Groups and Organizations

Chapter 5
Groups & Organizations

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Groups and Organization

Concept
•Understand types of social groups, reference groups and
group size
•Understand the theories of group conformity and the
implications
•Understand the meaning and importance of Networks and
Networking

Application
In the Workplace - Apply conformity theories for better
decision making
Personal Growth – Apply the concept of networking for better
opportunities

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Groups

Two types of social groups

Primary group
•A small social group whose members share personal and
lasting relationships
•Personal orientation

Secondary group
•A large and impersonal social group whose members pursue a
specific goal or activity
•Goal orientation

Can you give examples of the differences?

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

Social Groups

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Groups

Reference Group

A social group that serves as a point of reference in making

evaluations and decisions
•Used to assess our own attitudes and behavior

How, and why, do you use groups that you do not belong to for
reference?

Example: How should I be a lecturer? Sheffield and USM as

my reference.

What’s your example?

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang
 Social Groups

Samuel Stouffer’s Research

Question: Research on to what extend soldiers will think that
their promotion chances is higher

Answer: Soldiers from lower ranks are more optimist about

promotion
Implications
•We do not make judgments about ourselves in isolation
•We do not compare ourselves with just anyone
•In absolute terms, we form a subjective sense of our well-being
by looking at ourselves relative to specific reference groups

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Groups

Result results

Ref: http://www.publicopinionpros.norc.org/inprint/2005/dec/stouffer.asp

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Groups

Personal Insight

For Males: How well should you treat your girlfriend?

Answer: You will be compared with your girlfriend’s

girlfriends’ boyfriends

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Groups

The Dyad A social group with two members

•Social interaction is more intense than in larger groups

•Unstable. If either member withdraws, the group collapses

The Triad A social group with three members

•More stable than a dyad

•As groups grow beyond three people, they become more stable
and capable of withstanding the loss of one or more members
•Reduces intense interaction
•Based less on personal attachments and more on formal rules
and regulations

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

Social Groups

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Groups

What can we learn about numbers?

Menon and Phillips (2011) found that even-sized small
groups often experience lower cohesion than odd-sized small
groups.

Dunbar’s Number: Proponents assert that numbers larger than

150 generally require more restrictive rules and enforced norms
to maintain a cohesion. This limit is a direct function of relative 
neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size .

Facebook: Average is between 200 to 300. TNS 2010 reseatch

- Malaysian has an average of 233 friends in their social
network, followed by 231 in Brazil and 217 in Norway. Japanese
least number of friends - averaging 29. We can only maintain
around 150. Pew Research – 50% have 200 Friends

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Groups

The Tipping Point Theory

Small groups can overturn established norms if they

reach a critical mass of 25 percent based on
research by Damon Centola from the University of
Pennsylvania

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Conformity Theory

Solomon Asch’s Research

Found that many of us are willing to compromise our own
judgment to avoid the discomfort of being different, even
from people we don’t know

Stanley Milgram’s Research

People are likely to follow the directions not only of
legitimate authority figures but also groups of ordinary
individual even when it means harming another person

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Conformity Theory

The Solomon Asch Experiment

75% of the participants gave an incorrect answer to at least one

question while only 25% never gave an incorrect response.

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Conformity Theory

The Milgram Experiment

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Conformity Theory

Experiment Results
Of the 40 participants in the study, 26 delivered the maximum shocks
while 14 stopped before reaching the highest levels. 

Why? According to Milgram

1. The physical presence of authority figure dramatically increased 
compliance.

2. The fact that the study was sponsored by Yale led many participants
to believe that the experiment must be safe.

3. The selection of teacher and learner status seemed random.

4. Participants assumed that the experimenter was a competent

expert. The shocks were said to be painful, not dangerous.

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Conformity Theory

Video Clip: Milgram Experimentation

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Conformity Theory

Groupthink Phenomenon
The desire for group consensus overrides people's common sense desire to
present alternatives, critique a position, or express an unpopular opinion.

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Conformity Theory

Groupthink Phenomenon
The Woozle Effect (Beverly Houghton, 1979)
Also known as evidence by citation, or a woozle, occurs when frequent
citation of previous publications that lack evidence misleads individuals,
groups and the public into thinking or believing there is evidence, and non-
facts become urban myths.

The Spiral of Silence (Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, 1974)

Spiral of silence theory describes the process by which one opinion becomes
dominant as those who perceive their opinion to be in the minority do not
speak up because society threatens individuals with fear of isolation.

The Dunning–Kruger Effect (1999)
A cognitive bias in which low-ability individuals suffer from illusory superiority,
mistakenly assessing their ability as much higher than it really is. Dunning and
Kruger attributed this bias to a metacognitive incapacity, on the part of those
with low ability, to recognize their ineptitude and evaluate their competence
accurately.

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Conformity Theory

Groupthink Phenomenon

The Abilene Paradox (Jerry Harvey 1974)

A group people collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the
preferences of many of the individuals in the group

The Bystander Effect (John Darley and Bibb Latané 1968)

The probability of help is inversely related to the number of bystanders. In
other words, the greater the number of bystanders, the less likely it is that
any one of them will help.

The Streisand Effect (Michael Masnick 2005)

Is the phenomenon whereby an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of
information has the unintended consequence of publicizing the information
more widely, usually facilitated by the internet

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Conformity Theory

The Peng Yu Effect

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Conformity Theory

The Peng Yu Effect

In 2006 case of an elderly Nanjing woman who fell down and later sued a
man named Peng Yu who had helped her. She claimed that he had
knocked her over, and won the yuan equivalent of nearly seven thousand
dollars. That cautionary tale has settled, to one degree or another, in the
minds of ordinary citizens far and wide.

When the People’s Daily conducted an online poll on whether people

would help a senior citizen who had fallen in the street, more than 80% said
that they would not help out of fear they would be blamed and saddled
with damages.

So, what can we do to prevent Peng Yu effect?

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Network

What is Social Network?

A web of weak social ties

•A “social web” expanding outward
•Reaching great distances and including large numbers of
people
•Some come close to being groups
•More commonly includes people we know of or who know
of us but with whom we interact rarely

“Privileged” networks are a valuable source of “social

capital”

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Network

If this is you

Friendship Paradox
On Average your friends have more friends than you do
(Scott L. Feld 1991)

Application
Can be used to predict disease outbreak (Nick Christakis and
James Fowler 2010)
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang
 Social Network

Networks as Social Capital

(Nan Lin 1999)

Focus Measurements Indicators

Range of resources, best

Embedded resources, variety of resources,
Network resources
resources composition (average
(Wealth, Power, resources), contact resources
Status)
Contacts’ occupation, authority,
Contact statuses
sector

Bridge to access to Structural hole, structural

bridge constraint
Network Locations
Network bridge, or intimacy,
Strength of Tie
intensity, interaction & reciprocity

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Network

Networks as Social Capital

Application
– Developing Wide and Important Social Networks as
strategy to improve your career and quality of life

Knowledge +
Experience +
Social Networks

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

 Social Network

http://vincos.it/world-map-of-social-networks/
SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang
 Social Network

How do we build Social Networks?

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang

Groups and Organizations

THE END

SOCIOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE // Lectures by Sean Ang