Social Influence and Group Processes | CBSE Class 12 Psychology Notes

This note covers the nature of groups, reasons for joining them, group formation and development, group structure, types of groups, group decision-making, and the effects of groups on individual effort and opinions.

What makes a collection of people a group?

Definition: A group is an organised system of two or more people who interact, depend on one another, share motives, have relationships based on roles, and follow norms regulating their behaviour.

Interdependence means that one person's actions may have consequences for others. In a cricket team, a fielder dropping an important catch affects the entire team. Members do not merely occupy the same place: their activities connect them.

Roles are socially defined expectations about how a person should behave in a given situation. Norms are standards of behaviour and beliefs established, agreed upon, and enforced by group members. These organise members' interactions and specify expected behaviour.

Which features identify a group?

• Membership and identity: At least two individuals see themselves as belonging to the group. This perception gives the group a distinctive identity, or sense of who its members are.
• Common motives and goals: Members share reasons for acting and outcomes they seek. They may work towards a goal or away from threats facing the group.
• Interdependence: What one member does may affect other members, linking individual action to the group.
• Mutual influence: People seeking to satisfy a need through joint association also influence one another.
• Interaction: Members interact directly or indirectly, rather than simply being present together.
• Structure: Roles and norms organise interactions, with members performing their functions when the group meets and following its standards.

A family, a class, and a playgroup illustrate these relationships. They have mutual expectations and differences in status, meaning the relative social position others give a member. Mere physical gathering does not establish these relationships.

Social influence concerns how others affect our behaviour. Groups provide support and comfort and facilitate individual growth. Influence also works in the other direction: individuals are capable of changing other people and society.

How do groups differ from crowds, audiences, mobs, and teams?

A crowd is a collection of people who may come together by chance, such as people gathering after a road accident. It lacks a structure, a sense of belonging, and interdependence among members. Crowd behaviour is irrational.

An audience assembles for a special purpose, such as watching a cricket match or a movie. Audiences are generally passive, but sometimes become frenzied and turn into mobs. A shared reason for gathering is therefore insufficient to identify an organised group.

A mob has a definite sense of purpose. Attention becomes concentrated in a common direction, as do people's actions. Mob behaviour involves similar thoughts and behaviour, together with impulsivity, or acting on immediate impulses.

Why is a team a special kind of group?

A team is a special group whose members often have complementary skills, meaning skills that support one another, and commitment to a shared purpose. Members are mutually accountable for their activities. Coordinated effort produces positive synergy, the benefit arising from working together.

These are drawings. Picture A shows football players standing together as a team. Picture B shows players on the field with spectators behind a barrier. The team illustrates interacting members with roles and goals; the audience illustrates people gathered to watch.

See Fig. 7.1 in your NCERT textbook

The distinction rests on how people relate to one another. Members of a team coordinate their activities and accept responsibility, while an audience may simply share an interest in the event taking place.

Why do people join groups?

Different groups satisfy different needs, so people belong to several groups at the same time. Membership can sometimes create pressure when demands and expectations compete. Most often, people are able to handle these competing demands and expectations.

What needs does membership satisfy?

Self-esteem means a person's sense of self-worth. Membership of a prestigious group enhances self-concept, or the person's view of themselves. The benefit concerns how membership affects the individual, alongside recognition received from other people.

For example, when a school wins an inter-institutional debate competition, its members feel proud and think they are better than others. This illustrates the status gained through belonging to a group regarded as successful.

Knowledge is another benefit because an individual may lack all the information needed. Group membership supplements this information. Similarly, shared effort can achieve an outcome beyond the capacity of one person working alone. These benefits explain why membership is important across everyday settings.

What conditions help groups form?

Group formation requires contact and some interaction between people. Proximity, meaning nearness, similarity, meaning shared characteristics or interests, and common motives and goals facilitate this interaction. These conditions help explain how people begin associating with one another.

How does proximity help?

Living in the same colony, attending the same school, or using the same playground gives people repeated opportunities to meet. Repeated interaction helps them discover one another's interests and attitudes, or views about people, objects, or issues.

Common interests, attitudes, and background are important determinants of liking. Proximity matters because it creates opportunities to learn about these features through contact with the same people.

Why does similarity encourage liking?

One explanation is a preference for consistency: people like relationships in which interests or views fit together. If two classmates both enjoy football, their matching interests mean there are higher chances that they may become friends.

Another explanation is that similar people reinforce and validate our opinions and values. Validation means support that makes an opinion seem right. Meeting someone who shares the view that excessive television watching is undesirable because of violence can provide this support.

How do common goals bring people together?

People sharing motives or goals form a group which may facilitate achieving those goals. Consider wanting to teach children in a slum area who cannot attend school. Personal studies and homework make it difficult to undertake the work alone.

Forming a group of like-minded friends makes it possible to begin teaching these children. The example shows how a shared goal can lead to joint action and an achievement that the individual could not manage alone.

How does Tuckman's model explain group development?

Groups usually develop through formation, conflict, stabilisation, performance, and dismissal. Tuckman proposed five developmental sequences: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Coming together does not immediately produce a fully developed group.

What happens at each stage?

1. Forming: Members first meet and try to understand one another. They are uncertain about the group, its goal, and how to achieve it. They assess whether they will fit in, experiencing both excitement and apprehension.
2. Storming: Often, conflict within the group follows. Members disagree about achieving the target, controlling the group and its resources, and allocating tasks. Completion of this stage brings a leadership hierarchy, or ranking, and a clearer view of achieving the goal.
3. Norming: Members develop standards for group behaviour. These norms help establish a positive group identity and expectations about how members should act together.
4. Performing: The group's structure has developed and members accept it. The group moves towards its goal. For some groups, this may be the final developmental stage.
5. Adjourning: Some groups may disband after completing their task. An organising committee for a school function may end once the function is over.

Note: All groups do not always pass systematically from one stage to the next. Sometimes stages occur simultaneously; groups may move backwards and forwards or skip stages.

The model therefore describes developmental patterns without making a fixed sequence compulsory. Conflict and the formation of norms help explain changes in a group's organisation, while the possibility of adjourning recognises that some groups exist for a particular task.

Distinguish storming from performing: storming involves disputes over control and work, whereas performing involves an accepted structure and movement towards the goal. Distinguish norming from both: it centres on developing shared standards of behaviour.

What are the main elements of group structure?

Group structure is the organised pattern that develops as members interact. Over time, regularities appear in task distribution, responsibilities, and members' relative standing. Its four important elements are roles, norms, status, and cohesiveness.

How do roles and norms guide behaviour?

Roles express socially defined expectations of a person in a particular situation. Role expectations are the behaviours associated with that position. A son or daughter is expected to respect elders, listen to them, and take responsibility for studies.

Norms are the standards members establish, agree upon, and enforce. They may be understood as a group's unspoken rules. Family norms guide members' behaviour and express shared ways of viewing the world. Roles concern a position; norms express group standards.

How does status differ from cohesiveness?

Status is the relative social position assigned by others. Ascribed status is given, perhaps because of seniority. Achieved status comes through expertise or hard work. People also enjoy the status associated with the groups to which they belong.

A cricket captain has higher status than other team members, although all are equally important for success. A difference in standing therefore does not mean that other members' contributions cease to matter.

Cohesiveness means togetherness, binding, or mutual attraction among members. It includes team spirit, a “we feeling”, and belonging. As cohesion grows, members think, feel, and act more as a social unit and less as isolated individuals.

Highly cohesive groups create a greater desire to remain than less cohesive groups. Leaving or gaining membership of a highly cohesive group is difficult. Extreme cohesiveness, however, may sometimes work against a group's interests by contributing to groupthink, where concern for complete agreement overrides realistic evaluation of possible actions.

What is groupthink, and how can groups counteract it?

Groupthink occurs when concern for unanimous agreement overrides realistic evaluation of possible actions. Unanimity means agreement by everyone. Irving Janis identified how this process can lead decision makers towards irrational, uncritical decisions.

Teamwork generally produces beneficial results. However, cohesion can interfere with effective leadership and lead to disastrous decisions. Groupthink helps explain why a closely united group can make poor decisions despite its apparent agreement.

What makes apparent agreement dangerous?

Each member believes everyone agrees with the decision or policy. Nobody voices disagreement because they believe it would weaken cohesion and make them unpopular. The appearance of agreement prevents the group from openly considering objections.

Such groups have an exaggerated belief in their power to control events. They tend to ignore or minimise warning signs. Efforts to preserve internal harmony and collective well-being leave them increasingly disconnected from reality.

Groupthink is likely in socially homogeneous groups, meaning groups whose members are socially similar, that are cohesive and isolated from outsiders. Other conditions include no tradition of considering alternatives and facing decisions with high costs or failures.

How can critical evaluation be protected?

• Encourage and reward critical thinking, including disagreement among members.
• Present alternative courses of action so the group considers different possibilities.
• Invite outside experts to evaluate the group's decisions.
• Seek feedback from trusted others rather than relying entirely on internal agreement.

The Vietnam War illustrates this process. Between 1964 and 1967, President Lyndon Johnson and his advisers in the United States escalated the war despite warnings, expecting to bring North Vietnam to peace negotiations. This example links ignored warnings with disastrous collective decisions.

How do primary, secondary, formal, and informal groups differ?

Groups differ in size, duration, and organisation. A country is large compared with a family; a committee can be short-lived, while religious groups may remain together for years. The army and police illustrate highly organised groups.

What distinguishes primary from secondary groups?

Primary groups are pre-existing formations whose membership is usually given to an individual. Secondary groups are joined by choice. Family, caste, and religion illustrate primary groups; joining a political party illustrates secondary membership.

Primary groups are central to an individual's functioning. They play a very major role in developing values and ideals during early development. Their significance therefore includes both close relationships and their contribution to the developing individual.

What distinguishes formal from informal groups?

Formal groups state functions and members' roles explicitly. Their formation follows specific rules or laws, and norms help establish order. An office organisation and a university illustrate formal groups.

Informal groups do not form on the basis of rules or laws and involve close relationships among members. The distinction concerns structure and how explicitly functions and roles are stated.

Keep the two comparisons separate: primary and secondary groups differ in membership and relationships, whereas formal and informal groups differ in the formal specification of their structure and functions.

What are ingroups and outgroups, and what did Tajfel demonstrate?

An ingroup is one's own group; an outgroup is another group. “We” refers to the ingroup, while “they” refers to the outgroup. These words categorise people as similar to or different from ourselves.

Ingroup members are generally assumed to be similar, viewed favourably, and given desirable traits. Outgroup members are viewed differently and are often perceived negatively in comparison. These are perceptions, not proof that one group possesses better qualities.

What was the minimal group experiment?

Tajfel and colleagues investigated the minimum conditions needed for behaviour between groups. Their minimal group paradigm was an experimental arrangement creating groups on a slight basis to examine this question.

British schoolboys expressed preferences for paintings by Vassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. They were told the experiment concerned decision-making. They knew whether they belonged to the Kandinsky or Klee group, while code numbers concealed other members' identities.

The children distributed money using recipients' code numbers and group membership. The following distribution matrix shows paired allocation choices. Each row pairs an ingroup amount with its corresponding outgroup amount.

The children favoured their own group, although the groups had no shared past or future and rested on a flimsy criterion. Group categorisation was sufficient for favouritism to appear in this experiment.

Note: Ingroup and outgroup categories are created by people; they are not real divisions. Some cultures celebrate plurality, or diversity. India's composite culture is reflected in everyday life, art, architecture, and music.

How do social facilitation and social loafing affect performance?

Social facilitation concerns performance in the presence of others when an individual performs an activity alone while others are present. Research suggests that others' presence produces arousal, or activation, and can motivate better performance if the person is already good at the task.

This enhancement occurs when efforts are evaluated individually. A different situation arises when members perform together and their outputs are pooled. The group's total performance may then conceal how much effort each individual contributes.

Definition: Social loafing is reduced individual effort on a collective task in which a person's output is pooled with the outputs of other group members.

Tug-of-war illustrates the problem. It is not possible to identify each team member's force separately. This gives members an opportunity to relax and become a free rider, someone participating in the collective activity while holding back their own effort.

What did Latane and his associates find?

Latane and his associates asked male students to clap or cheer as loudly as possible. They varied group size: participants performed alone or in groups of two, four, and six. The study examined how much noise people made in social settings.

As group size increased, total noise increased, but the noise produced by each participant decreased. Each participant put in less effort in the larger group. Increased collective output therefore did not mean increased individual effort.

Why does social loafing occur, and how may it be reduced?

Social loafing concerns effort within collective work. Its explanations involve responsibility, motivation, evaluation, coordination, and the importance of belonging. The presence of several people alone does not tell us how strongly each will contribute.

What explanations account for reduced effort?

• Reduced responsibility: Members feel less responsible for the overall task and therefore exert less effort.
• Lower motivation: Members realise their individual contributions will not be evaluated, which decreases their motivation.
• No comparison with other groups: The group's performance is not to be compared with that of other groups.
• Poor coordination: Members' efforts are improperly coordinated, or coordination is absent.
• Weak importance of membership: Belonging to the group is unimportant to members, making it merely an aggregate, or collection, of individuals.

What changes may reduce social loafing?

• Make effort identifiable: Ensure that each person's contribution can be recognised.
• Increase pressure to work hard: Build members' commitment to successful task performance.
• Increase the task's apparent importance: Make its value more evident to members.
• Emphasise individual contribution: Help people feel that their own contribution matters.
• Strengthen cohesiveness: Develop group togetherness, increasing motivation for a successful group outcome.

These measures address different aspects of collective work. Identifiable contributions concern evaluation, whereas task value and the importance of individual input concern motivation. Strengthening cohesion addresses the significance of belonging and commitment to the group's outcome.

Note: These steps may reduce social loafing. The possibility of reducing it should not be converted into a promise that collective work will contain no reduced effort.

Cohesiveness thus has an important connection with effort. It can strengthen motivation for group success, even though extreme cohesiveness may sometimes create problems for critical decision-making through groupthink. Both effects require attention to the process being explained.

What is group polarisation, and why does it occur?

Group polarisation is the strengthening of a group's initial position through interaction and discussion. Groups are more likely to take extreme decisions than individuals alone. Discussion can move the group further in the direction it initially favoured.

Consider colleagues deciding how to punish an employee caught taking a bribe or committing another unethical act. They may let the employee go without punishment or terminate the employee's services, instead of selecting a punishment proportionate to the act.

Whatever the initial position, it becomes stronger through discussion. This may sometimes have dangerous consequences because groups may take extreme positions, ranging from very weak to very strong decisions.

Which three processes strengthen an initial view?

Consider a person who favours capital punishment, meaning the death penalty, for heinous crimes and discusses it with like-minded people. Their views may become stronger through the following processes.

• New arguments: Like-minded people are likely to provide newer arguments supporting the person's viewpoint, making that view more favourable.
• Public validation: Finding others who agree makes the view feel publicly supported. This is a bandwagon effect, in which others' support reinforces one's position.
• Identification with the ingroup: People with similar views are likely to be perceived as an ingroup. Identification encourages conformity, meaning alignment with the group, and strengthens the person's views.

How does polarisation differ from groupthink?

Both concern group decisions, but they identify different processes. To recognise polarisation, compare the initial position with the position after discussion. To recognise groupthink, examine the pressure for agreement and the failure to evaluate alternatives critically.

Glossary

• Group — An organised system of interacting, interdependent people sharing motives, roles, and behavioural norms.
• Interdependence — A relationship in which one member's actions may have consequences for other members.
• Roles — Socially defined expectations of how individuals should behave within a particular situation.
• Norms — Standards of behaviour and beliefs established, agreed upon, and enforced by group members.
• Status — The relative social position that other people assign to a group member.
• Cohesiveness — Togetherness, binding, or mutual attraction among members, expressed through team spirit and belonging.
• Groupthink — A decision-making process in which concern for unanimity overrides realistic assessment of possible actions.
• Primary group — A pre-existing group whose membership is usually given, involving close interaction and emotional bonds.
• Secondary group — A group joined by choice, with more impersonal, indirect, and less frequent relationships.
• Formal group — A group formed under specific rules or laws, with explicitly stated functions and roles.
• Ingroup — One's own group, whose members are referred to collectively using the word “we”.
• Outgroup — Another group, whose members are referred to using “they” and often perceived negatively by comparison.
• Social facilitation — Performance in others' presence, which can improve when individual effort is evaluated and the person is already skilled.
• Social loafing — Reduced individual effort on a collective task where members' outputs are pooled together.
• Group polarisation — Strengthening of the group's initial position as a result of interaction and discussion.

Common errors and misconceptions

• Misconception: Everyone gathered at one place forms an organised group. Correct: A group involves interdependence, interaction, common motives, roles, and norms; physical gathering alone is insufficient.
• Misconception: Every group must pass through all five developmental stages in a fixed order. Correct: Stages may overlap, recur, or be skipped, and performing may be the last stage for some groups.
• Misconception: High cohesiveness guarantees good decisions. Correct: Extreme cohesiveness may sometimes contribute to groupthink, where concern for unanimity weakens critical evaluation.
• Misconception: Primary and formal groups mean the same thing. Correct: Primary membership is usually given and involves close bonds; formal groups have explicitly stated functions and roles and follow specific rules or laws.
• Misconception: Outgroup members really possess worse qualities. Correct: They are often perceived negatively in comparison with ingroup members; these categories are created by people.
• Misconception: More total noise proves that each participant worked harder. Correct: In Latane's study, total noise rose with group size while each participant's noise and effort decreased.
• Misconception: Group polarisation must produce harsher decisions. Correct: It strengthens the initial position and may lead to very weak as well as very strong decisions.
• Misconception: The listed measures guarantee the removal of social loafing. Correct: Making effort identifiable and strengthening motivation and cohesion may reduce social loafing.

Exam-style questions with model answers

Q1. Define a group and explain what interdependence means within it. [2 marks]

1. A group is an organised system of two or more interacting, interdependent individuals with common motives, role relationships, and norms regulating behaviour.
2. Interdependence means that what one member does may have consequences for other members, linking their activities rather than leaving them isolated.

Q2. Explain three conditions that facilitate group formation. [3 marks]

1. Proximity: Repeated contact in a shared setting allows people to learn about one another's interests, attitudes, and background, helping interaction develop.
2. Similarity: Shared interests create consistency, while agreement validates opinions and values. These processes encourage people to like one another.
3. Common motives and goals: People seeking the same outcome get together in a group which may help them achieve what they cannot accomplish individually.

Q3. Explain Tuckman's five stages of group development. Include the qualification about whether groups follow them in a fixed sequence. [5 marks]

1. Forming: Members first meet, assess whether they fit in, and experience uncertainty about the group, its goal, and the means of achieving it.
2. Storming: Often, conflict develops over tasks, control, and resources. Completion brings a leadership hierarchy and a clearer vision of how to achieve the goal.
3. Norming: Members develop shared standards for behaviour. These norms contribute to the development of a positive group identity.
4. Performing: Members accept the developed structure and move towards the goal. For some groups, this may be the last stage.
5. Adjourning: Some groups may disband after their task ends. The sequence is not compulsory: stages may overlap, recur, or be skipped.

Q4. Explain the four elements of group structure. [4 marks]

1. Roles are socially defined expectations for behaviour in a particular situation. They identify the behaviour expected from someone occupying a role.
2. Norms are standards of behaviour and beliefs that members establish, agree upon, and enforce. They can operate as unspoken group rules.
3. Status is a member's relative social position assigned by others. It may be ascribed or achieved through expertise or hard work.
4. Cohesiveness is togetherness or mutual attraction, expressed through team spirit and belonging. Highly cohesive groups produce a greater desire to remain.

Q5. Male students clap or cheer alone or in groups of two, four, and six. As group size increases, total noise rises but noise per participant falls. Identify the process, explain the evidence, and give one way it may be reduced. [3 marks]

1. The process is social loafing, a reduction in individual effort when people perform a collective task whose outputs are pooled with those of others.
2. The fall in noise per participant shows that each person contributes less as the group grows. Rising total noise does not contradict this reduction in individual effort.
3. Making each person's effort identifiable may reduce social loafing because members' individual contributions can then be recognised within the collective activity.

Q6. Explain five measures that may reduce social loafing in collective work. [5 marks]

1. Make each person's effort identifiable. Individual contributions should be recognisable, rather than disappearing within the output recorded for the group as a whole.
2. Increase pressure to work hard. This involves making members committed to successful performance of the task undertaken by their group.
3. Increase the task's apparent importance or value. Members should recognise the significance of the work in which they are participating.
4. Emphasise the importance of individual contribution. People should feel that their own input matters to the collective task being carried out.
5. Strengthen group cohesiveness. Greater togetherness increases motivation for a successful group outcome. These measures may reduce social loafing; they do not constitute a guarantee of its disappearance.

Q7. A person favours capital punishment for heinous crimes. After discussing it with like-minded people, the person's support becomes stronger. Identify the process and explain its three reasons. [4 marks]

1. This illustrates group polarisation: interaction and discussion strengthen the initial position, here the person's support for capital punishment.
2. Like-minded people are likely to offer newer arguments supporting that position, making the person more favourable towards the original view.
3. Agreement from others makes the view seem publicly validated. This reinforcement through others' support is a form of bandwagon effect.
4. People with similar views are likely to be perceived as an ingroup. Identification with that group encourages conformity, strengthening the person's position.

Q8. Define groupthink, explain its appearance of agreement, and describe four ways of counteracting or preventing it. [6 marks]

1. Groupthink is a process in which concern for unanimity overrides realistic evaluation of possible actions, producing a tendency towards irrational and uncritical decisions.
2. Each member believes everyone agrees and avoids dissent because disagreement seems likely to weaken cohesion and create unpopularity. Apparent agreement therefore suppresses objections.
3. Encourage and reward critical thinking, including disagreement, so members can question the proposed decision and express concerns within the group.
4. Encourage alternative courses of action, allowing the group to consider possibilities beyond the course around which agreement has formed.
5. Invite outside experts to evaluate decisions, bringing an assessment from people outside the group's internal pressure for agreement.
6. Encourage feedback from trusted others, giving members an opportunity to seek views beyond the group's own discussion and apparent agreement.

Key takeaways

• Groups involve interaction, interdependence, common motives, roles, and norms, rather than merely a collection of people in one place.
• People join groups for security, status, self-esteem, psychological and social needs, goal achievement, and knowledge and information.
• Proximity, similarity, and common motives and goals facilitate interaction and the formation of groups.
• Tuckman's stages describe group development, but stages may overlap, repeat, or be skipped rather than follow a compulsory sequence.
• Roles, norms, status, and cohesiveness organise group life; extreme cohesiveness may sometimes contribute to groupthink.
• Primary and secondary, formal and informal, and ingroup and outgroup distinguish different features of group membership.
• Social loafing reduces individual effort in pooled tasks; identifying contributions and strengthening motivation and cohesion may reduce it.
• Group polarisation strengthens initial positions through supporting arguments, public validation, and identification with an ingroup.

Test yourself

What distinguishes team responsibility from group responsibility?

In a group, the leader holds responsibility for the work. In a team, members hold themselves responsible although a leader is present.

Which two explanations connect similarity with liking?

Similarity creates consistency in relationships and helps validate a person's opinions and values, making the person feel right.

How do storming and norming differ?

Storming involves conflict over goals, tasks, control, and resources. Norming involves developing behavioural standards and a positive group identity.

How can status be ascribed or achieved?

Ascribed status is given, perhaps because of seniority. Achieved status follows expertise or hard work.

What did the minimal group experiment demonstrate?

Children favoured their own group even when groups were created through painting preferences and had no shared past or future.

What conditions qualify the performance enhancement associated with social facilitation?

Others' presence can motivate enhanced performance when the person is already good at the task and efforts are evaluated individually.

How did total and individual noise change in Latane's study?

Total noise rose as group size increased, but noise produced by each participant fell, indicating reduced individual effort.

How does groupthink differ from group polarisation?

Groupthink prioritises unanimity over realistic evaluation. Group polarisation strengthens the group's initial position through interaction and discussion.