Terms in Group Dynamics

Note: I wrote these definitions for APA's dictionary of psychological terms (VandenBos, G. R. (Ed.). (2007). APA dictionary of psychology (p. 830). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association). Many also appear, in somewhat similar form, in my group dynamics book (Forsyth, D. R. (2014). Group dynamics. Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.)

• accelerated interaction: the intensification of group processes and emotional interaction reached by members of experiential groups, such as {marathon group}s, due to continuous and intense interpersonal activities that occur in the group setting. See {time-extended therapy}

• accidental group: any group that comes into existence gradually over time as individuals find themselves repeatedly interacting with the same subset of individuals; compare to a {formal group} that is deliberately formed by its members or an external authority.

• accommodation: 1. contraction or relaxation of the ciliary muscles of the eyes to adjust the lens to far or near vision; also changes in convergence and pupil size. Absolute accommodation refers to each eye separately; binocular accommodation to both eyes. Also called visual accommodation. 2. in bargaining and interpersonal negotiations, modification or adjustment of demands or actions to reach agreement or achieve mutually beneficial outcomes. See also {conflict styles}. 3. the change of {schemata} to match information acquired through experience, in contrast to {assimilation}, which involves alteration of the experience to fit existing schemata. [defined by Jean {Piaget}]

• active management: a group and organizational leadership method typified by high levels of interpersonal and task involvement; such leaders use active listening (attentiveness, listening, demonstrations of empathy, and encouragement) when interacting with group members.

• additive task: a task or project that a group can complete by combining individual members' accomplishments or contributions. Such tasks are in most cases divisible (they can be broken down into subcomponents that are assigned to each member), maximizing (producing quantities) and they require relatively little coordination of members' efforts and activities (e.g., people clapping after a performance or a 5-person group pulling together on a rope). Groups usually outperform individuals on such tasks, but overall group productivity rarely reaches its maximum potential due to {social loafing}.

• age avoidance: see {ageism}

• age effects: 1. age-based changes in psychological functioning and behavior; for example, increases in conformity that occur during adolescence. 2. cognitive and interpersonal consequences that occur when group members respond to others on the basis of their chronological age. See also {ageism}.

• agentic state: a psychological state described by Stanley Milgram (American psychologist, 1933- 1984) that occurs when individuals, as subordinates to a higher authority in an organized status hierarchy, feel compelled to obey the orders issued by that authority; see, also, {behavioral study of obedience}.

• aggregation: 1. an assemblage of individuals, typically occupying a common area but possessing only a minimum of shared purpose or interdependence. Examples include people in a shopping mall, commuters on a subway platform, or clusters of joggers at a park. 2. statistically, a structured set of data elements

• aleatory theory: 1. any conceptual model that stresses the causal role of unpredictable, chance operations. 2. in music, the analysis of the method of composition that depends upon chance or highly improvisational execution, as when elements such as pitches, durations, dynamics, and so forth are made by playing card drawings, a roll of the dice, or random number lists

• allocator: in bargaining and game theory, the individual or group making the initial offer to the acceptor or responder; in the ultimatum game, for example, the allocator makes the initial recommendation for dividing a shared resource.

• allocentric: the extent to which individuals are dispositionally predisposed to put their groups' goals and needs above their own. Just as some societies are higher in {collectivism} and so stress connections among members and the welfare of the group, allocentrics emphasize their connections to others and are group-centered. Also known as interdependents, they are more likely to join groups and to base their identities on their memberships; compare with {idiocentrics} (or independents).

• altercasting: imposing identities and social roles on others, usually by treating them in ways that are consistent with the imposed identity or role.

• altruistic suicide: fatal self-inflicted injuries or the undertaking of actions that will likely result in death committed by members of highly integrated groups, as exemplified by terrorist's suicide attacks, kamikaze pilots of World War II, or suicides by the elderly who believe they are a burden to their families. [defined by French sociologist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917)]

• antagonistic cooperation: conflict that occurs in a competitive society in which groups such as unions form cooperative {coalitions} but at the same time use their power to derive greater benefits from that cooperation. [defined by American sociologist William G. Sumner (1840- 1910)]

• anti-Semitism scale: (A-S scale) a 52-item {attitude scale} that measures negative stereotypes about Jews, hostile attitudes about them, and moral values that serve to sustain and justify the negative appraisals. The A-S scale includes five subscales dealing with Jews as personally offensive and socially threatening, hostile attitudes that suggest what should be done to Jews, and presumptions that Jews are too seclusive or too inclusive. [constructed in 1950 by German-born U.S. psychologist Theodor Adorno (1903 1969), Polish-born U.S. psychologist Else Frenkel-Brunswick (1908 1958) and colleagues in their analysis of the {authoritarian personality}]

• anticonformity: deliberately acting in ways that violate social standards, often by expressing atypical ideas, beliefs, or judgments, in order to challenge those standards. Anticonformity, also known as {counterconformity}, is motivated by rebelliousness or obstinacy rather than the need to accurately express oneself. Compare {conformity}.

• A-S scale: abbreviation for {anti-Semitism scale}.

• ascendance: a personality trait characterized by a desire to be prominent in group situations, to assert oneself, and to acquire positions of authority over others. Traditional paper-and-pencil measures of ascendance are correlated with emergence as the leader in small groups. Also called ascendancy. See also {dominance}.

• ascendance submission: see {dominance submission}.

• Asch situation: an experimental paradigm to study conformity to group opinion. Participants are led to believe that they are making perceptual judgments as part of a group, but in actuality the other members are confederates who make errors deliberately on certain trials. This paradigm measures the extent to which participants publicly conform to the erroneous group judgment or resist conformity pressure and remain independent [designed in 1951 by Solomon Asch (1907 1996), U.S. psychologist]

• Asch conformity effect: the tendency for individuals to conform in groups, particularly in situations like those studied by S. Asch where the group's position is obviously incorrect or unfounded; see {Asch situation}.

• aspirational group: any group that an individual wishes or aspires to join. An aspirational group may be an actual group characterized by interaction and interpersonal structures (e.g., a professional association, a sports team) or an aggregation of individuals who are thought to possess one or more shared similarities (e.g., the rich, intellectuals). Compare {dissociative group}, {reference group}

• atmosphere effect: 1. the tendency for individuals to display a habitual, well-learned response appropriate in one situation in similar, but unsuitable contexts. Examples include gesturing when using a telephone and the genuflecting of devout individuals when entering a courthouse or theater. 2. errors in thinking resulting from an impression made by the statement of the problem, as when positively worded premises in a syllogism increase the perceived validity of a false but positively worded conclusion.

• attraction relations: patterns of liking-disliking, acceptance-rejection, and inclusion-exclusion among members of a group; also known as sociometric structure, particularly when assessed through the use of {sociometry}.

• attribution theory of leadership: a social-psychological model of leadership emergence and evaluation that assumes individuals make inferences about leadership ability by observing and interpreting certain environmental and behavioral cues; like {leader categorization theory}, attribution theory assumes followers respond more positively to a leader who display the qualities and behaviors that match their implicit theories of leadership

• audience task: any performance, competition, work assignment, or goal-oriented activity that is executed in the presence of an {audience} of one or more individuals who watch the performance.

• audience: 1. a collection of onlookers that observes some performance, event, or activity. Unlike street {crowds} or {mobs}, audiences are usually restrained and conventional in manner; individuals usually join them deliberately and withdraw when the observed performance or activity is completed. Audiences are, in some cases, dispersed, as in the audience for a television broadcast. 2. the recipient of a communication, particularly the target of a persuasive message.

• authoritarian leader: as defined and operationalized by Kurt Lewin (German-born American psychologist, 1890-1947) and his colleagues in their experimental studies of leaders, the type of leader who determines all group policies and makes decisions without seeking input from followers, rejects any suggestions from others, assigns tasks to group members without considering their preferences, and dominates interactions through frequent criticism. When Lewin and his colleagues compared the productivity and dynamics of groups with authoritarian leaders to those with {democratic leaders} and {laissez-fair leaders} they found that groups with authoritarian leaders worked less when the leader was absent, displayed greater reliance on the leader, expressed more critical discontent, and made more aggressive demands for attention.

• authoritarian group: any assembly or body that endorses {authoritarian} methods of leadership and decision making

• authoritarian ethic: the body of principles or values that promotes the use of {authoritarian} socio-political and interpersonal methods of control

• authoritarian: 1. a socio-political climate or method of control that involves the restriction of individual freedoms and subjugation of individuals to a centralized, hierarchical authority. 2. an individual who uses or accepts the use of restrictive, autocratic methods when interacting with others (e.g., authoritarian parent or leader)

• autocratic leadership: a centralized style of leadership and decision making in which all decision making, problem solving, and goal setting is done by the leader rather than the other group members. As U.S. psychologist Victor Vroom (1932-) notes in his normative model of leadership, autocratic leaders may, in some cases, seek information from members, but they do not consult with them or seek their opinion on options or possible solutions.

• automaton conformity: beliefs or behaviors displayed by individuals who unthinkingly and unintentionally conform to the demands of the roles they occupy or imitate the actions and opinions displayed by others.

• autonomous work groups: small, self-regulated, worker-centered units within a organization that are given responsibility for developing procedures, organizing the production process, generating the required product, and maintaining quality without guidance by an external authority or manager.

• autostereotype: incorporating stereotypes about the groups to which one belongs into one's own self-concept. Also called self-stereotyping.

• aversive racism: a form of prejudice experienced by individuals who explicitly endorse egalitarian attitudes and values but nonetheless experience negative emotions in the presence of members of other racial groups.

• bandwagon effect: the tendency for large numbers of people, in social and sometimes political situations, to align themselves or their stated opinion with the majority opinion as they perceive it.

• behavioral study of obedience: Stanley Milgram's (American psychologist, 1933-1984) experimental analysis of individuals' willingness to obey the orders of an authority. Participants played the role of a teacher who delivered painful electric shocks to another participant each time he failed to answer a question correctly. The recipient of the shocks was a confederate who did not actually receive shocks for his many deliberate errors. Milgram found that a substantial number of participants (65%) were completely obedient, delivering shocks of increasing intensity despite the protestations of the victim.

• behavioral congruence: state characterized by consistency between psychological or attitudinal qualities and observable behaviors. In personality research, behavioral congruence occurs when individuals' self-ratings are consistent with their actions. In organizational contexts, behavioral congruence occurs when employees' personal goals (and their work-related behaviors) are consistent with the organizational goals.

• benevolent eclecticism: use of various models, methods, and perspectives to achieve valued scientific, therapeutic, or managerial goals. British psychologist Hans Eysenck (1916-1997), for example, argued for benevolent eclecticism in the study of personality and individual differences.

• birds of a feather phenomenon: tendency to affiliate with or be attracted to similar others (see also {similarity-attraction effect}); as a result groups and other interpersonal aggregates (romantic couples, friendship networks) tend to be composed of individuals who are similar to one another rather than dissimilar

• biting mania: 15th-century epidemic of {mass hysteria} which began when a German nun developed a compulsive urge to bite her associates, who in turn bit others, until the mania spread to convents throughout Germany, Holland, and Italy.

• blanket group: a group with no criteria for membership.

• Bogardus social-distance scale: a measure of intergroup attitudes that asks respondents to indicate if they are willing to accept members of other ethnic, national, or social groups in situations that range from relatively distant ("would allow to live in my country") to relatively close ("would admit to close kinship by marriage"). Emory Bogardus, (American sociologist, 1882-1973), the scale's developer, assumed that prejudiced individuals would prefer to keep a greater social distance between themselves and members of other groups.

• bureaucratic leader: 1. the type of leader whose responsibilities and leadership style are largely determined by his or her position in a hierarchical organization, such as a church or military unit. 2. a leader who rigidly adheres to prescribed routine and makes no allowance for extenuating circumstances.

• bystander effect: the tendency for people to help less when they know others are present and capable of helping. The effect was initially thought to be the result of apathy and a selfish unwillingness to get involved, but research suggests a number of cognitive and social processes, including misinterpreting other people's not responding as an indication help is not needed, {confusion of responsibility}, and {diffusion of responsibility}, contribute to the effect.

• California F scale: See {F scale}.

• casual crowd: a group of individuals, usually in a public place, who are present in the same general vicinity and share a common focus; for example, passersby pausing to watch two people arguing loudly or people gathered behind police barricades around a burning building. Such {groups} tend to form by chance, members lack any definite intentions, and they often seem indifferent to or unconcerned with what they are witnessing.

• casualty: 1. a person or group harmed, psychologically or physically, by such negative life experiences as accidents, abuse, warfare, and disasters. 2. an individual whose psychological well-being declines, rather than improves, as a result of his or her experiences in a change- promoting group.

• category-system method: any method of measurement or classification assessment that involves sorting data elements into categories according to a set of rules. Robert F. Bales's (American sociologist, 1916-) {Interaction Process Analysis} observational system, for example, requires observers classify every behavior displayed by a member of a group into one of 12 mutually exclusive categories, such as "asks for information" or "shows tension."

• cautious shift: tendency for individuals, when making a decision as members of a group, to recommend a more cautious course of action than they would have had they made the decision alone. Studies of {group polarization} suggest that such shifts are more likely when the majority of the members of the group, prior to discussion, favor a cautious rather than risky choice. Compare {risky shift}.

• centrifugal group factor: aspects of the group's structure and process that push members away from the core of the group toward the periphery or out of the group altogether. Centripetal group factors, in contrast, draw bind members more closely to the group and its core members, thereby increasing its overall cohesiveness.

• channels of communication: 1. generally, the medium that transmits information from the source to the recipient. In human communication, the channels are often classified in terms of the physical source and destination, and so include speech (source: voice; destination: ear), kinesics (body movement; eye), odor (chemical processes; nose), touch (body surface; skin), and proxemics (body placement; eye). 2. any relationship between individuals that serves to regulate the exchange of information, as in open and closed or upward and downward channels.

• characterization: a description of psychological aspects of an individual, including ascriptions of personality, traits, characteristics, or motives

• charismatic leadership: style of political or social influence and command exercised by powerful authorities who extract high levels of devotion, enthusiasm, and commitment from their followers. Max Weber (German sociologist, 1864-1920) considered charismatic leaders to be those who are widely admired and respected by their followers (e.g., Napoleon, Churchill), but the term is more popularly used to describe leaders whose owe their success to personal popularity, charm, or good looks.

• chauvinism: excessive favoritism of a social, political, or ethnic group. Initially the word referred to extreme patriotism, as it derives from a French soldier (Nicolas Chauvin) who displayed excessive devotion to Napoleon, but the word is now more frequently used to describe the mistaken belief that men are superior to women {male chauvinism}.

• cheating: 1. to influence one's own or others' outcomes by deceit, trick, or other unfair forms of maneuvering. 2. the use of asocial strategies to gain an evolutionary advantage (e.g., infidelity)

• choice shift: after making a decision or choice as a individual, a change in that choice when deliberating the issue in a group; in many cases the result is a {choice shift effect} such that the group favors a more extreme decision than the individual choices would warrant.

• choice shift effect: the tendency for individuals, when making a choice as a group, to choose a different (and usually more extreme) alternative than they would have had they made the decision when alone; see {group polarization}

• choice-dilemma questionnaire (CDQ): a research instrument used in early studies of the {risky shift phenomenon} to measures one's willingness to make risky or cautious decisions. Respondents read a series of scenarios involving a course of action that may or may not yield financial, interpersonal, or educational benefits before indicating what the odds of success would have to be before they would recommend the course of action.

• choreomania: an obsessive-compulsive disorder characterized by epidemics of frenzied, conpulsive dancing that occurred in 10th-century Italy, spreading to Germany and the Flemish countries in the 13th and 14th centuries. Also called {dancing mania} or {tarantism}.

• clich‚: /klisha'/ a stereotyped expression that takes the place of genuine thinking or judgment. Most racial, religious, and nationality prejudices are disseminated by clich‚s.

• client lab

• clique: status- or friendship-based subgroup within a larger group, school, or similar organization; cliques are particularly common during adolescence, when they are used to raise social standing, strengthen friendship ties, and reduce feelings of isolation and exclusion.

• cluster suicides: increased occurrence of suicides within a circumscribed geographic area, social group, or time period. Typically observed among adolescents who imitate a high-status peer's suicide or among dispersed individuals who are all exposed to media reports of suicides of admired role models. Also known as the "{Werther effect}," after the 1774 novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther," which is reputed to have triggered an outbreak of suicides among readers. Compare with {collective suicide}.

• co-leadership: sharing the organizational, directive, and motivational duties of the leadership role between two (or more) individuals. The leadership role may be deliberately divided, or this separation may occur spontaneously as the duties of the leaders become associated with various members. In some cases the leaders are equal in status and responsibilities, but in other cases one leader may have more status than another. In other cases one leader may focus on relationship matters and another on initiating structure. Co-leadership is a feature of therapeutic groups, particularly when a male and a female therapists conduct sessions.

• coacting group: two or more individuals working in one another's presence on tasks and activities that require little or no mutual interaction or communication. Examples include students completing written examinations in a classroom, exercisers using workout machines at a health club, and clerical staff working at individual desks in an open-design office. Researchers often create coacting groups in laboratory studies to determine the impact of the mere presence of others on performance.

• coaction task: a performance, competition, work assignment, or other goal-oriented activity that individuals execute in the presence of one or more other individuals who are performing a similar type of task; for example, an aerobics exercise session or students taking a written test in a classroom.

• coalition: any subgroup within a larger group; more specifically, a temporary alliance of individuals who wish to increase their power and influence within the larger group. Coalitions tend to be adversarial, in that coalitions seek outcomes that will benefit the coalition members at the expense of individuals who are not members of coalition. They also tend to be unstable because (a) they include individuals who would not naturally form a clique within a group, but are forced to do so out of necessity and (b) members frequently abandon one alliance to form a more profitable one.

• coercive strategy: goal-directed plan of social influence that uses threats, punishment, force, direct pressure and other negative forms of influence to achieve its aims

• coercive power: capacity to influence others through the allotment of punishments or the threat of such punishments

• coexistent cultures: two or more cultures with distinctive characteristics that exist in close proximity with one another in a conflict-free, if not semiotic, relationship; compare with {culture conflict}

• cognitive resource theory: 1. a general framework that assumes that individuals respond to problems, challenges, and choices in both individualistic and social settings by actively encoding, processing, and recalling needed information, but that these mental activities place demands on individuals' cognitive capacity such that heavy loads in one cognitive domain will lead to reductions in activity in another. 2. a conceptual analysis of leadership effectiveness developed by Fred Fiedler and his colleagues that assumes team performance depends on the leader's intelligence, his or her experience in the group setting, and the level of interpersonal conflict and stress in the group.

• cohesion: the unity or solidarity of a group, as indicated by the strength of the bonds linking group members to the group as a whole, the sense of belongingness and community within the group, feelings of attraction for specific groups members and the group itself, and the degree to which the group members coordinate their efforts to achieve goals. Also called cohesiveness; group cohesion.

• cohesive group relationships: positive interactions among members that sustain and enhance group unity

• cohort effects: adventitious effects attributed to being a member of a group born at a particular time and influenced by pressures and challenges of the era of development.

• collaborative filtering: 1. in therapeutic and social interactions, the cooperative screening out of information and ideas during a discussion. 2. acquiring the information needed to make a choice or decision from other people, either by asking them individually ("word of mouth") or by polling large numbers of others. 3. computer-based algorithms and procedures for partially automating choices that base recommendations on the choices made by others who are similar to the chooser.

• collective effort model (cem): An {expectancy-value model} of productivity losses ({social loafing}) in groups that posits working on a task collectively reduces motivation by lowering members' expectations about successful goal attainment and diminishing the value of group goals; developed by S. Karau and K. Williams in 1993 (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 65, pp. 681-706).

• collective self-esteem: individuals' subjective assessment of that portion of their self-concept that is based on their membership in social groups, including families, cliques, neighborhoods, tribes, cities, countries, and regions. Collective self-esteem is often measured with the Collective Self-Esteem Scale CSES), developed by R. Luhtanen and J. Crocker in 1992 (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 18, pp. 302-318). Respondents evaluate their general group memberships across 4 sub-scales pertaining to membership esteem, private collective self-esteem, pubic collective self-esteem, and the importance of the group to their identity.

• collective movements: mass phenomena in which the number of individuals responding similarly to some event or experience increases over time until numerous people are affected across physically distant locations. Some movements, such as {social movements}, are organized, intentional attempts to involve and influence individuals, whereas others (fads, crazes, {collective hysteria}) occur spontaneously.

• collective induction: discussing and identifying general conclusions and rules from consideration of set of specific facts and instances in a group context

• collective information processing model: a general theoretical explanation of group decision- making that assumes groups combine information through group discussion and process that information to formulate decisions, choices, and judgments.

• collective consciousness: see {group consciousness}; {group mind}

• collective guilt: an unpleasant emotional state provoked by a shared realization that one's group or social unit has violated ethical or social principles coupled with regret for having done so; also, holding a group responsible for a violation of a norm or law

• collective behavior: similar and sometimes unusual mass actions performed by a large group or aggregate. Some forms of collective behavior are displayed by individuals who are concentrated in a specific location, such as lynchings, rioting, and panics. Others, such as fads, crazes, rumors, mass hysteria, and social movements, involve widely dispersed individuals who nonetheless engage in markedly similar actions. Some forms involve highly organized, concerted actions, such as social movements, whereas others are disorganized and unruly, such as riots and panics.

• collective hysteria: spontaneous outbreak of atypical thoughts, feelings, or actions in a group or aggregate, including psychogenic illness, {collective psychosis}, collective hallucinations, and bizarre actions. Instances of epidemic manias and panics, such as the dancing manias, tulipmania in 17th-century Holland, audiences' wild escapes from burning theaters, and listeners reactions to the Orson Welles broadcast based on H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds in 1938, have been attributed to contagious hysteria rather than conventional, individualistic disorders. Also called {mass hysteria}.

• collective: any aggregate of two or more individuals, but in particular a larger, spontaneous, and relatively ephemeral social grouping, such as an {audience}, {crowd}, mob; includes individuals who are dispersed over a wide area and have no direct contact with one another, yet they nonetheless display common shifts in opinion or actions.

• collective formation: 1. generally, the initial constitution of a social aggregate or group, particularly when a group forms naturally as individuals interact with one another frequently; 2. Freud's conceptualization of the human tendency to interact together in groups, in which he suggested they form when a multiplicity of individuals taking the same object as the ego Ideal.

• collective mind: see {group mind}

• collective psychology: 1. the mental and emotional states and processes unique to individuals when aggregated in such groups audiences, crowds, and social movements. 2. the scientific study of psychological phenomena and processes that occur when individuals are part of a {collective} such as a crowds, mobs, or social movement.

• collective suicide: see {mass suicide}.

• collective psychosis: archaic term once used to describe grossly distorted reactions (hallucinations, depression, delusions) exhibited by an entire group of people rather than by a single individual. Compare with {collective neurosis}.

• collective method: in general, relying on groups rather than single individuals to solve problems, perform tasks, make decisions and so on; specifically, the use of group methods in psychological treatment.

• collective neurosis: archaic term once used to describe maladaptive mental disorders, usually mild and transient (e.g., hysterias, obsessions, phobias, anxieties), exhibited by an entire group of people rather than by a single individual. Compare with {collective psychosis}.

• collectivism: a social or cultural tradition, an ideology, or personal outlook based on the unity of the group or community rather than each person's individuality. Asian, African, and South American societies tend to be higher in collectivism than Western societies, for such societies stress cooperation, communalism, constructive interdependence, and conformity to cultural roles and mores.

• collegial model: any collaborative approach that encourages equal participation by all interactants while minimizing status differences. In research, for example, this approach enjoins researchers to involve participants fully in the research process; in therapeutic settings the model requires therapists to treat clients as coequals.

• comention: the trait of conformity to cultural standards and obedience to authority (Cattell).

• common traits: in personality theory, those traits that are shared in varying degrees by all persons in a specific group or culture. The so-called "big five" models of personality, for example, maintain that virtually all individuals' personalities reflect their degree of introversion- extraversion, warmth, achievement orientation, stability, and openness to experiences.

• common social motive: specific interpersonal wants and needs that are shared by a significant proportion of a social, ethnic, regional, or cultural group. Unlike a biological motive, such as hunger and thirst, a common social motive prompts individuals to pursue in unison the same interpersonal goals, such as social contact, safety, achievement, and power

• communal feeling: general sense of belonging to a unified, socially integrated group that can prompt members to act in ways that enhance the group's interests rather than their individualistic, personal interests; also called community feeling

• communal spirit: sense unity and united purpose shared by group or community; also called community spirit.

• communication net: patterns of information transmission and exchange in a group or organization that describe who communicates most frequently and to what extent with whom. In a centralized net, for example, a single individual sends messages to and receives information from the other group members, whereas in a decentralized net all members can communicate with one another. Also called a communication network.

• communication interlocks: rigid patterns of information transmission within a group or organization that can create high levels of information sharing among linked individuals but block communication between unlinked individuals

• communitas: Latin for {community}; also the title of the classic 1947 text on city planning by American Psychologist Paul Goodman (1911-1972) and his brother and architect Percival Goodman that stressed the relationship between city design and human potential

• community competence: a {community}'s efficacy in producing and regulating its outcomes; also members' perceptions of their community's efficacy. Compare with {collective efficacy}.

• community: 1. socially organized set of species members living in a physically defined locality. Human communities are often characterized by (a) commonality in interests, attitudes, and values, (b) {community feeling}, (c) members' self-identification as community members, and (d) some system of communication, governance, education, and commerce. 2. persons who are not socially connected but do share common interests or qualities and are therefore perceived by others or by themselves as distinctive in some way (e.g., members of the "scientific community"). 3. society, the general public.

• community attitude: affective feeling of liking or disliking toward an object shared by most or all of the members of a socially organized group that occupies a specific geographic area

• community feeling: See {communal feeling}.

• community spirit: See {communal spirit}.

• comparison level (CL): In John Thibaut and Harold H. Kelley's social exchange theory [The social psychology of groups, 1959], the standard by which the individual evaluates the quality of any social relationship. The CL derives from the average of all outcomes known to the individual and is based on previous relationships. In most cases individuals whose prior relationships yielded positive rewards with few costs will have higher CLs than those who experienced fewer rewards and more costs in prior relationships.

• compensation effect: an increase in performance by groups that occurs when one or more members work harder to compensate for the real or imagined shortcomings of their fellow members; compare with the {K”hler effect}

• compensatory task : a task or project that a group can completed by averaging together individual members' solutions or recommendations. Such tasks are in most cases nondivisible (they cannot be broken down into subcomponents), optimizing (they call for high quality solutions rather than high quantities of product), and they require relatively little coordination of members' efforts and activities. Groups outperform individuals on such tasks when members are equally proficient at the task and the members do not share common biases that produce systematic tendencies toward overestimation or underestimation.

• competition: any performance situation structured in such a way that success depends on performing better than others. Interpersonal competition involves individuals striving to outperform each other, intergroup competition involves groups competing against other groups, and intragroup competition involves individuals within a group trying to best each other. Because competing individuals sometimes increase their chances of success by actively undermining others' performances, such goal structures can create intense rivalries. Compare with {cooperation}.

• competition tolerance: acceptance of goal structures that require interactants compete with one another; also, a positive, healthy reaction when one must perform competitively.

• competitive motive: the drive or dispositional tendency to respond competitively in interpersonal and performance settings by maximizing one's own outcomes while frustrating the progress of others. Compare with {cooperative motive} and {individualistic motive}.

• competitive goal structure: performance situations that are structured such that an interactant can reach his or her goals only by outperforming others or preventing others from reaching their goals. When goal structures are purely competitive individual success requires that all others fail. Because competition creates incompatibility between people such goals structures can generate interpersonal conflict; compare with {cooperative goals structure}.

• competitive reward structure: in collective performance settings, a condition in which rewards are assigned on the basis of individual rather than group achievement, so that the success of any one individual decreases the rewards received by the other members. Compare {competitive reward structure} and {individualistic reward structure}

• completely connected network: a social organization in which each member is linked to every other member. A comcon, for example, is a completely connected communication network.

• compromiser: in negotiation or bargaining, an individual who having previously advocated a specific policy, accedes to the opposing or majority viewpoint to facilitate group progress

• conciliation: the act of reconciling the positions of individuals whose interests and goals are, at least initially, opposing or incompatible

• concurrence-seeking: avoiding disagreements and debates when striving for agreement with others, particularly during group discussion; one of the symptoms of {groupthink}

• conflict of interest: in general, a situation in which individuals or groups are drawn to the pursuit of goals or outcomes that are to some degree incompatible with the goals they are supposed to be pursuing. For example, psychologists who are employed by a health agency may find that their obligation to help their clients is incompatible with the agency's requirement that treatment costs be minimized.

• conflict resolution: reduction of interpersonal disagreements, discord, and friction, usually through the use of active strategies such as conciliation, negotiation, and bargaining.

• conflict theory: in general, any conceptual analysis of the cause and consequences of tensions and disagreements in interpersonal contexts; also, a sociological approach that stresses the inevitability of conflict in any setting where resources are unevenly distributed among interactants

• conflict spiral: a pattern of escalating tension and discord between two or more parties; parties in such conflicts counter one another's responses with more negative, and more extreme, responses.

• conflict: 1. psychologically, the clash of opposing or incompatible emotional or motivational forces, such as attitudes, impulses, or drives. 2. psychoanalytically, a struggle taking place between conscious and unconscious forces, especially between the id, ego, and superego, and may be a major source of neuroses. 3. interpersonally, disagreement, discord, and friction that occur when one or more person's actions or beliefs are unacceptable to and resisted by others.

• conforming behavior: overt actions that match the actions of other people or the requirements of the particular setting

• conformity: changing one's opinions, judgments, or actions so that they match the (a) opinions, judgments, or actions of other people or (b) normative standards of a social group or situation. Conformity includes both the {conversion} of individuals who personally accepts the group's position as their own as well as temporary {compliance} displayed by individuals who agree publicly with the group but do not accept its position as their own. Compare with {anticonformity}.

• confusion of responsibility: the tendency for bystanders to refrain from helping in both emergencies and nonemergencies to avoid being blamed by others for causing the problem; a contributing factor in the {bystander effect}

• congruence conformity: in congruity theory, a change in attitude in the target of a persuasive communication that reduces the discrepancy between the target's own attitude and the position taken by a credible source

• conjunctive tasks: group tasks that can only be completed successfully if all group members contribute. Because such tasks aren't completed until all members of the group complete their portion of the job, the speed and quality of the work is determined by the least skilled member

• consideration: a component of effective leadership that pertains to maintaining positive relationships within the group by showing concern for the feelings of subordinates, reducing conflict, and enhancing feelings of satisfaction and trust in the group; assessed by the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ). Compare with {initiating structure}.

• constructive conflict resolution: using bargaining, negotiation, accommodation, and cooperation and other positive approaches when resolving interpersonal disagreements and tensions rather than such negative approaches as threats, arguing, violence, or abuse

• contact hypothesis: prediction that equal-status contact between the members of different groups will reduce prejudice and other forms of intergroup conflict

• contagion: the spread of behaviors, attitudes, and affect through crowds and other types of social aggregations from one member to another. Early analyses of contagion suggested that contagion resulted from the heightened suggestibility of members, and likened the process to the spread of contagious diseases. Subsequent studies relatively mundane interpersonal processes, such as social comparison, imitation, social facilitation, conformity, and circular reactions, sustain contagion.

• contingency theory of leadership: 1. any model predicting that leadership depends on the interaction of the personal characteristics of the leader and the nature of the group situation. 2. a conceptual analysis of leadership effectiveness developed by Fred Fiedler that assumes leaders' success is determined by their leadership style and the favorability of the group situation. This model differentiates between task-motivated and relationship-motivated leaders, as indicated by scores on the {least preferred co-worker scale}, or LPC scale. The favorability of the leadership setting is determined by the quality of the leader's personal relationships with group members, the extent of the leader's actual authority or power, and the ambiguity of the tasks the group members must complete. The model predicts that task- motivated leaders are most effective in extremely favorable or unfavorable group settings, whereas relationship-motivated leaders are more effective in moderately favorable settings.

• contingent reinforcement (in leadership): in management, making the delivery of social, symbolic, and material rewards (and, more rarely, the elimination of negative stimulus events) dependent on the performance of desired work behavior

• contingent reward: any social, symbolic, or material stimulus event whose delivery to the individual depends on the person performing a specific behavior; more generally, any stimulus that increases the performance of the behavior that immediately precedes it

• contrient interdependence: as described by Morton Deutsch (American psychologist, 1920-), goal structures that establish a negative relationship between parties' outcomes, such that one party's success increases the likelihood of the other party's failure; such structures are associated with competition and conflict.

• convergence theory: a conceptual analysis of {collective behavior} that assumes mobs, social movements, and other forms of massed action occur when individuals with similar needs, values, goals, or personalities join together to form a collective.

• conversion: 1. an unconscious psychological process in which repressed material (impulses, memories, fantasies) are transformed into bodily (somatic) symptoms. The symptoms have the common purpose of protection against anxiety, and may be either a direct expression (e.g., a violinist may develop a stiff arm just before a dreaded concert) or a symbolic representation (e.g., an intensely hostile person may develop a paralysis of the arm just before going into the boss' office). The corresponding diagnostic label is {conversion disorder}. 2. change that occurs when the target of social influence personally accepts the influencer's position. 3. the movement of all members of a group to a single, mutually shared position, as when individuals who initially offer diverse opinions on a subject eventually come to share the same position. 4. in a therapeutic context, the movement of clients away from their initial interpretations to one recommended by their therapists.

• cooperative goal structure: performance situations that are structured such that individuals can reach their goals more easily if they work with others rather than against them. Unlike {competitive goals structures}, when goal structures are purely cooperative individuals can succeed only when others succeed as well. Also known as {cooperative reward structure}

• cooperative motive: the drive or dispositional tendency to respond cooperatively in interpersonal and performance settings by helping others achieve their goals. Compare with {competitive motive} and {individualistic motive}.

• cooperative reward structure: in group situations, a condition in which rewards are assigned on the basis of group rather than individual achievement, and the success of each member promotes the success of the group as a whole. In most cases, such structures improve group trust, communication, and possibly achievement. Compare {competitive reward structure} and {individualistic reward structure}.

• coordinate morality: a function of groups and their leaders when making decisions that have ethical implications

• coordination losses: in collectives, reductions in productivity caused by the imperfect integration of the efforts, activities, and contributions of each member of the collective

• counterconformity: a behavioral pattern in conflict with socially approved or group standards; also called {anticonformity}.

• counterculture: a social movement, such as the drug culture, which maintains its own mores and values in opposition to the prevailing cultural norms. See also {youth culture}.

• counterformity: see {counterconformity}

• crew resource management research: the study of the a performing group's use of its available resources, including members' knowledge and information, equipment, training, and experience, in the safe and efficient performance of the group's tasks; also known as cockpit resource management research.

• critical path method (CPM): a project management method developed in the early 1950's used to identify and sequence the essential (critical) subtasks in a complex, time-limited project; see also {Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT)}.

• crowd mind (hypothesis): an early explanation of the uniformity of people's emotional, cognitive, and behavioral reactions when in mobs and crowds that suggested such collectives give rise to a unifying mental force that links group members

• crowd consciousness: Gustave Le Bon's (French psychologist, 1841-1931) explanation for the apparent uniformity of individuals when in large crowds. He concluded that a crowd of people could, in certain instances, become a unified entity that acts as if guided by a single collective mind; see {group mind}

• crowd: gathering of people who share a common focus and are occupying in a single location. Crowds vary in shape, size, and type, and include casual street crowds (or milling crowds), {audiences}, queues, {mobs}, and crowds that panic.

• crowd behavior: the characteristic behavior of an group of people who congregate temporarily when their attention is focused on the same object or event. Typically, an audience is a relatively passive (smiling, laughing, applauding), a street crowd mills (moves without apparent aim), and a mob may stampede or act violently. See also {mob}; {mob psychology}

• crowd psychology: 1. the mental and emotional states and processes unique to individuals when members of street crowds, mobs, and other such collectives. 2. the scientific study of psychological phenomena and processes that occur when individuals are part of a crowd

• crowding: 1. psychological tension that occurs when individuals feel that the amount of space available to them is insufficient for their needs. 2. in learning, a situation that contains too many items or tasks for the time allowed (e.g., an exam requiring the student to respond to 20 in-depth essay questions in one hour).

• cult of personality: a group of individuals bound together by devotion to a charismatic political, religious, literary, or other leader. Also called personality cult.

• cult: initially, the beliefs, rites, and rituals used by a religious and ideological groups during ceremonies and celebrations, but now used more frequently to describe groups that make use of such practices in their group meetings and services. Cults tend to be highly cohesive, well- organized, secretive, and marked by a dogmatic acceptance of unusual or atypical religious, political, or social beliefs.

• cultism: prone to joining unusual, cult-like groups and subscribing to their unusual beliefs and rituals

• cultural competency: skill and knowledge that is appropriate for and specific to a given culture

• cultural genocide: destruction of a culture's heritage, values, and practices, usually by the group's absorption within another dominant cultural group

• cultural island: a {subculture} that maintains its distinctive customs, norms, and practices even though its members are surrounded by the larger cultural mileu

• culture shock: feelings of inner tension or conflict experienced by an individual or group who have been suddenly thrust into an alien culture or who experience divided loyalties to two different cultures.

• culture conflict: 1. competition or antagonism between neighboring but different cultures. 2. the weakening of adherence to cultural practices and beliefs as these elements are superseded by those of a dominant or adjoining culture. 3. conflicting loyalties experienced by members of subcultures

• curative-factors model (in groups): elements present in group settings that aid and promote personal growth and adjustment; American psychologist Irwin Yalom (1931-) identified 10- 15 factors in his studies of therapeutic groups, including the installation of hope, universality, imparting of information, altruism, and interpersonal learning.

• dance epidemics: a period during which apparently spontaneous and improvised dancing spreads through {contagion} to influence a large segment of a population; in particular, instances of odd, manic, and compulsive dancing reported in Italy in the 10th century and in portions of Europe during the period of the bubonic plague (14th- and 15th-century). See {choreomania}.

• dancing madness: historically, the psychiatric explanation provided for frenzied celebrations that occur spontaneously and spread through contagion across a widespread geographic region; see {dance epidemics}.

• dancing mania: see {dancing madness}.

• deindividuation: an experiential state, caused by a number of input factors such as a sense of submersion in a group and anonymity, that is characterized by the loss of self-awareness, altered experiencing, and a reduction of inner restraints that results in the performance of unusual, atypical behavior

• deliberate discourse: the active, creative analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of a proposed course of action by a group; deliberation

• democratic leader: as defined and operationalized by Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) and his colleagues in their experimental studies of leaders, the type of leader who establishes and maintains a egalitarian group climate in which members themselves plan activities, resolve issues, and make choices. When Lewin and his colleagues compared the productivity and dynamics of groups with democratic leaders to those with {authoritarian leaders} and {laissez-fair leaders} they found that groups with a democratic leader showed greater originality and higher morale, and less anxiety, aggression, and apathy than groups with authoritarian leaders.

• democratic atmosphere: a climate of social and political equality in which members resolve issues and make choices through the use of procedures that ensure the final decision fairly reflects the predominant desires and intentions of the group; compare with {authoritarian}

• density: 1. the number of individuals per unit of space. 2. a stimulus quality (e.g., a tonal characteristic of solidity distinct from pitch, volume, or timbre).

• density-intensity hypothesis: an explanation of psychological reactions to overcrowding, proposed by Jonathan Freedman, that proposes high density makes unpleasant situations more unpleasant but pleasant situations more pleasant.

• descriptive norms: socially determined consensual standards that describe what how people typically act, feel, and think in given situation; these tacit standards, by identifying what actions and reactions are expected, also delineate those actions and reactions that are so uncommon that they would be considered odd or unusual if they occur in that setting; compare to {injunctive norms}.

• Desegregation Scale: measure of attitude toward practices implemented to reduce or end the segregation of Whites and Blacks developed by Kelly, Ferson, and Holtzman (1958).

• destructive obedience: compliance with the direct or indirect orders of a social, military, or moral authority that results in negative interpersonal outcomes, including injury inflicted on innocent victims, harm to the community, or the loss of confidence in social institutions. American psychologist Stanley Milgram (1933-1984), in his {behavioral study of obedience}, studied destructive obedience by ordering participants to engage in behavior that harmed another person. Other examples of destructive obedience include soldiers obeying when ordered to attack innocent civilians or medical personnel following a doctor's orders even when they know the doctor is mistaken.

• destructive conflict resolution: using threats, arguing, violence, coercion, and other negative approaches when resolving interpersonal disagreements and tensions rather than {positive conflict resolution} methods

• deviance amplification: interpersonal processes that amplify, rather than suppress or eliminate, behaviors that are unusual, atypical, and (in most cases) socially condemned.

• diffuse-status characteristics: in status characteristics theory, general personal qualities such as age, race, and ethnicity that people intentionally and unintentionally consider when estimating the relative competency, ability, and social value of themselves and others. Compare with {specific-status characteristics}, which are personal qualities that are relevant in the given setting and hence are fair indicators of competence, ability, and status.

• diffusion of responsibility: a lessening of responsibility experienced by individuals in groups and social collectives. This concept was first proposed by American psychologists John Darley and Bibb Latan‚ as one reason why groups of bystanders, relative to isolated onlookers, are less likely to help someone in need. In groups the obligation to intervene is shared by all onlookers rather than focused on any specific individual. This diffusion process has also been identified as a possible mediator of a number of other group-level phenomona, including choice shifts, deindividuation, social loafing, and reactions to social dilemmas.

• directive leadership: in general, a centralized style of leadership and decision making in which the group leader actively guides the group's planning, activities, and decision-making. In therapeutic groups, a directive leader guides the course of the interaction, assigns various tasks to the group members, and offers verbal interpretations and recommendations. In contrast, nondirective leaders refrain from providing direction or interpretation.

• directive: a command, suggestion, or order that describes that type of action or activity that should be performed; in therapeutic contexts, a directive is a specific statement by therapist that enjoins the client to act, feel, or think in a particular way when he or she confronts a particular problem or situation

• disaggregation: 1. moving from a state of aggregation or collectivity to a state of individuality or independence; 2. restructuring large organizations by breaking them down into smaller, self- contained units or teams; 3. in statistical analysis, examining multilevel data at the individual level rather than the aggregate level.

• discontinuity effect: the markedly greater competitiveness of intergroup interactions relative to the competitiveness of interactions involving individuals

• discretionary task: a relatively unstructured task that can be solved at the discretion of the group or group leader by using a variety of social-combination procedures

• discrimination: 1. Perceptually distinguishing between stimuli or objects which differ quantitatively or qualitative from one another; discrimination training, for example, involves the reinforcement of responses only when the target stimulus is present, until in time the individual can discriminate between the target stimulus and all other stimuli. 2. differential treatment of the members of ethnic, religious, nationality, or other groups. Discrimination is usually the behavioral manifestation of prejudice, and in consequence involves negative, hostile, and injurious treatment of the members of rejected groups. Reverse discrimination, in contrast, is the favorable treatment of the oppressed group rather than the normally favored group.

• disjunctive task: a group task or project that is completed when a single solution, decision, or group members' recommendation is adopted by the group. Such tasks are in most cases nondivisible (they cannot be broken down into subcomponents), optimizing (requiring a correct or best solution rather than a high quantity of production), and they require groups develop some means of selecting an alternative from among the pool of alternatives.

• dissociative group: a group with which one wishes not to be associated. Compare {aspirational group}.

• distributed-actions theory of leadership: model of leadership that assumes that group effectiveness and membership satisfaction increase when the functions of a leader, such as decision making, task orientation, initiating structure, and the improvement of intermember relations, are not the sole responsibility of the leader but are instead distributed throughout the group

• domain identification: 1. the process by which individuals tacitly form a relationship between themselves and some field of pursuit, including academic, occupational, and athletic domains. Identification with the academic domain, for example, occurs for adolescents who value the rewards offered by success in educational settings, who feel they have the skills and resources needed in school, and who feel that others value achievements in this domain. 2. In organizational theory, the specification of the methods used, the goals sought, and population served by an organization

• dominance hierarchy: 1. stable linear variations in prestige, status, and authority among group members; the {pecking order} of the group that defines who gives orders and who carries them out 2. a general ordering of motives, needs, or other psychological responses based on priority or importance, as in Abraham Maslow's (American psychologist, 1908-1970) hierarchy of needs.

• dominance-submission: a key dimension of interpersonal behavior, identified through factor analytic investigations, that differentiates behavior along a continuum ranging from extreme dominance (active, talkative, extraverted, assertive, controlling, powerful) to extreme subordination (passive, quiet, introverted, submissive, weak). Also called ascendance- submission.

• downward communication: transmission of information from individuals who occupy relatively high-status positions within a group or organization to those who occupy subordinate positions within the group. Such communications tend to be informational and directive, whereas upward communications request information, provide factual information, or express grievances. Communication tends to flow downward in the hierarchically organized groups.

• dynamic social impact theory: American social psychologist Bibb Latan‚'s extension of his social impact theory, which seeks to explain the changes in physiological states, subjective feelings, emotions, cognitions, and behavior that occur as a result of social influence. The model assumes that influence is a function of the strength, the immediacy, and number of people (or, more precisely, sources) present, and that this influence results in consolidation, clustering, correlation, and continuing diversity in groups that are spatially distributed and interacting repeatedly over time.

• E scale: see {ethnocentrism scale}

• effective group: generally, a group that achieves its goals in a timely fashion

• electronic brainstorming: using computer-based procedures, such as on-line discussions and real- time e-mail communication, to generate unique ideas and solutions to problems; if such sessions adhere to the standards for brainstorming used in face-to-face groups then they explicitly encourage expressiveness, building on others' ideas, and maximizing the number of ideas generated and they discourage evaluation of any idea that is offered.

• emergency intervention: remedial actions undertaken to minimize or eliminate the amount of harm or damage that occurs in situations involving imminent danger that is, in most cases, unforeseen and escalating in severity.

• emergent leader: the individual who becomes the leader of an initially leaderless group, not by appointment or by election, but gradually and implicitly as the members allow that individual to assume the responsibilities of the leadership role

• emergent-norm theory: an explanation of collective behavior that suggests that the uniformity in behavior often observed in such collectives as crowds and cults is caused by members' conformity to unique standards of behavior that develop spontaneously in those groups

• entitativity: in general, possessing the qualities of a real entity. American psychologist Donald Campbell (1917-1996) coined the term to describe the extent to which a assemblage of individuals is considered by others to be a group rather than a set of independent individuals. He concluded that groups whose members share a common fate, are similar to one another, and are located close together are more likely to be considered a group rather than a mere aggregate. Also known as entitivity.

• epidemic hysteria: early label applied to outbreaks of seemingly uncontrollable emotions such as fear, panic, laughter, or violence in large segments of the population, particularly when such emotions were thought to be passed from one person to another through direct contact and {contagion}; see {collective hysteria}

• equilibrium model of group development: in general, any conceptual analysis that assumes the processes that contribute to group development fluctuate around, but regularly return to, a resting point where opposing forces are balanced or held in check; for example, American social psychologist Robert Freed Bales suggests that groups, over time, shift in the extent to which they stress the accomplishment of group tasks versus the improvement of interpersonal relationships among group members.

• esprit de corps: a feeling of unity, commitment, purpose, and {collective efficacy} shared by most or all of the members of a cohesive group or organization. Members of groups with esprit de corps feel close to one another, are committed to the group and its goals, and are in some cases willing to sacrifice their own individual desires for the good of the group. Unlike {group morale}, which can be low when members are dissatisfied or indifferent, esprit de corps implies confidence and enthusiasm for the group. Compare with {group cohesion}

• ethnocentrism scale: {attitude scale} developed by German-born U.S. psychologist Theodor Adorno (1903 1969) and his colleagues in their studies of the {authoritarian personality}, to measure the extent to which individuals believe their own group is superior in all respects to other racial, social, ethnic, and national groups. Because the scale was originally used in studies of non-Jewish Anglo-Americans, its 20 Likert-type items pertain to Jews, African- Americans, foreign-born minorities, and national pride.

• ethnocentrism: tendency to reject and malign other groups (particularly other ethnic and national groups) and their members while glorifying one's own group and its members. Egocentrism is the tendency to judge oneself as superior to others, and ethnocentrism is the parallel tendency to judge one's group as superior to other groups.

• everyday racism: unfair treatment of individuals on the basis of their racial group membership that occurs in common, routine social situations (e.g., a White teacher ignoring the question asked by a African-American student, a White store clerk watching African-American shoppers more closely than White shoppers).

• exemplar theory: in cognitive analyses of categorical inferences, the assumption that the classification of encoded stimuli occurs, in part, through the comparison of the stimulus with representations in memory that exemplify the members of that category. Exemplar theories of prejudice, for example, suggest that stereotypes are not just abstractions about the typical characteristics of the group members, but are instead summaries of the features of the specific individual target group members remembered by the perceiver.

• expectation-states theory: explanation of status differentiation in groups that assumes group members allocate status to those who possess qualities that suggest they are competent at the task at hand (specific status characteristics) and to those who have qualities that the members (mistakenly) think are indicators of competence and potential, such as sex, age, wealth, and ethnicity (diffuse-status characteristics).

• expert power: the capacity to influence others that derives from others' assumption that the influencing agent possesses superior skills and abilities in a given domain

• extrinsic interest: attention and engagement in a task or behavior stimulated by the belief that performing the task or behavior effectively will secure some reward or prevent a punishment rather than the intrinsic satisfaction of performing the task per se; for example, those with an extrinsic interest in studying music hope to use their musical skills to earn money, whereas those with an intrinsic interest study music for its own sake

• F scale: self-report measure of {authoritarianism} constructed in 1950 by German-born U.S. psychologist Theodor Adorno (1903 1969), Polish-born U.S. psychologist Else Frenkel- Brunswick (1908 1958), and colleagues in their analysis of the {authoritarian personality}; so named because high scorers tend to adopt extremely conservative, antidemocratic, fascistic political views. Also called California F scale; fascism scale.

• fad: abrupt, but short-lived, change in the opinions, behaviors, or lifestyles of a large number of widely dispersed individuals. Preoccupation with new products, (e.g., Hula Hoops), dances (e.g., the Twist), television programs (e.g., Survivor), and fashions (e.g., the miniskirt) can be considered fads when many people quickly embrace the trend but then lose interest just as rapidly. Fads usually pertain to relatively trivial matters, and so disappear without leaving any lasting impact on society. Extremely irrational, expensive, or widespread fads are crazes.

• fallacy of composition: drawing a conclusion about a whole set based on the features of several of its members when, in fact, such a general inference is not justified. For example, the following line of reasoning is fallacious: These 3 people are members of group X. All three have characteristics A, B, and C. Therefore all members of group X have characteristics A, B, and C.

• fascism scale: see {F scale}

• filiate: determining paternity through legal means

• folk soul: the spiritual element of the hypothetical {"group mind"} shared by members of the same cultural group. In Wilhelm Wundt's (German psychologist, 1832-1920) folk psychology, a group's perpetual and fundamental characteristics, moralities, norms, and values that can not be explained solely in terms of the characteristics of the individual members of the society.

• formal group: any group that is deliberately formed by its members or an external authority for some purpose; unlike an {accidental group}, the formal group is more likely to explicitly define its membership criteria, operating procedures, role structure, and goals

• formative tendency: the drive toward self-improvement, growth, and {self-actualization} hypothesized by Carl Rogers in his person-centered approach to adjustment

• free rider: an individual who does not contribute sufficiently to a joint endeavor but nonetheless garners the same benefits as members who contribute their fair share. In a public goods dilemma, for example, free riders contribute little to their community yet still use the resources the community provides. Similarly, in a group working on a collective task free riders contribute relatively little to the group's project but claim an equal share of whatever the group earns.

• fringer: marginal group member

• functional leadership: activities performed by any member of a group, whether a designated leader or not, that advance the group's progress, particularly by satisfying interpersonal needs (boosting morale, increasing cohesiveness, reducing interpersonal conflict, establishing rapport) and by guiding the group in the direction of successful goal attainment (defining problems for the group, establishing communication networks, planning, motivating action, coordinating members' actions).

• gender discrimination: see {sex discrimination}

• general will: aims and intentions assented to a population regarding a particular issue or possible future course of action arising through interaction and expressed through some social process or institution; the will of the people

• general consciousness: society's shared awareness, as opposed to the consciousness of each individual; also known as {group consciousness}

• glass ceiling: barrier of sexism and traditionalism that prevents women from rising to positions of authority in many organizations; even though the number of women working outside the home has risen steadily over the years, prejudice and outmoded business practices slow women's promotion in the most financially lucrative professions and occupations

• Graduated and Reciprocated Initiatives in Tension Reduction (GRIT strategy): an approach to intergroup conflict reduction based on communicating cooperative intentions, engaging in behaviors that are consistent with cooperative intentions, and initiating cooperative responses even in the face of competition. GRIT is usually recommended when disputants have a prolonged history of conflict, misunderstanding, misperception, and hostility.

• graph theory: branch of topology that uses visual representations to describe psychological and social transformations of relationships, structures, and dynamics. Applications in psychology include balance theory, sociometry, social network analysis, and Kurt Lewin's (German-born American psychologist, 1890-1947) analyses of the life space.

• great-man theory of leadership: view of political leadership, attributed to 19th century English historian Thomas Carlyle, that assumes successful leaders possess certain characteristics that mark them for greatness, and that such great leaders shape the course of history. A Zeitgeist (sprit of the times) view of history, in contrast, supposes history is largely determined by economics, technological development, and a broad spectrum of social influences.

• group networks: the relatively organized system of connections linking together members of a group, unit, or collective, including social or interpersonal evaluations (e.g. friendship, acquaintanceship, dislike), communication, transfer of resources, and formal role relationships (e.g. supervisor-subordinate). In so-called standard networks all members of the network can relate to each other. Ego-centered consists of a focal actor, or ego, and the set of alters who are tied to the ego. Perceptual networks are the relational ties among actors as perceived by a given individual or ego.

• group norms: see {social norms}.

• group harmony: extent to which group interactions are friendly, congruous, and conflict-free.

• group hysteria: see {collective hysteria}

• group (Gp): 1. any collection of persons or things, particularly ones that share some common attribute or are related to in some way. 2. in social psychology, two or more interdependent individuals who influence one another through social interaction; common features of groups include joint activities that focus on the task at hand and activities that concern the interpersonal relations linking group members, structures such as roles, norms, and interpersonal relations, a degree of cohesiveness, an shared goals. 3. perceptually, a configuration of individual objects that are perceived to form a unified whole or Gestalt

• group cohesion: See {cohesion}.

• group justification: 1. group-enhancing reasons, explanations, and accounts offered by a group to explain its actions or those of its members. 2. maintaining or enhancing one's own group

• group mind: hypothetical fusion of individual consciousness or mind into a transcendent, unified consciousness suggested by early French psychologist Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931) in his classic analysis of mobs and movements, The Crowd (1895). This controversial idea assumed that group mind is greater than the sum of the psychological experiences of the individual, and that it can become so powerful that it can overwhelm the will of the individual.

• group acceptance: the degree to which group members approve of a new, prospective, or potential member as reflected in his actual admission and relative status and role as perceived by the group.

• group behavior: 1. act committed by a collection or assemblage of individuals, as a whole. 2. action of the individuals when part of a group; in particular those that are influenced either directly or indirectly by group and unlike those typically performed by individuals when they not in the group.

• group consciousness: 1. individuals' awareness of their group, its members, and their commonalities; whereas self-consciousness pertains to awareness of the self, group consciousness pertains to awareness of the collective. 2. group's total awareness of itself, suggested in some cases to be greater than the sum of individual members' awareness; 3. shared collective awareness, also known as collective consciousness or {group mind}

• group feeling: a desire to be associated with members of a group, and to participate in its activities.

• group fallacy: 1. label applied by many early psychologists, including American psychologist Floyd A. Allport (1890-1978), to the assumption that groups possess emergent, supervening qualities that cannot be understood completely through the analysis of the qualities of the individual members. 2. a version of the {fallacy of composition} in which one assumes a group is totally uniform, when in fact members differ from one another in a number of respects.

• group identification: 1. to associate oneself so strongly with a group and its members that one imitates and internalizes the group's distinctive features (actions, beliefs, standards, objectives, etc.); this process can lead to a sense of group belonging and group pride, commitment to the group's activities, norms, and goals, acceptance as self-descriptive stereotypical qualities that apply to the group as a whole ({autostereotyping} or self- stereotyping), and a reduced sense of individuality. 2. in Freudian theory, the process by which individuals become emotionally attached to social groups; just as children bond with and imitate their parents, adults bond with, and take on the characteristics of, their groups. 3. more rarely, considering another group's perspective or outlook even though one is not a member of that group

• group boundary: both implicit and explicit standards that set limits on aspects of the group, including who can be members, the expected duties of members, and the types of actions that the group will permit members to perform

• group dynamics: 1. the active, rather than static, activities, processes, operations, and changes that transpire in social groups, including affiliation, communication, conflict, conformity, decision making, influence, leadership, norm formation, power, and task execution. Kurt Lewin (German-born American psychologist, 1890-1947) favored this term to stress the power of the fluid, ever-changing, forces that characterize interpersonal groups. 2. the scientific field devoted to the study of groups and group processes. 3. a conceptual and clinical orientation in group psychotherapy that explicitly recognizes and explores group- level processes in the treatment group.

• group socialization: 1. a pattern of change in the relationship between an individual and a group that begins when he or she first considers joining the group and ends when he or she leaves it. 2. the gradual acquisition of language, attitudes, and other social characteristics through interaction with and observation of others in a group context.

• group morale: a work unit's overall level of enthusiasm (confidence, dedication, zeal, {esprit de corps}) for the group, its tasks, and its goals

• group attribution error: the tendency for perceivers to assume that a specific group member's personal characteristics and preferences, including beliefs, attitudes, and decisions, are similar to the preferences of the groups to which they belong; for example, observers may assume that the individual who is a member of a group that publically announces its opposition to an issue also opposes the issue, even though the group's decision to take the stated position was not a unanimous one.

• group development: 1. naturally occurring patterns of growth and change that unfold across the group's life span; implies a progressive movement toward a more complete or advanced state, with different theorists suggesting the movement is (a) discontinuous and stage-like versus continuous and incremental, (b) punctuated versus gradual, and (c) incremental and irreversible versus cyclical and repetitious. 2. a strategic intervention design to alter the processing and functioning of a group that often includes assessing the group's current level of development, helping it clarify its mission and goals, reviewing operating procedures, and so forth.

• group polarization: a shift in the direction of greater extremity in individuals' responses (e.g., choices, judgments, expressions of opinions) when in groups. This process results in groups responding in more extreme ways than one would expect given the sentiments and opinions of the individual members prior to deliberation, with groups generally shifting in the same direction as the average of the pregroup responses of the individual members. Polarization is sustained by social comparison, exposure to other members' relatively extreme disclosures, and by groups' implicit social decision schemes.

• group contagion: see {contagion}

• group space: a temporary spatial boundary that forms around interacting groups that serves as barrier to unwanted intervention by nonmembers. This invisible bubble or shell tends to be circular and larger groups command bigger spaces than smaller groups. Also called an interactional territory or group personal space.

• group structure

• group roles: coherent sets of behaviors expected of people in specific positions within a group. In addition to the basic roles of leader and follower are task roles pertaining to the group's tasks and goals, and relationship (or socioemotional) roles that focus on the group members' interpersonal and emotional needs. When role ambiguity occurs the behaviors associated with a role are poorly defined and when group members occupy two or more roles that call for incompatible behaviors role conflict results.

• group structure: the complex of relations that organizes groups, including the positions and roles in a group and the network of authority (status), attraction (sociometric), and communication relations linking members. Such relations can be explicitly designated within the group, as in the case of formal group structure, or only tacitly acknowledged by the group (informal group structure).

• group pressure: direct and indirect social pressure exerted by a group to influence individual members, including rational argument and persuasion (informational influence), calls for conformity to group norms (normative influence), and direct forms of influence such as demands, threats, personal attacks, promises of rewards, social approval, and so on (interpersonal influence).

• group problem-solving: relying on a social group to resolve matters that involve doubt, uncertainty, or unknown difficulties. The typical stages involved in group problem-solving include identification of the problem and the process to use to solve it, gathering of information and alternatives through discussion, selection of the group's chosen solution, and {implementation} of the solution.

• group rigidity: the tendency of a given social group to oppose or thwart structural change; also, its inability to adapt to internal or environmental pressures.

• group process: 1. actions, operations, and series of changes that occur in social groups; also known as {group dynamics}. 2. the interpersonal component of a group session, in contrast to the content (decisions, information, etc.) generated by the group during the session. .

• group risk-taking: embarking on a hazardous, dangerous, or an uncertain course of action in a social group. Studies of {group polarization} indicate that, in contrast to the traditional belief that groups tend to make more conservative decisions than individuals, that group decisions tend toward greater extremity or risk than individual decisions.

• group solidarity: a sense of fellowship and community displayed by members of a collective who are united by shared purposes, responsibilities, and interests.

• group-centered leader: in general, an individual who adopts a style of {democratic leadership} based on the sharing of the traditional duties and powers of the leader role with the group members themselves. In therapeutic groups, a group-centered leader avoids guiding the course of the interaction by asking the group members to identify topics and goals, provide interpretations, and set their own limits. Compare with directive leadership

• group-serving bias: any one of a number of cognitive tendencies that contribute to an overvaluing of one's group or benefit the group in some way, such as the tendency to overestimate the group's prestige, exaggerate the quality of the group's products, or credit the group for its successes and absolve it of blame for its failures; contrast with tendencies that promote the individual over other individuals or the group (the self-serving bias); also termed the sociocentric bias.

• groupthink : a strong concurrence-seeking tendency that interferes with effective group decision making identified by Irving Janis (American psychologist, 1918-1990). In describing the symptoms of groupthink, he emphasized illusions of invulnerability and morality, biased perceptions of the outgroup, interpersonal pressure, self-censorship, mindguards, apparent unanimity, and defective decision-making strategies; he theorized that groupthink is caused by cohesiveness, isolation, leadership, and decisional stress.

• harmonizer: a group member who plays the role of diplomat and facilitates group unity by mediating between opposing points of view and reducing interpersonal tension.

• head-of-the-table effect: the propensity for group members to associate the leadership role and its responsibilities with the seat located at the head of the table; as a result individuals who occupy such positions tend to emerge as leaders in groups without designated leaders.

• heterogeneous group: a social collective that includes individuals who are different from one another in a number of significant respects; members may, for example, range in age, socioeconomic background, values, work experience, education, and so on.

• heterosexism: 1. prejudice against any nonheterosexual form of behavior, relationship, or community, and in particular the denigration of gays and lesbians. Whereas {homophobia} generally refers to an individual's fear or dread homosexuals, heterosexism is a system of beliefs, attitudes, and actions that unfairly values hetersexuality and denigrates homosexuality. 2. cultural ideologies and institutional structures that favor hetersexuals relative to non-heterosexual people.

• heterostereotype: socially shared generalizations about the characteristics of heterosexual people and relationships, particularly in contrast to gays and lesbians

• home advantage: the increased likelihood that an individual or group will be victorious in a competitive event that is held within its home {territory}; also known as the home-field advantage.

• homophily : the tendency for individuals who are socially connected in some way to display certain affinites, such as similarities in demographic background, attitudes, values, or so on; the overall degree of similarity of individuals who share network ties.

• iceblock theory: a concept of behavior change in relation to group dynamics of T-groups or sensitivity training in which existing attitudes and behavior are unfrozen and new attitudes and behavior are first explored and then frozen into new habit patterns (Kurt Lewin).

• icebreaker: a brief but relatively engaging group activity designed to promote social interaction and alleviate feelings of discomfort and tension.

• idealized influence in leadership: a component of transformational leadership pertaining to personal integrity, strength of convictions, and admiration from others. Those who lead by idealized influence display conviction, take stands on difficult issues, and emphasize shared purpose and commitment. They often lead by example, and generate pride, loyalty, and {esprit de corps} within the group.

• identity politics: the interpersonal processes involved in establishing, maintaining, and negotiating both one's own personal and social identity and the identities of others in the social setting

• idiocentric: the extent to which individuals are dispositionally predisposed to put their own personal interests and motivations before the interests and goals of other people and other groups. Just as societies based on {individualism} stress the rights of the individual over the group, idiocentrics emphasize their personal needs and are emotionally detached from groups and communities. Also known as independents, they are more likely to describe themselves in terms of personal qualities and traits rather than memberships and roles; compare with {allocentrics} (or interdependents).

• idiosyncracy-credit model: an explanation of the leniency groups sometimes display when high status members violate group norms [developed by Edwin P. Hollander (American psychologist, 1927-)]. This theory assumes such individuals, by contributing in significant ways and expressing loyalty to the group, build up "idiosyncrasy credits" which they "spend" whenever they influence others, make errors, or deviate from the group's norms. So long as their actions do not completely deplete their supply of credits, their infractions will not undermine their status in the group.

• illusion of group productivity: the false impression that a group is producing more than it actually is.

• implementation stage: in a normative model of group decision-making, the application of the proposed solution or decision in the given context ocurring after deliberation and identification of the favored alternative.

• implicit leadership theories: perceivers' general assumptions about the traits, characteristics, and qualities that distinguish leaders from the people they lead; like theories developed by scientists, these cognitive frameworks tend to include law-like generalities about leadership and more specific hypotheses about the types of qualities that characterize most leaders, but unlike scientific theories they are (a) based on intuition and personal experience and (b) usually unrecognized rather than stated explicitly.

• impression of universality: see {universality}

• individual accountability: the extent to which a person can be held responsible for his or her actions and the consequences of those actions; also, one's sense of personal responsibility. In groups, accountability is influenced by anonymity and the extent to which the contributions of each member of the group are clearly identifiable.

• individualism: a social or cultural tradition, an ideology, or personal outlook based on the individual and his or her rights, independence, and relationships with other individual. North American and English societies tend to be higher in individualism than non-Western societies, for such societies stress the right to be oneself and to have one's own aims, interests, and idiosyncrasies, as contrasted with conformity to group.

• individualistic reward structure: a condition in which rewards are assigned on the basis of individual achievement, such that the success or failure of each person is independent of the success or failure of any other individual. Compare {competitive reward structure} and {cooperative reward structure}.

• individualized consideration: a leadership intervention that involves enhancing satisfaction and trust felt by specific members of the team, unit, or group.

• informational influence: interpersonal processes that promote change by challenging the correctness of the targets' beliefs or the appropriateness of their behavior directly, though communication and persuasion, and indirectly, through exposure to base-rate information and {social comparison}.

• ingroup favoritism: preferential treatment and evaluation of members of one's own group, even though such treatment is not fair or justified

• ingroup: 1. in general, any group one belongs to or identifies with, but particularly one that is judged to be different from, and often superior to, other groups ({outgroup}s). 2. as initially identified by William G. Sumner (American sociologist, 1840-1910), a group characterized by intense bonds of affiliation such that each member feels a sense of kinship and some degree of loyalty to other members by virtue of their common group membership; also called we-group.

• ingroup bias: the tendency to favor one's own group, its members, its characteristics, and its products, particularly in reference to other groups. The favoring of the ingroup tends to be more pronounced than the rejection of the outgroup, but both tendencies become more pronounced during periods of intergroup contact. This bias, at the regional, cultural, or national level, is often termed {ethnocentrism}.

• ingroup extremity effect: the tendency to describe and evaluate ingroup members, their characteristics and actions, and their products in extremely positive or extremely negative ways. The {outgroup extremity effect}, when outgroup members are evaluated in more extreme terms, is more common since the ingroup extremity effect usually only occurs when the ingroup member has performed a positive, praiseworthy behavior.

• initiating structure: a component of effective leadership concerned with organizing the group for its work, including setting standards and objectives, identifying roles and positioning members in those roles, developing standard operating procedures, criticizing poor work, and defining the relationship between leaders and subordinates; often assessed by the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire (LBDQ). Compare with {consideration}.

• initiator: a group member who introduces new ideas or helps to launch specific courses of action.

• injunctive norms: socially determined consensual standards that describe how people should act, feel, and think in given situation, irrespective of how people typically respond in the setting; individuals who violate these standards, which are sometimes termed prescriptive norms, are often judged negatively; compare to {descriptive norms}.

• innovation: a change in some aspect of the group, including operating procedures or general orientation, away from a long-held or unquestioned position to a novel, and in many cases previously unpopular, position. Studies of {minority influence} indicate that a minority within a group arguing consistently for change generates innovation, whereas the majority tends to provoke consensus and conformity.

• inspirational motivation: a goal-directed state aroused by exposure to high-performing, successful, or admired models

• institutionalized racism: differential treatment of individuals on the basis of their race by social intutitions, including religious organizations, governments, businesses, the media, and educational institutions. Examples include discrimination in hiring, promotion, and advancement, restrictive housing regulations that promote segregation, unfair portrayal of minority members in newspapers and magazines, and legal statutes that restrict the civil liberties of the members of specific racial categories.

• integrative bargaining: a form of negotiation in which the parties work together to achieve outcomes that benefit both sides.

• intellectual stimulation: the enhancement of cognitive processing, including creativity, discernment, and insight, that occurs when individuals exchange ideas and opinions during group discussion.

• intergroup conflict: a disagreement or confrontation between two or more groups and their members that can include physical violence, interpersonal discord, and psychological tension; compare with {intragroup conflict}

• intergroup problem-solving: resolving matters of conflict, doubt, and uncertainty using procedures that involve two or more groups.

• intergroup culture conflict: 1. {culture conflict}. 2. social tension between cultural groups, in contrast to psychological tension experienced by individuals who are drawn to both their subculture and the alternative culture {internal culture conflict}.

• intergroup dynamics: the variable, rather than static, processes that influence the relationships between two or more groups, including intergroup stereotyping, competition, conflict, and {ingroup favoritism}.

• intergroup contact hypothesis: see {contract hypothesis}

• internal culture conflict: conflicting loyalties experienced by individuals who endorse the cultural beliefs of their subgroup but are also drawn to the cultural practices and beliefs of the dominant culture; compare with {intergroup culture conflict}

• internal grouping: any subgroup of individuals, such as a {clique} or a {coalition}, within the larger group.

• interpersonal learning groups: groups formed to help individuals extend their self-understanding and improve their relationships with others, such as experiential groups, T-groups, growth groups, and so on.

• interpersonal zones: in anthropologist Edward T. Hall's analysis of proxemics, situationally determined interpersonal distances for specific types of social interactions, including intimate exchanges, personal conversations, general social intercourse, and public speeches and performances.

• interpersonal group psychotherapy: a group approach to the treatment of psychological, behavioral, and emotional problems emphasizing the curative influence of interpersonal learning, including the analysis of group events, experiences, and relationships rather than the review of issues that are external to the group; also termed interactive group psychotherapy.

• interrole conflict: a form of {role conflict} that occurs when individuals occupy multiple roles within a group and the expectations and behaviors associated with one of their roles is not consistent with the expectations and behaviors associated with one of their other roles.

• intra-organizational bargaining: negotiations between parties working within the same organization.

• intragroup conflict: a disagreement or confrontation between two or more members of a single group; compare with {intergroup conflict}

• intrarole conflict: a form of {role conflict} caused by incompatibility among the behaviors and expectations that make up a single role; these inconsistencies may result from the inherent complexity of the role itself, the ambiguity of the role, or the group's lack of consensus in defining the role and its demands.

• isolate: 1. an individual who remains apart from others, either as a result of choosing to minimize his or her contact with others or by rejection and ostracism by other individuals or groups. 2. a group member with no, very few, or very superficial social and personal relations with other group members. 3. in {sociometry}, any individual who is infrequently or never chosen when group members report who they like in their group; compare with {star}.

• jigsaw method: A team-learning technique developed by Elliot Aronson and his colleagues to alleviate prejudice in desegregrated schools. Students work in groups that are heterogeneous with regards to race, gender, and academic ability on a content unit. The teacher assigns specific topics in the unit to each group member and allows students with the same topics to leave their group to study the topic with others who have that same assignment. The students then return to their original groups and teach their topics to the other members.

• Jonestown mass suicide: the 1978 {mass suicide} of over 900 members of the People's Temple Full Gospel Church. The group was initially based in San Francisco, but many emigrated with church leader Jim Jones to a remote settlement in Guyana, South America. When a small group of members attacked and killed members of a congressional fact-finding delegation from the U.S. Jones ordered his followers to take their own lives by swallowing poison-laced punch.

• kamikaze: a member of an elite military unit in the Japanese air force charged, during World War II, with attacking the enemy by flying heavily armed aircraft into targets (kami, devine, and kaze, wind).

• kernel of truth hypothesis: the idea that stereotypes, although exaggerated generalizations about a group of diverse individuals, sometimes contain elements that accurately describe the qualities of the stereotyped group

• K”hler effect: an increase in motivation that occurs in groups, in reference to the early German researcher, O. K”hler, who confirmed such gains empirically; the effect has been demonstrated in groups working on {conjunctive tasks} that require persistence but little coordination of effort and is likely due to the increased effort expended by the less capable members.

• laissez-faire leader: as defined and operationalized by Kurt Lewin (German-born American psychologist, 1890-1947) and his colleagues in their experimental studies of leaders, the type of leader who provides little guidance for group activities, interacts only minimally with the group members, and only provides input when directly asked. When Lewin and his colleagues compared the productivity and dynamics of groups with laissez-fair leaders to those with {democratic leaders} and {authoritarian leaders} they found groups with laissez- faire leaders showed lower productivity, low cohesiveness, and apathy.

• laissez-faire group: any assembly or body that exerts little or no control over members' activities, decisions, or interests.

• leader prototypes: a cognitive representation of an actual or abstract leader possesses the features shared by most or all of the individuals in the category "leaders" and so exemplifies that category.

• leader categorization theory: an information-processing model that assumes perceivers automatically and spontaneously appraise the extent to which people, including themselves, can be classified as "leaders;" such judgments are determined by {implicit leadership theories} that organize perceivers' general beliefs about the characteristics most leaders possess.

• leader ability to change: the extent to which the leader of a group or organization can flexibly adapt to meet the demands of situation, particularly with regards to either augmenting or reducing his or her task behaviors or relationship behaviors

• leader: 1. an individual who guides others in their pursuits, often by organizing, directing, coordinating, and motivating their efforts. 2. an individual of authority in a social group or organization, as in the head of a department or commander in the military. 3. one who is thought to possess the qualities or characteristics associated with individuals who rise to positions of authority in groups and organizations. See also {authoritarian leader}, {bureaucratic leader}, {democratic leader}, {emergent leader}, {group-centered leader}, {laissez-faire leader}, {nominal leader}, {social-emotional leader}, {leadership}.

• leader-member exchange theory: a dyadic, relational approach to leadership that assumes that leaders develop exchange relationships with each one of their subordinates, and that the quality of these leader-member exchange (LMX) relationships influences subordinates' responsibility, decision influence, access to resources, and performance. Those group members who are linked to the leader by a strongly positive LMX relationship are part of the unit's ingroup, whereas those who have a low-quality LMX relationship are relegated to the outgroup.

• leaderless group: 1. in general, a group that has neither an explicitly appointed leader nor an {emergent leader}. 2. a group method used in research and organizational studies of group productivity and leadership emergence; as participants discuss or work together on a problem without a leader their behavior may be observed and rated in order to evaluate specific interpersonal and leadership skills. The method is sometimes used to screen candidates for positions in business, social work, teaching, and the military.

• leaderless group discussion (LGD): the exchange of opinions, ideas, and information related to some topic by the members of a group that has no explicitly identified leader or organizer; this technique is used in training and educational settings to provide participants with insights into their own and others' behaviors in open, unstructured group situations.

• leadership substitutes: any aspect of the social setting, including the nature of the work task, the characteristics of the group members, or the qualities of the group or organization itself, that reduce or eliminate the need for a specific individual who performs such typical leadership behaviors as organizing, directing, coordinating, supporting, and motivating the group members.

• leadership: 1. guiding others in their pursuits, often by organizing, directing, coordinating, supporting, and motivating their efforts; 2. the ability to guide others' efforts (e.g., the newly elected president has excellent leadership skill); 3. a hypothetical process used to explain the collaborative activities of groups and organizations; this process is said to occur when cooperating individuals are permitted to organize and motivate others to promote the attainment of group and individual goals. See also {autocratic leader}, {bureaucratic leader}, {democratic leader}, {emergent leader}, {group-centered leader}, {laissez-faire leader}, {nominal leader}, {social-emotional leader}, {leader}.

• leadership emergence: the process by which an individual is recognized (formally or informally, perceptually or behaviorally, implicit or explicitly) as the leader of a formerly leaderless group.

• leadership style: 1. the stable behavioral tendencies and methods displayed by (and possibly preferred by) a particular leader when guiding a group, such as autocratic, bureaucratic, charismatic, democratic, directive, group-centered, and laissez-faire. 2. in the contingency and style theories of leadership, the extent to which the leader deals with the task and relationship aspects of the role. Most style theories argue that effective leaders balance these two basic orientations in the groups they lead.

• leadership: the processes involved in guiding others, including organizing, directing, coordinating, and motivating their efforts. Leadership tends to be reciprocal (leaders influence followers and followers influence leaders), transactional (leaders and followers exchange their time, energies, and skills to increase their joint rewards), transformational (leaders inspire and motivate followers), cooperative rather than coercive (followers voluntarily accept the leader's suggestions), and goal-oriented (leaders organize and motivate members' attempts to attain personal and group goals).

• leadership role: 1. structurally, the position occupied by the person who is responsible for guiding others in their pursuits. 2. behaviorally, a relatively coherent set of task and relationship behaviors expected of the individual who is formally or informally identified as the group's leader.

• leadership theories: theories advanced to explain leader effectiveness, including trait theories (which focus on such characteristics as supervisory ability, intelligence, self-assurance, and decisiveness), behavioral theories (which focus on the relation and task activities of the leader), situational-moderator or contingency theories (which attempt to describe what type of leadership style is most effective in different situations), and cognitive theories (which describe the way subordinates' perceptions of their leaders influence leadership effectiveness).

• Least-Preferred Coworker Test (LPC) Scale: a measure of leadership style developed by Fred Fiedler. Respondents are initially asked to think of the individual with whom they had the most difficulty working with in the past. They then rate this co-worker on a series of bipolar adjective pairs (friendly-unfriendly, supportive-hostile, trustworthy-untrustworthy, etc.). The LPC score is the sum of these ratings, with higher scores indicating more positive ratings of the least-preferred co-worker. The measure assumes that leaders who rate those they least prefer to work with relatively positively are relationship-motivated, whereas those who rate co-workers more negatively are task-motivated. Fiedler's model predicts that individuals with low LPC scores (task-motivated) are most effective in extremely favorable or unfavorable group settings, whereas those with high LPC scores (relationship-motivated) are more effective in moderately favorable settings.

• legitimate power: a capacity to influence others that is based on the individual's rightful claim to an influential position or role in the group or organization and members' recognition that an individual in such a position has the right to require and demand compliance with his or her directives.

• level-of-aspiration theory : a conceptual approach to the emotional, motivational, and behavioral consequences of group and individual performance that assumes such reactions are determined not only by the absolute degree of accomplishment at the task, but also by the ideal outcome or goal [Anspruchsniveau] envisioned prior to undertaking the task.

• linguistic intergroup bias: the tendency to communicate positive ingroup and negative outgroup behaviors more abstractly than negative ingroup and positive outgroup behaviors.

• LPC: See {least-preferred coworker (LPC) scale}.

• lycanthropy: the belief that an individual can be transformed into a wolf or other animal (from Greek lykos, "wolf"). The delusion reached epidemic proportions in Europe during the 16th century when 600 supposed lycanthropes were sentenced to death for having committed violent crimes. Also called lycomania; zoanthropy.

• lynching: an instance of a group or mob of vigilantes killing a person, especially by hanging; the lynch mob often justifies its actions by claiming the victim is guilty of some crime and the group is administering an appropriate punishment. Most lynchings in the United States were racially motivated acts of violence perpetrated by White Americans against African Americans. The first documented lynching occurred in the United States in 1882 and by 1950 lynch mobs had killed over 3000 people.

• majority influence: social pressure exerted by the larger portion of the group on individual members and smaller factions within the group. The majority tends to push for conformity and stability, and members respond to this pressure by accepting the majority's position as their own (conversion) or by exhibiting change publicly but retaining their original position privately (compliance).

• male chauvinism: the mistaken and sexist belief that men are superior to women; see also {chauvinism}

• mandate phenomenon: a tendency for leaders to overstep the bounds of their authority when they feel they have the overwhelming support of the group.

• marginal: 1. an individual or group that has not been assimilated into the dominant group or culture and therefore remains on the periphery of a particular society. 2. individuals whose intelligence level is borderline or whose emotional adjustment is tenuous.

• marginal group: in a relatively homogeneous country or community, a distinct group that is not assimilated into the social mainstream because it differs in one or more significant ways, as in a religious or cultural beliefs.

• marginalization: a reciprocal process through which an individual or group with relatively distinctive qualities, such as idiosyncratic values or customs, becomes identified as one that is not accepted fully into the larger group.

• mass suicide: the deliberate ending of the lives of all or most of the members of an intact social group or aggregate by the members themselves, either directly through self-injurious behavior or indirectly by choosing a course of action that will very likely be fatal. Examples include combat units undertaking extremely hazardous missions and the self-poisonings of nearly all the members of the radical religious group the Peoples Temple ({Jonestown mass suicide}). Compare with {cluster suicide}.

• mass masochism: the willingness of a population to endure sacrifices and suffering as demanded by a charismatic, dictatorial leader to whom people have surrendered their own power [coined by Theodore Reik].

• mass hysteria: see {collective hysteria}

• mass psychology: 1. the mental and emotional states and processes that occur in a large body of individuals who, although they may not share any common characteristics, are considered as a whole. 2. the scientific study of psychological phenomena and processes that occur in large aggregations, including studies of reactions to mass media, mass movements, and mass hysteria.

• mass contagion: a form of {contagion} in which behaviors, attitudes, or affect rapidly spread throughout masses of individuals, including those who are widely disbursed across a large area.

• membership group: a social body or organization that people belong to as members, especially when they feel that they are one of a number of individuals who make up the group and the group has formally or informally accepted them into its ranks. Such groups, which include clubs, societies, cliques, teams, and political parties, often explicitly distinguish between individuals who belong to the group and those who do not. See also {reference groups}.

• milling crowd: an aggregate of individuals, usually gathered in a public area such as a street or concourse, whose members seem to be moving restlessly or aimlessly about the area.

• minimal intergroup situation: 1. any situation involving contact between two or more groups where the groups possess only the minimal defining qualities needed to be considered actual groups, as when a group of individuals embarking from a bus mingles with a group of individuals getting on a bus; 2. a research procedure, initially developed by French social psychologist Henri Tajfel in his studies of {intergroup conflict}, that involves creating temporary groupings of anonymous people whose interdependence is virtually nil.

• minimal groups: 1. nominal groups that lack the features typically found in social groups, such as interdependence, cohesion, shared characteristics, joint activities, or structure. 2. the kinds of groups studied by Henri Tajfel in his minimal-group paradigm. Tajfel found that individuals in such groups responded in biased ways when allocating resources to ingroup and outgroup members, even though these groups were not psychologically or interpersonally meaningful.

• minimum-power theory: an analysis of {coalition} formation processes that assumes that (a) all members' who control sufficient resources to turn a winning coalition into a losing one or a losing coalition into a winning one are equal in terms of power (b) individuals' expectations concerning the division of the coalition's payoff will conform to an equity norm, but their payoffs will be in proportion to power rather than resources. The theory predicts that the most likely coalition to form will be one that wins but contains individuals with the smallest amounts of power since people avoid forming liaisons with group members who command a great deal of power.

• minimum-resource theory: an analysis of {coalition} formation processes that assumes (a) people in group situations will behave hedonistically and will thus be motivated to maximize their power, outcomes, and payoffs by forming coalitions; and (b) individuals' expectations concerning the division of the coalition's payoff will conform to an equity norm. This theory predicts the most likely coalition to form in a group will be the one that involves partners with the fewest resources, but when those scant resources are combined they are sufficient to control the group's outcomes.

• minority influence: social pressure exerted by members of a lone individual or smaller faction of the group on members of the majority faction. Studies suggest that minorities who argue consistently for change prompt the group to reconsider even long-held or previously unquestioned assumptions and procedures. {Majority influence} tends to be direct and results in conformity, but minority influence is indirect and instigates {innovation} and conversion as the members of the majority struggle to validate their judgments.

• mixed-motive game: a simulation of social interaction that is structured such that players can reach their goals by competing against others or by cooperating with others. Players in the mixed-motive {prisoner's dilemma game} (PDG), for example, will earn more points if they compete against others, but if all players compete points are lost. Players earn fewer points if they cooperate, but mutual cooperation results in more positive outcomes over time.

• mob: 1. a disorderly, unruly, and emotionally charged crowd. Mobs tend to form when some event, such as a crime, a catastrophe, or a controversial action, evokes the same kind of affect and action in a substantial number of people. Early {mob psychology} argued that individuals in mobs were so overwhelmed by their emotions and the {group mind} that they could no longer control their actions. Unless the situation was diffused, mobs became volatile, unpredictable, and capable of violent action. Contemporary accounts of mobs suggest that members may respond impulsively, but that members rarely lose cognitive control, that mysterious social or psychological processes do not force them to behave abnormally in such situations, and that mobs tend to be organized and goal-directed rather than irrational and "madding." 2. a label applied, usually disparagingly, to a mass of common people. 3. an organized criminal gang, such as the Mafia.

• mob psychology: {crowd psychology}, as applied to mobs

• modern racism: a contemporary form of prejudice that is expressed indirectly and covertly, say by condemning the cultural values of the outgroup or by experiencing aversive emotions when interacting with members of the outgroup but not acting on those negative emotions. The White American modern racist, for example, expresses anti-Black prejudice by condemning afrocentric values or by avoiding any contact with African-Americans.

• movement conformity: aligning one's values, judgments, or behaviors with those of a social or cultural movement.

• multiple suicides: see {mass suicide}

• natural group: 1. a body formed through natural social processes, including audiences, boards of directors, cliques, clubs, committees, crowds, dance troupes, families, gangs, juries, orchestras, sororities, support groups and so; also called bona fide groups, particularly when compared to laboratory ad hoc groups created by researchers in their studies of group processes. 2. more rarely, a group whose members are united through common descent or custom, such as a family or tribe

• need distribution of rewards: the allocation of resources to members of the group based on need, such that individuals with greater needs receive more, irrespective of their overall contribution to the group.

• need for power: The dispositional tendency to seek control over other people and over one's environment.

• negative stereotype: a set of widely shared generalities describing the undesirable, objectionable, or unacceptable qualities and characteristics of the members of a particular group or social category; see also {stereotypes}.

• negotiation: a reciprocal communication process whereby two or more parties to a dispute examine specific issues, explain their positions, and exchange offers and counteroffers in an attempt to identify a solution or outcome that is acceptable to all parties.

• niche picking: an individual's active seeking and selection of comfortable, suitable, or advantageous place or position within a group or organization.

• nominal group technique (NTG): A method of generating ideas and solving problems where individuals first work alone generating ideas or solutions, and then these ideas are systematically shared (often through a round-robin presentation) in a group discussion.

• nominal leader: the individual who is named to direct and guide the group, but does not perform the activities associated with that role.

• nonconformity: expressing opinions, judgments, or actions that are inconsistent with the (a) opinions, judgments, or actions of other people or (b) normative standards of a social group or situation. Nonconformity can reflect individuals' ignorance of the group's standards, an inability to reach those standards, independence (as when individuals retain their own personally preferred position), and the {anticonformity} of individuals who deliberately disagree with others or act in atypical ways.

• nonverbal reinforcement: a gesture, facial expression, body movement, or other form of wordless (nonverbal) communication that increases the frequency of the behavior that immediately precedes it (e.g., a smile, nod, hug, etc.).

• normative social influence: personal and interpersonal processes that cause individuals to feel, think, and act in ways that are consistent with social norms, standards, and convention. Normative influence is partly personal, since when individuals internalize their group's norms they strive to act in ways that are consistent with those norms. It is also interpersonal, since groups directly and indirectly pressure members to comply with norms. Those who consistently violate their groups' norms are often subjected to negative interpersonal consequences (ostracism, ridicule, punishment) and those who conform are rewarded for loyalty to the group's rules. Compare with .

• normative compliance: changes in behavior caused by group members tailoring their actions to fit the group's standards and conventions; see {normative social influence}.

• opinion-giver role: the group member who regularly expresses his attitudes, values, and beliefs during a group discussion; this specific type of task-oriented role was identified by Kenneth D. Benne and Paul Sheats in their studies of discussion groups conducted at the National Training Laboratories (NTL).

• opinion-seeker role: the group member who regularly seeks out information from others, with a particular focus on the group members' attitudes, values, and beliefs relevant to the issue at hand; this task-oriented role was identified by Kenneth D. Benne and Paul Sheats in their studies of discussion groups conducted at the National Training Laboratories (NTL).

• other-total ratio (OTR): a formula for predicting the level of self-awareness experienced by individuals in social settings developed by Mullen and described in work published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 1983. The formula states that self-awareness increases in direct proportion to the number of people in the subgroup relative to the number of people in the entire group, or self-awareness = the number of people in the subgroup / the number of people in the total group.

• outcome dependence: a social situation in which one's outcomes, including the rewards and punishments experienced, are determined in whole or in part by the actions of another person [based on John Thibaut and Harold H. Kelley's social exchange theory, which is described in detail in their 1959 book The social psychology of groups].

• outcome interdependence: a state of mutual influence over one another's outcomes [based on John Thibaut and Harold H. Kelley's social exchange theory, which is described in detail in their 1959 book The social psychology of groups].

• outgroup: 1. in general, any group one does not belong to or identify with, but particularly one that is judged to be different from, and inferior to, one's own group (the {ingroup}). 2. as initially identified by William G. Sumner (American sociologist, 1840-1910), the rival "they- group" that ingroup members ridicule, derogate, and sometimes aggress against.

• outgroup homogeneity bias: the perceptual tendency to assume that the members of other groups are very similar to each other, particularly in contrast to the assumed diversity of the membership of one's own groups.

• outgroup extremity effect: the tendency to describe and evaluate outgroup members, their actions, and their products in extremely positive or extremely negative ways.

• outsider: 1. a person who does not belong one's group, particularly one who is viewed with suspicion 2. a group member who is not able to participate fully in the group because he or she is not familiar with the issues under discussion.

• overload: a psychological reaction to situations and experiences that are so cognitively, perceptually, and emotionally stimulating that they tax or even exceed the individual's capacity to process incoming information

• pecking order: a linear hierarchy of authority, status, and privilege that prevails in some organizations and social groups, as suggested by observations of regular patterns of dominance (pecking, threatening, chasing, fighting, avoiding, crouching, and vocalizing) in chickens and other animals.

• perceived collective efficacy: see {collective efficacy}

• perceptual norm: a group standard that pertains to the interpretation of sensory experiences

• Perky effect: the tendency for individuals to perceive stimuli as being more similar to imagined objects than they actually are

• personality cult: see {cult of personality}.

• persuasive-arguments theory: an analysis of {group polarization} that assumes group members change their opinions during group discussion, generally adopting the position the majority of the members favor, because the group can generate more arguments favoring the position valued by the majority of the members.

• plural: consisting of more than one

• position: 1. the location in space of an object in relation to a reference point or other objects; 2. one's location in relation to others in the group, particularly with regards to social standing or rank or one's stand on an issue.

• positive stereotype: a set of widely shared generalities describing the admirable, desirable, or beneficial qualities and characteristics of the members of a particular group or social category; although {stereotypes} about other groups are usually negative, generalizations about one's own groups tend to be positive.

• positive interdependence: a type of goal relationship in which the success of one party increases the likelihood of another party's success, whereas one party's failure increases the likelihood that others will fail; this type of interdependence tends to elicit cooperative, conflict-free interactions. Also known as {promotive interdependence}.

• postjudice: a persistently held attitude toward a certain group or individual, more often negative than positive, formed after interacting with members of the group

• power bases: the interpersonal origins of one individual's potential to influence other individuals; for example, {reward power} is based on one's control over valued resources and {legitimate power} is based on a licit right to require and demand compliance.

• power: the capacity to influence others, even when these others try to resist this influence. Social power derives from control over rewards (reward power) and punishments (coercive power), a licit right to require and demand obedience (legitimate power), others' identification with, attraction to, or respect for, the powerholder (referent power), others' belief that the powerholder possesses superior skills and abilities (expert power), and the powerholder's access to and use of informational resources (informational power).

• prejudice: 1. a negative attitude toward another person or group formed in advance of any experience with them; a prejudgment. Prejudices, as attitudes, include an affective component (emotions that range from mild nervousness to hatred), a cognitive component (assumptions and beliefs about groups, including {stereotypes}), and a behavioral component (negative behaviors, including discrimination and violence). They tend to be resistant to change since they distort the prejudiced individuals' perceptions of information pertaining to the group. Prejudice based on racial grouping is {racism} and prejudice based on sex is {sexism}. 2. a preconceived favorable or unfavorable attitude toward some social object.

• premature termination: withdrawal from treatment before the therapeutic process has reached its conclusion or the illness has gone into remission.

• prestige: the degree of respect, regard, and admiration afforded an individual. Prestige derives from various sources, including success, achievement, rank, reputation, authority, illustriousness, or position within the social structure.

• primary deviance: in labeling theories of deviance and identity, an initial rule-breaking act (such as nonconformity or disobedience) performed by an otherwise socially compliant individual. In most cases individuals amend their behaviors in response to social pressure, but if they continue to violate social norms (secondary deviance) others may label them as deviant and this label becomes part of their individual identity.

• primary groups: small, long-term groups characterized by face-to-face interaction, high levels of cohesiveness and solidarity, and individual-group identification and connectedness. These groups are primary in the sense that they are the initial socializers of the individual members, providing them with the foundation for attitudes, values, and a social orientation. Families, partnerships, or long-term psychotherapy groups are examples of such groups; compare with {secondary groups}.

• private acceptance: actual change in one's personal opinions, judgments, or actions in response to social influence; rather than merely complying, individuals truly convert to the position recommend by others or the norms of the situation, as when an individual is convinced by a persuasive message and adopts the position taken in the message or individuals internalize and accept as their own the beliefs expressed by other group members.

• process observer: 1. in groups, the member who observes and comments on the group's functioning; this role can be a formally designated one or one that is taken on informally by one or more group members. 2. a type of consultant who helps groups improve their performance by observing the unit as it works and discussing these observations with the unit.

• process loss: an action, operation, or dynamic in social groups that prevents the group from reaching its full potential, including reduced effort (or {social loafing}), inadequate coordination of effort, poor communication, and ineffective leadership.

• promotive interaction: interpersonal behaviors that increase cooperation and the likelihood of success for all group members.

• promotive interdependence: see {positive interdependence}

• pseudogroup: 1. a false, pretend, or artificial group. 2. a research procedure used to study the psychological impact of a group in which participants are led to believe that they are members of a group, but in fact they are working individually on tasks.

• quasi-group: a collective with some, but not all, of the defining features of a true social group.

• queue: a line or file of people who are waiting for some service, commodity, or opportunity. The members of the line are usually strangers who will likely not meet again, but they nonetheless comply with the queue's social norms that determine the order in which members will receive service.

• racial discrimination: the differential treatment of a member of a racial group. Discrimination is in most cases the behavioral manifestation of prejudice, and so involves negative, hostile, and injurious treatment of the members of rejected groups rather than more favorable treatment.

• racial prejudice: a negative attitude toward another person who is a member of another racial group, formed in advance of any experience with them; see {prejudice}.

• racism : a form of {prejudice} that assumes the members of racial categories have distinctive characteristics, and that these differences result in some racial groups being inferior to others. Racism generally includes negative emotional reactions to members of the group, stereotyped beliefs, discrimination, and in some cases violence.

• realistic group conflict theory: a conceptual framework predicated on the assumption that intergroup tensions, including rivalries, prejudice, and warfare, occur when groups must compete for scarce resources, including food, territory, wealth, power, natural resources, and energy

• reference group power: the capacity of a {reference group} to influence others.

• reference groups: groups or social aggregates that individuals use as standards or frames of reference when selecting and appraising their abilities, attitudes, or beliefs; they include formal and informal groups that the individual identifies with and admires, but also statistical aggregations of noninteracting individuals, imaginary groups, or even groups that deny the individual membership (nonmembership reference groups).

• reference-group theory: a general conceptual framework that assumes individuals' attitudes, values, and self-appraisals are shaped, in part, by their identification with, and comparison to, reference groups. A reference-group theory of self-evaluation, for example, assumes that individuals compare their economic, intellectual, social, and cultural achievements to those attained by members of their reference group. Similarly, a reference-group theory of values suggests that individuals adopt, as their own, the values expressed by the majority of the members of their reference group.

• referent power: a capacity to influence others that is based on individuals' identification with, attraction to, or respect for, the influencer.

• rejected: in {sociometry}, any individual who is frequently chosen when group members report who they dislike in their group; compare with {star}.

• remembrance: during group socialization, the period when ex-members review their experiences in the group and continuing members discuss the contributions and activities of former members.

• revolutionary coalition: a subgroup formed within the larger group that seeks a radical and pervasive change in the functioning and structure of a group or organization

• reward power: the capacity to influence others by delivering, or promising to deliver, desired rewards; the strength of reward power increases the more valuable the rewards and the greater the target of influence's dependency on the source of influence for the rewards

• Ringelmann effect: the tendency for groups to become less productive as they increase in size; named for Max Ringelmann, a 19th century French agricultural engineer who studied the productivity of horses, oxen, men, and machines in various agricultural applications. He found that groups often outperform individuals, but that the addition of each new member to the group yielded less of a gain in productivity. Subsequent studies suggest that this loss of productivity is caused by the reduction of motivation experienced in groups ({social loafing}) and the inefficiency of larger groups.

• Robbers Cave experiment: A field study of the causes and consequences of conflict between groups performed by American social psychologists Musafer and Carolyn Sherif and their colleagues; the study derives its name from the state park in Oklahoma that served as the site for the research.

• role differentiation: the gradual increase in the number of the roles in groups and other social systems, accompanied by the gradual decrease in the scope of these roles as each one becomes more narrowly defined and specialized; for example, in many cases the all-inclusive {leadership role} divides, over time, into two: the task leader role and the relationship leader role.

• role conflict: a state of tension, distress, or uncertainty caused by inconsistent or discordant expectations associated with one's social role, as when a role's demands are inconsistent with each other {(intrarole conflict)} or individuals' occupy more than one role and the behaviors required by these roles are incompatible with one another {(interrole conflict)}.

• role ambiguity: indefinite expectations about the behaviors to be performed by individuals who occupy particular positions within the group, often caused by the lack of clarity in the role itself, a lack of consensus within the group regarding the behaviors associated with the role, or the individual role-takers' uncertainty with regard to the types of behaviors expected of them.

• role: coherent sets of behaviors expected of people in specific positions within a group or social setting. Since the concept is derived from the dramaturgical concept of role (the dialog and activities assigned to each individual who is part of the performance), the concept suggests that individuals' actions are regulated by the part they play in the social setting rather than their personal predilections or inclinations. The roles of leader and follower are basic roles in most groups.

• role deprivation: denial of culturally and psychologically significant statuses and roles to certain individuals or groups, usually producing some degree of role incongruity and stress. Individuals can be unfairly restricted from social roles, as when they are forced to retire at a specific age, or unfairly denied group roles, such as exclusion from leadership positions.

• sanction: a reinforcement or punishment, usually administered or issued by an authority, given as a reward for socially approved actions or a penalty for inappropriate or unauthorized actions.

• saw-toothed theory:

• scapegoat theory: 1. an analysis of violence and aggression that assumes individuals, when they undergo negative experiences (such as failure, abuse by others), may blame an innocent individual or group for causing the experience; subsequent mistreatment of this scapegoat then serves as an outlet for individual's frustrations and hostilities. 2. an analysis of prejudice that assumes intergroup conflict is caused, in part, by individuals' tendency to blame their negative experiences on other groups. This theory is supported by studies that suggest prejudice increases during periods of economic downturn and high unemployment.

• schismogenesis: originating through a splitting apart or {social fission}, as when two groups form when a single large group splits; also termed schizogenesis.

• secondary tension: a period of more serious conflict, dispute, and strain that occurs as groups develop over time. Unlike primary tension, which is a relatively mild and transient period of conflict that occurs when groups first forms, secondary tension is more intense and substantive, stemming in many cases from conflict over power, resources, and procedures.

• secondary groups: larger, less intimate, more goal-focused groups typical of more complex societies. These social groups that influence members' attitudes, beliefs, and actions, but as a supplement to the influence of small, more interpersonally intensive, {primary groups}. Whereas primary groups such as families and children's play groups are the initial socializing agents, adolescents and adults are increasingly influenced by such secondary groups as work groups, clubs, congregations, associations, and so on.

• self-attention theory: An analysis of variations in individuals' awareness of the consistency between their actions and the standards of the group. One such model, developed by Mullen and described in work published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology in 1983, suggests that self-attention increases as the number of people in the majority becomes larger and the individual's subgroup becomes smaller.

• self-differentiation: 1. the tendency to seek recognition for one's individuality and uniqueness, particularly in contrast to the other members of one's social group. 2. actions that increase one's uniqueness with respect to other members of his group, such as the use the word "I" rather than "we" when describing group activities, wearing distinctive apparel, or displaying unusual mannerisms.

• self-evaluation maintenance model: a conceptual analysis of group affiliations that assumes an individual maintains and enhances self-esteem by associating with high-achieving individuals who excel in areas with low relevance to his or her sense of self-worth and avoiding association with high-achieving individuals who excel in areas that are personally important to him or her [developed by Abraham Tesser, Jennifer Campbell, and their colleagues].

• sex discrimination: treating people differently depending on their biological sex. Although such differential treatment may favor women relative to men, in contemporary society most sex discrimination favors men over women, and includes unfair hiring practices, lower wages paid to women even when they perform the same type of work as men, and undervaluing of characteristics and interests associated with women rather than men. Discrimination against women contributes to a number of social problems, including inadequate support for working women, lower standards of health care for women, and violence against women.

• sexual discrimination: see {sex discrimination}.

• shared autism (theory): inaccurate, fanciful, or self-justifying social beliefs, widely shared by a group of individuals.

• shift in the direction of original inclination: the tendency for members of groups, after discussion, to shift their position to one that is consistent with the average of the pregroup responses of the individual members; see {group polarization}.

• shunning: systematic ostracism of an individual by a group, usually taking the form of minimized physical or social contact with the outcast.

• situational leadership: a theory of leadership effectiveness, developed by Paul Hersey and Kenneth Blanchard, that recommends leaders use varying amounts of directive (task- oriented) and supportive (relationship) leadership, depending on the stage of development of the group. Leaders of newly formed should provide higher amounts of structure and task- orientation and gradually increase supportive actions over time. Long-standing groups may need neither form of leadership to perform effectively.

• social conventions: commonplace rules, methods, procedures, and practices that have been accepted as guides for action for a relatively long period of time. Often unwritten, arbitrary, and self-perpetuating, social conventions usually pertain to relatively mundane aspects of society, such as etiquette, social ceremonies, and decorum.

• social image: one's public persona; the identity presented to others in public contexts.

• social influence: 1. any change in an individual's thoughts, feelings, or behaviors caused by other people, whether these others are actually present, imagined, expected, or only implied. 2. those interpersonal processes that can cause individuals to change their thoughts, feelings, or behaviors.

• social desirability pyramid

• social approval: an expression of positive appraisal and acceptance, including compliments, praise, statements of approbation, and so on.

• social increment: an increase in rate of response or the improvement of performance that occurs when the individual is with others as compared to being alone. A social decrement is a decline in performance that occurs when the subject is in the presence of others. See also {social facilitation}.

• social will: the dominating aims and intentions assented to by a group or community; see {general will}.

• social identity: 1. personal qualities that are claimed and displayed to others so consistently that they are considered to be part of one's essential, stable self; this public persona may be an accurate indicator of the private, personal self, but it may also be a deliberately contrived image. 2. aspects of the self that derive from one's relationships and memberships. Whereas unique, individualistic qualities (traits, beliefs, skills, and so on) comprise the personal identity, the social identity includes all those qualities based on with relationships with other people, groups, and society; this "we" component of the self is also known as the collective self.

• social interference: 1. any one of a number of actions that conflict with, obstruct, hamper, or undermine the activities and experiences of others. 2. the reduction of productivity that occurs when individuals work in the presence of others; contrast with {social facilitation}.

• social identity theory: 1. a general social psychological conceptualization of the personal and interpersonal factors that influence the publically claimed and presented self. 2. a conceptual perspective on group processes and intergroup relations that assumes groups influence their members' self-concepts and self-esteem, particularly when individuals categorize themselves as group members and identify strongly with the group.

• social zero: a nontechnical, pejorative term used to describe an individual considered to have no value in an interpersonal sense; for example, individuals who lack the social skills needed to work with others or those who are so abrasive or unattractive that they are rejected by others.

• social incentive: an inducement that motivates individuals to respond by offering them such interpersonal rewards as acceptance, approval, inclusion, or status.

• social integration: 1. the steps taken to merge separate groups into a unified society; whereas desegregation implies the formal termination of practices that create a segregated society, integration implies a unification based on individual acceptance of the members of other groups. 2. the process by which an individual is assimilated into a group.

• social island: see {isolate}.

• social structure: the underlying processes, forms, and systems that organize and regulate interpersonal phenomena. The social structure of a group, for example, includes norms, roles, and the status, attraction, and communication relations that link one member to another (see {group structure}. The social structure of a society includes the complex of relations among its constituent individuals, groups, and institutions, customs, mores, and so on.

• social force: any global, systemic, and relatively powerful process that influences individuals in interpersonal settings, such as {group pressure}, {normative social influence}, and {contagion}.

• social supervalent: something that provokes an extreme reaction, including objects with very high social value or very low social value

• social desirability: 1. the extent to which something is widely admired or considered valuable by others. 2. a response set or bias that prompts individuals to give socially acceptable responses rather than authentic ones. Social desirability, as a measurement bias, reduces the validity of self-reports since respondents describe provide an overly flattering description of themselves.

• social latitude: tolerance of attitudes, values, behaviors, and other qualities that differ to a degree from those required by social standards; qualities that fall within this range are tolerated, but those that fall outside this range of acceptability are condemned.

• social trap: a {social dilemma} where individuals can maximize their resources by seeking personal goals rather than the collective goals, but if too many individuals act selfishly all members of the collective will experience substantial long-term losses. The "tragedy of the commons" is an example, for a grazing area will be destroyed if too many of the farmers who share it increase the size of their herds.

• social fission: the splitting or division of a social group into smaller groups, usually because of unresolvable internal conflict between factions

• social discrimination: differential treatment of individuals based on cultural background, social class, educational attainment, or other sociocultural distinction

• social loafing: the reduction of individual effort exerted when people work in groups compared to when they work alone.

• social neuter: in some social insects, such as some species of bees and ants, individuals who are not sexed and so cannot reproduce.

• social sanction: a method of social control based on authorized rewards for compliance with group rules and (more typically) punishment for violation of group rules; see {sanction}.

• social dilemma: an interpersonal situation that tempts individuals to seek personal, selfish gain by putting at risk the interests of the larger collective to which they belong. Such mixed- motive situations have reward structures that favor individuals who act in ways that benefit them personally rather than in ways that benefit the larger social collective but if a substantial number of individuals seek maximum personal gain their outcomes will be lower than if they had sought collective outcomes. Examples include the prisoner's dilemma, {social trap}s, and the public goods dilemma.

• social meaning: the intended end, purpose, or significance of a symbolic communication

• social anchoring: basing attitudes, values, actions, and so forth on the position taken by others, often to an extreme degree; whereas {social comparison} involves comparing one's position to that held by others, anchoring implies an inability to make an independent judgment.

• social reinforcement: a positive interpersonal stimulus, such as a smile, a promise, a touch, or a privilege, that increases the frequency of the occurrence of the behavior that immediately precedes it.

• social selection: the act of identifying others for a role or relationship, including choice of new members in a group, potential romantic partner, political leader.

• social pyramid

• social group: see {group}

• social disapproval: an expression of condemnation and rejection, including insults, criticism, disparagement, and so on.

• social mind: see {group mind}.

• social phenomenon: any process, event, or accomplishment that results from the interaction of two or more individuals.

• social repression: controlling, subduing, or suppressing individuals, groups, or larger social aggregations through interpersonal means, including information control, eliminating grassroots reform movements, manipulation of local leaders, and so on.

• social organism: 1. living things that are predisposed to subsist in the company of others, in a community, rather than in isolation. 2. ascribing dynamic, living qualities such as intention and self-preservation to a social group or society.

• social status: the relative prestige, authority, and privilege of an individual or group. Social {status} can be determined by any number of factors, including occupation, age, rank, achievements, wealth, reputation, authority, and ancestry, with different groups and societies stressing some qualities more than others when allocating status to members.

• social punishment: a negative interpersonal stimulus, such as a threat, infliction of pain or injury, or the loss of privileges, that decreases the frequency of the occurrence of the behavior that immediately precedes it

• social pressure: the exertion of influence on a person or group by another person or group. Like {group pressure}, social pressure includes rational argument and persuasion (informational influence), calls for conformity (normative influence), and direct forms of influence such as demands, threats, personal attacks, promises of rewards, social approval, and so on (interpersonal influence).

• social norms: Consensual standards that describe what behaviors should and should not be performed in a given context; norms prescribe the socially appropriate way to respond in the situation (the "normal" course of action) as well as proscribing actions to avoid if at all possible. Unlike statistical norms, social norms include an evaluative quality such that those who do not comply and cannot provide an acceptable explanation for their violation are evaluated negatively. Social norms apply across groups and social settings, whereas group norms are specific to a particular group.

• social power: see {power}.

• social movement: A deliberate, relatively organized effort of individuals and groups seeking to achieve or resist social change. Reformist movements seek the improvement of existing social institutions and practices, revolutionary movements seek large-scale revisions of the social order, reactionary movements oppose change, and communitarian movements strive to create harmonious living conditions in modern society.

• social elimination: to minimize all interpersonal connections with another person, particularly one who is considered to be unimportant, ineffective, or unworthy

• social contagion: see {contagion}

• social acceptance: a formal or informal expression of admission into a group or relationship

• social bond: an affective relation between individuals, such as the connection between two friends or the emotional link between a mother and daughter.

• social behavior: 1. any action performed by interdependent conspecifics (members of the same species). 2. in humans, an action that is influenced, directly or indirectly, by others, whether these others are actually present, imagined, expected, or only implied. 3. any one of a set of behaviors exhibited by gregarious, communal social species, including cooperation, affiliation, altruism, and so on.

• social-decision scheme: a strategy or rule used in a group to select a single alternative from among various alternatives proposed and discussed during the group's deliberations; these schemes, or decision rules, are sometimes explicitly acknowledged by the group, as when a formal tally of those favoring the alternative is taken and the proposal is accepted only when a certain proportion of those present favor it, or informally, as when a group accepts the alternative that the most powerful members of the group seem to favor.

• social-distance scale: see {Bogardus social-distance scale}.

• social-emotional leader: an individual who guides others in their pursuits by performing supportive, interpersonally accommodative behaviors; also known as a relationship leader.

• sociatry: 1. a specialized field in social science and medicine, suggested by Jacob L. Moreno, devoted to prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of group and societal dysfunction; compare to {psychiatry}, which is the study of individual, psychological dysfunctions. 2. a form of group psychotherapy involving psychodrama and sociometric methods.

• sociocenter: in {sociometry}, the individual at the psychological center of the group; the most popular member or most prominent {star}.

• sociocentrism: 1. emphasizing the needs, perspective, and importance of the social unit or group, particularly in contrast to an {egocentric} focus on one's individual concerns; for example, sociocentric individuals put the needs of their group or society before their personal, egocentric needs. 2. perceiving and interpreting situations from the point of view of the social group rather than one's personal perspective. 3. the tendency to judge one's own group as superior to other groups across a variety of domains; whereas sociocentrism usually describes the favoring of smaller groups characterized by face-to-face interaction among members, {ethnocentrism} describes the selective favoring of one's ethnic, religious, racial, or national groups.

• socioemotional role: a position in a group filled by group members who perform supportive, interpersonally accommodative behaviors; also known as a relationship role.

• sociofugal: Environmental conditions, such as seats that cannot be moved or ambient noise that interferes with communication, that discourage or prevent interaction among group members.

• sociogram: a graphic representation of the relations among members of a social unit or group. In most cases each member of the group is depicted by a symbol, such as a lettered circle or square, and the types of relations among members (e.g., communication links, friendship pairings) are depicted with capped lines. {Sociometry}, as originally developed by Jacob L. Moreno, uses objective data collected by observers or the self-reported estimates of relations provided by members of the group to generate sociograms.. He used four types of sociograms in {psychodrama}: intuitive sociogram, based on relationships noted by the therapist in the first session; observer's sociogram, consisting of the cotherapist's impressions; objective sociogram, based on a sociometric test; and perceptual sociogram, in which each member indicates which other members appear to accept or reject him. In many cases sociograms emphasize patterns of liking and disliking (attraction, or sociometric structure) in the group.

• sociology: the scientific study of the origin, development, organization, forms, and functioning of human society, including the analysis of the relationship between individuals and groups, institutions, and society itself.

• sociometric analysis: an investigation of the structural properties of a group, with a particular focus on patterns of liking and disliking; see {sociometry}.

• sociometric test: a self-report measure of intermember relations in a group used in {sociometry} to develop a graphic representation of the group's structure (a {sociogram}).

• sociometric differentiation: the gradual development of stronger and more positive interpersonal ties between some members of the group, accompanied by decreases in the quality of relations between other members of the group; see, also, {attraction relations}, {sociometric cleavage}, {sociometry}

• sociometric cleavage: a relational division in a group typified by (a) the emergence of two or more subgroups within the group, with nearly all group members belonging to one of the subgroups; (b) an inclusive pattern of interpersonal attraction such that subgroup members' choices of liked associates include only members of the subgroup; and (c) an exclusive pattern of interpersonal rejection such that subgroup members choices of rejected, disliked members include only members of the other subgroup(s); see {sociometry}.

• sociometric clique: a subgroup within a larger group, school, or similar organization identified through {sociometry}. Such subgroups are characterized by some type of commonality in members' sociometric choices, as when members identify one another as liked associates or select the same individual as the person they dislike or admire the most in the group.

• sociometry: A research technique developed by Jacob L. Moreno that summarizes graphically and mathematically patterns of intermember relations. In most cases researchers ask the group members one or more questions about their fellow members, such as "Whom do you most like in this group?" "Whom in the group would you like to work with the most?" or "Whom do you like the least?" These choices are then summarized in a {sociogram} which depicts each member as a numbered or lettered symbol and choices are identified by lines with arrows indicating the direction of relationships. In most cases the diagram is organized into a meaningful pattern by placing individuals who are most frequently chosen ({"stars"}) in the center of the diagram and the {isolates} about the periphery. The method also yields various indices of group structure, including choice status (the number of times a person is chosen by the other group members), rejection status (the number of times a person is rejected by others), {group cohesion} (the relative number of mutual pairs in a group), and so on.

• sociopetal: Environmental conditions, such as circular seating arrangements and a comfortable ambient room temperature, that promote interaction among group members.

• specific-status characteristics: behavioral and personal characteristics that people intentionally and unintentionally take into account when making judgments of their own and others' competency, ability, and social value. Compare with {diffuse-status characteristics}, which are personal qualities that are not relevant in the given setting.

• staffing theory : an ecological analysis of the psychological and interpersonal consequences of interacting in situations that are overstaffed or understaffed; formerly known as manning theory

• star: in {sociometry}, individuals who are chosen most frequently when group members select whom they like the most, prefer to work or associate with, admire, and so on. Such individuals are the most popular, best-liked group members, and if only a single star emerges in a group he or she would be the group's {sociocenter}.

• status symbol: any indicator of one's prestige or status in a group or society, including expensive possessions, extravagant lifestyles, memberships in prestigious clubs, and so on, but particularly those indicators that individuals choose deliberately to communicate their status level to others

• status relations : patterns of relative prestige and respect that determine deference and authority within a group or organization; the "chain of command," {dominance hierarchy}, or {pecking order}; also known as authority relations

• status differentiation: the gradual rise to positions of greater authority by some individuals within the group, accompanied by decreases in the authority exercised by other members; also see {status grouping}

• status role: 1. a prestigious, high-ranking, or otherwise influential position within the group. 2. a position in a group filled by an individual who lends prestige to the group as a whole because of reputation, special abilities, or achievements.

• status generalization: the tendency for individuals who are known to have achieved or been ascribed authority, respect, and prestige in one context to enjoy relatively higher status in other, unrelated, contexts; well-known athletes or wealthy individuals, for example, may rise rapidly to positions of authority in groups even when these {diffuse status characteristics} (athleticism, wealth) are not relevant in the current group context.

• status grouping: clustering together individuals of approximately equal status as determined by rank, authority, prestige, and so on. In most cases groupings decrease in size as members' status increases.

• Steinzor effect: in face-to-face discussion and deliberation groups, the tendency for an individual member to speak immediately after the person sitting opposite them concludes his or her commentary.

• stereotype threat: the expectation of an individual from a stereotyped group about the probable negative impact of observers' stereotypic beliefs on their judgments of him or her. In an academic setting, for example, minority students may assume that others have negative stereotypes about their group's academic ability and that these beliefs will cause them to be unfairly judged in this domain.

• stereotype: a set of cognitive generalizations (e.g., beliefs, expectations) about the qualities and characteristics of the members of a particular group or social category. Stereotypes, as {schemas}, simplify and expedite perceptions and judgments, but they tend to be exaggerated rather than accurate, negative rather than positive, and resistant to revision even when perceivers encounter individuals with qualities that are not congruent with the stereotype. Stereotypes, unlike individually held expectations about others based on their category memberships, are widely shared by group members.

• structured learning groups: a type of {interpersonal learning group} that helps participants gain self-insight, develop improved interpersonal skills, and solve interpersonal problems through a series of relatively specific exercises, activities, and assignments.

• structured observational measures: methods for measuring overt behaviors and interpersonal processes that require each observed unit of action be classified into an objectively defined category. Investigators who use such assessment must (a) select which behaviors are of interest and which are not; (b) clearly define the characteristics of the behavior so that observers all agree on the classification of the action; and (c) note the occurrence and frequency of these targeted behaviors in the situation under analysis. {Interaction Process Analysis} (IPA) and {SYMLOG} are examples of such coding systems.

• subculture: a group that maintains a characteristic set of religious, social, ethnic, or other customs that serve to distinguish it from the larger culture in which the members live. Subcultural groups usually share with the larger society a common language as well as certain basic values and behavioral traits, but they retain their separate customs, practices, rituals, and so on.

• sucker effect: the reduction of one's personal investment in a group endeavor, such as the putting little effort into a group project or contributing very little to a charity drive, caused by the expectation that others will think negatively of someone who works too hard or contributes too much (considering them to be a "sucker").

• superordinate identity: 1. a unifying, overall sense of one's personal and social characteristics that includes all other, more specific or narrowly focused, aspects of identity. 2. an identification with a group created by merging two, formerly rival groups, as when two factions (e.g., East Germany and West Germany) are joined and members abandon their specific identity and adopt the more general identity (e.g., "East Germans" become "Germans").

• superordinate goal: 1. a goal that takes precedence over one or more other, more conditional, goals. 2. a goal that can only be attained if the members of two or more groups work together by pooling their efforts and resources. Musafer and Carolyn Sherif and their colleagues, in their Robbers Cave study of intergroup conflict reduction, introduced superordinate goals by creating emergencies and problems that could only be resolved through joint efforts of both groups.

• SYMLOG (Systematic Multiple Level Observation of Groups) : A three-dimensional theory and observational system developed by Robert Freed Bales (1916-) for studying group behavior. The model assumes that group activities can be classified along three dimensions (dominance versus submissiveness, friendliness versus unfriendliness, and acceptance versus non- acceptance of authority) and that groups are more effective when these three aspects of the group align.

• tarantism: the name given by the Italian physician Giorgio Baglivi to the compulsive dancing ({choreomania})of the late Middle Ages; historical accounts suggest that a large number of the population believed that the bite of a spider, tarantula, caused convulsions and mania that prompted bite victims to dance. The tunes to which the people danced were known as the tarantella and are still popular. Also called tarantulism.

• task demands: the impact of a problem or task's characteristics, including its divisibility and difficulty, on the procedures that the group can use to complete the task

• task role: a position in a group filled by group members who perform behaviors that promote completion of tasks and activities, such as initiating structure, providing task-related feedback, and setting goals.

• task-oriented style: an approach to {leadership} that involves structuring the tasks the group must complete, providing task-related feedback, and setting goals; termed task-motivated style when assessed using the {Least Preferred Co-worker Scale}.

• team: an organized task-focused group. Members of such groups combine their individual inputs in a deliberate way in the pursuit of a common goal. They are typically cohesive and united in the pursuit of a common goal.

• team building: a structured intervention designed to increase the extent to which a group functions as a team; such interventions often involve assessing current level of group development, clarifying and prioritizing goals, and increasing group cohesiveness.

• teasing: to bother, provoke, and torment another person through various types of irritating, repetitive annoyances, such as name-calling, distractions, demeaning rituals, and insults. Teasing is a form of social rejection and bullying, with the target experiencing isolation from the group.

• they-group: see {outgroup}.

• tit-for-tat (tft): a bargaining strategy that begins with cooperation, but then imitates the other person's choice after that; cooperation is met with cooperation, competition with competition.

• tolerance: 1. a condition resulting from persistent use of a drug, and characterized by a markedly diminished effect with regular use of the same dose, or a need to increase the dose to achieve the same desired effect. Tolerance and withdrawal are the two prime indications of {substance dependence}. Also called drug tolerance. 2. a genuine, unbiased acceptance of others whose actions, beliefs, physical capabilities, religion, customs, ethnicity, nationality, and so on differ from one's own.

• total institution

• total package arbitration: a form of dispute resolution in which the parties in conflict submit their preferred terms of the settlement to a neutral party (the arbitrator), who must select the entire package of demands submitted by one of the parties rather than selectively accepting some demands from one party and some demands from the other. This form of negotiation often motivates parties in conflict to reach consensus prior to arbitration, since a compromise will yield a better outcome than the binding imposition of the other party's package.

• transactive memory systems: a process by which information to be remembered is distributed to various members of the group who can then be relied on to provide that information when it is needed

• transformational leadership : a charismatic, inspiring method of leading others that often includes heightening followers' motivation, confidence, and satisfaction, uniting them in the pursuit of shared, challenging goals, and changing their beliefs, values, and needs.

• transient group: a temporary, short-lived {natural group} or {crowd}.

• tulipmania: 1. an unusual overvaluing of tulip bulbs that occurred in Holland in the 17th century. First introduced into Holland in the late 1500s, bulbs soon became highly prized and costly . Their value escalated over a period of 40 years, until some of the rarer bulbs cost as much as a private home; such bulbs were no longer planted but instead displayed as an indication of the owner's wealth. Some individuals willingly traded all their possessions and savings to purchase bulbs, which they then hoped to resell for a much higher price as the market price escalated. The price of bulbs plummeted unexpectedly in 1637, causing financial ruin for many who speculated in the bulb market. Also called tulipomania. 2. an investment craze that, like the overvaluing of tulips in Holland, is marked by a rapid increase in the price of a commodity with relatively little value.

• unitary consciousness: See {group consciousness}.

• universality: 1. the tendency to assume that one's personal qualities and characteristics, including attitudes and values, are common in the general social group or culture; compare to the {false consensus bias}. 2. in mob and crowd settings, the tendency for individuals to assume that atypical, unusual behaviors are allowable since many others in the situation are performing such actions ("everybody's doing it"). 3. in self-help and psychotherapy groups, a {curative factor} fostered by members' recognition that their problems and difficulties are not unique to them, but rather are common ones experienced by many of the group members

• us-versus-them effect: a the tendency to view other groups and their members as competitors for scarce resources, including food, territory, wealth, power, natural resources, and energy.

• voir dire: the oral or written questioning of prospective jurors by counsel

• we-group: see {ingroup}.

• Werther syndrome: {cluster suicides} induced by the suicide of a well-known or popular role model whose death is given extensive coverage by the media. The phenomenon is named for the first identified instance of media-triggered suicide, which occurred in 1774 following the publication of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's (1749-1832) novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers (The Sorrows of Young Werther). The book triggered a fashion fad, in that many young men of the time imitated the eccentric style of dress of the book's hero, Werther, by dressing in blue and yellow. Some young men also killed themselves in the same way as Werther did in the novel, causing the book to banded in some communities.

• whipsawing: 1. increasing productivity by pairing two or more individuals or groups on a joint task, often with a competitive orientation (derived from the whipsaw, a type of saw with handles on both ends of the cutting blade used to saw large timbers). 2 undermining the unity of employees (and their unions) by pitting them against one another in competitive work settings.

• win-lose (dynamic): conflict-promoting processes that occur in situations whose {competitive reward structure}s cause participants to feel they can only succeed if others fail.

• work team: see {team}

• wrong number technique: an unobtrusive, nonreactive method for assessing willingness to help members of social groups and categories. First used by Gaertner and Bickman and described in their 1971 research report published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, researchers call participants on a telephone and manipulate their identity as members of a particular social or ethnic group, such as male or female or Black or White. They claim that they are experiencing a minor emergency (an automobile breakdown), that they have mistakenly dialed the wrong number from a payphone, and they have used the last of their coins. The researchers and then ask the participants to place a call for them to an auto repair shop, and they give them a number. Helping is indicated if the participant makes the call.