Blog #9- Social Loafing and the Dreaded Group Project

I am always the first to groan when professors announce the "fun" group project assignments on the first day of class. From the beginning, I dread the day that group work will begin, and I will once again get stuck with all of the responsibility. I often find myself pulling more weight than others in my group mainly because I like to do things well and on-time. That’s not to say that I always pull off completing tasks with ease and exemplary presentation, but I do at least get things done! The social psychological term for individual effort being reduced in a compiled effort task is Social Loafing (Latane, 1979). I have been acutely aware of this effect because I have had many experiences with being the victim of other’s social loafing. Although social loafing on group projects has not been as prevalent in college, I can still think of quite a few times that I experienced this lack of individual effort in a group task.

In a history class last semester, I was once again assigned the dreaded group project and was not prepared to be the over-loaded victim of my group’s social loafing. Before the groups had even been assigned, I had already decided that I would withhold my own efforts so that I would not be given the main burden of the work. I was not aware at the time, but I was experiencing the sucker effect (Houldsworth & Mathews, 2000; Kerr, 1983; Shepperd, 1993a). I was anticipating my group’s social loafing, and I did not want to become the “sucker,” so I chose not to put forth as much effort as the others. However, when the groups were assigned, I realized that I was prematurely and unfairly judging the other members. I remembered what it was like to feel that others were undeservingly benefiting from my hard work, and chose to put forth my best effort in order to do well on the project. I was fortunate enough to have other group members who also put in their fair share of work, and we ended up getting a great grade on our video presentation. The experience made me understand that it is tempting to give in to the sucker effect. But the maturity and hard work of those around me made me take personal responsibility for my own part in the project, and I was able to avoid any effects of social loafing.

References

Houldsworth, C., & Mathews, B. P. (2000). Group composition, performance and educational attainment. Education and Training, 42, 40-53.

Kerr, N. L. (1983). Motivation losses in small groups: asocial dilemma analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 45, 819-828.

Latane, B., Williams, K., & Harkins, S. (1979). Many hands make light the work: The causes and consequences of social loafing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27, 822-832.

Shepperd, J.A. (1993a). Productivity loss in performance groups: A motivation analysis: Psychological Bulletin, 113, 67-81.

Blog #8- Compliance and Italian Scams

I would love to think that I am not gullible in any way, but I often get teased about being gullible by my friends. Perhaps I am too trusting of others, but I would still like to think that I am cautious when it is necessary. Situations of unfamiliarity usually raise my caution levels and catch my attention. Specifically, when I am traveling to unfamiliar places, I tend to be very careful and somewhat paranoid. I would like to think that I am on my guard and deter scams set-up to fool tourists. However, I can recall a number of occasions that I proved myself gullible, and can now attribute some of these situations to social psychological theory. In some of these situations, I acquiesced to requests from others, mainly because I like to appease others within reasonable means. This behavior can be described as compliance, which describes behavior that is brought about due to an appeal (Allen, 1965; Kelman, 1961). Although I try to avoid being a “sucker,” recollection of certain instances has certainly proved that my compliance was a result of being very gullible.

One summer I went to Europe with my mom and a group of friends. We were traveling around Switzerland and Italy for two weeks. After spending about a week in Switzerland, I had become very comfortable with the easy-going, warm Swiss people. I was lulled into a false sense of security by the small towns and quiet countryside. As we were preparing to Milan, Italy, we were told to be very careful as it was a much more fast-paced city. I laughed off the idea of getting scammed by the gypsies and thieves in Italy, I felt I was too smart to be a victim of those petty crimes. However, as soon as I emerged from the subway into a main square in Milan, I was approached by two foreign individuals. They were speaking in Jamaican accents about being welcome in Italy, and enjoying the city. They spoke so fast, I was having a hard time keeping up, and started to walk away. The pair stopped me and offered me a string bracelet that had been woven out of yarn. They wanted to give it to me for free, “a gift for the beautiful lady.” I was shaking my head and saying “no, thank you,” but they had already tied the bracelet in a knot around my wrist. My mom was furious, but the men insisted it was free and backed away offering us well-wishes for our visit. We went on our way, and soon forgot about the incident. As we were eating lunch in a small café an hour later, a woman approached us, wearing the same clothes as the two men and with the same accent. She pointed out the bracelet and said she was glad we were welcomed into Milan. She then mentioned that she was accepting donations for their organization (of course I can’t remember the organization or its cause for the life of me). I considered this for a second, and then felt a little guilty, and gave her a few Euros. I now know that I was duped by the norm of reciprocity, meaning the societal idea that one should repay an individual who does a favor or gives a gift (Gouldner, 1960) The foreign organization was using the bracelets as tags for gullible individuals like me, and using other members to go out and collect donations from those who accepted the gifts. I would never have considered giving a random woman money at a café in Italy, until I was given a gift by that organization, and felt I must repay them somehow.
Now that I know all of the different sales pitches, I would like to think that I would never make such a mistake in the future. I can only be thankful that they were seeking voluntary donations and did not take advantage of my gullibility any further!



References

Allen, V. L. (1965). Situational factors in conformity. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 2, 133-175.

Gouldner, A. W. (1960). The norm of reciprocity: A preliminary statement. American Sociological Review, 25, 161-178.

Kelman, H. C. (1961). Processes of opinion change. Public Opinion Quarterly, 25, 57-78.

Demonstrate A Concept Blog

The first week of November has been extremely politically charged, especially with talks of the upcoming Presidential election. Because of all the hype, I have spent a good amount of time discussing my views with friends and family, even if we do not all agree. As we are learning more about conformity in social psychology, I began to see how the propensity to alter opinions and behaviors in order to go along with norms of certain groups (Sherif, 1936) is quite influential in political discussions. When I started forming ideas for my demonstrate-a-concept blog, I realized that political dialogue would be the perfect forum to effectively illustrate conformity.

As I mentioned, it is not uncommon for me to have political discussions with my friends. Two of my best friends work for a state representative candidate, and are always pushing me to vote for their boss. On Mondays, five of us often have dinner together before our sorority chapter meetings, and political discussions almost always slip in somewhere. Therefore, I thought this Monday would be the perfect opportunity to test out the theory of conformity on my friends.

While we were sitting at Dos Salsas, I brought up women’s rights, and how I felt that McCain’s platform was very anti-women’s rights. Knowing that Erin and Shana were very liberal and that Taryn and Teryl were pretty conservative, I wondered if the opinions voiced first would influence the others. Although I am conservative in many aspects, I have certainly made a shift leftward in college. I went ahead and voiced my opinion first, knowing that Erin and Shana would probably follow close behind with their opinions, as they are invested in working for a liberal candidate. I detailed my views on Obama’s forward-thinking platform, and my worries about McCain’s desire to take away certain rights from women, such as the right to choose. I ended my little speech by saying, “overall, I’d say I am pretty liberal.” Erin and Shana immediately jumped in with examples and supported what I had to say. One of them even went so far as to say that she already voted straight-ticket liberal. Taryn and Teryl were pretty quiet during the discussion, so I looked over to Teryl next and asked her point-blank, “would you say you’re more liberal or conservative?” Although there were no confederates in my experiment, I was counting on Teryl as my “participant” to hopefully support some aspect of conformity, especially knowing that she was a staunch conservative. As I expected, Teryl only slightly hesitated and then stated that she was probably somewhat liberal, especially in consideration of her stance on women’s rights. I deduced that Teryl was persuaded to conform by informational influence, meaning that one perceives others to be correct in their opinions, so they go along with them (Crutchfield, 1955). However, my attribution was proven wrong by Teryl when she later explained why she answered the way she did. This can be seen in the posted video.

In conclusion to my small experiment, we asked Taryn what her political views were. She discussed the women’s rights issue pretty thoroughly, and then said that although she would consider herself conservative in many ways, she guessed she had some liberal views too. In the end, my two conservative friends had answered that they were somewhat liberal, after what seemed like a liberal group consensus from three of the others in the group. I was interested to see whether or not this could be attributed to conformity, and therefore videotaped myself asking Teryl why she said what she did at the table. Knowing that Teryl was conservative, I hoped that she would give me an honest answer now that the group norm of being liberal had been dissipated. The video was the first time I had asked her about her answer since our dinner conversation the night before. I had also already asked my other friends separately not to discuss our conversation with her because I was exploring something for Psychology. In her answer, she essentially explains that she felt she needed to go along with the group. She demonstrates that she was persuaded by a normative influence, meaning she was attempting to avoid negative social perception or penalties due to her answer (Deutsch & Gerard, 1955). Even though we are all close and comfortable with each other, Teryl felt that a group norm had been established and dared not challenge it with her difference of opinion.

Now that Teryl has been de-briefed about the experiment, she says she feels that she would voice her opinions in most situations, and may have felt extra pressure because of the controversial political topic. However, I explained to her that most people rationalize their behavior in this way, but not to worry because most people also often fall prey to conformity!

References

Crutchfield, R. S. (1955). Conformity and character. American Psychologist, 10, 195-198.

Deutsch, M., & Gerard, H. B. (1955). A study of normative and informational social influences upon individual judgment. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 51, 629-636.

Sherif, M. (1936). The psychology of social norms. New York: Harper.