Groups
Do you perform better or worse in front of a crowd? Have you heard of the "home team advantage"? This is another term for social facilitation. Social facilitation refers to the tendency to perform better in front of a group. At times, however, you may perform poorly in front of crowds. This is an example of social inhibition.
If you discuss an opinion with a group and a majority of the members argue for one side of the issue, the discussion typically pushes the majority to a more extreme view than they had before the discussion. This is group polarization.
Group Think
Groups can have problems when the group emphasizes sticking together, or presenting a united front and they fail to adequately appraise alternative courses of action. The group is guilty of groupthink.
When engaged in groupthink, groups do not make the best decisions because they do not get all the information necessary to make a good decision or they fail to look at or consider other options. To avoid making bad decisions the leader of the group should avoid advocating their own views and, instead, encourage group discussion.
For example: In 1999 there was a mass resignation within the Major League Baseball Association. The members resigned in an attempt to gain a stronger negotiating position. They overestimated the resolve and unity of their members and the strength of their position within major league baseball. As a result, their efforts were not effective.
Diffusion of Responsibility
Sometimes when several people are faced with a common problem and there is no opponent, they may not even see themselves as a group.
There have been many famous cases of muggings and murders that were committed in public while a large group of people watched without trying to intervene or call for help.
Psychologists have studied artificial crises to determine why these people did not act. The experimenters found that this behavior was a result of diffusion of responsibility. In other words, because there were other people present, each participant assumed that someone else would help.
In addition, bystanders reassured each other that it would not be a good idea to interfere. The bystander effect occurs when a person refrains from taking action because of the presence of others.
Conformity and Obedience
Have you ever come home with the latest fad in clothing, or a new hair color, only to get a lecture from your parents? They stare at you and say, "How can you go around looking like that?" To which you respond, "Everyone looks like this. What's the big deal?"
Psychologist S.E. Asch (1952) conducted experiments to test conformity. Conformity involves any behavior that you engage in because of direct or indirect group pressure.
Asch found that 75% of his participants conformed some of the time, and most of those explained to him later that they conformed even though they knew that their answers were wrong because they were uncomfortable with going against the group.
Read The Asch Conformity Experiments to learn about the experiments and how they worked.
Stanley Milgram became intrigued with the conformity experiments performed by Solomon Asch, but Milgram wanted to see just how far people would be willing to go. Milgram wanted to know - would people really harm another person if they were ordered to by an authority figure? Just how powerful is the pressure to obey?
Following the Second World War - and in particular the Holocaust - Milgram and set out to investigate the phenomenon of human obedience. Early attempts to explain the Holocaust had focused on the idea that there was something distinctive about German culture that had allowed the Holocaust to take place.
Stanley Milgram set out to test the research question 'are Germans different?', but he quickly found that we are all surprisingly obedient to people in authority. Milgram's experiments set the stage for future investigations into obedience, and the subject quickly became a hot topic within social psychology.
What exactly do psychologists mean when they talk about obedience?
Obedience is a form of social influence where an individual acts in response to a direct order from another individual, one who is usually an authority figure. It is assumed that without such an order the person would not have acted in this way.
Obedience differs from conformity in three key ways:
1. Obedience involves an order; conformity involves a request.
2. Obedience involves following the order of someone with a higher status; conformity usually involves going along with people of equal status.
3. Obedience relies on social power; conformity relies on the need to be socially accepted
Why do people obey? Why did the Germans obey Hitler's commands to commit genocide during World War II? Why do cult members sometimes consent to their leaders and commit suicide? These leaders are, after all, reasonable men, right?
Throughout our lives we have been taught to obey those in positions of authority. We follow the laws of our country and our state; we follow the rules of our parents, and schools. However, we are more likely to follow those rules when the authority figure is actually present.
Read The Milgram Obedience Experiment to learn about Milgram's experiment.
 |