CHAPTER 7

SOCIAL INFLUENCE AND GROUP PROCESSES

What is a Group? (Definition)
A group may be defined as an organized system of two or more individuals, who are interacting and
interdependent, who have common motives, have a set of role relationships among its members, and
have norms that regulate the behaviour of its members.
Characteristics of groups:
 A social unit consisting of two or more individuals who perceive themselves as belonging to
the group which helps in distinguishing one group from the other and gives the group its
unique identity.
 A collection of individuals who have common motives and goals.
 A collection of individuals who are interdependent, i.e. what one is doing may have
consequences for others.
 Individuals who are trying to satisfy a need through their joint association
 A gathering of individuals who interact with one another either directly or indirectly.
 A collection of individuals whose interactions are structured by a set of roles and norms.
Norms tell us how we ought to behave in the group
Crowd: is also a collection of people who may be present at a place/situation by chance.
Team: Teams are special kinds of groups. Members of teams often have complementary skills and are
committed to a common goal or purpose.
Difference between a Team and Group:
 In groups, performance is dependent on contributions of individual members. In teams, both
individual contributions and teamwork matter.
 In groups, the leader of the group holds responsibility for the work. However in teams,
although there is a leader, members hold themselves responsible.
Audience: is also a collection of people who have assembled for a special purpose, may be to watch
a cricket match or a movie.
Why Do People Join Groups?
 Security : When we are alone, we feel insecure. Groups reduce this insecurity. Being with
people gives a sense of comfort, and protection.
 Status : When we are members of a group that is perceived to be important by others, we feel
recognised and experience a sense of power. Suppose your school wins in an interinstitutional
debate competition, you feel proud and think that you are better than others.
 Self-esteem : Groups provide feelings of self-worth and establish a positive social identity.
 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 through a group.
 Goal achievement : Groups help in achieving such goals which cannot be attained
individually. There is power in the majority.
 Provide knowledge and information : Group membership provides knowledge and
information and thus broadens our view. As individuals, we may not have all the required
information. Groups supplement this information and knowledge.
How do we form Groups?
Proximity:(Nearness/Closeness):
 Repeated interactions with the same set of individuals give us a chance to know them, and
their interests and attitudes.
 Common interests, attitudes, and background are important determinants of your liking for
your group members
 Ex: friends from the same colony or apartments

Similarity :
 Why do we like people who are similar?
  One explanation is that people prefer consistency and like relationships that are consistent.
When two people are similar, there is consistency and they start liking each other.
 Ex: you like playing football and another person in your class also loves playing football;
there is a matching of your interests. There are higher chances that you may become friends.
 Another explanation is that when we meet similar people, they accept and approve our
opinions and values, we feel we are right and thus we start liking them.
 Ex: Suppose you are of the opinion that too much watching of television is not good, because
it shows too much violence. You meet someone who also has similar views and he validates
your opinion, and you start liking the person.
Common motives and goals:
 When people have common motives or goals, they get together and form a group, which may
help them attain the goal.
Ex: Suppose you want to teach children in a slum area who are unable to go to school. You
cannot do this alone and therefore, you form a group of like-minded friends and start teaching
these children.
Stages of Group Formation:
Forming: When group members first meet, there is a great deal of uncertainty about the group, the
goal, and how it is to be achieved. People try to know each other and assess whether they will fit in.
There is excitement as well as apprehensions.
• Storming: In this stage, there is a stage of intragroup 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.
• Norming. Group members by this time develop norms related to group behaviour. This leads to
development of a positive group identity.
• Performing. By this time, the group moves towards achieving the group goal. For some groups, this
may be the last stage of group development.
• Adjourning: For some groups, for example, in the case of an organising committee, for a school
function, there may be another stage known as adjourning stage. In this stage, once the function is
over, the group may be disbanded.
Four important elements of group structure:
Roles:
 These are socially defined expectations that individuals in a given situation are expected to
fulfil.
Example: You have the role of a son or a daughter and with this role, there are certain role
expectations, i.e : As a daughter or a son, you are expected to respect elders, listen to them,
and be responsible towards your studies.
Norms:
 These are expected standards of behaviour and beliefs established, agreed upon, and enforced
by group members.
 They are a group’s ‘unspoken rules’.
 Example: In your family, there are norms that guide the behaviour of family members.
Status
 This refers to the relative social position given to group members by others.
 Being members of the group, we enjoy the status associated with that group.
 All of us, therefore, strive to be members of such groups which are high in status
 Even within a group, different members have different prestige and status.
Example:
 Captain of a cricket team has a higher status compared to the other members, although all are
equally important for the team’s success.

Types of status:
 Ascribed: This relative position or status may be either ascribed (given may be because of
one’s seniority)
  Achieved: The person has achieved status because of expertise or hard work.
Cohesiveness:
 Cohesiveness refers to togetherness, binding, or mutual attraction among group members.
 When group becomes more cohesive, group members start to think and feel as a part of the
group and feel less isolated.
 Members of a highly cohesive group have a greater desire to remain in the group
 Cohesiveness refers to the team spirit or ‘we feeling’
 It is difficult to leave a cohesive group or to gain membership of a group which is
highly cohesive.
 Extreme cohesiveness may sometimes become dangerous and might lead to Group Think
Group think:
 Irving Janis has suggested that cohesion can interfere with effective leadership and can lead to
disastrous decisions.
 Groupthink results in the tendency of decision makers to make irrational and uncritical
decisions.
 Groupthink is characterised by the appearance of unanimous agreement within a group.
 Each member believes that all members agree upon a particular decision or a policy.
 No one opposes the opinion because each person believes it would spoil the bonding of the
group and s/he would be unpopular.
 In order to preserve the group’s internal harmony, it becomes out-of-touch with reality.
 Groupthink occurs in socially homogenous groups that are isolated from
 Examples of several group decisions at the international level can be cited as illustrations of
groupthink phenomenon.
 The Vietnam War is an example. From 1964 to 1967, President Lyndon Johnson and his
advisors in the U.S. escalated the Vietnam War thinking that this would bring North Vietnam
to the peace table. The escalation decisions were made despite warnings. The grossly
miscalculated move resulted in the loss of 56,000 American and more than one million
Vietnamese lives and created huge budget deficits.
Ways to counteract or prevent groupthink:
 encouraging and rewarding critical thinking and even disagreement among group members,
 encouraging groups to present alternative courses of action
 inviting outside experts to evaluate the group’s decisions,
 encouraging members to seek feedback from trusted others
Types of Groups
Primary and Secondary Groups
PRIMARY GROUPS SECONDARY GROUPS
Primary groups are pre-existing formations which secondary groups are those which the individual
are usually given to the individual whereas joins by choice
Family, caste, and religion are primary groups membership of a political party is an example of
a secondary group
In a primary group, there is a face-to-face In contrast, secondary groups are those where
interaction, members have close physical relationships among members are more
proximity, and they share warm emotional bonds. impersonal, indirect, and less frequent.
• Primary groups are central to individual’s The secondary groups do not have a major role to
functioning and have a very major role in play in this area
developing values and ideals of the individual
during the early stages of development.
In the primary group, boundaries are less In secondary groups, it is easy to leave and join
permeable, i.e. members do not have the option to another group
choose its membership

Formal and Informal Groups

 These groups differ on the basis of structure and functions.
  The functions of a formal group are explicitly stated as in the case of an office organisation.
 The roles to be performed by group members are stated
 The group follows specific rules or laws and members have definite roles which helps in
establishing order.
 A university is an example of a formal group.
 On the other hand, the formation of informal groups is not based on rules or laws and there is
close relationship among members.
In-group and Out-group
 The term ‘in-group’ refers to one’s own group, and ‘out-group’ refers to another group.
 For in-group members, we use the word ‘we’ while for out-group members, the word ‘they’ is
used.
 By using the words ‘they’ and ‘we’, one is categorizing people as similar or different.
 It has been found that persons in the in-group are generally supposed to be similar
 Members of the out-group are viewed differently and are often perceived negatively in
comparison to the in-group member
Social Facilitation
 Social facilitation research suggests that presence of others leads to arousal and can motivate
individuals to enhance their performance if they are already good at solving something.
 This enhancement occurs when a person’s efforts are individually evaluated.
Social Loafing
 Social loafing 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 you to identify
how much force each member of the team has been exerting.
 Such situations give opportunities to group members to relax and become a free rider.
 For example in an experiment conducted by Latane and his associates who asked group of
male students to clap or cheer as loudly as possible
 The experimenters were interested in knowing how much noise people make in social
settings.
 They varied the group size; individuals were either alone, or in groups of two, four and six.
 The results of the study showed that although the total amount of noise rose up, as size
increased, the amount of noise produced by each participant dropped.
 In other words, each participant put in less effort as the group size increased.
Why does social loafing occur?
 Group members feel less responsible for the overall task being performed
 Motivation of members decreases because they realise that individual contributions will not
be evaluated
 The performance of the group is not to be compared with other groups.
 There is an improper coordination (or no coordination) among members.
 Low sense of belongingness.
How can you reduce Social Loafing?
 Making the efforts of each person identifiable.
 Increasing the pressure to work hard
 Increasing the importance or value of a task.
 Making people feel that their individual contribution is important.
 Strengthening group cohesiveness which increases the motivation for successful group
outcome
Group Polarization:
 Suppose there is an employee who has been caught taking bribe or engaging in some
other unethical act.
 Her/his colleagues are asked to decide on what punishment s/he should be given.
  They may let her/him go scot-free or decide to terminate her/his services instead of
imposing a punishment
 Whatever the initial position in the group, this position becomes much stronger as a
result of discussions in the group.
 This strengthening of the group’s initial position as a result of group interaction
and discussion is referred to as group polarization.

Why does group polarisation occur?

 Let us take an example whether capital punishment should be there.

 Suppose you favour capital punishment for heinous crimes, what would happen if you
were interacting with and discussing this issue with like-minded people?
 After this interaction, your views may become stronger.

This firm conviction is because of the following three reasons:

 In the company of like-minded people, your viewpoints will be favoured

 This will make you more favourable towards capital punishment.
 When you find others also favouring capital punishment, you feel that view is validated
by the public. This is a sort of bandwagon effect.
 When you find people having similar views, you are likely to perceive them as ingroup.