Chapter 7

Group Behavior in the Society

Chapter Outline
 What are Groups
 Why do People work in Groups
 Stages of Group Development
 Characteristics of Group Behavior
 Group Behaviour Model
 Riots
 Group Preoccupations
 Social Movements
 Diversity, Globalization and Social Change
 Decision Making
What are Groups?
 Two or more individuals, interacting and
Interdependent, who have come together
to achieve particular objectives.
Group Behaviour
 Group behaviour emanates from the
causes that contribute to the group’s
effectiveness.
WHY DO PEOPLE WORK IN GROUPS ?
Security
 By joining a group, individuals can reduce the insecurity of “standing alone.” People
feel stronger, have fewer self-doubts, and are more resistant to threats when they
are part of a group.
Status
 Inclusion in a group that is viewed as important by others provides recognition and
status for its members.
Self-Esteem
 Groups can provide people with feelings of self-worth. That is, in addition to
conveying status to those outside the group, membership can also give increased
feelings of worth to the group members themselves.
Power
 What cannot be achieved individually often becomes possible through group
action. There is power in numbers.
Goal Achievement
 There are times when it takes more than one person to accomplish a particular
task; there is a need to pool talents, knowledge, or power in order to complete a
job.
STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT
Forming
 The first stage in group development, characterized by much
uncertainty.
Storming
 The second stage in group development, characterized by intragroup
conflict
Norming
 The third stage in group development, characterized by close
relationships and cohesiveness.
Performing
 The fourth stage in group development, when the group is fully functional

Adjourning
 The final stage in group development for temporary groups,
characterized by concern with wrapping up activities rather than task
performance.
 EXTERNAL CONDITIONS IMPOSED ON THE GROUP

 Groups are a subset of a larger workplace consisting

of the following:
 Organization Strategy
 Organizational Infrastructure

 Leadership

 Rules

 Resources

 Evaluation and Rewards

 Organizational Culture
GROUP MEMBER RESOURCES
A group’s potential level of performance is, to a large
extent, dependent on the resources that its members
individually bring to the group.
Abilities
 Set the parameters for what members can do and how
effectively they will perform in a group
Personality Characteristics.
 The magnitude of the effect of any single Characteristic
is small, but taking personality characteristics together,
the consequences for group behaviour are of major
significance.
ROLES
 A role is a set of expected behaviour patterns attributed to someone
occupying a given position in a social unit.
Role Identity:
 Certain attitudes and behaviours consistent with a role

Role Perception:
 An individual’s view of how he or she is supposed to act in a given
situation
Role Expectations:
 How others believe a person should act in a given situation

Role Conflict:
 A situation in which an individual is confronted by divergent role
expectations
ROLES IN GROUPS
Task-oriented roles
 Roles performed by group members to ensure
that the tasks of the group are accomplished
Maintenance roles
 Roles performed by group members to maintain
good relations within the group
Individual roles
 Roles performed by group members that are
not productive for keeping the group on task
BUILDING BETTER WORKING GROUPS
 Assigning Appropriate Tasks
 Providing Organizational Support
 Building Group Cohesiveness
ASSIGNING APPROPRIATE TASKS
 The group task is a whole and meaningful piece of work, with a
visible outcome
 The outcomes of the group’s work on the task have significant
consequences for other people
 The task provides group members with substantial autonomy for
deciding about how they do the work
 Work on the task generates regular, trustworthy feedback about
how well the group is performing
BUILDING GROUP COHESIVENESS
 Clear Purpose
 Participation
 Civilized Disagreement
 Open Communications
 Listening
 Informal Climate
 Consensus Decisions
 Clear Roles and Work Assignments
 Shared Leadership
 Style Diversity
 External Relationships
 Self-assessment
Characteristics of Group Behavior
1. Represent the actions of groups of people, not individuals.
2. Involve relationships that arise in unusual circumstances.
3. Capture the changing elements of society more than other forms
of social action.
4. May mark the beginnings of more organized social behavior.
5. Exhibit patterned behavior, not the irrational behavior of crazed
individuals.
6. Usually appear to be highly emotional, even volatile.
7. Involve people communicating extensively through rumors.
8. Are often associated with efforts to achieve social change.
Crowds
 Crowds are one form of Group behavior.
 Crowds share several characteristics:
 Crowds involve groups of people coming
together in face-to-face or visual space with
one another.
 Crowds are transitory.

 Crowds are volatile.

 Crowds usually have a sense of urgency.

The Social Structure of Crowds
 Crowds are usually “circular,” surrounding
the object of the crowd’s attention.
 The people closest to the crowd’s center
of interest are the core of the crowd and
show the greatest focus on the object of
interest.
 At the outer edges of the crowd, attention
is less focused.
Emergent Norm Theory
 Postulates that people faced with an unusual
situation can create meanings that define and
direct the situation.
 Group norms govern Group behavior, but the
norms that are obeyed are newly created as the
group responds to its new situation.
 Members of the group follow norms—they just
may be created on the spot.
Panic
 A panic is behavior that occurs when
people in a group suddenly become
concerned for their safety.
 People tend to flee in groups, often
stopping to look out for one another.
 We know, for example, that in the World
Trade Center on 9/11, people for the most
part tried to leave in an orderly fashion.
Panic: Three Factors
1. A perceived threat.
The threat is usually perceived as so
imminent that there is no time to do
anything but flee.
2. A sense of possible entrapment.
3. A failure of front-to-rear communication.
People at the rear of the crowd exert strong
physical or psychological pressure to
advance toward the goal.
Riots
 Sociologists see riots as a multitude of
small crowd actions spread over a
particular geographic area, where the
crowd is directed at a particular target.
 Riots occur when groups of people band
together to express a Group grievance or
when groups are provoked by anger or
excitement.
Group Preoccupations
 Forms of Group behavior wherein many
people, over a broad social spectrum,
engage in similar behavior and have a
shared definition of their behavior as
needed to bring social change or to
identify their place in the society.
Fads
 Fads may be products (scooters, hula hoops,
yo-yos), activities (streaking, raves), words or
phrases (yo!, whatever, cool), or popular
heroes (Harry Potter, Barbie).
 Fads provide a sense of unity among their
participants and a sense of differentiation
between participants and nonparticipants.
 Crazes are similar to fads except that they
tend to represent more intense involvement for
participants.
Hysterical Contagions
 Involves the spread of symptoms of an
illness among a group when there is no
physiological disease present.
 Most likely to occur when it provides a
way of coping with a situation that cannot
be handled in the usual ways.
Scapegoating
 Occurs when a group Grouply identifies
another group as a threat to the perceived
social order and incorrectly blames the
other group for problems they have not
caused.
 The group so identified becomes the
target of negative actions that can range
from ridicule to imprisonment, extreme
violence, and even death.
Social Movements
 A social movement is an organized social group
that acts with continuity and coordination to
promote or resist change in society or other
social units.
 Social movements are the most organized form
of Group behavior, and they tend to be the most
sustained.
 They often have a connection to the past, and
they tend to become organized in coherent
social organizations.
Type of Social Movements
 Personal transformation movements -
hippie, new age
 Social change movements -
environmental and animal rights
movements
 Reactionary movements -
Aryan Nation, Right-to-Life
Elements Necessary
for Social Movements
1. Pre-existing communication
network.
2. Pre-existing grievance.
3. Precipitating incident.
4. Ability to mobilize.
Environment and Economy:
Competing and Changing Views
Theories of social movement - Effectiveness
 Bouchier (1978) has shown how different political
ideas and principles or political ‘ideologies’ serve
movements more or less well in the pursuit of
effectiveness. Radical movements must,
 if they are to be successful in attracting and
retaining commitment, accomplish the processes
of de-legitimation (the identification of areas of
stress and the attack upon the legitimating
mechanisms associated therewith),
 dis-alienation (the presentation of an alternative cognitive universe
and an explanation of the means by which desired changes might
be produced) and
 commutation (the communication to an audience of a realistic
alternative interpretation of the world sufficiently flexible to
encompass changing circumstances).
 The management of these processes is a task for theory itself and
the success or failure of a movement may in large measure be
attributed to the properties of the political theory it embraces.
Present day movements
 This European-influenced group of theories argue that
movements today are categorically different than in the
past.
 Instead of labor movements engaged in class conflict,
present-day movements (such as anti-war,
environmental, civil rights, feminist, etc.) are engaged in
social and political conflict
 The motivations for movement participants is a form of 
post-material politics and newly created identities,
particularly those from the "new middle class".
Theories of Social Movement
What does the theory emphasize?
Resource Linkages among groups
Mobilization within a movement
Political Vulnerability of political
Process system to social protest
New Social Interconnection between
Movement social structural and cultural
perspectives
Theories of Social Movements
How do social movements start?
People organize movements
Resource
by using money, knowledge,
Mobilization
skills
Political Movements exploit social
Process structural opportunities.
New Social New forms of identity are
Movement created as people participate
in movements
Globalization, Diversity and
Social Movements
 Social movements can be the basis of
revolutionary change.
 Some movements originating in one nation also
spill over to affect movements in another.
 Transnational social movements have
organizational structures that cross national
borders.
DECISION MAKING
DEFINITION OF DECISION MAKING
 The process by which individuals or groups arrive at a decision,
judgment, or conclusion through a process of deliberation
A DECISION-MAKING MODEL
 1. Clarify the purpose of the decision
 2. Establish criteria
 3. Separate the criteria
 4. Generate options
 5. Compare options
 6. Identify the risks of each option
 7. Assess the risks of each option by ranking them
 8. Make the decision
DECISION MAKING PROCEDURES
 1. Decision by authority
 2. Decision by minority
 3. Decision by majority
 4. Decision by consensus
 5. Decision by unanimity

ADVANTAGES OF PARTICIPATORY DECISION MAKING

 1. Increased information and knowledge
 2. Increased diversity of views
 3. Increased acceptance of the solution
 4. Increased legitimacy