Janis (Hogg, 1998) suggested a theory called groupthink to be an element of highly cohesive groups. Janis described groupthink to be a process in which poor decisions are often made. This accounts to the group being so cohesive in a way that all the members want to reach a unanimous decision regardless of whether the decision is the right choice or not. Decisions reached in this manner have been described by Janis as an irrational decision making process (Hogg, 1998). Callaway et al (Hogg, 1998) suggested that groupthink comes as a response to individual pressures or stress and is used as a coping strategy. If each member of the group is under the same amount of pressure they may all just agree with one decision to try and alleviate the stress of making a sound decision. For this reason it would be fair to assume that groupthink is an ineffective method of reaching decisions. The discussion of uniformed attitudes brings us onto another group characteristic – group norms.
Hogg (1998), described group norms to be the belief shared by a group about what is appropriate conduct for group members. Establishing a ‘normal’ way of conducting oneself within a group can be described as a uniformity of behaviour (Hogg, 1998). Uniformed behaviour differs between groups. For example a group of young girls would conduct themselves differently on a night out than a group of fifty year olds would. Well, that is what stereotypical behaviour would imply and Hogg (1998) mentions that norms and stereotypes are closely related.
Group norms can be the external expectations of how people should behave. This type of norm is generally based around obligatory rules according to legislation and sanctions. These have been illustrated as explicit norms. They are accepted by society. However, Garfinkel (Hogg, 1998) suggested that we also have internal expectations that form implicit rules regarding norms. Garfinkel proposed that the implicit norms are unobserved and hidden. They are instinctive and we are unaware of the presence of them. To prove his theory that these norms actually existed, Garfinkel developed a method called ethnomethodology. Basically, he tested a number of people to see if a violation of implicit norms could prove they actually existed. Garfinkel proved that if people acted differently than they usually would in a particular situation, the other people around the subject showed a strong reaction.
In specific relation to a work group, or informal groups, norms could possibly help control behaviour. If a norm is violated whether it is explicit or implicit, it could have an affect on the performance of a group. This brings us back to uniformity and conformity of certain rules and procedures. Norms serve as a basic functioning of a group. Hogg (1998) argues that group norms coordinate members towards achieving group goals. In terms of decision-making, it could be claimed that group norms are both an effective and defective characteristic. It may be justified to say that making decisions that affect group goals would conform to the group norm, so unless a member is in violation of the norm, the group would come to an amicable agreement or decision. However, the groupthink theory has claimed that if all group members are so adamant to conform to the group norm it can create groupthink, which may produce ineffective decisions. This leads onto another phenomenon within work groups – group polarisation.
Group polarisation can be defined as group discussions producing a decision that is based on the majority opinion before a topic is discussed (Hayes, 1994). If most group members favour a decision before group discussion, then after a group discussion the outcome would be that everyone agrees to be in favour. And if the opinion of most members were against something, then the outcome of a group discussion would normally be against, according to group polarisation theory. The discussion would result in a polarisation of the individual views of group members (Hayes, 1994) and so the outcome would be either one extreme or the other.
Moscovici and Zavalloni (Hayes, 1994) argued that group polarisation is concerned with making either a risky decision or a cautious decision. The majority according to polarised views will determine which decision the group makes. It could be argued that group polarisation can be effective in decision making because if everybody agrees with a majority, there will be no sole responsibility if in fact it was the wrong decision to make. However, group polarisation could also lead to wrong decisions being made based on a majority decision. This is because group polarisation takes on an extreme, majority opinion.
Another group characteristic is the group roles and status. Roles are similar to norms in a way that they give people a guideline as to how to behave. However, roles apply not to the whole group but just to a subgroup within it (Hogg, 1998). Roles determine how a subgroup should behave within a group. For example an ad hoc group for an event could have a subgroup of event coordinators, and another subgroup of maintenance staff. The maintenance staff would be expected to carry out their particular tasks without interfering with anything that would involve the coordinators. If a member of the maintenance subgroup tried to contribute to that of the coordinator sub-group they would probably be ignored because their role is to maintain and not to coordinate. This would possibly be the case even if their contribution were valid because they have tried to interfere with the role of another subgroup. According to Hogg (1998), this is an example of fundamental attribution error. The role of the maintenance staff has been assumed by the coordinators to be a less quality role than their own. Just because the maintenance staff are not assigned a role of the same status as the coordinators they are valued differently in terms of contribution to the whole group. The status of group members can have an important impact on decisions made within a group.
According to Hogg (1998) all positions within a group are not equal. Status positions can have both positive and negative effects on decision making according to how others within a group react to the occupier of the status position. Hogg (1998) has identified people in higher status roles to have two important assets. The first is consensual prestige. The second is a tendency to instigate ideas and activities that are approved by the group. There has been evidence, produced by Knottnerus and Greenstein (Hogg, 1998) that members of a group as a whole tend to value the suggestions of people who have a higher element of status within a group. So even if somebody tried to contribute to an important decision within a group their suggestion may be reviewed by other members as less or more valid on the basis of their status within a group. So the higher the status role a person occupies, the more other people within a group will consider their judgements as a valid and safer option.
Brainstorming is another aspect of groups that can help produce decisions. This is a technique used to generate ideas from people within a group for solving problems (Hayes, 1994). Hogg (1998) described brainstorming as having a goal of being as creative as possible to solve a problem. Brainstorming can be effective in decision making if the group are instructed at the beginning of the session to contribute any idea no matter how peculiar or bizarre it may sound. Hayes (1994) has identified brainstorming to have three stages:
- Idea-generating stage – This is the initial ideas phase. Everybody is told to try and think up as many ideas as they possibly can. None of the ideas are rejected for any reason. The aim is just to get as many novel ideas as possible at this stage.
- The scrutiny stage – This is when each of the ideas that have been produced in the first stage are analysed for their practicality and relevance.
- The third stage is when the group goes through each of the remaining ideas and have a discussion about which ones may work better than others.
It has been argued that brainstorming can produce effective decisions because of the fact that no idea is rejected in the initial stages. This makes people more likely to contribute to the discussion because their personal ideas will not be rebuked as silly. Hayes (1994) argues that during this initial stage people must be able to speak freely otherwise their production of ideas will be limited to what they think other people want to hear.
On the other hand, it has also been argued that brainstorming is not an effective group characteristic. Paulus et al (Hogg, 1994) mention there to be four factors that make group brainstorming ineffective:
- Evaluation apprehension – Although people are instructed to generate any idea that comes to mind, some people are still cautious about making an impression. This means they may be apprehensive in contributing their idea because of what they think others will say.
- Social loafing – This is when other group members do not contribute as much because others in the group are producing lots of ideas and they are not as motivated. It is also known as free riding
- Production matching –Members may use an average of group performance as a guide to how their own ideas should fit. This means they try and generate ideas similar to the average of the group. This causes the generation of novel ideas to be lost.
- Production blocking – Having to generate ideas at the same time as others can reduce individual creativity because of interference of others within the group.
The characteristics of groups as identified in the body of this essay have shown two possible outcomes. Group characteristics can produce effective decision making in some circumstances. However, in other circumstances these characteristics could also cause the group to produce ineffective decisions. This means that the common saying “two heads are better than one” is not always the case.
Bibliography
HAYES, N. (1994) Foundations of Psychology. Routledge
HOGG, M A and VAUGHAN, GM. (1998) Social Psychology. 2nd edn. Prentice Hall
SABINI, J. (1995) Social Psychology. 2nd edn. Norton