Social Psychology

Social PsychologyMPF2113

GROUP

Definition

Two or more people who, for longer than a few moments, interact with and influence one another and perceived one another as us. This definition by group dynamics expert Marvin Shaw (1981) argued that all groups have one thing in common which is their members interact. For example, at a soccer game, a few of people recognize themselves as us fans compared with them the opposing fans. This is considered a group since both sets of people were influenced and interacting with each other and perceives themselves as us. Other example might be a group of peoples jogging together every morning.

However, a few students working individually in a computer room is not a group because they only a collection of unrelated individuals in a common place rather than an interacting group. They didnt influence each other. Other examples of a few peoples which are not regarded as a group include people standing in line at Legoland, people on the elevator, or the students that are waiting together outside the principals office.

Being define as influencing each other, there are a few phenomenons in a group which are related to the group and individual influences. They are social facilitation, social loafing and deindividuation. Each phenomenon indicates the important of group in influencing the individual behavior and attitude.

SOCIAL FACILITATION

Definition

There are two definition of social facilitation. First, the original meaning. It is the tendency of people to perform simple or well-learned tasks better when others are present. This phenomena was firstly founded by Norman Triplett (1898) when he noticed that a cyclist cycles his bicycle faster when he race with other cyclists compared to when he race against the clock which means he race to clock the fastest time. Then, he administer an experiment in the lab where he found that children wound the string on fishing reel faster in the presence of another contestant than if alone.

To prove this phenomenon further, we have collected the data from F1 racing to see if this phenomenon is still relevant in present days. From the data we conclude that all the drivers clock the time faster in each lap during a race day compared to a times clocked during the qualifying session. The difference is during a race day, they race against each other while during qualifying they race against time to clock the best time.

Table 1 : Fastest lap clocked during the qualifying session.

Table 2 : Fastest lap clocked during the race day.

Second meaning of social facilitation from Robert Zajonc (1965) which is currently used is the strengthening of dominant (prevalent, likely) responses in the presence of others. According to Zajonc, arousal enhances whatever response tendency is dominant. Figure 3 below shows how Zajonc describes the effects of social arousal in the presence of others.Figure 1 :

In summary, the presence of other people could enhance the easy and well learned behavior while at the same time impairing the difficult and complex behavior. It should boost performance on easy task and hurt performance on difficult task. This explain why subject in Tripletts experiment winding the fishing reels better because it is the well learned task.

In the other words, when others observe us, we feel aroused. If the task is simple or well learned, this arousal is to our advantage. If the task is difficult, this arousal is detrimental. For example, good pool players improve when people are watching while bad pool players get even worse when someone is watching.

In the crowded situation where the presence of many others is concerned, the arousal tends to be higher. It cause the people to perspire more, breathe faster, tense their muscle more, and have higher blood pressure and a faster heart rate. This intensifies the effect of social arousal. The well learned task improved further in the presence of crowd but the new and difficult task will be badly deteriorated. For instance, most soccer teams played well and win in the presence of their supporters at home stadium, but lose at the opponents stadium when their supporters are not there.

Now we understand that people will be energized to do best in front of others when doing the things that was well learned. We also understand that difficult task is seems impossible in the same circumstances. What makes this phenomenon to happen? There are several factors which lead to this phenomenon.

1. Evaluation Apprehension

It is a concern for how others are evaluating us. The enhancement of dominant responses is strongest when people think that they are being evaluated. The experiment by Worringham & Messick (1983) confirmed the existence of evaluation apprehension. They found that individuals especially the man jogs faster when they noticed that they were been watching by women sitting on the bench at the jogging track. Similarly, If others are present, but blindfolded, then no social facilitation occurs.

2. Driven by Distraction

We tend to feel distracted by thinking about what others are thinking of us.

The conflict between paying attention to others and paying attention to the task overloads our cognitive system, causing arousal.

3. Mere Presence

In contrast to the two previous factors, we seem to have an innate social arousal mechanism. According to Zajonc, mere presence of others produces some arousal even without evaluation apprehension or distraction. This explains why social facilitation effects also occurs to the animal although they are not consciously worrying about how other animals are evaluating them.SOCIAL LOAFING

Definition

Social Loafing is the tendency for people to exert less effort when they pool their efforts toward a common goal than when they are individually accountable. Social loafing occurs when individuals in the group were not accountable for their efforts. It is the opposite of social facilitation where peoples were individually evaluated. For example, an individual in a group doing school assignment tends to exert less effort in his or her part knowing that the assignment is evaluated in group.

To prove this phenomenon, Alan Ingham (1974) conducts an experiment of The Rope-Pulling. The participants were blind-folded and they were told that there were other peoples pulling with them. In fact, they were pulling alone. Ingham found that people tend to pull 18 percent harder when they knew they were pulling alone than when they believe others were pulling with them.

Figure 2: Effort Decreases as Group Size Increases.

Nowadays we can found this phenomenon happen in any organization or institution. Peoples who benefit from the group but give little in return are called Free-Riders. It is quite difficult to prevent the social loafing phenomenon but it can be done by making individual performance in the group identifiable. For example, a football coaches filming and evaluating each player individually. His approach has motivates the group members of football team.

DEINDIVIDUATION

Definition

Deindividuation is defined as loss of self-awareness and evaluation apprehension which occurs in group situations that foster responsiveness to group norms, good or bad. Deindividuation into a group results in a loss of individual identity and a gaining of the social identity of the group. When peoples are in a group, they may feel a shared responsibility and so less individual responsibility for their actions. In this way a morally questionable act may seem less personally wrong. They may also feel a strong need to conform to social norms. Peoples tend to commit acts that range from a mild, impulsive self-gratification to destructive social explosion when they were in group. All these acts couldnt have been done if they were alone. They have something in common in which they were somehow provoked by the power of a group. This psychological state of mind was elicited by several circumstances.

1) Group Size The larger the group size, the more tendency for people to lose their self-awareness. In a large group, peoples attention is focused on the situation, not on themselves. They were doing something errant because everybody is doing it. For example, in BERSIH 2.0 rally recently, some individuals in the crowds were beating the police officers being in charge. These individuals would never doing so if they were alone. This happen because a group has a power not only to arouse its members but also to render them unidentifiable.

2) Anonymity

An individual also lose their self-awareness when they were anonymous. Anonymity is derived from the Greek word anonymia, meaning "without a name" or "namelessness". In colloquial use, anonymity typically refers to the state of an individual's personal identity, or personally identifiable information, being publicly unknown. The sense of anonymity could come from various reasons. First, it is due to the concealed identity of the individual. People tend to behave errantly when other people didnt recognize their identity. Second, it also due to the unrecognized face by wearing the sunglasses or painting the face. Third, it is because of the internet where the identity could be concealed or cheated. Most commentary on the internet is essentially done anonymously, using unidentifiable pseudonyms. While these usernames can take on an identity of their own, they are frequently separated and anonymous from the actual author. According to the University of Stockholm this is creating more freedom of expression, and less accountability.

Figure 3 below shows that children were more likely to transgress by taking extra Halloween candy when in a group, when anonymous and especially when deindividuated by the combination of group immersion and anonymity.

Figure 3 :

3) Arousing And Distracting Activities

Another situation where people lose their individuation in through arousing and distracting activities. Normally, these activities lead to the more aggressive acts by a large group. People has a self-reinforcing pleasure in acting impulsively while observing others doing likewise. For example, when people see others act as they are acting, they think that others feel the same. This reinforces their own feelings and eager to act further.

GROUP TASK AND PERFORMANCE

Introduction :

There is a question, "Are groups or individuals better at performing tasks?" that makes the question particularly vague. To what does the term "task" refer? What types of tasks can groups perform? To answer these questions, we have to look at the types of tasks as follow:

1. Productivity tasks.

In productivity tasks, everyone in the group is doing the same thing. The outcome of a productivity task is the total of the individual members' products. For example, we might assign a three-person group the task of typing addresses on envelopes. One person types 200 envelopes, the second types 150, and the third does 100. As a whole, the group types 450 envelopes. Along with productivity, we will also evaluate the groups' performance according to its speed.2. Coordination tasks.

We also base the outcome of a coordination task on the work of all group members. However, it is not simply a combination of each individual's performance. Instead, a coordination task is something that the entire group must perform "together." For example, each step along an assembly line in the factory requires that a different person does a specific job. If one person is missing, the assembly work cannot be done. In addition, one slow worker will hold up the entire line. We call this a "coordination task" because the members must coordinate their actions for the group to be successful. We usually evaluate the performance of a coordination task in terms of speed.

As the assembly line example shows, a group's performance on a coordination task depends on the least competent group member. For instance, Ahmad, Farouk, and zamri work on making a car. Farouk works at a relatively slow rate. He is least competent at his job. No matter how quickly Ahmad and Zamri put the rest of the car together, the car is not finished until Farouk puts on the wheels. The group's speed, therefore, is determined by Farouk.

3. Accuracy tasks.

In contrast to the coordination project, the level of performance for an accuracy task depends on the group's most competent member. This occurs because people working on an accuracy task attempt to choose the best out of a set of possible options. The group should succeed if one of the members can perform the job well. Thus, the least competent group member need not affect the group's performance.4. Quality tasks.

In contrast to accuracy projects, quality tasks have no objectively correct answers. The best example of a group involved in a quality task is a policy-making body in a large organization. It can create whatever policy it wishes. There is no verifiable standard that one can use to judge the group's decision. Hence, we cannot evaluate the "accuracy" of the outcome. Instead, we examine these tasks in terms of quality and speed. It is important to emphasize that we cannot equate the quality of a group's performance with the success of its decision. For instance, even if the policy that the organizational group chooses fails, we cannot assume that the group made the wrong choice. It might have been that conditions in the organization were very unfavorable. In that case, any available option would have failed.Table 3 below summarizes these types of tasks. For each task, the table includes a short description and lists the most relevant task output variables.

Table 3Summary of group task types

TypeDescriptionRelevant Output Variables

ProductivityEach member does the same thingSpeed

CoordinationMembers must coordinate actionsSpeed

AccuracyMembers choose best of set of options with objectively correct answerAccuracy, speed

QualityMembers choose best of set of options with no objectively correct answerQuality, speed

GROUP VS INDIVIDUAL : WHICH IS BETTER?

The question of whether groups or individuals are better at performing tasks is basic. It is so basic that it became one of the first issues that early social scientists examined back in the 1920s, when experimental research in the social sciences began to become prominent. One of the faults of this early work is that it failed to consider some implications of the input-process-output model. For example, consider the hypothesis that the more people there are in a group, the better the groups' product will be. This claim may seem clear, but it is actually ambiguous. This is because as stated it only refers to input (group size) and output (group performance). It ignores the impact of group process on this relationship.

There are actually three different possible relationships between group size and group performance that can be proposed. These three differ from one another concerning the impact of group process. These three possibilities were called wholism, reductionism, and no-effect relationship. 1. Wholism.

Wholism is the assumption that any whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Researchers who have the wholistic viewpoint believe that the experience of interacting with others leads people to perform tasks better than they would if they were performing alone. As a consequence, wholists maintain that actual groups should perform better than "aggregates" (combinations of individual people) of the same size. In fact, the concept holds that, as the size of a group increases, its performance will increase at an accelerated rate.2. Reductionism.

Reductionism holds that the whole group is, at best, only equal to the sum of its parts. This happens if interaction runs smoothly. If interaction does not go well, a group's performance will be less than the sum of what each group member could have done alone. The larger the group, the greater the odds are that the group will have problems with interaction. Thus, the larger the group, the less well it will perform relative to an aggregate of the same number of people. Further, individual members will perform more poorly in a group setting than they would if they were working alone.3. No-effect relationship.

The third possibility is that interaction has no effect on group performance. Thus people will perform at the same level whether they are in a group or working alone. Consequently, the whole is equal to the sum of the parts. If this were true, groups would perform at the same level as aggregates of equal size.Note that in all three cases group performance improves as group size increases. However, the input-process-output relationships differ. In wholism, process adds to the improvement in group performance as group size increases. In reductionism, process suppresses the improvement in group performance as group size increases. In the no-effect relationship, process has no effect on group performance over and above group size.A series of early experiments claimed to support the wholist assumption. This work compared performances between individuals and groups and supposedly revealed that groups consistently perform better. The two study conducted were :1) Gordon's research.

Gordon (1924) designed an accuracy task in which participants were to rank-order a set of

weights by indicating which weight was 5 ounces, which was 10 ounces, and so on. The participants worked alone. Gordon then combined the participants' rankings into aggregates of 5, 10, 20, and 50 rankings. She next figured out the averages of the aggregates. Gordon called these averages the "group" judgment. Her results showed that the larger the aggregate, the more accurate the judgment.

2) Shaw's research.

Shaw (1932) conducted an experiment in which she asked individuals and four-person groups to perform a series of accuracy tasks. The tasks were similar to the missionaries-and-cannibals puzzle described earlier. Shaw found that the groups had a higher proportion of accurate solutions than the individuals.

GROUP DECISION MAKING

Definition:

The thoughtprocessof selecting alogicalchoicefrom the availableoptions. When trying to make a gooddecision, apersonmustweightthe positives and negatives of each option, and consider all the alternatives. Foreffectivedecision making, a person must beabletoforecastthe outcome of each option as well, and based on all theseitems, determine which option is the best for that particular situation. The need for decision making arises to achieve certain specific objectives. Student organization members and leaders make decisions in the group all the time. The decision making process can be stressful because people view it differently. For example, some people see it as a form of power struggle, some people cannot bear the idea of losing an argument and others simply do not like to make decisions. Decisions are an important part of group life and you may wonder how your group can improve in this area. This information is designed to help you. There are six types of group decisions:

1. Unilateral- a decision made by one person, often the nominal leader, without consultation with other group members. At times, it can be appropriate. For example, a minor decision that needs to be made right away. If it is repeated and inappropriate, this type of decision can carry a very low group commitment.

2. Handclasp- decisions made by two members. One suggests, the other endorses and carries it through without adequate discussion or group consideration. This type has high commitment for the two who made it, but generally not for the others.

3. Clique- similar to the Handclasp but with more people involved. This type usually occurs when a close sub-group decides what is good for the rest of the group. Repeated clique decisions cause splintering of the group and low commitment.

4. Baiting- a technique that reduces discussions around decisions. A person will say, "Now we are all agreed, right?!" and only the very brave will speak up. This usually suppresses obvious dissention and lowers group commitment.

5. Majority Rule- a popular way of making decisions. However, if the outcome of a secret ballot vote would produce any surprises, it is not a good time to make majority rule decisions. What happens is that a sizeable segment of the group may feel devalued and decrease their commitment to the decisions in which they "lose" to the majority vote.

6. Consensus- similar to Majority Rule, but everyone knows that what they think and value is being considered by all, and there will be no surprises if you vote. Each person will agree that, under the circumstances, which may not be ideal, the decision made is a fair and workable one that they can live with and support.

ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF GROUPWORKSome of the advantages and disadvantages of group decisions are described as follows:AdvantagesDisadvantages

Provide more comprehensive information and knowledge.

Since group members have different specialties, they tend to provide more information and knowledge. Also, the information tends to be more comprehensive in nature and the groups can generate a greater number of alternatives. There is often truth to the axiom that two heads are better than one. The process is highly time consuming

The process is highly time consuming in terms of assembling the right group and usually a group takes more time in reaching a consensus since there are too many opinions to be taken into consideration. The time problem increases with the group size. Accordingly, the urgency of arriving at a decision must be considered when group decision making style is selected.

Implementation of the decision is more effective (commitment from group members)

Implementation of the decision is more effective since the people who are going to implement the decision, either participated in the group themselves or had their representatives in it. This also increases the commitment of the people to see the implementation to success.

It is important that the decision be accepted by all, because even a low quality decision that has acceptance can be more effective than a higher quality decision that lacks general acceptance.

Some members may simply agree social pressures to conform and not to be the odd-man out.

Some members may simply agree with the others for the sake of agreement since there are social pressures to conform and not to be the odd-man out. Thus the desire to be a good group member tends to silence disagreement and favors consensus. The social pressures can be very strong inducing people to change their attitudes, perceptions and behaviors

The group decision-making is more democratic in nature

The group decision making is more democratic in nature, while individual decision making is perceived to be more autocratic in nature. The democratic processes are more easily acceptable and are consistent with the democratic ideals of our society. May occur arguments (personality conflicts) among group members

Many times, the participants in group decision making have their own axes to grind or their own interests to protect. These self- centered interests lead to personality conflicts that may create interpersonal obstacles which may diminish the efficiency of the process as well as the quality of the decision.

Reduces the unreliability of individual decisions.The input from a larger number of people eliminates the biases that are generally introduced due to individual decision making. May exhibit focus effectThis means that the group may focus on one or few suggested alternatives and spend all the time in evaluating these and may never come up with other ideas, thus limiting the choices.

Develop the skills of objective analysis of information and deriving of conclusions.

The participative style of decision making process builds up foundations as a training ground for subordinates who develop the skills of objective analysis of information and deriving of conclusions.

Decisions may be detrimental to organizational benefits.

The decisions made by the group may not always be in accord with the goals and objectives of the organizations. This is especially true when the goals of the group and those of individuals do not reinforce each other.

WHAT IS GROUPTHINK?GROUPTHINK the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that is tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.

- Irving Janis 1971-In other words, Groupthink can also be defined as Groupthinkis a psychological phenomenon that occurs within a group of people, in which the desire for harmony or conformity in the group results in an incorrect or deviant decision-making outcome. Group members try to minimize conflict and reach a consensus decision without critical evaluation of alternative ideas or viewpoints, and by isolating themselves from outside influences. Groupthink tends to occur in isolated groups, especially in groups with no clear rules for decision making and in groups where all of the people involved have similar backgrounds. It is destructive to effective thinking.

Some examples of groupthink include the following: A small country that is isolated from others and that is made up of people who want to believe that the country is a major world superpower. The country may eventually begin to think as a collective whole that they are more powerful than they are and may make a fatal mistake like going to war with a larger and more powerful nation.

An isolated group of people from the same racial and ethnic background who do not know any people personally who are different from them. The group may come to distrust or even hate outsiders because they do not understand them and because they want to reinforce the moral superiority and unity of their own group.

A group of people who very firmly believe in one particular limited political ideal and who only watch news that supports their ideal and who only associate with people who agree with them. The group may come to hate and distrust people who disagree with them and may come to overestimate their power and influence.

Real World Examples of GroupthinkGroupthink is not just an isolated concept or an abstract philosophy. There are some very real examples of groupthink that can show how destructive it can be to accept the ideas of a group without questioning.

For example, somereal worldexamples of groupthink include:

TheBay of Pigsinvasion. An invasion was planned by the Eisenhower administration, but accepted by the Kennedy administration without question when they took over. The administration ignored questions and accepted stereotypes about the Cubans without questioning whether the Central Intelligence Agency information made sense.

The bombing ofPearl Harbor. Many of the senior officers at Pearl Harbor did not take warnings from Washington DC about potential invasion seriously despite the fact that Japanese messages had been intercepted. Those who didn't take action believed that the Japanese wouldn't dare to attempt an assault against the U.S. because they would recognize the futility of war with the United States.

The collapse of Swissair. The airline was once so financially solvent it was called the "Flying Bank." However, they began to believe they were invulnerable and as a result of failing to question poor decisions and gross mismanagement, the airline eventually went bankrupt.

The mass resignation of the Major League Umpires Association. The members resigned in 1999 in an attempt to gain a stronger negotiating position. They overestimated the resolve and unity of their members and the strength of their position within major league baseball. As a result, their efforts were not effective.

These are some real world examples of groupthink that demonstrate how people can lose sight of what is best for them when they all conform to the group's thought process and abandon their own critical reasoning skills.Is groupthink good or bad?Groupthink has surfaced in experiments when there were four or more people involved in a decision-making process. Sometimes, these groups strive so hard agree that they simply don't think of exploring alternative solutions to the issues and problems they're addressing. Researchers have found that in larger groups, some people tend to underperform and let others handle the bulk of the decision load. In practical terms, this means groupthink can hit you where you live and work. Groupthink has been found detrimental to organizations' management, for example. And when organizations pressure dissenters so that they won't speak out or rock the boat, they're likely stuck in groupthink that could prove damaging. Quieting dissenters and presenting an illusion of agreement are two symptoms of groupthink. Including members who have diverse viewpoints or asking leaders to withhold their views until the end of the decision-making process can help combat groupthink.

Some researchers say that groupthink isn't all bad. Sometimes, seeking concurrence might promote a group's performance. Let's say you're a young band just starting out: Wouldn't it be better if you all really got behind your latest song instead of looking for alternative ways to play it -- or worse, following one member's suggestion that you switch songs two nights before your first gig?

For the most part, however, groupthink can leave people stranded in the status quo. You don't have to trade in your old friends or work colleagues for new ones just to reach new ways of thinking, however. You can simply add new people with different backgrounds and perspectives than you to your group. Widening your circle helps you meet other great people, and learn and adopt ideas that might be good for you.EIGHT SYMPTOMS OF GROUPTHINKWhen more of these symptoms are present, the likelihood is greater that group think has

occurred, and therefore the probability is higher that any resulting decisions will be unsuccessful, possibility even catastrophic. Irving JanisThe symptoms of groupthink arise when the members of decision-making groups become motivated to avoid being too harsh in their judgments of their leaders' or their colleagues' ideas. People would adopt a soft line of criticism and avoid conflict, even in their own thinking. At meetings, all members are amiable and seek complete concurrence, which is likely to be recognized erroneously asconsensus, on every important issue.The groupthink type of conformity tends to increase asgroup cohesiveness increases. Groupthink involves nondeliberate suppression of critical thoughts as a result of internalization of the group's norms. The more cohesive the group, the greater the inner compulsion on each individual to avoid creating disunity, which inclines him/her to believe in the soundness of whatever proposals are promoted by the leader or by a majority of the group's members. However, this is not to say that all cohesive groups necessarily suffer from groupthink. All in-groups may have a mild tendency toward groupthink, displaying from time to time one or another of eight interrelated symptoms. But it need not be so dominant as to influence the quality of the group's final decision. The eight groupthink symptoms will lead group members to : Overestimate their groups might and right Group members become closed - minded Suffers from pressure toward uniformity1.Illusions of invulnerability:Most or all of the members of the ingroup share an illusion of invulnerability that provides for them some degree of reassurance about obvious dangers and leads them to become over-optimistic and willing to take extraordinary risks. 2.Belief in the inherent group morality:Victims of groupthink believe unquestioningly in the inherent morality of their ingroup. To the extreme end, this belief could incline the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions.

3.Rationalization of group views:Not only do victims of groupthink ignore warnings, but they collectively construct rationalizations in order to discount warnings and other forms of negative feedback that, taken seriously, might lead the group to reconsider their assumptions each time they recommit themselves to past decisions.4.Stereotyping out out-groups:Victims of groupthink hold stereotyped views of the leaders of "enemy groups," that "They are so evil that genuine attempts at negotiating differences with them are unwarranted," or that "They are too weak to too stupid to deal effectively with whatever attempts we makes to defeat their purposes." Organizations where competing groups co-exist should be cautious about this symptom because the damage of inter-group attack and/or mis-communications can counteract the totality of productivity of all groups. 5.Self-censorship: Victims of groupthink avoid deviating from what appears to be group consensus.They keep

silent about their misgivings and even minimize to themselves the importance of their doubts.

6.Direct pressure on dissenters:

Victims of groupthink also apply direct pressure to any individual who momentarily expresses doubts about any of the group's shared illusions, or who questions the validity of the arguments supporting a policy alternative favored by the majority.7.Self-appointed mind-guards:Victims of groupthink sometimes appoint themselves as mind guards to protect the leader and fellow members from adverse information that might break the complacency they shared about the effectiveness and morality of past decisions.8.The shared illusion of unanimity:Victims of groupthink share an illusion of unanimity within the group concerning almost all judgments expressed by members who speak in favor of the majority view. When a group of persons who respect each other's opinions arrives at a unanimous view, each member is likely to feel that the belief must be true. This reliance on consensual validation within the group tends to replace individual critical thinking and reality testing.

THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF GROUPTHINK

HOW TO PREVENT GROUPTHINK?

To avoid Groupthink, it is important to have a process in place for checking the fundamental assumptions behind important decisions, for validating the decision-making process, and for evaluating the risks involved. It is important to explore objectives and alternatives, encourage challenging of ideas, have back up plans, etc. If needed gather data and ideas from outside sources and evaluate them objectively. If at any point group think is detected, go back to the beginning and recheck the initial alternatives, discuss in the group about the threats of group think and then make an active effort to increase the effectiveness of decision making by analyzing all angles. It is best to establish an open climate and assign the role of critical evaluator. Group Techniques like brainstorming, nominal group technique, six thinking hats, the Delphi technique, etc can be used. Make it compulsory to go through certain practices like risk analysis, impact analysis and use the ladder of inference. Use a policy-forming group which reports to the larger group and use different policy groups for different tasks.MINORITY INFLUENCEMinority influence occurs when a small group, defined as having a different opinion, changes the opinion of a larger group. As used in this term, minority doesnt necessarily mean a different gender, ethnicity or religion, but instead refers to individuals or small groups that hold a different opinion. There are certain circumstances where this social psychological phenomenon is most likely and others where its possible that this form of influence wont be successful. When its discussed, small examples are often used, as minority influence tends to decrease as the minority or majority increases. There are notable exceptions.Example of Minority Influence

In the classic 1957 film Twelve Angry Men, a character played by Henry Fonda becomes a holdout in a jury that wants to convict a young man of committing a murder. Hours of intense deliberation ensue, with Fondas character in the minority position of believing the evidence deserves greater examination. Ultimately, he begins to convince the other members of the jury that his view is correct and that the defendant may be innocent. This is an example of minority influence, where a single person is able to sway a group to a different position.

LEADERSHIP

The individuals who are the leaders in an organization, regarded collectively.

The activity of leading a group of people or an organization or the ability to do this.

Leadership involves : establishing a clear vision sharing that vision with others so that they will follow willingly,

providing the information, knowledge and methods to realize that vision, and

coordinating and balancing the conflicting interests of all members and stakeholders.

A leader steps up in times of crisis, and is able to think and act creatively in difficult situations. Unlike management, leadership cannot be taught, although it may be learned and enhanced through coaching or mentoring. Someone with great leadership skills today is Bill Gates who, despite early failures, with continued passion and innovation has driven Microsoft and the software industry to success. Some people excel at: a) Task Leadership

b) Social LeadershipTASK LEADERSHIP( directive style)

Leadership that organizes work, sets standards, and focuses on goals.

Give good orders

Keep the groups attention

Have effort focus on its mission

SOCIAL LEADERSHIP( democratic style)

Leadership that builds teamwork, mediates conflict, and offers support.

-delegates authority

-welcomes input from team members.

Members feel satisfied

help prevents groupthink

TASK LEADERSHIP

STRENGTHWEAKNESSESS

Leaders communicate where they want to take their companies

Organize groups for particular tasks and ensure that group members have a clear understanding of their individual roles.

Well suited to structured work environments, such as law enforcement and manufacturing assembly lines.

A fear of breaking the rules among employees, which may lead to a lack of creativity, low morale and high turnover.

Group members may not feel comfortable doing in a task-oriented leadership environment.

SOCIAL LEADERSHIP

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP

Leadership that enabled by a leaders vision and inspiration, exerts significant influence.

Motivates others to identify with and commit themselves to the groups mission.

Characteristics : Charismatic

Energetic

Self-confident extraverts (articulate high standards, inspire people to share their vision, and offer at attention (Bono & Judge,2004) 4 ELEMENTS OF TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP

TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP

STRENGTHWEAKNESSESS

Broadly researched

Intuitive appeal

Process-focused

Expansive leadership view

Emphasizes follower

Most Popular- fits in popular

notions: (Mahatma Gandhi, Martin

Luther King, Adolf Hitler, Obama) Lacks conceptual clarity

Too Complicated

Potential to be abused

CONCLUSION

ARE GROUPS BAD FOR US?On balance, group are bad. In groups we become more stressed, more tense, more error prone on complex tasks. Have a tendency to loaf or have our worst impulses unleashed by deindividuation. Police brutality, lynchings, gang destruction, and terrorism all group phenomena. Depending on which tendency a group is magnifying or disinhibiting, groups can be very , very bad, or very, very good. So we had best choose our groups wisely and intentionally

REFERENCESMyers,G.D. (2013). Social Psychology (11th edn.) New York: McGraw-Hill.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymityhttp://www.uky.edu/~drlane/teams/pavitt/word/ch2.doc

http://leadership.uoregon.edu/resources/exercises_tips/organization/group_decision_makinghttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_decision_makingLeadership NG Newsletter

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-minority-influence.htmhttp://www.psysr.org/about/pubs_resources/groupthink%20overview.htm

Encourage followers to be innovative and creative.

Leaders focus on the what in problems and do not focus on

the blaming part of it

Leader articulates a vision that is appealing and inspiring to followers.

Leader attends to each follower's needs, acts as amentoror coach to the follower and listens to the follower's concerns and needs.

Leader acts as a role model for their followers.

Group And Individuals30