What effect will facilitation of the dominant response from increased arousal tend to have?

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Psychology 457

Winter 1997

Midterm Key

1. Social Facilitation and Social Loafing
   1. Social Facilitation Theories
      1. "Mere presence" - Zajonc
         1. Presence of other members of species is arousing. This leads to an increase in the probability of performing the dominant response in the situation. On well-learned or simple tasks, the dominant response is likely to be correct. On poorly learned or complex tasks, the dominant response is likely to be incorrect.
         2. Example of research - cockroach study.
      2. Evaluation-apprehension - Cottrell
         1. Presence of others leads to concern over evaluation which leads to increased arousal and the effects noted above.
         2. Example of research - blindfolded audience study -- mere presence without concern for evaluation was insufficient to yield the social facilitation effect.
      3. Distraction-conflict
         1. Presence of others tends to distract performer. On well-learned or simple tasks, distraction does not hurt and may help by preventing attention to production (e.g. placement of fingers on a musical instrument). On complex or poorly-learned tasks, distraction hurts because full capacity of executive attentional system is needed.
         2. Example of research - light and sound show experiments.
   2. Social Loafing has two components:
      1. Reduction in effort due to: diffusion of responsibility, free-riding, perceived inequities, etc.
      2. Coordination losses -- failure of individual efforts to be properly coordinated (e.g., pulling rope at different times in tug-of-war).
   3. Advice: To take full advantage of social facilitation effects, an athletic team should practice alone and perform before an audience. To avoid social loafing, the members should practice coordination and signal when necessary (e.g., team sports) and be evaluated individually.
2. GroupThink
   1. Causes of GroupThink
      1. High Cohesion
         1. Group highly valued
         2. In-group/out-group effects
         3. In-group is good, powerful, smart; out-group is bad, weak, stupid
         4. Powerful normative influences
         5. Powerful conformity pressures
         6. Powerful sanction capabilities
      2. Isolation
         1. Failure to disconfirm erroneous judgments
      3. Bounded rationality (Simon)
         1. Human decision-making is limited by inability to process large problems and information.
         2. Human decision-making strives to satisfice not maximize.
         3. Search order becomes important
         4. Short run easier to predict than long run.
         5. Reliance on previously developed repertoires (SOP's)
   2. Prevention
      1. Avoid isolation
      2. Limit tendency to premature concurrence (e.g., appoint devil's advocate)
      3. Use effective decision techniques (e.g., list alternatives, consider information, ...)
      4. Correct misperceptions and errors
   3. Note: the question did not ask for the symptoms of groupthink.
3. Group Polarization
   1. Group Polarization is the tendency for the decisions of groups to be more extreme in the direction of the pre-discussion average of the attitudes of the group members.
   2. Risky-shift is part of group polarization. The term refers to the tendency for group decisions in some circumstances to be more risky than the pre-discussion average attitudes of the group members. Conservative shifts can also be observed.
   3. Causes
      1. Group polarization may be caused by attitude change in individual members caused by social comparison (the old risk-as-value hypothesis). Individuals commit to a direction (e.g., "being risky") not to a specific level (e.g., of risk). When they discover that others agree with them but are more extreme in the valued direction, they change their attitudes. For example, individuals may endorse being risky in career choices, and choose a "risky" level of tolerable risk (e.g., 4/10 chance of success), but upon meeting others discover that "being risky" is defined more extremely (e.g., 2/10) and hence they may change their opinion of what level of risk is acceptable in the previously chosen direction.
      2. Group polarization may also be caused by individuals who take extreme positions being more persuasive than others.
      3. Group polarization may also be a result of the social decision schemes used to combine individual positions. For example, the group decision may be based on the modal response which may be more extreme than the mean of the pre-discussion responses.
      4. Group polarization has been observed when no opportunity for discussion has been provided and shifts in individual attitudes have been observed. Hence, only the social comparison mechanism described first is sufficient for group polarization, but none of these are necessary.

Multiple Choice Answers

  1. C       2. A       3. C       4. B       5. D
  6. A       7. B       8. A       9. B      10. D
 11. C      12. A      13. D      14. B      15. C
 16. B      17. A      18. D      19. A      20. C
 21. B      22. A      23. A      24. B     

Is the strengthening of dominant responses in the presence of others?

What is group polarization and what causes it quizlet?

Which route to persuasion is most likely to create long lasting attitudes and behavioral changes?

Which of the following is a cause of group polarization?