Groups

LECTURER: C. CHILONGOZI

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 Defining Groups

⦿ Two or more individuals, interacting and

interdependent, who have come together
to achieve particular objectives.

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 Types of Groups

⦿ Formal group
⮚ A work group designed by an organization’s
structure.
⦿ Informal group
⮚ A group that is neither formally structured
nor organizationally determined
⮚ Formed in response to the need for social
contact.

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 Reasons joining groups
⦿ Security
⮚ Reduce insecurity of “standing alone”
⦿ Status
⮚ Inclusion in a group that is viewed as important by others
provides recognition and status for its members.
⦿ Self-esteem
⮚ Groups can provide people with feelings of selfworth.
⦿ Affiliation
⮚ Able to build friendships to fulfill social need
⦿ Power
⮚ What cannot be achieved individually often becomes possible
through group action.
⦿ Goal achievement
⮚ There are times it takes more than one person to accomplish a
particular task.

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 Theory of group formation
⦿ Social Identity Theory
⮚ Perspective that considers when and why individuals
consider themselves members of groups.
⮚ Individuals’ self esteem gets tied to the group they
belong to, such that it’s success or failure affects
them.
⮚ Helps people understand who they are & how to
behave.
⮚ Leads to Ingroup favouritism
✔ Perspective in which we see members of our ingroup
as better than other people, and people not in our
group as all the same.

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 Group classification
⦿ Command Group
⮚ A group composed of the individuals who report
directly to a given manager.
⦿ Task Group
⮚ Those working together to complete a job or task.
⦿ Interest Group
⮚ Those working together to attain a specific
objective with which each is concerned.
⦿ Friendship Group
⮚ Those brought together because they share one
or more common characteristics.

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 Stages of Group Development
Forming Stage
⦿ 1st stage in group development, characterized by uncertainty
about purpose, structure & leadership.
Storming Stage
⦿ 2nd stage in group development, characterized by intragroup
conflict with members resisting constraints imposed on
individuality
Norming Stage
⦿ 3rd stage in group development, characterized by close
relationships and cohesiveness.
Performing Stage
⦿ 4th stage in group development, members perform the task.
Adjourning Stage
⦿ Final stage in group development for temporary groups,
characterized by concern with wrapping up activities rather
than performance.
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 Punctuated-Equilibrium Model
⦿ For temporary groups under time
constrained deadlines
⦿ Sequence of actions:
⮚ Setting group direction
⮚ First phase of inertia
⮚ Half-way point transition
⮚ Major changes
⮚ Second phase of inertia
⮚ Accelerated activity

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 Punctuated-Equilibrium Model
⦿ .

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GROUP PROPERTIES

Groups have properties that shape

members’ behavior and performance
of the group.
⦿ Roles
⦿ Norms
⦿ Status
⦿ Size
⦿ Cohesiveness
⦿ Diversity
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Roles
A set of expected behavior patterns attributed to
someone occupying a given position in a social unit.
⦿ Role Perception
⮚ An individual’s view of how he or she is supposed to
act in a given situation.
⮚ Acquired from stimuli in the environment
⦿ Role Expectations
⮚ How others believe a person should act in a given
situation.
⮚ Seen in the workplace through Psychological
Contract
✔ An unwritten agreement that sets out what
management expects from an employee and vice
versa.

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Group Property: Roles
⦿ Role Identity
⮚ Certain attitudes and behaviors consistent
with a role.
⮚ Zimbardo’s experiment showed that
participants learned stereotyped conceptions
of guard & prisoner roles from media & their
experience which allowed them to take on the
roles.
⦿ Role Conflict
⮚ A situation in which an individual is confronted
by divergent, or multiple role expectations.
⮚ Roles to be played in one group may make it
difficult to comply with a role in another group.

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Group Property: Norms
Acceptable standards of behavior within a group that
are shared by the group’s members.
Classes of norms:
⦿ Performance norms
⮚ cues about how hard members should work, what the
level of output should be, how to get the job done, etc.
⦿ Appearance norms
⮚ dress codes, unspoken rules about when to look busy,
etc.
⦿ Social arrangement norms
⮚ with whom to eat lunch, whether to form friendships on
and off the job, etc.
⦿ Allocation of resources norms
⮚ assignment of difficult jobs, distribution of resources like
pay or equipment, etc.

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Group Property: Norm and
Hawthorne Studies
⦿ The most important finding in the Bank
Wiring Observation Room was
⮚ Employees didn’t individually maximise
output.
⮚ Output was controlled by a group norm that
determined a proper day’s work
⮚ The group was operating below its capability
to protect itself
⮚ The promise of increased income for
increased output didn’t help raise output.
⮚ Norms were enforced through name calling,
ridicule, sarcasm, etc.

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Norms cont’d

Conformity
⦿ Adjusting one’s behavior to align with the
norms of the group.
⦿ Reasons for conforming:
⮚ to form accurate perceptions of reality based on
group consensus
⮚ to develop meaningful social relationships with
others
⮚ to maintain a favorable self-concept
Reference Groups
⦿ Important groups to which individuals belong
or hope to belong and with whose norms
individuals are likely to conform.
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 impact of group pressures for conformity

⦿ The Solomon Asch study demonstrated the impact

that group pressures for conformity can have on an
individual member’s judgment.

⦿ The findings suggested that:

⮚ group norms press us toward conformity.
⮚ we desire to be one of the group and therefore avoid
being visibly different.

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 Norms Cont’d

Deviant Workplace Behavior

⦿ Voluntary behavior that violates
significant organizational norms & in so
doing, threatens the well-being of the
organization or its members.
⦿ Also called antisocial behavior or
workplace incivility.
⦿ It flourishes:
⮚ Where it is accepted
⮚ Where individuals are working in groups

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Topology of workplace deviant
behavior
⦿ Category Examples

Production Leaving early, Intentionally working slowly,

Wasting resources
⦿ Property Sabotage, Lying about hours worked, Stealing
from the organization
⦿ Political Showing favoritism, Gossiping and spreading
rumors, Blaming coworkers
⦿ Personal Aggression, Sexual harassment, Verbal abuse,
Stealing from coworkers

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Group Property: Status

A socially defined position or rank

given to groups or group members
by others.
⦿ It’s a motivator & has major
behavioral consequences when
individuals perceive a disparity
between what they believe their
status is and what others
perceive it to be.
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Status determinants

⦿ Power over others.

⦿ Ability to contribute towards
group’s goals.
⦿ Personal characteristics.

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 Other things influencing or influenced by status

Status & Norms

⦿ High status individuals are given more freedom to deviate
from norms.
⦿ High status individuals are better able to resist conformity
pressures.
⦿ Highly valued individuals who don’t care about/need
rewards/resources of the group are able to disregard
conformity norms.
Status & Group Interaction
⦿ High status individuals are more assertive.
⦿ Status inhibit diversity of ideas & creativity in groups since
lower status members participate less actively.
Status Equity
⦿ When people perceive unfairness in status of members, they
engage in corrective action.
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 Group Property: Size
The size of the group affects the group’s overall behaviour.
Social loafing
⦿ The tendency for individuals to expend less effort when
working collectively than when working individually.
⦿ Causes of social loafing:
⮚ The belief that others in the group are not carrying their fair share.
⮚ Dispersion of responsibility tempts people to be free riders.
⦿ How to prevent social loafing:
⮚ Set group goals
⮚ Increase intergroup competition
⮚ Engage in peer evaluation so each person evaluates each other
person’s contribution
⮚ Select members who have high motivation and prefer to work in
groups
⮚ Base group rewards in part on each member’s unique
contributions

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 Group Property: Cohesiveness
Degree to which group members are attracted to each other
and are motivated to stay in the group.
⦿ Relationship Between Group Cohesiveness,
Performance Norms, and Productivity

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 How to encourage cohesiveness
⦿ Make group smaller
⦿ Encourage agreement with group goals
⦿ Increase the time members spend
together
⦿ Increase the groups status and the
perceived difficulty of attaining
membership
⦿ Stimulate competition with other groups
⦿ Give rewards to the group rather than to
individual members
⦿ Physically isolate the group
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 Group Property: Diversity

The extent to which members of a group are

similar to, or different from, one another.
⦿ It increases group conflict especially in
the early stages of group development.
⦿ Team members with different
values/opinions experience more
conflict.
⦿ If members get over the initial conflicts,
they become more open-minded &
creative leading to high performance.
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Group Decision Making

• Strengths • Weaknesses
• More complete • More time consuming
information (slower)
• Increased diversity of • Increased pressure to
views conform
• Higher quality of • Domination by one or
decisions made a few members
(more accuracy) • Ambiguous
• Increased responsibility
acceptance of
solutions

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 By-Products of Group Decision Making

⦿ Groupthink
⮚ Phenomenon in which the norm for
consensus overrides the realistic appraisal
of alternative course of action.
⦿ Groupshift
⮚ A change in decision risk between the
group’s decision and the individual decision
that member within the group would make;
can be either toward conservatism or
greater risk.
⦿ .
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 Groupthink
Symptoms of groupthink
⦿ Members justify assumptions made by the group
regardless of evidence contradicting the assumptions.
⦿ Members apply direct pressures on those expressing
doubts about shared views or who question the
validity of arguments supporting alternative favored
by the majority.
⦿ Members who have doubts or differing points of view
avoid deviating from group consensus by keeping
silent
⦿ There is an illusion of unanimity – if someone doesn’t
speak or vote, its assumed they are in agreement
with the majority.

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 Groupthink
groupthink flourishes when:
⦿ there is a clear group identity
⦿ members hold a positive image of the group that they want to
protect
⦿ the group perceives a collective threat to the positive image
⦿ members are more confident about their course of action early
on
⦿ group is focused on performance than learning
How to minimize group think
⦿ Monitor group size
⦿ Encourage group leaders to play an impartial role
⦿ Leaders should seek input from all members & avoid voicing
their opinion in early stages of deliberation
⦿ Use exercises that stimulate active discussion of alternatives
⦿ Delay discussion of possible gains until dangers of alternatives
are discussed
⦿ Choose someone to challenge the majority position.

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 Groupshift
⦿ In some situations caution dominates & in others risk-
taking dominates.
⦿ The group’s decision reflects the dominant decision
making norm developed during decision making.
⦿ It occurs because:
⮚ Responsibility is diffused by the group, so people are willing
to take extreme positions.
⮚ Members become comfortable with each other due to the
discussion, so they are free to express their extreme
positions.
⮚ Members want to demonstrate how different they are from
the outgroup
⮚ Members want to prove how committed they are by being
extremely risky & to demonstrate how reasonable they are
by being extremely cautious.

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 Groupshift

⦿ There’s need to recognize that group

decisions exaggerate the initial
position of the individual members &
the shift is commonly towards greater
risk & the way a group shifts is a
function of the member’s pre-
discussion inclinations.

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 Group Decision Making Techniques

⦿ Interacting Groups
⮚ Typical groups, in which the members interact with each
other face-to-face.
⦿ Nominal Group Technique
⮚ members meet face-to-face to pool their judgments in a
systematic but independent fashion.
⦿ Brainstorming
⮚ An idea-generation process that specifically encourages
any and all alternatives, while withholding any criticism
of those alternatives.
⦿ Electronic Meeting
⮚ A meeting in which members interact on computers,
allowing for anonymity of comments and aggregation of
votes.

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 Evaluating Group Effectiveness

⦿ .

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THE
END
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