Editing Content :: Admin Scraper

Chapter

Content type

Position

Value

INFLUENCE OF G ROUP ON INDIVIDUAL as loudly as possible as they B EHAVIOUR (experimenters) were interested in knowing how much noise people make in social settings. They varied the group We have seen that groups are powerful as they are able to influence the size; individuals were either alone, or in behaviour of individuals. What is the groups of two, four and six. The results nature of this influence? What impact of the study showed that although the does the presence of others have on our total amount of noise rose up, as size increased, the amount of noise produced performance? We will discuss two situations : (i) an individual performing by each participant dropped. In other an activity alone in the presence of otherswords, each participant put in less effort (social facilitation), and (ii) an individual the group size increased. Why does performing an activity along with the social loafing occur? The explanations offered are: others as part of a larger group (social loafing). • Group members feel less responsible for the overall task being performed Social Loafing and therefore exert less effort. • Motivation of members decreases Social facilitation research suggests that because they realise that their presence of others leads to arousal and can motivate individuals to enhance their contributions will not be evaluated on individual basis. performance if they are already good at • The performance of the group is not solving something. This enhancement to be compared with other groups. occurs when a person’s efforts are • There is an improper coordination (or individually evaluated. What would happen if efforts of an individual in a no coordination) among members. • Belonging to the same group is not group are pooled so that you look at the important for members. It is only an performance of the group as a whole? Do aggregate of individuals. you know what often happens? It has been found that individuals work less Social loafing may be reduced by: • Making the efforts of each person hard in a group than they do when identifiable. performing alone. This points to a phenomenon referred to as ‘social loafing’.• Increasing the pressure to work hard Social loafing is a reduction in individual (making group members committed to effort when working on a collective task, successful task performance). • Increasing the apparent importance or i.e. one in which outputs are pooled with value of a task. those of other group members. An example of such a task is the game of • Making people feel that their tug-of-war. It is not possible for you to individual contribution is important. • Strengthening group cohesiveness identify how much force each member of which increases the motivation for the team has been exerting. Such successful group outcome. situations give opportunities to group members to relax and become a free rider. This phenomenon has been Group Polarisation demonstrated in many experiments by We all know that important decisions are Latane and his associates who asked taken by groups and not by individuals group of male students to clap or cheer alone. For example, a decision is to be 128 Psychology Reprint 2026-27