Worksheet # 9

Worksheet # 9 Social Psychology Spring 2001

Name ______________ Due : Wednesday, April 11th

This worksheet looks at the current University websites dealing with Group Dynamics and Group Processes. Please answer all questions in complete sentences, unless it is a fill in the blank type question.

First, we will visit the Commonwealth University of Virginia

Go to : http://www.vcu.edu/hasweb/group/gdynamic.htm

Click on "Group Timeline" link under "The History of Groups Section"

Within the group timeline, click on the link associated with Triplett's first Social Psychological Experiment.

What you now see is the first page of Norman Triplett's article on the concept of "Social Facilitation"

The following questions concern this first page.

1. (paragraph 3) To first analyze this problem, Triplett used ____________________________ to help determine the relationship between competition and performance.

2. Within every social psychological experiment, it is important for the researchers to clearly define the concepts to be studied. How a concept is defined, with respect to an experimental situation, is referred to as the operational construct. List the "operational construct" of race was defined by Triplett :

____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

3. List and describe the three type of race data that Triplett examined :

Now, move on to the commentary section below the article page.

4. The commentator states that Triplett was interested in determining the answer to the question of : ______________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

5. Triplett's review of the racing records led him to theorize that : _______________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________

6. Next, Triplett wanted to experimentally test that idea. The subject population he first tested out this idea on was _______________________ .

7. His experiment basically involved __________ pairs of ___________ , and there task was to _________________________________________________________ .

8. This experiment, along with his survey research, were two demonstrations of Social Facilitation. Social Facilitation is when _____________________________

__________________________________________________________________.

9. What is the difference between a coaction task and an audience task.

10. Triplett's experiment would be best described as a _____________ task.

11. Other researchers, including Gordon Allport and Travis, found that performance sometimes ________________ when other people were present, in marked constrast to the facilitation observed by Triplett.

12. In the 1960's Robert Zajonc managed to resolve the difference in results by focusing on how ______________________ the behavior was which was being performed in front of others.

13. To be more specific, Zajonc observed Social Facilitation (increased performance) for well learned, or ___________________________ .

14. Zajonc also observed that performance decreased when individuals were performing novel, difficult, or ___________________________ .

15. In class, we discussed Zajonc's specific experiment. The "nonsense" words which people practiced 16 times during the training phase became the _____________________ response for the experiment, while the "nonsense words" which they saw only once during the train up phases became the ________________ response.

16. (Last Paragraph) From his experiments and literature review, Zajonc concluded that

that the mere presence of others will __________________ our tendency to perform dominant responses and _________________ our tendency to perform non-dominant responses.

Section B : Now, lets travel to the University at Iowa's Center for the Study of Group Processes. Go to : http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/

Click on "About the Center"

17. When was the center founded ? ________________ .

18. The Center has a three pronged mission. What are the three major focus areas of the Center ?

19. In order to accomplish these mission goals, The center concentrates on five areas of scientific development. What are these five areas ?

A. __________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________
B. __________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
C. __________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
D. __________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
E. ___________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________

20. The center has a very broad definition of Group which includes the following six definitions (which help to illustrate the multidisciplinary approach) :

____________ , ____________________ , __________________, _______________
____________ , _____________________.

21. The two research issues most actively pursued by the Center are :

A. ___________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
B. _________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________

22. List some of the scientific disciplines which are involved in the group analysis work :

_____________________________________________________________________ .

23. Should the research work done by the Center be properly described by the label Theoretical or Applied ? ________________

Finally, lets go to a site hosted by one of the leading researchers in Social Influence, Robert B. Cialdini, Ph.D. Go to http://www.influenceatwork.com/intro.html

24. When do they state was the historical beginning of Social Influence research ? ________________________ .

Read the rest of the introduction and click on
"proceed".

25. Social Influence is the Science of __________, __________, ____________ .

Here are Six examples of how we can influence behavior.

26. Lets examine Situation 6 first. This example demonstrates how changing the audio environment of a location can affect group behavior. The goal of their music manipulation was to ________________________________________ .

What is they had chosen a different type of music ?

What would have happened if they started broadcasting Metallica outside the store ?

____________________________________________________________________

27. Situation 3. Here, we are trying to encourage the pro-social behavior of ______________________ . Social Norms they were trying to invoke with advertising concern social responsibility and individual responsibility toward maintaining the environment. Many municipalities have mandatory recycling programs, providing an external motivation to recycle. By having ads designed to increase the self-awareness of these social norms concerning recycling, these advertisements help to promote Internal motivations to recycle .

28. Situation 2 is similar to Situation 3 in that you are trying to increase self-awareness. In situation two, the goal is to reduce the behavior of _______________ , in ____________ . These self-awareness techniques are also used by major retailers. For example, having mirrors everywhere in a store helps to increase self-awareness as you can always see your reflection. This is designed to decrease the likelihood of shoplifting.

============================= End of Worksheet # 9 =================