Psychology 2100: Introduction to Social Psychology

Warren Thorngate, Professor
Psychology Department, Carleton University
1125 Colonel By Drive
Ottawa, Ontario K1S 5B6
Canada
e-mail = warren_thorngate@carleton.ca

copyright 1999-2006 by Warren Thorngate, all rights reserved

Lecture 9: Group Processes and Organizational Behaviour

Two meanings of "group"

• An aggregation of individuals with common characteristics (age, sex, education, culture, etc.)
• A collection of people interacting with each other
• Very difficult to study because a response from one person becomes the stimulus for other people
• This makes it difficult to conduct research on "what causes what", so less research on group processes than on attitudes, impression formation, etc.
• To minimize the difficulty, groups are usually studied as units; several are examined under varying conditions to determine how group outcomes are affected, then to guess at what processes might have generated the outcomes (products)
• Still, what we do know is fascinating!

We will examine research on the second meaning of group: group processes and group dynamics

Most people spend most of their lives in groups

• Thousands of groups in a lifetime, "It begins with your family..." (Leonard Cohen)
• Corporate life a congeries of meetings with groups
• Groups have their own set of pathologies, just like people. Groups are often inefficient or misbehaved

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Task groups versus socio-emotional groups

• Socio-emotional groups exist to provide emotional support for members, to share gossip and other information -- think parties and family gatherings
• Task groups exist to solve a problem external to the group that cannot be easily solved by a single person -- think work groups, sports teams, etc.
• Most social psychology research concerns task groups

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Stages of group development

• Forming: goals of the group, membership, meeting times, etc.
• Norming: norms of interaction, rules of order, division of labour (roles)
• Storming: open disagreement, challenges to leadership, formation of factions, attrition
• Performing: resolution of conflict, coordination of behaviour, increased morale, etc.

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Bales' Interaction Process Analysis (1950)

Bales' (1950) interaction categories and development of leaders:

• task leader
• socio-emotional leader
• Other "leaders"
• rebel
• whiner
• narcissist
• passive aggressive
• cynic
• observer
• etc.

(A video example?)

Note how much time is spent maintaining the group rather than solving the problem(s) that caused the group to performed.

Group problem solving: are two heads better than one?

• The Russian literature on group memory = yes
• Eyetwisters = no
• Risky and Conservative shifts = yes and no

Group decision making: 

• The pathology of group adjudications: Three Pile Procedures
• Procedural injustice and Robert's Rules of Order
• Janis and Mann: Victims of Groupthink

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Organizational Behaviour: Think Dilbert!

• Social motives and organizational behaviour: the rational organization versus the reality
• Organizational ideal: All members work for the good of the organization, doing their best to fulfill organizational goals. This is the motive of cooperation
• Organizational theory: All members work for the good of themselves, doing what is best for the organization only if it is also best for them. This is the motive of individualism. Therefore, design the organization so self-interest leads to organizational interest.
• Organizational reality: Most members work either to get ahead of other members or to avoid getting behind. The organization is a competition, so to survive it is necessary to adopt a competitive motive. Only suckers work for the good of the organization.

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Some laws of a competitive organization

• Parkinson's Law: "Work expands to fill the time available for completion."
• The Peter Principle: "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence."
• Peter's Placebo: "An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance."
• Dow's Law: "In a hierarchical organization, the higher the level the greater the confusion."
• The Law of Triviality: "Time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved."
• Whistler's Law: "You never know who's right, but you always know who's in charge."
• Sweeney's Law: "The length of a progress report is inversely proportional to the amount of progress."
• "When in doubt, mumble. When in trouble, delegate."

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Intergroup relations: us versus them

• ingroup heterogeneity, outgroup homogeneity
• causal attribution biases of ingroup and outgroup members' behaviour
• cooperation and competition within and among ingroups and outgroups
• exploited by cheap propaganda trick:
• We are the Chosen People. God prefers us.
• They are not the Chosen People and have been exploiting us
• We deserve better. All bad things are caused by them
• So God gives us license to get revenge against them