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Behaviour and choices in groups. By Daan Ratering (Foundation of…
Behaviour and choices in groups. By Daan Ratering
Foundation of successful teamwork
Definition of a team
A set of three or more persons
Who interact socially
And interdependently
To fulfil a shared responsibility or common goal
Task interdependence
Pooled interdependence
work independently, bring the results together in the end
Sequential interdependence
Work after one another; in sequence
Reciprocal intedependence
Work and send information back and forth
Outcome interdependence
Positive aka Cooperative
Negative aka competitive
Team effectiveness
Quantity, quality and timeliness of the productive output in the eyes of the team's client
Team viability: increase ability to perform as a unit after working together (in comparison to before)
Outcomes for individual members: satisfaction & learning (is their well-being increased by participating in the team)
Teams in
reality
Even teams that are motivated and competent and understand the goal and vision are often ineffective (stick-task)
Importance of interdependence
Key to successful teamwork lies in managing team members interdependence across different areas of team functioning
Coordination
Motivation
Cognition
Emotion
Approaches to team effectiveness
Collective IQ
(Woolley)
Collective intelligence is a strong predictor of team performance
How to promote collective intelligence
Balanced participation
Social sensitivity: read the mind behind the eyes
(# of females in team)
Impact on teams in organizations
Teams with proven succes record are likely to be successful in the future again
Team member intelligence is not the most important factor for team success
Select team members for social sensitivity
Encourage balanced participation of different team members
Social systems
(Hackman)
Common team
fallacies
Cause-and-effect
The bigger the team the better
Performances falls off because people start to like each others foibles
Newness in a team is a liability
How to build a team
Teams must be real
Who is on the team and who is not?
Teams need a compelling direction
Team must know a clear direction
Teams need enabling structures
Prevent poor designed tasks, wrong number or mix of people, fuzzy and unenforced norms of conduct
Teams need a supportive organization
Organizational context; reward system, hr system, information system, must facilitate teamwork
Teams need expert coaching
Coaching as a group is necessary in all stages
Bad apples
Individuals who chronically display behaviour which asymmetrically impairs group functioning
(Chronic) behaviour
Asymmetric effect
Violate norms that are important for group functioning
Types
Slackers
Withholders of effort: violate norms of equity
Depressive pessimist
Affectively negative members: violate norms of positivity
Jerk
Interpersonal deviants: violate norms to maintain and strengthen social work environment
Bad apple behaviours are persistent and at least partially under the actors control
Initial responses
Motivational intervention
Goal: change bad apple behaviour through influence tactics
Strategies: positive & negative reinforcement, punishment
Rejection
Minimize or eliminate interaction with bad apple through:
Formal exclusion from groups
Informal change in "psychological composition"
How do they soil the bunch?
Chronic negative behaviour
Psychological reactions
Each type elicits a primary immediate psychological reaction:
Slacker
Inequity
Jerk
Damaged trust
Depressive pesimist
Negative effect
Effects are stronger when:
Behaviours are
intense
Teams
fail to perform
consequently
Interdependence
is high
External defensive behaviours: exploding or revenge
Internal defensive behaviours: mood maintenance, ,denial or withdrawal
Amplifying group processes
Aggregation:
bad behaviour add up across members
Defensive reactions likely increase negative affect, reduced trust, and feelings of inequity
Spillover:
bad apple behaviours displayed by team members increase the likelihood that other team members display them as well
Sensemaking:
social sharing and repeated discussion of negative experiences with others
Strategies for dealing with bad apples
Prevention
Early and consistent intervention
Frame issue
in a way that makes solution more likely
Team composition and diversity
Diversity
Definition:
... the degree to which differences exist between members of a social unit
... differences between individuals on any attribute that may lead to the perception that another person is different from the self
Why do organizations care?
Discrimination & fairness:
to ensure justice and equality
Access & legitimacy:
to gain access to and legitimacy with diverse markets and clients
Integration & learning:
To inform and enhance core work and work processes
Effect of diversity on teams
The optimistic answer: the information/decision making perspective
Broader and deeper pool of task-relevant information & knowledge
Different perspectives & networks
Broader behavioural potential
Better problem-solving, decision quality, creativity and innovation
Diversity -> Information processing -> Performance
Diversity is good for teams
The pessimistic answer: the social categorization perspective
Social categorization
: the perceptual grouping of people (subgroups are formed)
Intergroup bias:
more favourable perceptions of, and attitudes and heaviour toward those who we see as members of our "in-group". (favourability between the created subgroups)
Diversity is bad for performance and team viability
Diversity -> Social categorization & intergroup bias -> Performance (-), Satisfaction (-), Turnover
Evidence
Effects depended on how performance is measured
Objective outcome measures: neither type of diversity has a reliable effect
Subjective outcome measures:
Negative effect of demographic diversity
Positive effect of job-related diversity
Types:
Demographic
Mainly visible, easily detectable differences, less job related
Age, race, gender, etnicity
Job-related diversity
underlying, less visible attributes, task-related
Education, job experience, work field
Explaining the effects of diversity: exploring moderators and mediators
Information elaboration
Information elaboration as the key process to realize the benefits of diversity
Extensively sharing information
Attending to input of others
Thorough discussion of issues
Integration of different information
Conditions under which team diversity promotes information elaboration
Diversity does not automatically promote elaboration, but is more likely to do so under certain conditions (Task requirements, member ability, member motivation)
Separate social categorization & intergroup bias
Diversity does not always trigger social categorization
Salience of categorization
Cognitive accessibility of a given diversity attribute
Normative fit: extent to which categorization is meaningful for team members
Comparative fit: extent to which categorization leads to subgroups that are maximally homogeneous internally and maximize differences between subgroups
Interacting diversity dimensions
Group faultlines: hypothetical dividing lines that may split a group into subgroups based on one or more attributes
Specify when social categorization leads to intergroup bias
Identity threat
Categorization elaboration model
Team diversity and team decision making
Reasons for collective decision making
Broader knowledage
Shared responsibility
Motivational benefits
More oversight
Reduced biases
Representativeness
Common knowledge effect:
Disproportionately large influence of shared knowledge on group and decisions
Shared information
Gets mentioned more frequently
Is repeated more frequently
Confirmation bias
People tend to see, seek and interpret information that confirms their expectations and hypotheses even when dis-confirming information is a lot more useful
Explanation 1: Collective information sampling
Assumptions:
Individuals randomly sample information from memory
Any recalled information will be mentioned
Higher likelihood of shared information being sampled and shared
Probabilistic explanation for common knowledge effect
How to overcome common knowledge effect
Characteristics of the distribution of information
Low percentage of shared information (+)
Low amount of overall information (+)
Task characteristics:
Recall requirement (+)
Increase salience of unshared information (+)
Temporal factors: absence of time pressure/discussion length
Explanation 2: Preference-consistent evaluation of information
Rationale: Shared information is more likely to be mentioned because it is consistent with initial preferences
Preference-consistent information is evaluated more favourably
Preference-inconsistend information is often discounted
One preference is formed, additional information has limited effect
Common knowledge is a result of a cognitive bias
Groups effects
Groups strengthen opinions, shift towards extreme situation (polarization), confirmation bias, preference consistent
How to overcome common knowledge effect
Type and distribution of information
Divergent initial preferences (+)
Task features (depends on how people go about it)
Chose best alternative vs. rank all (+)
Task frames: judge (-) vs. identify correct answer (+)
Explanation 3: Social costs vs benefits
Rationale; social costs vs benefits of (un)shared information
Sharing unshared information is costly because
It cannot be validated by others
It may conflict with others' information or preferences
It entails the risk of being perceived as less competent, credible, likable
Sharing shared information is beneficial:
It helps to establish credibility
It promotes mutual enhancement
Common knowledge effect arises due to socio-motivational influences
How to overcome the common knowledge effect?
Norms: critical evaluation (+) vs. consensus norm (-)
Roles & member characteristics:
expert roles (+)
High status: mention both shared and unshared info
Low status: mention largely shared information
Equality (-/+)
Distribution characteristics: partial sharedness (initial distribution of information
The three explanations are not exclusive
Motivated information procesing
Epistemic motivation
Willingness to expend effort to achieve a thorough and accurate understanding
Shapes how information is processed (depth)
Drivers
Factors that promote epistemic motivation
Openness to experience, need for cognitiion, accountability, preference diversity, consistent dissenting minorities
Factors that reduce epistemic motivaton
Time pressure, decision urgency, autocratic leadership, environmental noise
Social motivation
Preference for outcome distributions between oneself and other group members (pro-self vs. prosocial)
Biases what information is processed
Pro-self and prosocial motivation highlight different goals
Information is processed in a goal-directed fashion
Factors that promote prosocial motivation
Personality: agreeableness & disposition to trust, values: collectivism, collective identity, situational factors (instructions, past and future interaction, norms, rewards)
Factors that promote pro-self motivation
Values: individualism, Situational factors: past competition, no future interaction, individual-based rewards
Table
Low epistemic + proself
Social loafing, inaction, vetoing, forcing position on others, indecision, stalemates
High epistemic + proself
Advocacy, deception, spinning information, persistent arguments & disagreements
Low epistemic + prosocial
Maintaining harmony & consensus, compromising, preference pooling
High epistemic + prosocial
Problem solving, information pooling, inquiry, collaborative reasoning, information elaboration
Power, status & Hierarchy
Power
Definition: asymmetric control over valued resources in social relations
Power & dependence
Power reduces dependence or need to rely on other
Power increases ability to set rules, agendas, and create structures
Powerlessness creates dependence on others to obtain resources
Powerlessness makes individuals conform to the rules, structures, and agendas set by those controlling in the resources
Power & social attentiveness
Power shapes the extent to which we pay attention to the goals of other people
Primed people to feel powerful or powerless
Power reduces the degree to which power holders take into account the people around them
Focus of attention
increased egocentricity
Selectivity of attention
instrumentality
Power activates the behavioural approach system
Focus on positive aspects of environment
More assertive actions & higher readiness to address obstacles
Power holders face less interference from others
Power shapes thinking
More abstract thinking
Different perspective on the future
Higher positive affect & well-being
Status
Definition: Extent to which an actor is respected or admired by others
Reinforcing power hierarchies
Psychological & behavioural consequences of power lead powerholders to claim new and hold onto existing resources":
Focus on goals & opportunities
Engage in assertive action
Regard others mainly to the extent they are instrumentally useful
Fuelled by optimism, confidence, and control
Low power actors' psychological processes activate complementary behavioural patterns
Reinforcing power hierarchies processes
Expectancy confirmation: status determines how others evaluate the behaviour of an actor
Behavioural confirmation: Others treat actors in a way that elicits expecdtancy conforming behaviour
Backlash: Normative beliefs about the acceptable behaviour associated with certain status positions and sanctions against those who disconfirm these expectations
Opportunity allocation: High status actors are provided with higher quality opportunities and conditions that enable success
Summary: reinforcing status hierarchies
Status shapes the expectations adn behaviours of the observers in ways that create self-fulfilling prophecies and reinforce status hierarchies
Expectations:
Shape evaluation
Shape behaviour of others and self
Take on perspective character and expectancy violation is sanctioned
Determine allocation of opportunities to learn and perform
Similarities between power en status
Relational
Bases for hierarchical differentiantion
Can refer to intra and inter group context
Differences between power and status
Property of target actor vs. other actors' perception
Relatively objective vs. subjective and perceptual
Networking simulation instructions
Understanding the network
Network size
Brokerage
Second hand social capital
What to be used in real network
Be proactive
Have a broad view from whom you can learn/benefit
Assess your network vis-á-vis your goals
Diagnose your own network
Focus on value you add to the network
Take long term view
Don't become overly dependent on a single person