Group discussion enhances the initial attitudes of
people who already agree.

Are group decisions more cautious? Research has
shown shifts both toward caution and toward risk.
Group enhancement of initial tendencies: group-produced
enhancement or exaggeration of members' initial
attitudes through discussion = group polarization.
‘Brainstorming’
•

What produces group polarization? A special case of the ‘risky shift’
(Stoner 1961)



Social comparison explanation: individual members discover that they are not
nearly as extreme in the socially valued direction as they initially thought.
Because they want others to evaluate them positively (normative influence),
begin to shift toward even more extreme positions.
Persuasive arguments explanation: hearing more arguments in favour of their
own position rather than against it, and hearing new supportive arguments that
they had not initially considered, members gradually come to adopt even more
extreme positions.
Both explanations play a role.
Groupthink (Janis 1971, 1982) when consensusseeking overrides critical analysis.

Symptoms of groupthink




overestimation of in-group
close-mindedness
increased conformity pressures
Research on groupthink - does not always occur in the
way Janis proposed. NOT found in groups outside lab –
why?

Key = different norms.
Leadership
•
•
•
•
•

A leader is an influence agent.
Transformational leaders take heroic and unconventional
actions.
The contingency model Fiedler (1967, 1978) highlights personal
and situational factors in leader effectiveness.
Gender and culture can influence leadership style.
Importance of task (group effectiveness combination of
leadership style & group task)
E.g., jury foreperson–perceived as leader, it is usually
men of higher SES (socio-economic status), might
influence the verdict, although evidence is mixed here.
Application: How Do Juries Make Decisions?
Minority influence upon others’ verdicts –
a small minority may influence the majority vote
by conversion, if they are consistent,
committed in their opinions and arguments,
seem to be acting on principle rather than out
of self-gain and incur some cost, as well as
are not overly rigid and unreasonable in their
opinions and arguments.
Social / majority influences on jury decision-making –
jurors have usually decided on a verdict before they retire to deliberate and jury deliberation consists merely of
trying to persuade others to the same opinion. Social group pressure may thus lead to illogical decisions for
a number of reasons:

group polarisation – a group tends to make more extreme decisions (either riskier or more cautious)
through a process of social comparison and increasing conformity to the group’s initial majority decision;

conformity – group pressure to agree with majority verdicts may result in a lack of consideration for
alternative, minority opinions. This can be both informational (uncertainty over the verdict) and normative
(need to be socially approved). The pressure may increase with the severity of the crime, the need for a
majority rather than unanimous verdict (whoever cares about one or two dissidents then...), and the size of
the jury (1 against 5 people resists less than 2 against 10 people – see Asch);

Groupthink – esp. in a cohesive and isolated group, dominated by a directive leader – e.g. confirmatory
bias – not equally considering evidence against their joint beliefs;

Social loafing – individuals in the jury may be inclined to deliberate less that they would alone and let others
think for them.
Reading
Ch. 8 & 9 Hogg & Vaughan
Critical evaluation:
Pheonix, A. (2007) Chapter 5 Intragroup processes:
Entitativity. In D. Langdridge & S. Taylor (Eds.). Critical
Readings in Social Psychology. OUP.
Wekselberg, V. 1996 Groupthink: A triple fiasco in social psychology.
In C.W. Tolman, F. Cherry, R. van Hezewijk & I. Lubek. (Eds.).
Problems of Theoretical Psychology. Ontario: Captus Press.
Fraser & Burchell Ch. 8 (esp. discussion of normative vs. informational
influence)
Outgroup Perception & Prejudice
Intergroup behaviour – individuals belonging to
one group interact (collectively or individually)
with another group or its members in terms of
their group identification.
Outgroups – large groups OR social categories.
Prejudice/discrimination: attitude/behaviour
The nature of prejudice
(Allport 1954)
Long been a concern of social psychology,
explained by reference to:
individual difference;
 an inherent human potential for prejudice;
 intergroup dynamics.

A critical perspective
A political issue like racism highlights the trouble
with explaining social psychological issues at the
level of individual distortion.
e.g., Theory of the Authoritarian Personality.
 [Facism/racism] explained in terms of the
personality problems of the individual
(i.e., the disturbed personality structure, Adorno 1954, Altemeyer
1981/88, Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale)
Distracts attention away from
institutionalized racism

Fails to answer key question: why do particular
minority groups in particular historical periods
become the targets of racism?

What about the kind of racism that locally
passes for ‘common sense’ and that seems to
require no personal pathology (e.g., South
African apartheid system, US segregation).
(Henriques et al., 1984)
Problematic model: Ideology of
the self-contained individual

Reification fallacy: mistaking what is humanly
constructed for natural reality


by generating theories which presuppose that the natural state of
the person is self-contained individuality.
A culturally & historically specific and humanly
constructed way of organizing relationships
between ourselves is presented as a normal and
unchangeable fact of nature.
3 step conceptual model used by
conventional psychology
1.
The external world exists in a real, indisputable way.
2.
Everything between ourselves would be fine if only the
world were perceived by everyone objectively, i.e., as it
really is.
3.
Unfortunately the rationality which would give us true
information about the world is compromised at many
points and levels of distortions resulting from the
limitations of the human mind and the social structures
it has created.
Social Psychology
Studies distortions from rationality resulting from the influence of others
(whether facilitations or limitations).
Severely restricts the meaning of the word ‘social’.
Obscures from view the social arrangements which make such an
agenda feasible in the first place.
‘Real world’ organised & constructed in a particular way for benefit of
some & disadvantage (even death) of others (e.g., classroom)
Psychology = an ideology that supports a status quo definition of
rationality and what is real.
‘In modern racism, the overt symptoms have changed
but the underlying disease remains’ (Brehm & Kassin
1990).




When Allport first formulated theories (segregation was
official policy in US), not hard to elicit racial stereotypes
and to illustrate effects upon social judgment.
New forms of prejudice identified, e.g., sexism, ageism.
Old forms of explicit racism mutated to an implicit racism
requiring ‘subtlety’ of deceptive lab techniques to be
drawn out.
What has NOT significantly shifted is the model: the
metaphor of individual disorder
The study of rhetoric

Subtle symbolic racism not true of culture in
general.

Shift only towards cynical political rhetoric over
racism,
e.g., Thatcher spoke of being swamped by immigrants while opposing
the National Front.

Not just a shift in methodology: shift away from
the notion of racism as inner essence to racism
as discursive practice.
Current theoretical & conceptual
psychological approaches
Distinguished in terms of level of analysis at
which prejudice and racism defined &
explained.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Individual
Inter-personal
Inter-group
Institutional levels
1. Personality theories
Locate racism and prejudice within the intrapsychic domain of the individual.
e.g.,
authoritarian rearing practices,
intolerance,
intrapsychic defence mechanisms,
isolated as causal agents to a significant
social problem.
2. Social Cognitive perspectives.
Research tradition of ‘attitudinalizing’ prejudice.
Racism: abstract concept often inferred from
actions or expressions.
Study associated issues - prejudice, stereotypes,
discrimination, intergroup perception/relations,
historical & evolutionary context of inter-group
behaviour.
Individualises prejudice within the cognitiveaffective systems of individuals
Basic claim: social categorization is an inevitable feature of our social
perceptual apparatus.

Prejudice and racism are inevitable consequences of normal and functional
cognitive processes such as categorisation and stereotyping.

Our limited cognitive capacities make the simplification & generalisation of
social information necessarily adaptive

Hence a group’s tendency to view outgroup members as ‘all alike’.

So cognitive mechanisms are the essential foundations to stereotyping and
prejudice.
Process:
But categorization alone is not prejudice, must further
assume categories not of equal worth.
What introduces differential evaluation? Stereotyping.



We see individuals as members of particular groups with
particular attributes.
In some fundamental way we favour our own group over
out-groups.
Therefore, we perform rapid categorization of other
groups, resulting in distorted and irrational perception
which is emotionally based.
Stereotypes
Cognitive simplifications - come to be associated with meaningful social categories
(Lippman 1922)

Models of Impression Formation say we attend to group first and individual second
and only if necessary.

New information learned about group member stored about group rather than
individual (e.g., memory for who said what)

Leads to several information processing biases, encoding, interpretation, memory,
confirmatory information, etc

Darley & Gross 1988 stereotypes set up hypotheses that are then tested in a biased
fashion.

Self-fulfilling prophecies, provoke behaviours, etc.
Consequences of categorization for
outgroup perception :

Categorizing people into groups by identifying common
characteristics or attributes reduces complexity of social world,
information overload, etc.

So facilitates information processing but also has negative
consequences, i.e., not based on real similarities and differences
(like men/women).

This creates the basis for ethnocentrism: mere categorization into inand out-groups leads perceiver to differentiate in ways that favour
in-group, increases attraction and subsequent devaluation.

Tajfel 1971 Minimal Group Paradigm
random assignment to groups yet lots of
effects.

Even the language we use is important:
Dovidio et al. 1990 paired nonsense
syllables with in-group pronoun, found
they were better remembered/rated more
favourably.