.

Applications

Research on group processes has been influential in a variety of settings. On the most basic level, findings in this area have served to illustrate potential pitfalls of using intuition or common sense to draw conclusions about human behavior. Common sense may tell us that “two heads are better than one” and that groups would consequently be better at producing effective solutions to problems, but research has often supported an alternate view (e.g., Mullen et al., 1991; Janis, 1972). Group process research is applied in business and government settings, where findings can inform the development and maintenance of groups to maximize the likelihood of high-quality solutions to specific problems. These strategies include promoting individual responsibility for decisions and productivity, using smaller groups to enhance cohesiveness and reduce diffusion of responsibility, and promoting a sense of value in group membership and the quality of the finished product. Research on deindividuation processes may assist individuals aiming to develop ways of promoting altruistic behavior or to overcome the group paralysis that sometimes emerges in the absence of perceived individual responsibility. Group process research can even assist performers and educators in diverse environments to understand the factors that may affect the quality of performance in front of an audience.

Comparison

The findings of more than a century of research on group processes must be considered within a cultural context. Many findings are consistent across social and cultural groups but there are exceptions. For example, the common finding that boys are more competitive than girls is not consistent across cultures (Strube, 1981). Social loafing is less likely to occur in Asian countries that are more collectivistic than Western countries, because the orientation toward the betterment of the group reduces the effect of responsibility diffusion (Karau & Williams, 1993). The risky shift may also be culture bound. Hong (1978) compared American and Taiwanese students and observed risky shift only among the Americans. The Asian students actually shifted their decisions in a less risky direction when deciding as a group. Cultural differences can also play a role within groups. Broadly defined, diversity within groups is often considered desirable for a number of reasons, including increased likelihood that a variety of perspectives on a problem or issue will be considered (Paulus, 2000). However, differences in goals and interaction styles in diverse groups may lead to more frequent miscommunication that can have a negative impact on productivity (Maznevsi, 1994). Fortunately, strategies exist to overcome many of these difficulties. For a more comprehensive analysis of cultural influences on group processes, see Mann (1988).

Summary

This chapter outlined several of the most widely studied aspects of group behavior. Researchers have identified details pertaining to the reasons that people join groups, the developmental processes that take place within groups, the differences between formal and informal groups, and the role of leadership in group functioning (see Brown, 2000, for an excellent review). Some areas of group process have received less attention in recent years, but the field has a long and rich history of research. In recent years, the ubiquity of computers has led to new ideas and new opportunities in areas such as virtual group behavior (McKenna & Bargh, 2000). Many questions and misconceptions remain, creating opportunities for future work that will further enhance our understanding of group behavior.

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