Exam 9: Group Processes: Influence in Social Groups

In person, Paul is very mild-mannered and kind. However, his posts in anonymous chatrooms are sometimes explicit and offensive in nature. Why would this be the case?

When it comes to social dilemmas such as the "prisoner's dilemma" game, the tit-for-tat strategy

Under what conditions will groups tend to make better decisions than individuals?

The definition of a group provided in your text includes all of the following except

At first blush, it would appear that integrative solutions (in which each side in a conflict agrees to cede something to the other) would be relatively easy to achieve. However, these kinds of solutions are difficult to achieve because

You work for a software manufacturer, and the supervisor of your division has just informed your work team that the new software designed to give people access to the World Wide Web keeps crashing. Your supervisor is under a deadline to detect the source of the problem and fix it, so he assigns you and four other employees to a "bug detector" group to find the problem and correct it. What will determine whether or not your group succeeds?

Kay and April are breaking up after 15 years together, two houses, and two children. They have fought so long and so hard that they can no longer trust one another and have very biased views of the other's behavior. Based on what you learned in this chapter, what would you suggest that they do?

________ refers to the tendency for groups to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclinations of their individual members.

Many Asian cultures are collectivistic; that is, they tend to place a greater emphasis on the welfare of the group than on the individual. Conversely, Western cultures tend to stress individual performance more than that of the group. A reasonable hypothesis would be that the social loafing effect is

A high level of group cohesiveness would be least beneficial to which of the following groups?

Researchers (Karau & Williams, 1993) reviewed more than 150 studies on social loafing, and found that the tendency to loaf is stronger in men than in women. Why is this true, according to work by Eagly (1987) and Wood (1987)?

Research illustrated that even the presence of a(n) ________ impacted performance such that participants did better on ________ tasks and worse on ________ tasks.

Which of the following collections of people best represents the social-psychological concept of a true group?

The key to success in the "prisoner's dilemma" game is to

Zajonc (1965) wrote an influential article in which he posited a theoretical explanation for the social facilitation effect. Elegantly simple, this explanation included two steps:

A historical study (Twenge, 2001) on the effects of changes in women's social roles in the United States during the twentieth century showed that ________ over the century.

According to the contingency theory of leadership, in ________ situations, the leader has poor relationships with subordinates, and directs tasks that are not clearly defined.

Ted is a manager who effectively motivates his employees to complete their short-term projects in a timely manner without sacrificing quality. Ted always rewards the employees who meet these goals. Ted has a ________ leadership style.

Jan is the leader of a cohesive "knowledge masters" group that is preparing to compete against teams from other colleges. To prevent groupthink and ensure that her group is successful, she should

The contingency theory of leadership posits that "moderate-control" situations call for a relationship-oriented leader. By this he means that a relationship-oriented leader is needed when