question_answer

Explain social loafing and group polarisation, giving suitable examples.

Or

State the reason for conflicts in groups. Describe the strategies to resolve conflicts.

Answer:

Social Loafing:

(i) Social loafing is a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task,

(ii) An example of such a task is the game of tug-of-war.

(iii) Experiment on Social Loafing by Latane: Latane and his associates asked group of male students to clap or cheer as loudly as possible as they (experimenters) were interested in knowing how much noise people make in social settings. They varied the group size; individuals were either alone, or in groups of two, four and six.

The results of the study showed that although the total amount of noise rose up, as size increased, the amount of noise produced by each participant dropped. In other words, each participant put in less effort as the group size increased.

Social Loafing occurs because of the following reasons:

(i) Group members feel less responsible for the overall task being performed and therefore exert less effort.

(ii) Motivation of members decreases because they realise that their contributions will not be evaluated on individual basis.

(iii) The performance of the group is not to be compared with other groups.

(iv) There is an improper coordination (or no coordination among members.

(v) Belonging to the same group is not important for members. It is only an aggregate of individuals.

Social loafing may be reduced by:

(i) Making the efforts of each person identifiable.

(ii) Increasing the pressure to work hard (making group members committed to successful task performance).

(iii) Increasing the apparent importance or value of a task.

(iv) Making people feel that their individual contribution is important.

(v) Strengthening group cohesiveness which increases the motivation for successful group outcome.

Group Polarisation:

(i) Group polarisation is a phenomenon in which groups are more likely to take extreme decisions than individuals alone.

(ii) Example: Suppose there is an employee who has been caught taking bribe or engaging in some other unethical act. Her/his colleagues are asked to decide on what punishment she/he should be given. They may terminate her/his services instead of imposing a punishment which may is equal to the unethical act she/he had engaged in. Whatever the initial position in the group, this position becomes much stronger as a result of discussions in the group. This strengthening of the group?s initial position as a res alt of group interaction and discussion is referred to as group polarisation.

(iii) Groups may take extreme positions, i.e., from very weak to very strong decisions.

Group polarisation occurs because of the following reasons:

The view becomes stronger when people are like-minded and result in group polarisation. This happens because of the following three reasons:

(i) In the company of like-minded people, newer arguments are likely to favour our viewpoints.

(ii) When we find others favouring, we feel that this view is validated by the public. This is called bandwagon effect.

(iii) When we find people having similar view, we are likely to perceive them as in group. We start identifying with the group, begin showing conformity, and as a consequence your views become strengthened.