PSY1204 Week Two

What is a group?

• A collection of people who share a sense of 'we-ness'.

• A collection of people who adhere to a set of shared norms and roles.

• Two or more people who interact with and influence one another.

• All answers are correct.

Has the meaning of social facilitation changed over time?

• Yes.

• No.

Answer explanation

Yes!
Social facilitation originally held that people tend to perform better on simple or well-learned tasks better when around others.
The current understanding is that social facilitation is the strengthening of dominant responses in the presence of others.

What factors can reduce social loafing?

• The absence of evaluation apprehension and pooling of individual efforts.

• The task is suitably challenging, appealing in terms of reward or involves friends.

• Diffused responsibility and absence of task monitoring.

Group polarization hypothesis predicts discussions will strengthen the attitudes shared by members of a homogenous group.

What theories do Myers et al., (2021) draw upon to explain how group polarization occurs?

• Informational influence.

• Normative influence.

• Group identity.

• All answers are correct.

What are some of the symptoms of a group experiencing the phenomena groupthink?

• An illusion of invulnerability and belief in the group's morality.

• Group members are impartial in supporting ideas and critically evaluate all options.

• Dissenting ideas or raised doubts are rebuffed in a push for conformity.

• Decisions are made over the course of several meetings, providing opportunities to raise doubts.