Qn1: What is a group? What groups are you part of? Which has the most influence over you? Why?
A group can be defined as asset of individuals or things that are considered to belonging together ( Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins, 2005). In other words, a group involves two or more people who stay together for few moments, interacting with and influencing one another. I belong to different groups including being a student at the university, psychology club, and being a member of my local church. Although, I belong to different groups, I believe that being a university student is one of the greatest influences over my life. The reason is that being part of the student community, I have the opportunity to interact with students from different social and economic backgrounds, share experience while gaining others that could be helpful in my future career.
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Qn2: What factors influence identification with a group? What factors make group membership irrelevant?
The factors that influence the level of identification with a group include finding similar grounds for joining the group. People are likely to join other people in a group if they share common gaols, views or have similar likings (Landheer 2011). With a common ground, it is possible for people to come much closer. Some of the factors would include similar culture, nationalism, music or even a sport activity among others ( Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins, 2005). On the other hand, there could also be factors that can render group membership irrelevant. This would be the opposite of those factors that drive identification with the group (Landheer 2011). For example, if one cannot gain anything from joining a group, such membership would be irrelevant.
Qn3: What is conformity?
Conformity refers to the change of behaviour in order to match or get along with those around ( Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins, 2005). In other words, it is the giving into the views of others. Whenever an individual changes his or her behaviour in the presence of others, they are in essence experiencing conformity. In some of the cases, conformity might imply agreeing with the dominant behaviour of the people around the individual ( Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins, 2005). Conformity can also involve behaving in a particular ways in order to be perceived as normal by the dominant views.
Qn4: What are the classic conformity and obedience studies?
The reason for conforming to the views of others has generated a lot of interest to social psychologists. Classic studies on the subject of conformity include the work by Solomon Asch and Muzafer Sherif (Eysenck, 2015). These studies have shed more light on what determines conformity. In addition, these studies have identified the main types of conformity including informational and normative conformity. Informative conformity occurs in situations where there is uncertainty and ambiguity. If a person is in an unfamiliar environment, he or she will be likely to shape behaviour to align with that others (Eysenck, 2015). On the other hand, normative conformity takes place when people want to be liked by the group. The normative form of conformity is the most dominant when people want to make a god impression in the presence of others.
Qn5: What predicts conformity?
There are different factors that predict conformity to a group’s norms or values. One of the predictors is the size of the group. In their study Solomon Arch discovered that between three to five people will be more likely to experience conformity as opposed to be or two people (Eysenck, 2015). However, the level of conformity decreases if the membership of the group exceeds five members. Secondly, status is also another factor that predicts conformity within the group. In Milgram experiment, it was demonstrated that people in low social economic status were more likely to conform with one another just like those in high economic status also do conform with people from the same status (Myers 2010). The other factor that predicts conformity is unanimity. Unanimity forces those who do not agree with the group to change their perceptions in order to avoid standing out alone (Eysenck, 2015). The other factor is cohesion within the group. It is assumed that if the group is cohesive, it will have more power as opposed to a situation where the group is fragmented.
Qn6: Social facilitation: How are we affected by the presence of others?
Social facilitation refers to the way people perform in the presence of others ( Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins, 2005). The original definition of social facilitation indicated that people performed well in the company of others (Myers 2010). However, this approach did not hold for long with evidence emerging which showed that some performed dismally in the presence of others ( Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins, 2005). As a result, a new definition of social facilitation was developed to cure this anomaly (Eysenck, 2015). The current definition holds that social facilitation dominant responses are reinforced in the company of other people. For example, if the prevailing idea is wrong, there is a high possibility that wrong responses will be dominant from the people present in the group (Myers 2010).
Qn7: Social loafing: Do individuals exert less effort in a group?
Social facilitation mostly occurs when individuals are focused on achieving individual goals. In other words, more efforts occur where one can be evaluated individually ( Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins, 2005). However, there are other situations where people work together to achieve a certain goal. In such situation, some people might not be willing to exert as much effort to realize the group’s goals (Myers 2010). This behaviour of not exerting more effort towards the realization of the group’s goals is referred to as social loafing. In experiments related to social loafing, people believed they would be evaluated for their individual efforts ( Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins, 2005). In other words, individual in a group are likely to exert less effort unless they are being evaluated individually.
Qn8: Deindividuation: When do people lose their sense of self in groups?
Experiments related to social facilitation indicate that groups can have different effects on its members. For example, in social loafing experiments, it has been demonstrated that groups can diffuse one’s responsibility. One of the impacts of being in a group is Deindividuation. Deindividuation is the loss of one’s self-awareness when one is in a group ( Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins, 2005) . Deindividuation occurs in groups that foster responsiveness to group norms. People usually lose forget themselves when they just become the other member of the group ( Breckler, Olson, and Wiggins, 2005) . In addition, one can lose their self-awareness if they are less attentive to social restraints or less guiding by moral standards.
Deindividuation is affected by the size of the group. If the group is large, it is likely the members will lose their self-awareness (Myers 2010) . When the group is large, people will not focus on themselves present, but on the situation at hand. Moreover, being anonymous makes one more likely to lose their self-awareness. If one is anonymous, one would be less conscious of their self, but more responsive to the cues present in the situation. Lastly, people lose their self-awareness when they act in an impulsive way as a group (Myers 2010) . Impulsiveness is the reaction to the immediate situation, which makes a person to react to the immediate situation.
References
Breckler, J. S, Olson, J. and Wiggins. E. (2005). Social psychology alive . London: Cengage
Eysenck, M. (2015). AQA psychology: AS and A-level year 1 . London: Psychology Press
Landheer, B. (2011). On the sociology of international law and international society . London: Springer
Myers, D. G. (2010). Social psychology. (10 th edn). New York: McGraw-Hill
