a. Groups that are more focused on performance than learning are especially likely
to fall victim to groupthink and to suppress the opinions of those who do not
agree with the majority.
b. Does groupthink attack all groups? No. It seems to occur most often when there is
a clear group identity, when members hold a positive image of their group they
want to protect, and when the group perceives a collective threat to its positive
image.
c. What can managers do to minimize groupthink?
i. First, they can monitor group size. People grow more intimidated and hesitant
as group size increases, and although there is no magic number that will
eliminate groupthink, individuals are likely to feel less personal responsibility
when groups get larger than about 10 members.
ii. Managers should also encourage group leaders to play an impartial role.
Leaders should actively seek input from all members and avoid expressing
their own opinions, especially in the early stages of deliberation.
iii. In addition, managers should appoint one group member to play the role of
devil’s advocate, overtly challenging the majority position and offering
divergent perspectives.
iv. Yet another suggestion is to use exercises that stimulate active discussion of
diverse alternatives without threatening the group or intensifying identity
protection.
2. Group shift and group polarization
a. There are differences between group decisions and the individual decisions of
group members.
b. What appears to happen in groups is that the discussion leads members toward a
more extreme view of the position they already held.
c. Group polarization can be viewed as actually a special case of groupthink.
d. Using the findings of group shift?
i. Recognize that group decisions exaggerate the initial position of the individual
members, that the shift has been shown more often to be toward greater risk,
and that which way a group will shift is a function of the members’
pre-discussion inclinations.
B. Group Decision Making Techniques
1. Most group decision making takes place in interacting groups.
a. In these groups, members meet face to face and rely on both verbal and nonverbal
interaction to communicate with each other.
b. Interacting groups often censor themselves and pressure individual members
toward conformity of opinion.
c. Brainstorming, the nominal group technique, and electronic meetings have been
proposed as ways to reduce many of the problems inherent in the traditional
interacting group.
2. Brainstorming can overcome pressures for conformity that dampen creativity.
a. In a typical brainstorming session, a half dozen to a dozen people sit around a
table.
3. The nominal group technique restricts discussion or interpersonal communication
during the decision-making process.
a. Group members are all physically present, but members operate independently.
b. The chief advantage of the nominal group technique is that it permits the group to
meet formally but does not restrict independent thinking, as does the interacting
group.
4. Each of the group-decision techniques has its own set of strengths and weaknesses.
a. The choice depends on what criteria you want to emphasize and the cost–benefit
trade-off.
b. As Exhibit 9-5 indicates, an interacting group is good for achieving commitment
to a solution, brainstorming develops group cohesiveness, and the nominal group
technique is an inexpensive means for generating a large number of ideas.
II. Summary and Implications for Managers
A. We can draw several implications from our discussion of groups.
B. First, norms control behavior by establishing standards of right and wrong.
C. Second, status inequities create frustration and can adversely influence productivity and
willingness to remain with an organization.
D. Third, the impact of size on a group’s performance depends on the type of task.
E. Fourth, cohesiveness may influence a group’s level of productivity, depending on the
group’s performance-related norms.
F. Fifth, diversity appears to have a mixed impact on group performance, with some studies
suggesting that diversity can help performance and others suggesting it can hurt it.
G. Sixth, role conflict is associated with job-induced tension and job dissatisfaction.
Specific implications for managers are below:
1. Recognize that groups can dramatically affect individual behavior in organizations, to
either positive or negative effect. Therefore, pay special attention to roles, norms, and
cohesion—to understand how these are operating within a group is to understand how
the group is likely to behave.
2. To decrease the possibility of deviant workplace activities, ensure that group norms
do not support antisocial behavior.
3. Pay attention to the status aspect of groups. Because lower-status people tend to
participate less in group discussions, groups with high status differences are likely to
inhibit input from lower-status members and reduce their potential.
4. Use larger groups for fact-finding activities and smaller groups for action-taking
tasks. With larger groups, provide measures of individual performance.
5. To increase employee satisfaction, make certain people perceive their job roles
accurately.
EXPANDED CHAPTER OUTLINE
I. Defining and Classifying Groups
A. Definition
1. A group is defined as two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who
have come together to achieve particular objectives.
2. Groups can be either formal or informal.
a. Formal groups—those defined by the organization’s structure, with designated
work assignments establishing tasks.
i. The behaviors that one should engage in are stipulated by and directed toward
organizational goals.
ii. An airline flight crew is an example of a formal group.
b. Informal groups—alliances that are neither formally structured nor
organizationally determined.
i. Natural formations in the work environment in response to the need for social
contact.
ii. Three employees from different departments who regularly eat lunch together
is an informal group.
B. Social Identity
1. Our tendency to take personal pride or offense for the accomplishments of a group is
the territory of social identity theory.
2. Social identity theory proposes that people have emotional reactions to the failure or
success of their group because their self-esteem gets tied into the performance of the
group.
3. Social identities help us understand who we are and where we fit in with other people,
but they can have a negative side as well.
a. Social identities can even lead people to experience pleasure as a result of seeing
another group suffer.
b. We often see these feelings of schadenfreude in the joy fans experience when a
hated team loses.
c. Our social identities help us understand who we are and where we fit in with other
people, and research indicates they bring us better health and lower levels of
depression because we become less likely to attribute negative situations to
internal or insurmountable reasons.
i. Within our organizations and workgroups, we can develop many identities
through: (1) relational identification, when we connect with others because of
our roles, and (2) collective identification, when we connect with the
aggregate characteristics of our groups.
C. Ingroups and Outgroups
1. Ingroup favoritism occurs when we see members of our group as better than other
people, and people not in our group as all the same.
2. Recent research suggests that people with low openness and/or low agreeableness are
more susceptible to ingroup favoritism.
3. Whenever there is an ingroup, there is, by necessity, an outgroup, which is
sometimes everyone else, but is usually an identified group known by the ingroup’s
members.
4. When there are ingroups and outgroups, there is often animosity between them.
5. One of the most powerful sources of ingroup–outgroup feelings is the practice of
religion, even in the workplace.
a. One global study, for instance, found that when groups became heavily steeped in
religious rituals and discussions, they became especially discriminatory toward
outgroups and aggressive if the outgroups had more resources.
D. Social Identity Threat
1. Ingroups and outgroups pave the way for social identity threat, which is akin to
stereotype threat (see Chapter 6).
2. With social identity threat, individuals believe they will be personally negatively
evaluated due to their association with a devalued group, and they may lose
confidence and performance effectiveness.
II. Stages of Group Development
A. An Alternative Model for Temporary Groups with Deadlines
1. Temporary groups with deadlines have their own unique sequencing of actions (or
inaction).
a. Their first meeting sets the group’s direction.
b. This first phase of group activity is one of inertia.
c. A transition takes place at the end of this phase, which occurs exactly when the
group has used up half its allotted time.
d. A transition initiates major changes.
e. A second phase of inertia follows the transition.
f. The group’s last meeting is characterized by markedly accelerated activity. This
pattern, called the punctuated-equilibrium model, is shown in Exhibit 9-1.
III. Group Properties: Roles
A. Introduction
1. Work groups are not unorganized mobs; they have properties that shape members’
behavior and help explain and predict individual behavior within the group, as well as
the performance of the group itself.
2. Some of these properties are roles, norms, status, size, cohesiveness, and diversity.
B. Group Property 1: Roles
1. Introduction
a. All group members are actors, each playing a role.
b. A set of expected behavior patterns attributed to someone occupying a given
position in a social unit.
c. We are required to play a number of diverse roles, both on and off our jobs.
d. Different groups impose different role requirements on individuals.
2. Role perception: One’s view of how one is supposed to act in a given situation is a
role perception.
a. Apprenticeship programs exist to allow beginners to watch an “expert,” so that
they can learn to act as they are supposed to.
3. Role expectations: How others believe you should act in a given situation.
a. How you behave is determined to a large extent by the role defined in the context
in which you are acting.
b. The psychological contract is an unwritten agreement that exists between
employees and their employer.
i. It sets out mutual expectations.
c. If role expectations as implied are not met, expect negative effects on employee
performance and satisfaction.
4. Role conflict: At the extreme, two or more role expectations are mutually
contradictory.
a. It exists when compliance with one role requirement may make the compliance
with another more difficult.
b. We can experience interrole conflict when the expectations of our different,
separate groups are in opposition.
c. Within organizations, most employees are simultaneously in occupations,
workgroups, divisions, and demographic groups, and these identities can conflict
when the expectations of one clash with the expectations of another.
d. During mergers and acquisitions, employees can be torn between their identities
as members of their original organization and of the new parent company.
e. Multinational organizations also have been shown to lead to dual identification—
with the local division and with the international organization.
5. Role Play and Assimilation
a. One of the most illuminating role and identity experiments was done a number of
years ago by Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo and his associates.
They created a “prison” in the basement of the Stanford psychology building,
hired, at $15 a day, two dozen emotionally stable, physically healthy, law-abiding
students who scored “normal average” on extensive personality tests, randomly
assigned them the role of either “guard” or “prisoner”, and established some basic
rules.
b. It took little time for the “prisoners” to accept the authority positions of the
“guards” and for the mock guards to adjust to their new authority roles. Consistent
with social identity theory, the guards came to see the prisoners as a negative
out-group, and their comments to researchers showed they had developed
stereotypes about the “typical” prisoner personality type. After the guards crushed
a rebellion attempt on the second day, the prisoners became increasingly passive.
Whatever the guards “dished out,” the prisoners took. The prisoners actually
began to believe and act as if they were inferior and powerless, as the guards
constantly reminded them. And every guard, at some time during the simulation,
engaged in abusive, authoritative behavior. One said, “I was surprised at myself…
I made them call each other names and clean the toilets out with their bare hands.
I practically considered the prisoners cattle, and I kept thinking: ‘I have to watch
out for them in case they try something.’” Surprisingly, during the entire
experiment—even after days of abuse—not one prisoner said, “Stop this. I’m a
student like you. This is just an experiment!”
c. The simulation actually proved too successful in demonstrating how quickly
individuals learn new roles. The researchers had to end it after only 6 days
because of the participants’ pathological reactions. And remember, these were
individuals chosen precisely for their normalcy and emotional stability.
d. What should you conclude from this prison simulation?
i. The participants had learned stereotyped conceptions of guard and prisoner
roles from the mass media and their own personal experiences in power and
powerless relationships at home.
ii. This allowed them easily and rapidly to assume roles that were very different
from their inherent personalities.
IV. Group Properties 2: Norms
A. Introduction
1. All groups have norms
a. Acceptable standards of behavior that are shared by the group’s members that tell
members what they ought and ought not to do under certain circumstances.
2. Norms and Emotions
a. A recent study found that, in a task group, individuals’ emotions influenced the
group’s emotions and vice versa.
b. Researchers have also found that norms dictated the experience of emotions for
the individuals and for the groups – in other words, people grew to interpret their
shared emotions in the same way.
3. Norms and Conformity
a. The impact that group pressures for conformity can have on an individual
member’s judgment was demonstrated in studies by Solomon Asch and others.
(Exhibit 9-2)
b. Do individuals conform to the pressures of all groups to which they belong?
c. Obviously not, because people belong to many groups, and their norms vary and
sometimes are contradictory.
d. People conform to their reference groups, in which a person is aware of other
members, defines himself or herself as a member or would like to be a member,
and feels group members are significant to him or her. The implication, then, is
that all groups do not impose equal conformity pressures on their members.
4. Norms and Behavior
a. Experiments conducted between 1924 and 1932 by Elton Mayo at Western
Electric at the company’s Hawthorne Works in Chicago.
b. The Hawthorne researchers began by examining the relationship between the
physical environment and productivity. Illumination and other working conditions
were selected to represent this physical environment.
i. The researchers’ initial findings contradicted their anticipated results.
c. As a follow-up, the researchers began a second set of experiments in the relay
assembly test room at Western Electric.
i. Observations covering a multiyear period found this small group’s output
increased steadily.
ii. It became evident that this group’s performance was significantly influenced
by its status as “special.”
d. In essence, workers in both the illumination and assembly-test-room experiments
were reacting to the increased attention they received.
e. A third study, in the bank wiring observation room, was introduced to ascertain
the effect of a sophisticated wage incentive plan.
i. The most important finding of this study was that employees did not
individually maximize their outputs.
ii. Their output became controlled by a group norm that determined what was a
proper day’s work.
iii. Interviews determined the group was operating well below its capability and
was leveling output to protect itself.
f. Members were afraid that if they significantly increased their output, the unit
incentive rate would be cut, the expected daily output would be increased, layoffs
might occur, or slower workers would be reprimanded.
g. The norms the group established included a number of “don’ts”:
i. Don’t be a rate-buster, turning out too much work.
ii. Don’t be a chiseler, turning out too little work.
iii. Don’t squeal on any of your peers.
h. How did the group enforce these norms?
i. The methods included sarcasm, name-calling, ridicule, and even punches to
the upper arm of any member who violated the group’s norms.
ii. Members also ostracized individuals whose behavior was against the group’s
interest.
5. Positive Norms and Group Outcomes
a. One goal of every organization with corporate social responsibility (CSR)
initiatives is for its values to hold normative sway over employees. After all, if
employees aligned their thinking with positive norms, these norms would become
stronger and the probability of positive impact would grow exponentially.
b. We might expect the same outcomes from political correctness (PC) norms. But
what is the effect of strong positive norms on group outcomes?
c. The popular thinking is that to increase creativity in groups, for instance, norms
should be loosened. However, research on gender-diverse groups indicates that
strong PC norms increase group creativity.
d. Positive group norms may well beget positive outcomes, but only if other
factors are present, too.
i. As powerful as norms can be, though, not everyone is equally susceptible to
positive group norms.
ii. Individual personalities factor in, too, as well as the level of a person’s social
identity with the group.
6. Negative Norms and Group Outcomes
a. Deviant workplace behavior refers to a full range of antisocial actions by
organizational members that intentionally violate established norms and that
result in negative consequences for the organization, its members, or both.
(Exhibit 9-3)
b. Few organizations will admit to creating or condoning conditions that encourage
and maintain deviant behaviors. Yet they exist.
i. For one, as we discussed before, a workgroup can become characterized by
positive or negative attributes.
ii. Second, employees have been reporting an increase in rudeness and disregard
toward others by bosses and coworkers in recent years.
(a) Workplace incivility, like many other deviant behaviors, has many
negative outcomes for the victims.
(i) Nearly half of employees who have suffered this incivility say it has
led them to think about changing jobs; 12 percent actually quit because
of it.
iii. Third, research suggests that a lack of sleep, which is often caused by
heightened work demands and which hinders a person’s ability to regulate
emotions and behaviors, can lead to deviant behavior.
c. Someone who ordinarily wouldn’t engage in deviant behavior might be more
likely to do so when working in a group.
7. Norms and Culture
a. Do people in collectivist cultures have different norms than people in individualist
cultures? Of course they do.
b. But did you know that our orientation may be changed, even after years of living
in one society.
B. Group Property 3: Status
1. Status is a socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by
others.
2. What determines status?
a. Status characteristics theory – differences in status characteristics create status
hierarchies within groups.
i. Status is derived from one of three sources:
(a) The power a person wields over others.
(b) A person’s ability to contribute to group’s goals.
(c) Individual’s personal characteristics.
3. Status and norms
a. High-status members of groups often are given more freedom to deviate from
norms than other group members.
b. High-status people are also better able to resist conformity pressures.
4. Status and group interaction
a. Interaction is influenced by status.
b. High-status people tend to be assertive.
c. Status differences inhibit diversity of ideas & creativity.
d. Lower-status members tend to be less active.
5. Status inequity
a. When inequity is perceived, it creates disequilibrium that results in corrective
behavior.
b. Hierarchical groups can lead to resentment among those at the lower end of the
status continuum.
c. Large differences in status within groups are also associated with poorer
individual performance, lower health, and higher intentions to leave the group.
d. Groups generally agree within themselves on status criteria; hence, there is
usually high concurrence in group rankings of individuals.
e. Managers who occupy central positions in their social networks are typically seen
as higher in status by their subordinates, and this position translates into greater
influence over the group’s functioning.
f. Individuals can find themselves in conflicts when they move between groups
whose status criteria are different, or when they join groups whose members have
heterogeneous backgrounds.
i. Business executives may use personal income or the growth rate of their
companies as determinants of status.
ii. Government bureaucrats may use the size of their budgets, and blue-collar
workers years of seniority.
g. When groups are heterogeneous or when heterogeneous groups must be
interdependent, status differences may initiate conflict as the group attempts to
reconcile the differing hierarchies.
i. As we’ll see in Chapter 10, this can be a problem when management creates
teams of employees from varied functions.
6. Status and stigmatization
a. Studies have shown that people who are stigmatized against can “infect” others
with their stigma.
i. This “stigma by association” effect can result in negative opinions and
evaluations of the person affiliated with the stigmatized individual, even if the
association is brief and purely coincidental.
C. Group Property 4: Size
1. The size of a group affects the group’s overall behavior, but the effect depends on the
dependent variables.
a. Large groups—a dozen or more members—are good for gaining diverse input.
b. Smaller groups—seven members—are better at doing something productive with
that input.
2. Social loafing is the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working
collectively than when working individually.
a. Causes of social loafing
i. A belief that others in the group are not carrying their fair share.
ii. The dispersion of responsibility and the relationship between an individual’s
input and the group’s output is clouded.
iii. There will be a reduction in efficiency where individuals think that their
contribution cannot be measured.
b. Social loafing appears to have a Western bias.
i. It’s consistent with individualistic cultures, such as the United States and
Canada that are dominated by self-interest.
ii. It is consistent with collective societies, in which individuals are motivated by
group goals.
(a) In studies comparing U.S. employees with employees from the People’s
Republic of China and Israel (both collectivist societies), the Chinese and
Israelis showed no propensity to engage in social loafing and actually
performed better in a group than alone.
c. Preventing social loafing
i. Set group goals, so the group has a common purpose to strive toward.
ii. Increase intergroup competition, which again focuses on the shared outcome.
iii. Engage in peer evaluation so each person evaluates each other person’s
contribution.
iv. Select members who have high motivation and prefer to work in groups.
v. If possible, base group rewards in part on each member’s unique
contributions.
V. Group Property 5: Cohesiveness, and Group Property 6: Diversity
A. Group Property 5: Cohesiveness (Exhibit 9-4)
1. Groups differ in their cohesiveness – the degree to which members are attracted to
each other and are motivated to stay in the group.
2. Cohesiveness is important because it is related to the group’s productivity.
3. The relationship of cohesiveness and productivity depends on the
performance-related norms established by the group.
4. If performance-related norms are high, a cohesive group will be more productive.
5. If cohesiveness is high and performance norms are low, productivity will be low.
6. How to encourage group cohesiveness:
a. Make the group smaller.
b. Encourage agreement with group goals.
c. Increase the time members spend together.
d. Increase the status of the group and the perceived difficulty of attaining
membership in the group.
e. Stimulate competition with other groups.
f. Give rewards to the group rather than to individual members.
g. Physically isolate the group.
B. Group Property 6: Diversity
1. The final property of groups we consider is diversity in the group’s membership, the
degree to which members of the group are similar to, or different from, one another.
2. A great deal of research is being done on how diversity influences group
performance.
a. One study compared groups that were culturally diverse (composed of people
from different countries) and homogeneous (composed of people from the same
country).
i. On a wilderness survival exercise (not unlike the Experiential Exercise at the
end of this chapter), the groups performed equally well, but the diverse groups
were less satisfied with their groups, were less cohesive, and had more
conflict.
b. Another study examined the effect of differences in tenure on the performance of
67 engineering research and development groups.
i. When most people had roughly the same level of tenure, performance was
high, but as tenure diversity increased, performance dropped off. There was an
important qualifier: higher levels of tenure diversity were not related to lower
performance for groups when there were effective team-oriented human
resources practices.
3. However, culturally and demographically diverse groups may perform better over
time—if they can get over their initial conflicts.
a. Surface-level diversity—in observable characteristics such as national origin,
race, and gender—alerts people to possible deep-level diversity—in underlying
attitudes, values, and opinions.
i. One researcher argues, “The mere presence of diversity you can see, such as a
person’s race or gender, actually cues a team that there’s likely to be
differences of opinion.”
ii. Two studies of MBA student groups found surface-level diversity led to
greater openness even without deep-level diversity.
(a) Here, surface-level diversity may subconsciously cue team members to be
more open-minded in their views.
4. The impact of diversity on groups is mixed.
a. It is difficult to be in a diverse group in the short term.
b. However, if members can weather their differences, over time diversity may help
them be more open-minded and creative and to do better.
c. But even positive effects are unlikely to be especially strong. As one review
stated, “The business case (in terms of demonstrable financial results) for
diversity remains hard to support based on the extant research.”
5. One possible side effect in diverse teams—especially those that are diverse in terms
of surface level characteristics—is faultlines, or perceived divisions that split groups
into two or more subgroups based on individual differences such as sex, race, age,
work experience, and education.