When
important decisions need to be made, or when tasks need to be performed
quickly or effectively, we frequently create groups to accomplish them.
Many people believe that groups are effective for making decisions and
performing other tasks (Nijstad, Stroebe, & Lodewijkx, 2006),
and such a belief seems commonsensical. After all, because groups have
many members, they will also have more resources and thus more ability
to efficiently perform tasks and make good decisions. However, although
groups sometimes do perform better than individuals, this outcome is not
guaranteed. Let’s consider some of the many variables that can
influence group performance.
Social Facilitation and Social Inhibition
In one of the earliest social psychological studies, Norman Triplett (1898)
investigated how bicycle racers were influenced by the social situation
in which they raced. Triplett found something very interesting—the
racers who were competing with other bicyclers on the same track rode
significantly faster than bicyclers who were racing alone, against the
clock. This led Triplett to hypothesize that people perform tasks better
when the social context includes other people than when they do the
tasks alone. Subsequent findings validated Triplett’s results, and other
experiments have shown that the presence of others can increase
performance on many types of tasks, including jogging, shooting pool,
lifting weights, and working on math and computer problems (Geen, 1989;
Guerin, 1983; Robinson-Staveley & Cooper, 1990; Strube, Miles, &
Finch, 1981). The tendency to perform tasks better or faster in the presence of others is known as social facilitationThe tendency to perform tasks better or faster in the presence of others..
Although
people sometimes perform better when they are in groups than they do
alone, the situation is not that simple. Perhaps you can remember a time
when you found that a task you could perform well alone (e.g., giving a
public presentation, playing the piano, shooting basketball free
throws) was not performed as well when you tried it with, or in front
of, others. Thus it seems that the conclusion that being with others
increases performance cannot be entirely true and that sometimes the
presence of others can worsen our performance. The tendency to perform tasks more poorly or slower in the presence of others is known as social inhibitionThe tendency to perform tasks more poorly or slower in the presence of others..
To study social facilitation and social inhibition, Hazel Markus (1978)
gave research participants both an easy task (putting on and tying
their shoes) and an unfamiliar and thus more difficult task (putting on
and tying a lab coat that tied in the back). The research participants
were asked to perform both tasks in one of three social
situations—alone, with a confederate present who was watching them, or
with a confederate present who sat in the corner of the room repairing a
piece of equipment without watching. As you can see in Figure 11.2 "Group Task Performance",
Markus found first that the difficult task was performed more slowly
overall. But she also found an interaction effect, such that the
participants performed the easy task faster but the more difficult task
slower when a confederate was present in the room. Furthermore, it did
not matter whether the other person was paying attention to their
performance or whether the other person just happened to be in the room
working on another task—the mere presence of another person nearby influenced performance.
These
results convincingly demonstrated that working around others could
either help or hinder performance. But why would this be? One
explanation of the influence of others on task performance was proposed
by Robert Zajonc (1965). As shown in Figure 11.3 "Explaining Social Facilitation and Social Inhibition",
Zajonc made use of the affective component of arousal in his
explanation. Zajonc argued that when we are with others, we experience
more arousal than we do when we are alone, and that this arousal
increases the likelihood that we will perform the dominant responseThe action that we are most likely to emit in any given situation.—the action that we are most likely to emit in any given situation.
The
important aspect of Zajonc’s theory was that the experience of arousal
and the resulting increase in the performance of the dominant response
could be used to predict whether the presence of others would produce
social facilitation or social inhibition. Zajonc argued that if the task
to be performed was relatively easy, or if the individual had learned
to perform the task very well (a task such as pedaling a bicycle or
tying one’s shoes), the dominant response was likely to be the correct
response, and the increase in arousal caused by the presence of others
would improve performance. On the other hand, if the task was difficult
or not well learned (e.g., solving a complex problem, giving a speech in
front of others, or tying a lab apron behind one’s back), the dominant
response was likely to be the incorrect one; and because the increase in
arousal would increase the occurrence of the (incorrect) dominant
response, performance would be hindered.
Zajonc’s
theory explained how the presence of others can increase or decrease
performance, depending on the nature of the task, and a great deal of
experimental research has now confirmed his predictions. In a
meta-analysis, Bond and Titus (1983)
looked at the results of over 200 studies using over 20,000 research
participants and found that the presence of others did significantly
increase the rate of performance on simple tasks and decrease both the
rate and the quality of performance on complex tasks.
One
interesting aspect of Zajonc’s theory is that because it only requires
the concepts of arousal and dominant response to explain task
performance, it predicts that the effects of others on performance will
not necessarily be confined to humans. Zajonc reviewed evidence that
dogs ran faster, chickens ate more feed, ants built bigger nests, and
rats had more sex when other dogs, chickens, ants, and rats,
respectively, were around (Zajonc, 1965). In fact, in one of the most unusual of all social psychology experiments, Zajonc, Heingartner, and Herman (1969)
found that cockroaches ran faster on straight runways when other
cockroaches were observing them (from behind a plastic window) but that
they ran slower, in the presence of other roaches, on a maze that
involved making a difficult turn, presumably because running straight
was the dominant response, whereas turning was not.
Although
the arousal model proposed by Zajonc is perhaps the most elegant, other
explanations have also been proposed to account for social facilitation
and social inhibition. One modification argues that we are particularly
influenced by others when we perceive that the others are evaluating us
or competing with us (Szymanski & Harkins, 1987).
This makes sense because in these cases, another important motivator of
human behavior—the desire to enhance the self—is involved in addition
to arousal. In one study supporting this idea, Strube and his colleagues
(Strube, Miles, & Finch, 1981)
found that the presence of spectators increased the speed of joggers
only when the spectators were facing the joggers and thus could see them
and assess their performance.
The
presence of others who expect us to do well and who are thus likely to
be particularly distracting has been found to have important
consequences in some real-world situations. For example, Baumeister and
Steinhilber (1984)
found that professional athletes frequently performed more poorly than
would be expected in crucial games that were played in front of their
own fans (such as the final baseball game of the World Series
championship).
The Importance of the Social Situation: Task Characteristics
Although
the characteristics of the group members themselves are critical, they
represent only the person part of the equation. To fully understand
group performance, we must also consider the particulars of the group’s
situation—for instance, the task that the group needs to accomplish.
Let’s now consider some of the different types of tasks that might be
performed by groups and how they might influence performance (Hackman
& Morris, 1975; Straus, 1999). These classifications are summarized as follows:
-
Task division
-
Divisible. A task in which the work can be divided up among individuals.
-
Unitary. A task in which the work cannot be divided up among individuals.
-
Task combination
-
Additive. A task in which the inputs of each group member are added together to create the group performance.
-
Compensatory or averaging. A task in which the group input is combined such that the performance of the individuals is averaged.
-
Group member performance
-
Disjunctive. A task in which the group’s performance is determined by its best group member.
-
Conjunctive. A task in which the group’s performance is determined by its worst member.
-
Task assessment
-
Maximizing. A task that involves
performance that is measured by how rapidly the group works or how much
of a product they are able to make.
-
Intellective. A task that involves the ability of the group to make a decision or a judgment.
-
Task clarity
-
Criterion. A task in which there is a clearly correct answer to the problem that is being posed.
-
Judgmental. A task in which there is no clearly correct answer to the problem that is being posed.
One
basic distinction concerns whether the task can be divided into smaller
subtasks or has to be done as a whole. Building a car on an assembly
line or painting a house is a divisible taskA task in which each of the group members working on the job can do a separate part of the job at the same time., because each of the group members working on the job can do a separate part of the job at the same time.
Groups are likely to be particularly productive on divisible tasks when
the division of the work allows the group members to specialize in
those tasks that they are best at performing. Writing a group term paper
is facilitated if one group member is an expert typist, another is an
expert at library research, and so forth. Climbing a mountain or moving a
piano, on the other hand, is a unitary taskA task that has to be done all at once and cannot be divided up., because it has to be done all at once and cannot be divided up.
In this case, specialization among group members is less useful,
because each group member has to work on the same task at the same time.
Another way of classifying tasks is by the way the contributions of the group members are combined. On an additive taskA task in which the inputs of each of the group members are added together to create the group performance., the inputs of each group member are added together to create the group performance,
and the expected performance of the group is the sum of group members’
individual inputs. A tug of war is a good example of an additive task
because the total performance of a team is expected to be the sum of all
the team members’ individual efforts.
On a compensatory (averaging) taskA task in which the group input is combined such that the performance of the individuals is averaged rather than added., however, the group input is combined such that the performance of the individuals is averaged
rather than added. Imagine that you wanted to estimate the current
temperature in your classroom, but you had no thermometer. One approach
to getting an estimate would be to have each of the individuals in your
class make his or her estimate of the temperature and then average the
estimates together to create a group judgment. On decisions such as
this, the average group judgment is likely to be more accurate than that
made by most individuals (Armstrong, 2001; Surowiecki, 2004).
Another task classification involves comparing tasks in which the group performance is dependent upon the abilities of the best member or members of the group with tasks in which the group performance is dependent upon the abilities of the worst member or members of the group. When the group’s performance is determined by the best group member, we call it a disjunctive taskA task in which the group’s performance is determined by the performance of the best group member.. Consider what might happen when a group is given a complicated problem to solve, such as this horse-trading problem:
A
man buys a horse for $50. He later decides he wants to sell his horse
and he gets $60. He then decides to buy it back and pays $70. However,
he can no longer keep it, and he sells it for $80. Did he make money,
lose money, or break even? Explain why.
The
correct answer to the problem is not immediately apparent, and each
group member will attempt to solve the problem. With some luck, one or
more of the members will discover the correct solution, and when that
happens, the other members will be able to see that it is indeed the
correct answer. At this point, the group as a whole has correctly solved
the problem, and the performance of the group is thus determined by the
ability of the best member of the group.
In contrast, on a conjunctive taskA task in which the group’s performance is determined by the performance of the worst group member., the group performance is determined by the ability of the group member who performs most poorly.
Imagine an assembly line in which each individual working on the line
has to insert one screw into the part being made and that the parts move
down the line at a constant speed. If any one individual is
substantially slower than the others, the speed of the entire line will
need to be slowed down to match the capability of that individual. As
another example, hiking up a mountain in a group is also conjunctive
because the group must wait for the slowest hiker to catch up.
Still
another distinction among tasks concerns the specific product that the
group is creating and how that group output is measured. An intellective taskA task in which the goal of the group is to make a decision or a judgment. involves the ability of the group to make a decision or a judgment
and is measured by studying either the processes that the group uses to
make the decision (such as how a jury arrives at a verdict) or the
quality of the decision (such as whether the group is able to solve a
complicated problem). A maximizing taskA task in which performance is measured by how rapidly the group works or by how much of a product they are able to make., on the other hand, is one that involves performance that is measured by how rapidly the group works or how much of a product they are able to make
(e.g., how many computer chips are manufactured on an assembly line,
how many creative ideas are generated by a brainstorming group, how fast
a construction crew can build a house).
Finally,
we can differentiate intellective task problems for which there is an
objectively correct decision from those in which there is not a clear
best decision. On a criterion taskA task in which the group can see that there is a clearly correct answer to the problem that is being posed., the group can see that there is a clearly correct answer to the problem that is being posed. Some examples would be finding solutions to mathematics or logic problems, such as the horse-trading problem.
On
some criterion tasks, the correct answer is immediately seen as the
correct one once it is found. For instance, what is the next letter in
each of the following two patterns of letters?
J F M A M _
O T T F F _
In
criterion problems such as this one, as soon as one of the group
members finds the correct answer, the problem is solved because all the
group members can see that it is correct. Criterion tasks in which the
correct answer is obvious once it is found are known as “Eureka!” or
“Aha!” tasks (Lorge, Fox, Davitz, & Brenner, 1958), named for the response that we have when we see the correct solution.
In
other types of criterion-based tasks, there is an objectively correct
answer, although that answer is not immediately obvious. For instance,
consider again the horse-trading problem. In this case, there is a
correct answer, but it may not be apparent to the group members even
when it is proposed by one or more of them (for this reason, we might
call this a “non-Eureka” task). In fact, in one study using the
horse-trading problem, only 80% of the groups in which the correct
answer was considered actually decided upon that answer as the correct
one after the members had discussed it together.
In
still other criterion-based tasks, experts must be used to assess the
quality or creativity of the group’s performance. Einhorn, Hogarth, and
Klempner (1977)
asked groups of individuals to imagine themselves as a group of
astronauts who are exploring the moon but who have become stranded from
their base. The problem is to determine which of the available pieces of
equipment (e.g., oxygen bottles, a rope, a knife) they should take with
them as they attempt to reach the base. To assess group performance,
experts on the difficulties of living in space made judgments about the
quality of the group decisions. Non-Eureka tasks represent an
interesting challenge for groups because even when they have found what
they think is a good answer, they may still need to continue their
discussion to convince themselves that their answer is the best they can
do and that they can therefore stop their deliberation.
In contrast to a criterion task, in a judgmental taskA group task in which there is no clearly correct answer to the problem. there is no clearly correct answer to the problem.
Judgmental tasks involve such decisions as determining the innocence or
guilt of an accused person in a jury or making an appropriate business
decision. Because there is no objectively correct answer on judgmental
tasks, the research approach usually involves studying the processes
that the group uses to make the decision rather than measuring the
outcome of the decision itself. Thus the question of interest on
judgmental tasks is not “Did the group get the right answer?” but rather
“How did the group reach its decision?”
Process Losses Due to Difficulties in Coordination and Motivation
Process
losses are caused by events that occur within the group that make it
difficult for the group to live up to its full potential. In one study,
Ringelmann (1913; reported in Kravitz & Martin, 1986)
investigated the ability of individuals to reach their full potential
when working together on tasks. Ringelmann had individual men and groups
of various numbers of men pull as hard as they could on ropes while he
measured the maximum amount that they were able to pull. Because rope
pulling is an additive task, the total amount that could be pulled by
the group should be the sum of the contributions of the individuals.
However, as shown in Figure 11.4 "The Ringelmann Effect",
although Ringelmann did find that adding individuals to the group
increased the overall amount of pulling on the rope (the groups were
better than any one individual), he also found a substantial process
loss. In fact, the loss was so large that groups of three men pulled at
only 85% of their expected capability, whereas groups of eight pulled at
only 37% of their expected capability.
This
type of process loss, in which group productivity decreases as the size
of the group increases, has been found to occur on a wide variety of
tasks, including maximizing tasks such as clapping and cheering and
swimming (Latané, Williams, & Harkins, 1979; Williams, Nida, Baca,
& Latané, 1989), and judgmental tasks such as evaluating a poem (Petty, Harkins, Williams, & Latané, 1977).
Furthermore, these process losses have been observed in different
cultures, including India, Japan, and Taiwan (Gabrenya, Wang, &
Latané, 1985; Karau & Williams, 1993).
Process
losses in groups occur in part simply because it is difficult for
people to work together. The maximum group performance can only occur if
all the participants put forth their greatest effort at exactly the
same time. Since, despite the best efforts of the group, it is difficult
to perfectly coordinate the input of the group members, the likely
result is a process loss such that the group performance is less than
would be expected, as calculated as the sum of the individual inputs.
Thus actual productivity in the group is reduced in part by coordination losses.
Coordination
losses become more problematic as the size of the group increases
because it becomes correspondingly more difficult to coordinate the
group members. Kelley, Condry, Dahlke, and Hill (1965)
put individuals into separate booths and threatened them with
electrical shock. Each person could avoid the shock, however, by
pressing a button in the booth for 3 seconds. But the situation was
arranged such that only one person in the group could press the button
at one time, and so the group members needed to coordinate their
actions. Kelley et al. found that larger groups had significantly more
difficulty coordinating their actions to escape the shocks than did
smaller groups.
In
addition to being influenced by the coordination of activities, group
performance is influenced by self-concern on the part of the individual
group members. Since each group member is motivated at least in part by
individual self-concerns, each member may desire, at least in part, to
gain from the group effort without having to contribute very much. You
may have been in a work or study group that had this problem—each group
member was interested in doing well but also was hoping that the other
group members would do most of the work for them. A group process loss that occurs when people do not work as hard in a group as they do when they are alone is known as social loafingA group process loss that occurs when people do not work as hard in a group as they do when they are alone. (Karau & Williams, 1993).
Research Focus
Differentiating Coordination Losses From Social Loafing
Latané, Williams, and Harkins (1979)
conducted an experiment that allowed them to measure the extent to
which process losses in groups were caused by coordination losses and by
social loafing. Research participants were placed in a room with a
microphone and were instructed to shout as loudly as they could when a
signal was given. Furthermore, the participants were blindfolded and
wore headsets that prevented them from either seeing or hearing the
performance of the other group members. On some trials, the participants
were told (via the headsets) that they would be shouting alone, and on
other trials, they were told that they would be shouting with other
participants. However, although the individuals sometimes did shout in
groups, in other cases (although they still thought that they were
shouting in groups) they actually shouted alone. Thus Latané and his
colleagues were able to measure the contribution of the individuals,
both when they thought they were shouting alone and when they thought
they were shouting in a group.
Latané
et al.’s results are presented in in the following figure, which shows
the amount of sound produced per person. The top line represents the
potential productivity of the group, which was calculated as the sum of
the sound produced by the individuals as they performed alone. The
middle line represents the performance of hypothetical groups, computed
by summing the sound in the conditions in which the participants thought
that they were shouting in a group of either two or six individuals,
but where they were actually performing alone. Finally, the bottom line
represents the performance of real two-person and six-person groups who
were actually shouting together.
The
results of the study are very clear. First, as the number of people in
the group increased (from one to two to six), each person’s individual
input got smaller, demonstrating the process loss that the groups
created. Furthermore, the decrease for real groups (the lower line) is
greater than the decrease for the groups created by summing the
contributions of the individuals. Because performance in the summed
groups is a function of motivation but not coordination, and the
performance in real groups is a function of both motivation and
coordination, Latané and his colleagues effectively showed how much of
the process loss was due to each.
Process Losses Due to Group Conformity Pressures: Groupthink
Even
if groups are able to get beyond the process losses that result from
coordination difficulties and social loafing, they can make effective
decisions only when they are able to make use of the advantages that
come with group membership. These advantages include the ability to pool
the information that is known to each of the members and to test out
contradictory ideas through group discussion. Group decisions can be
better than individual decisions only when the group members act
carefully and rationally—considering all the evidence and coming to an
unbiased, fair, and open decision. However, these conditions are not
always met in real groups.
As we saw in the chapter opener, one example of a group process that can lead to very poor group decisions is groupthinkAn
outcome that occurs when a group, as a result of a flawed group process
and strong conformity pressures, makes a very poor decision.. Groupthink
occurs when a group that is made up of members who may actually be very
competent and thus quite capable of making excellent decisions
nevertheless ends up making a poor one as a result of a flawed group
process and strong conformity pressures (Baron, 2005; Janis, 2007).
Groupthink is more likely to occur in groups in which the members are
feeling strong social identity—for instance, when there is a powerful
and directive leader who creates a positive group feeling, and in times
of stress and crisis when the group needs to rise to the occasion and
make an important decision. The problem is that groups suffering from
groupthink become unwilling to seek out or discuss discrepant or
unsettling information about the topic at hand, and the group members do
not express contradictory opinions. Because the group members are
afraid to express ideas that contradict those of the leader or to bring
in outsiders who have other information, the group is prevented from
making a fully informed decision. Figure 11.6 "Antecedents and Outcomes of Groupthink" summarizes the basic causes and outcomes of groupthink.
Although at least some scholars are skeptical of the importance of groupthink in real group decisions (Kramer, 1998),
many others have suggested that groupthink was involved in a number of
well-known and important, but very poor, decisions made by government
and business groups. Decisions analyzed in terms of groupthink include
the decision to invade Iraq made by President George Bush and his
advisers; the decision of President John Kennedy and his advisers to
commit U.S. forces to help with an invasion of Cuba, with the goal of
overthrowing Fidel Castro in 1962; and the lack of response to warnings
on an attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in 1941.
Careful
analyses of the decision-making process in these cases have documented
the role of conformity pressures. In fact, the group process often seems
to be arranged to maximize the amount of conformity rather than to
foster free and open discussion. In the meetings of the Bay of Pigs
advisory committee, for instance, President Kennedy sometimes demanded
that the group members give a voice vote regarding their individual
opinions before the group actually discussed the pros and cons of a new
idea. The result of these conformity pressures is a general
unwillingness to express ideas that do not match the group norm.
The
pressures for conformity also lead to the situation in which only a few
of the group members are actually involved in conversation, whereas the
others do not express any opinions. Because little or no dissent is
expressed in the group, the group members come to believe that they are
in complete agreement. In some cases, the leader may even select
individuals (known as mindguards) whose job it is to help quash dissent and to increase conformity to the leader’s opinions.
An
outcome of the high levels of conformity found in these groups is that
the group begins to see itself as extremely valuable and important,
highly capable of making high-quality decisions, and invulnerable. In
short, the group members develop extremely high levels of conformity and
social identity. Although this social identity may have some positive
outcomes in terms of a commitment to work toward group goals (and it
certainly makes the group members feel good about themselves), it also
tends to result in illusions of invulnerability, leading the group
members to feel that they are superior and that they do not need to seek
outside information. Such a situation is conducive to terrible decision
making and resulting fiascos.
Cognitive Process Losses: Lack of Information Sharing
Although
group discussion generally improves the quality of a group’s decisions,
this will only be true if the group discusses the information that is
most useful to the decision that needs to be made. One difficulty is
that groups tend to discuss some types of information more than others.
In addition to the pressures to focus on information that comes from
leaders and that is consistent with group norms, discussion is
influenced by the way the relevant information is originally shared
among the group members. The problem is that group members tend to
discuss information that they all have access to while ignoring equally
important information that is available to only a few of the members
(Faulmüller, Kerschreiter, Mojzisch, & Schulz-Hardt, 2010; Reimer,
Reimer, & Czienskowski (2010).
Research Focus
Poor Information Sharing in Groups
In
one demonstration of the tendency for groups to preferentially discuss
information that all the group members know about, Stasser and Titus
(1985)
used an experimental design based on the hidden profile task, as shown
in the following table. Students read descriptions of two candidates for
a hypothetical student body presidential election and then met in
groups to discuss and pick the best candidate. The information about the
candidates was arranged such that one of the candidates (Candidate A)
had more positive qualities overall in comparison with the other
(Candidate B). Reflecting this superiority, in groups in which all the
members were given all the information about both candidates, the
members chose Candidate A 83% of the time after their discussion.
Table 11.1 Hidden Profiles
| Group member |
Information favoring Candidate A |
Information favoring Candidate B |
| X |
a1, a2 |
b1, b2, b3 |
| Y |
a1, a3 |
b1, b2, b3 |
| Z |
a1, a4 |
b1, b2, b3 |
| This is an example of the type of “hidden profile” that was used by Stasser and Titus (1985)
to study information sharing in group discussion. (The researchers’
profiles were actually somewhat more complicated). The three pieces of
favorable information about Candidate B (b1, b2, and b3) were seen by
all of the group members, but the favorable information about Candidate A
(a1, a2, a3, and a4) was not given to everyone. Because the group
members did not share the information about Candidate A, Candidate B was
erroneously seen as a better choice. |
However,
in some cases, the experimenters made the task more difficult by
creating a “hidden profile,” in which each member of the group received
only part of the information. In these cases, although all the
information was potentially available to the group, it was necessary
that it be properly shared to make the correct choice. Specifically, in
this case, in which the information favoring Candidate B was shared, but
the information favoring Candidate A was not, only 18% of the groups
chose A, whereas the others chose the inferior candidate. This occurred
because although the group members had access to all the positive
information collectively, the information that was not originally shared
among all the group members was never discussed. Furthermore, this bias
occurred even in participants who were given explicit instructions to
be sure to avoid expressing their initial preferences and to review all
the available facts (Stasser, Taylor, & Hanna, 1989).
Although
the tendency to share information poorly seems to occur quite
frequently, at least in experimentally created groups, it does not occur
equally under all conditions. For one, groups have been found to better
share information when the group members believe that there is a
correct answer that can be found if there is sufficient discussion
(Stasser & Stewart, 1992),
and groups also are more likely to share information if they are forced
to continue their discussion even after they believe that they have
discussed all the relevant information (Larson, Foster-Fishman, &
Keys, 1994).
These findings suggest that an important job of the group leader is to
continue group discussion until he or she is convinced that all the
relevant information has been addressed.
The structure of the group will also influence information sharing (Stasser & Taylor, 1991).
Groups in which the members are more physically separated and thus have
difficulty communicating with each other may find that they need to
reorganize themselves to improve communication. And the status of the
group members can also be important. Group members with lower status may
have less confidence and thus be unlikely to express their opinions.
Wittenbaum (1998)
found that group members with higher status were more likely to share
new information. However, those with higher status may sometimes
dominate the discussion, even if the information that they have is not
more valid or important (Hinsz, 1990).
Groups are also likely to share unique information when the group
members do not initially know the alternatives that need to be
determined or the preferences of the other group members (Mojzisch &
Schulz-Hardt, 2010; Reimer, Reimer, & Hinsz, 2010).
Findings
showing that groups neither share nor discuss originally unshared
information have very disconcerting implications for group decision
making because they suggest that group discussion is likely to lead to
very poor judgments. Not only is unshared information not brought to the
table, but because the shared information is discussed repeatedly, it
is likely to be seen as more valid and to have a greater influence on
decisions as a result of its high cognitive accessibility. It is not
uncommon that individuals within a working group come to the discussion
with different types of information, and this unshared information needs
to be presented. For instance, in a meeting of a design team for a new
building, the architects, the engineers, and the customer
representatives will have different and potentially incompatible
information. Thus leaders of working groups must be aware of this
problem and work hard to foster open climates that encourages
information sharing and discussion.
Brainstorming: Is It Effective?
One technique that is frequently used to produce creative decisions in working groups is known as brainstormingA technique designed to increase the effectiveness and creativity of group sessions.. The technique was first developed by Osborn (1953)
in an attempt to increase the effectiveness of group sessions at his
advertising agency. Osborn had the idea that people might be able to
effectively use their brains to “storm” a problem by sharing ideas with
each other in groups. Osborn felt that creative solutions would be
increased when the group members generated a lot of ideas and when
judgments about the quality of those ideas were initially deferred and
only later evaluated. Thus brainstorming was based on the following
rules:
- Each group member was to create as many ideas as possible, no matter
how silly, unimportant, or unworkable they were thought to be.
- As many ideas as possible were to be generated by the group.
- No one was allowed to offer opinions about the quality of an idea (even one’s own).
- The group members were encouraged and expected to modify and expand upon other’s ideas.
Researchers
have devoted considerable effort to testing the effectiveness of
brainstorming, and yet, despite the creativeness of the idea itself,
there is very little evidence to suggest that it works (Diehl &
Stroebe, 1987, 1991; Stroebe & Diehl, 1994).
In fact, virtually all individual studies, as well as meta-analyses of
those studies, find that regardless of the exact instructions given to a
group, brainstorming groups do not generate as many ideas as one would
expect, and the ideas that they do generate are usually of lesser
quality than those generated by an equal number of individuals working
alone who then share their results. Thus brainstorming represents still
another example of a case in which, despite the expectation of a process
gain by the group, a process loss is instead observed.
A
number of explanations have been proposed for the failure of
brainstorming to be effective, and many of these have been found to be
important. One obvious problem is social loafing by the group members,
and at least some research suggests that this does cause part of the
problem. For instance, Paulus and Dzindolet (1993)
found that social loafing in brainstorming groups occurred in part
because individuals perceived that the other group members were not
working very hard, and they matched they own behavior to this perceived
norm. To test the role of social loafing more directly, Diehl and
Stroebe (1987)
compared face-to-face brainstorming groups with equal numbers of
individuals who worked alone; they found that face-to-face brainstorming
groups generated fewer and less creative solutions than did an equal
number of equivalent individuals working by themselves. However, for
some of the face-to-face groups, the researchers set up a television
camera to record the contributions of each of the participants in order
to make individual contributions to the discussion identifiable. Being
identifiable reduced social loafing and increased the productivity of
the individuals in the face-to-face groups; but the face-to-face groups
still did not perform as well as the individuals.
Even
though individuals in brainstorming groups are told that no evaluation
of the quality of the ideas is to be made, and thus that all ideas are
good ones, individuals might nevertheless be unwilling to state some of
their ideas in brainstorming groups because they are afraid that they
will be negatively evaluated by the other group members. When
individuals are told that other group members are more knowledgeable
than they are, they reduce their own contributions (Collaros &
Anderson, 1969), and when they are convinced that they themselves are experts, their contributions increase (Diehl & Stroebe, 1987).
Although
social loafing and evaluation apprehension seem to cause some of the
problem, the most important difficulty that reduces the effectiveness of
brainstorming in face-to-face groups is that being with others in a
group hinders opportunities for idea production and expression. In a
group, only one person can speak at a time, and this can cause people to
forget their ideas because they are listening to others, or to miss
what others are saying because they are thinking of their own ideas.
This problem—which is caused entirely by the social situation in the
group—is known as production blocking.
Considered another way, production blocking occurs because although
individuals working alone can spend the entire available time generating
ideas, participants in face-to-face groups must perform other tasks as
well, and this reduces their creativity.
Diehl and Stroebe (1987)
demonstrated the importance of production blocking in another
experiment that compared individuals with groups. In this experiment,
rather than changing things in the real group, they created production
blocking in the individual conditions through a turn-taking procedure,
such that the individuals, who were working in individual cubicles, had
to express their ideas verbally into a microphone, but they were only
able to speak when none of the other individuals was speaking. Having to
coordinate in this way decreased the performance of individuals such
that they were no longer better than the face-to-face groups.
Follow-up research (Diehl & Stroebe, 1991)
showed that the main factor responsible for productivity loss in
face-to-face brainstorming groups is that the group members are not able
to make good use of the time they are forced to spend waiting for
others. While they are waiting, they tend to forget their ideas because
they must concentrate on negotiating when it is going to be their turn
to speak. In fact, even when the researchers gave the face-to-face
groups extra time to perform the task (to make up for having to wait for
others), they still did not reach the level of productivity of the
individuals. Thus the necessity of monitoring the behavior of others and
the delay that is involved in waiting to be able to express one’s ideas
reduce the ability to think creatively (Gallupe, Cooper, Grise, &
Bastianutti, 1994).
Although
brainstorming is a classic example of a group process loss, there are
ways to make it more effective. One variation on the brainstorming idea
is known as the nominal group technique (Delbecq, Van de Ven, & Gustafson, 1975).
The nominal group technique capitalizes on the use of individual
sessions to generate initial ideas, followed by face-to-face group
meetings to discuss and build on them. In this approach, participants
first work alone to generate and write down their ideas before the group
discussion starts, and the group then records the ideas that are
generated. In addition, a round-robin procedure is used to make sure
that each individual has a chance to communicate his or her ideas. Other
similar approaches include the Delphi technique (Clayton, 1997;
Hornsby, Smith, & Gupta, 1994) and Synectics (Stein, 1978).
Contemporary
advances in technology have created the ability for individuals to work
together on creativity tasks via computer. These computer systems,
generally known as group support systems, are
used in many businesses and other organizations. One use involves
brainstorming on creativity tasks. Each individual in the group works at
his or her own computer on the problem. As he or she writes suggestions
or ideas, they are passed to the other group members via the computer
network, so that each individual can see the suggestions of all the
group members, including one’s own.
A
number of research programs have found that electronic brainstorming is
more effective than face-to-face brainstorming (Dennis & Valacich,
1993; Gallupe, Cooper, Grise, & Bastianutti, 1994; Siau, 1995),
in large part because it reduces the production blocking that occurs in
face-to-face groups. Groups that work together virtually rather than
face-to-face have also been found to be more likely to share unique
information (Mesmer-Magnus, DeChurch, Jimenez-Rodriguez, Wildman, &
Schuffler, 2011).
Each
individual has the comments of all the other group members handy and
can read them when it is convenient. The individual can alternate
between reading the comments of others and writing his or her own
comments and therefore is not required to wait to express his or her
ideas. In addition, electronic brainstorming can be effective because it
reduces evaluation apprehension, particularly when the participants’
contributions are anonymous (Connolly, Routhieaux, & Schneider,
1993; Valacich, Jessup, Dennis, & Nunamaker, 1992).
In
summary, the most important conclusion to be drawn from the literature
that has studied brainstorming is that the technique is less effective
than expected because group members are required to do other things in
addition to being creative. However, this does not necessarily mean that
brainstorming is not useful overall, and modifications of the original
brainstorming procedures have been found to be quite effective in
producing creative thinking in groups. Techniques that make use of
initial individual thought, which is later followed by group discussion,
represent the best approaches to brainstorming and group creativity.
When you are in a group that needs to make a decision, you can make use
of this knowledge. Ask the group members to spend some time thinking
about and writing down their own ideas before the group begins its
discussion.
Group Polarization
One
common task of groups is to come to a consensus regarding a judgment or
decision, such as where to hold a party, whether a defendant is
innocent or guilty, or how much money a corporation should invest in a
new product. Whenever a majority of members in the group favors a given
opinion, even if that majority is very slim, the group is likely to end
up adopting that majority opinion. Of course, such a result would be
expected, since, as a result of conformity pressures, the group’s final
judgment should reflect the average of group members’ initial opinions.
Although
groups generally do show pressures toward conformity, the tendency to
side with the majority after group discussion turns out to be even
stronger than this. It is commonly found that groups make even more
extreme decisions, in the direction of the existing norm, than we would
predict they would, given the initial opinions of the group members. Group polarizationAn
outcome that occurs when, after discussion, the attitudes held by the
individual group members become more extreme than they were before the
group began discussing the topic. is said to occur when, after
discussion, the attitudes held by the individual group members become
more extreme than they were before the group began discussing the topic (Brauer, Judd, & Gliner, 2006; Myers, 1982).
Group
polarization was initially observed using problems in which the group
members had to indicate how an individual should choose between a risky,
but very positive, outcome and a certain, but less desirable, outcome
(Stoner, 1968). Consider the following question:
Frederica
has a secure job with a large bank. Her salary is adequate but unlikely
to increase. However, Frederica has been offered a job with a
relatively unknown startup company in which the likelihood of failure is
high and in which the salary is dependent upon the success of the
company. What is the minimum probability of the startup company’s
success that you would find acceptable to make it worthwhile for
Frederica to take the job? (choose one)
1 in 10, 3 in 10, 5 in 10, 7 in 10, 9 in 10
Research
has found group polarization on these types of decisions, such that the
group recommendation is more risky (in this case, requiring a lower
probability of success of the new company) than the average of the
individual group members’ initial opinions. In these cases, the
polarization can be explained in terms of diffusion of responsibility
(Kogan & Wallach, 1967).
Because the group as a whole is taking responsibility for the decision,
the individual may be willing to take a more extreme stand, since he or
she can share the blame with other group members if the risky decision
does not work out.
But group polarization is not limited to decisions that involve risk. For instance, in an experiment by Myers and Kaplan (1976),
groups of students were asked to assess the guilt or innocence of
defendants in traffic cases. The researchers also manipulated the
strength of the evidence against the defendant, such that in some groups
the evidence was strong and in other groups the evidence was weak. This
resulted in two groups of juries—some in which the majority of the
students initially favored conviction (on the basis of the strong
evidence) and others in which a majority initially favored acquittal (on
the basis of only weak evidence). The researchers asked the individuals
to express their opinions about the guilt of the defendant both before
and after the jury deliberated.
As you can see in Figure 11.7 "Group Polarization",
the opinions that the individuals held about the guilt or innocence of
the defendants were found to be more extreme after discussion than they
were, on average, before the discussion began. That is, members of
juries in which the majority of the individuals initially favored
conviction became more likely to believe the defendant was guilty after
the discussion, and members of juries in which the majority of the
individuals initially favored acquittal became more likely to believe
the defendant was innocent after the discussion. Similarly, Myers and
Bishop (1970)
found that groups of college students who had initially racist
attitudes became more racist after group discussion, whereas groups of
college students who had initially antiracist attitudes became less
racist after group discussion. Similar findings have been found for
groups discussing a very wide variety of topics and across many
different cultures.
Group
polarization does not occur in all groups and in all settings but tends
to happen when two conditions are present: First, the group members
must have an initial leaning toward a given opinion or decision. If the
group members generally support liberal policies, their opinions are
likely to become even more liberal after discussion. But if the group is
made up of both liberals and conservatives, group polarization would
not be expected. Second, group polarization is strengthened by
discussion of the topic. For instance, in the research by Myers and
Kaplan (1976)
just reported, in some experimental conditions the group members
expressed their opinions but did not discuss the issue, and these groups
showed less polarization than groups that discussed the issue.
Group
polarization has also been observed in important real-world contexts,
including financial decision-making in group and corporate boardrooms
(Cheng & Chiou, 2008; Zhu, 2010),
and it may also occur in other situations. It has been argued that the
recent polarization in political attitudes in the United States (the
“blue” Democratic states versus the “red” Republican states) is
occurring in large part because each group spends time communicating
with other like-minded group members, leading to more extreme opinions
on each side. And it has been argued that terrorist groups develop their
extreme positions and engage in violent behaviors as a result of the
group polarization that occurs in their everyday interactions (Drummond,
2002; McCauley, 1989).
As the group members, all of whom initially have some radical beliefs,
meet and discuss their concerns and desires, their opinions polarize,
allowing them to become progressively more extreme. Because they are
also away from any other influences that might moderate their opinions,
they may eventually become mass killers.
Group polarization is the result of both cognitive and affective factors. The general idea of the persuasive arguments approach
to explaining group polarization is cognitive in orientation. This
approach assumes is that there is a set of potential arguments that
support any given opinion and another set of potential arguments that
refute that opinion. Furthermore, an individual’s current opinion about
the topic is predicted to be based on the arguments that he or she is
currently aware of. During group discussion, each member presents
arguments supporting his or her individual opinions. And because the
group members are initially leaning in one direction, it is expected
that there will be many arguments generated that support the initial
leaning of the group members. As a result, each member is exposed to new
arguments supporting the initial leaning of the group, and this
predominance of arguments leaning in one direction polarizes the
opinions of the group members (Van Swol, 2009).
Supporting the predictions of persuasive arguments theory, research has
shown that the number of novel arguments mentioned in discussion is
related to the amount of polarization (Vinokur & Burnstein, 1978) and that there is likely to be little group polarization without discussion (Clark, Crockett, & Archer, 1971).
But
group polarization is in part based on the affective responses of the
individuals—and particularly the social identity they receive from being
good group members (Hogg, Turner, & Davidson, 1990; Mackie, 1986;
Mackie & Cooper, 1984).
The idea here is that group members, in their desire to create positive
social identity, attempt to differentiate their group from other
implied or actual groups by adopting extreme beliefs. Thus the amount of
group polarization observed is expected to be determined not only by
the norms of the ingroup but also by a movement away from the norms of
other relevant outgroups. In short, this explanation says that groups
that have well-defined (extreme) beliefs are better able to produce
social identity for their members than are groups that have more
moderate (and potentially less clear) beliefs.
Group
polarization effects are stronger when the group members have high
social identity (Abrams, Wetherell, Cochrane, & Hogg, 1990; Hogg,
Turner, & Davidson, 1990; Mackie, 1986). Diane Mackie (1986)
had participants listen to three people discussing a topic, supposedly
so that they could become familiar with the issue themselves to help
them make their own decisions. However, the individuals that they
listened to were said to be members of a group that they would be
joining during the upcoming experimental session, members of a group
that they were not expecting to join, or some individuals who were not a
group at all. Mackie found that the perceived norms of the (future)
ingroup were seen as more extreme than those of the other group or the
individuals, and that the participants were more likely to agree with
the arguments of the ingroup. This finding supports the idea that group
norms are perceived as more extreme for groups that people identify with
(in this case, because they were expecting to join it in the future).
And another experiment by Mackie (1986)
also supported the social identity prediction that the existence of a
rival outgroup increases polarization as the group members attempt to
differentiate themselves from the other group by adopting more extreme
positions.
Taken
together then, the research reveals that another potential problem with
group decision making is that it can be polarized. These changes toward
more extreme positions have a variety of causes and occur more under
some conditions than others, but they must be kept in mind whenever
groups come together to make important decisions.
Social Psychology in the Public Interest
Decision Making by a Jury
Although
many other countries rely on the decisions of judges in civil and
criminal trials, the jury is the foundation of the legal system in the
United States. The notion of a trial by one’s peers is based on the
assumption that average individuals can make informed and fair decisions
when they work together in groups. But given all the problems facing
groups, social psychologists and others frequently wonder whether juries
are really the best way to make these important decisions and whether
the particular composition of a jury influences the likely outcome of
its deliberation (Lieberman, 2011).
As
small working groups, juries have the potential to produce either good
or poor decisions, depending on many of the factors that we have
discussed in this chapter (Bornstein & Greene, 2011; Hastie, 1993;
Winter & Robicheaux, 2011).
And again, the ability of the jury to make a good decision is based on
both person characteristics and group process. In terms of person
variables, there is at least some evidence that the jury member
characteristics do matter. For one, individuals who have already served
on juries are more likely to be seen as experts, are more likely to be
chosen as jury foreperson, and give more input during the deliberation
(Stasser, Kerr, & Bray, 1982).
It has also been found that status matters—jury members with
higher-status occupations and education, males rather than females, and
those who talk first are more likely be chosen as the foreperson, and
these individuals also contribute more to the jury discussion (Stasser
et al., 1982).
And as in other small groups, a minority of the group members generally
dominate the jury discussion (Hastie, Penrod, & Pennington, 1983), And there is frequently a tendency toward social loafing in the group (Najdowski, 2010).
As a result, relevant information or opinions are likely to remain
unshared because some individuals never or rarely participate in the
discussion.
Perhaps
the strongest evidence for the importance of member characteristics in
the decision-making process concerns the selection of death-qualified
juries in trials in which a potential sentence includes the death
penalty. In order to be selected for such a jury, the potential members
must indicate that they would, in principle, be willing to recommend the
death penalty as a punishment. Potential jurors who indicate being
opposed to the death penalty cannot serve on these juries. However, this
selection process creates a potential bias because the individuals who
say that they would not under any condition vote for the death penalty
are also more likely to be rigid and punitive and thus more likely to
find defendants guilty, a situation that increases the chances of a
conviction for defendants (Ellsworth, 1993).
Although
there are at least some member characteristics that have an influence
upon jury decision making, group process, as in other working groups,
plays a more important role in the outcome of jury decisions than do
member characteristics. Like any group, juries develop their own
individual norms, and these norms can have a profound impact on how they
reach their decisions. Analysis of group process within juries shows
that different juries take very different approaches to reaching a
verdict. Some spend a lot of time in initial planning, whereas others
immediately jump right into the deliberation. And some juries base their
discussion around a review and reorganization of the evidence, waiting
to take a vote until it has all been considered, whereas other juries
first determine which decision is preferred in the group by taking a
poll and then (if the first vote does not lead to a final verdict)
organize their discussion around these opinions. These two approaches
are used about equally often but may in some cases lead to different
decisions (Hastie, 2008).
Perhaps
most important, conformity pressures have a strong impact on jury
decision making. As you can see in the following figure, when there are a
greater number of jury members who hold the majority position, it
becomes more and more certain that their opinion will prevail during the
discussion. This is not to say that minorities cannot ever be
persuasive, but it is very difficult for them. The strong influence of
the majority is probably due to both informational conformity (i.e.,
that there are more arguments supporting the favored position) and
normative conformity (people are less likely to want to be seen as
disagreeing with the majority opinion).
Research
has also found that juries that are evenly split (three to three or six
to six) tend to show a leniency bias by voting toward acquittal more
often than they vote toward guilt, all other factors being equal
(MacCoun & Kerr, 1988).
This is in part because juries are usually instructed to assume
innocence unless there is sufficient evidence to confirm guilt—they must
apply a burden of proof of guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt.” The
leniency bias in juries does not always occur, although it is more
likely to occur when the potential penalty is more severe (Devine et
al., 2004; Kerr, 1978).
Given
what you now know about the potential difficulties that groups face in
making good decisions, you might be worried that the verdicts rendered
by juries may not be particularly effective, accurate, or fair. However,
despite these concerns, the evidence suggests that juries may not do as
badly as we would expect. The deliberation process seems to cancel out
many individual juror biases, and the importance of the decision leads
the jury members to carefully consider the evidence itself.
Key Takeaways
- Although groups may sometimes perform better than individuals, this
will occur only when the people in the group expend effort to meet the
group goals and when the group is able to efficiently coordinate the
efforts of the group members.
- The benefits or costs of group performance can
be computed by comparing the potential productivity of the group with
the actual productivity of the group. The difference will be either a
process loss or a process gain.
- Group member characteristics can have a strong
effect on group outcomes, but to fully understand group performance, we
must also consider the particulars of the group’s situation.
- Classifying group tasks can help us understand the situations in which groups are more or less likely to be successful.
- Some group process losses are due to difficulties in coordination and motivation (social loafing).
- Some group process losses are the result of
groupthink—when a group, as result of a flawed group process and strong
conformity pressures, makes a poor judgment.
- Process losses may result from the tendency for
groups to discuss information that all members have access to while
ignoring equally important information that is available to only a few
of the members.
- Brainstorming is a technique designed to foster
creativity in a group. Although brainstorming often leads to group
process losses, alternative approaches, including the use of group
support systems, may be more effective.
- Group decisions can also be influenced by group
polarization—when the attitudes held by the individual group members
become more extreme than they were before the group began discussing the
topic.
- Understanding group processes can help us better understand the factors that lead juries to make better or worse decisions.
Exercises and Critical Thinking
- Consider a time when a group that you belonged to experienced a
process loss. Which of the factors discussed in this section do you
think were important in creating the problem?
- If you or someone you knew had a choice to be tried by either a judge or a jury, which would you choose, and why?
