Class | Subject | Book | Chapter | Session | Questions covered |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
XII | Psychology | Psychology (NCERT) | 7 – Social Influence and Group Processes | 2026-27 | 6 of 6 |
Chapter at a glance
Topic | Key point |
|---|---|
Group | Organised system of two or more individuals interacting and interdependent, with common motives, set role relationships and norms |
Group vs crowd vs team | Crowd: no structure or belongingness; team: complementary skills, positive synergy, accountability |
Why join groups | Security, status, self-esteem, satisfaction of psychological and social needs, goal achievement, knowledge and information |
Formation | Proximity, similarity, common motives and goals |
Tuckman’s stages | Forming → storming → norming → performing → adjourning |
Group structure | Roles, norms, status, cohesiveness |
Types | Primary vs secondary, formal vs informal, ingroup vs outgroup |
Influence on behaviour | Social facilitation, social loafing, group polarisation |
Groupthink | Cohesive, homogeneous groups making poor decisions due to pressure for consensus |
Exercises
Compare and contrast formal and informal groups, and ingroups and outgroups.
Answer
Answer
Formal vs informal groups
Formal groups | Informal groups |
|---|---|
Formed deliberately, often by an organisation, with explicitly stated functions and goals | Formed spontaneously, out of personal or social reasons |
Roles, norms and rules are written and defined | Roles and norms are unwritten, flexible |
Structure is planned (e.g. hierarchy) | Structure develops naturally |
E.g. an office team, a school committee, a university | E.g. a group of close friends, a gossip group |
Similarities: both are groups with interaction, interdependence, common goals, roles and norms; both influence members’ behaviour. An informal group can exist within a formal one (friends within an office).
Ingroup vs outgroup
Ingroup | Outgroup |
|---|---|
One’s own group — “we” | Another group — “they” |
Members are seen as similar to oneself, viewed favourably, have desirable traits | Members are seen as different, viewed negatively, have undesirable traits |
Members are perceived as heterogeneous (individuals) | Members are perceived as homogeneous (“they are all alike”) |
E.g. my class, my school team, my community | Other schools’ teams, other communities |
Similarities: both are defined by social categorisation; the same group can be an ingroup for some and outgroup for others. Ingroup–outgroup distinctions can lead to ingroup bias, prejudice and intergroup conflict.
Formal groups are deliberately formed with explicit goals, rules and roles (e.g. an office team), while informal groups form spontaneously with flexible norms (e.g. friends). An ingroup is one’s own group (“we”), seen favourably and as varied; an outgroup is another group (“they”), seen as similar and often negatively, which can lead to ingroup bias.
Are you a member of a certain group? Discuss what motivated you to join that group.
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Example: I am a member of my school’s debate and quiz club (and a member of my family, class and friend group).
What motivated me (reasons for joining groups)
- Security – being part of the club gives me a sense of belonging and support; I don’t feel alone when preparing for competitions.
- Status – being a member of a recognised club that wins inter-school competitions gives a sense of importance and recognition.
- Self-esteem – positive feedback from members and success in debates increases my confidence and self-worth.
- Satisfaction of psychological and social needs – the need to belong, to get attention, to give and receive affection; I made close friends with shared interests.
- Goal achievement – together we can achieve goals (winning quizzes, organising events) that I could not achieve alone.
- Knowledge and information – I learn new information, public speaking skills and different viewpoints from other members.
Factors in group formation: proximity (we are in the same school), similarity (shared interest in debates and reading) and common motives and goals (wanting to improve speaking skills and win competitions).
E.g. a school debate/quiz club. I joined for security and belonging, status and recognition, self-esteem, satisfaction of social needs (friendship), achieving goals together and gaining knowledge and skills — helped by proximity, similarity of interests and common goals.
How does Tuckman’s stage model help you to understand the formation of groups?
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Answer
Bruce Tuckman suggested that groups pass through five developmental stages:
- Forming – members first meet; there is a great deal of uncertainty about the group, its goal and how to achieve it. People try to know each other and assess whether they will fit in; there is excitement as well as apprehension.
- Storming – there is intragroup conflict about how the target is to be achieved, who controls the group and its resources, and who performs what task. When this stage is complete, some sort of hierarchy of leadership develops and a clear vision of how to achieve the goal.
- Norming – group members develop norms related to group behaviour; this leads to a positive group identity and cohesiveness.
- Performing – the structure of the group has evolved and is accepted by members; the group moves towards achieving the goal. For some groups, this is the last stage.
- Adjourning – for groups like an organising committee of a school function, once the function is over the group is disbanded.
How it helps: - It explains that group formation is a gradual process and conflict at the storming stage is normal, not a sign of failure. - It helps leaders and members handle each stage (e.g. clarifying goals in forming, resolving conflicts in storming, building norms). - It explains how roles, norms, status and cohesiveness develop.
Limitation: groups do not always proceed from one stage to the next in a fixed sequence; several stages may go on together, and groups may go back and forth between stages (e.g. storming may recur), or skip a stage.
Tuckman’s model describes five stages — forming (uncertainty), storming (conflict, leadership emerges), norming (norms and group identity), performing (working towards the goal) and adjourning (disbanding). It shows that groups develop gradually, conflict is a normal stage and structure (roles, norms, cohesiveness) evolves over time, though stages may overlap or recur.
How do groups influence our behaviour?
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Groups influence individual behaviour in several ways:
- Social facilitation – the presence of others improves performance on simple or well-learnt tasks and may impair it on complex or new tasks. Explanations:
- Arousal (Zajonc) – the presence of others produces arousal, which enhances dominant (well-learnt) responses.
- Evaluation apprehension (Cottrell) – we are concerned about being evaluated.
- The nature of the task performed with others — co-action (others doing the same task) creates a competitive feel. E.g. a cyclist races faster with competitors than alone (Triplett).
- Social loafing – a reduction in individual effort when working on a collective task, where one’s contribution is pooled with others (e.g. tug-of-war, group projects). It occurs because members feel less responsible, are not individually evaluated, coordination decreases, and contributions are not seen.
- Group polarisation – the tendency of groups to take more extreme decisions than the individual members would take alone (e.g. a group discussion making members more strongly in favour of a decision). Reasons: exposure to new arguments, the bandwagon effect, and identification with the ingroup.
- Groupthink (Irving Janis) – highly cohesive groups may suppress dissent and make poor decisions in the drive for consensus (illusion of invulnerability, unanimity, rationalisation).
- Conformity, compliance and obedience (norms and roles) – groups set norms; members conform to group expectations, comply with requests and obey authority.
- Status and roles – our position in the group shapes our behaviour; group membership affects self-concept and social identity.
Groups influence behaviour through social facilitation (better performance on simple tasks in others’ presence), social loafing (reduced effort in collective tasks), group polarisation (more extreme group decisions), groupthink, and conformity to norms, roles and status within the group.
How can you reduce social loafing in groups? Think of any two incidents of social loafing in school. How did you overcome it?
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Ways to reduce social loafing: 1. Making the efforts of each person identifiable – assign specific tasks so that each member’s contribution can be seen. 2. Increasing pressure to work hard – making group members committed to successful task performance. 3. Increasing the apparent importance or value of the task. 4. Making people feel that their individual contribution is important. 5. Strengthening group cohesiveness, which increases the motivation for successful group outcome. 6. Evaluating individual as well as group performance; keeping groups small.
Incident 1 – Science project: In a group project on renewable energy, only two of the five members did most of the work while others did not contribute, assuming they would get the same marks. How we overcame it: we divided the project into parts (research, model making, chart, presentation) with each member responsible for one part; we kept a record of who did what and the teacher evaluated individual contributions as well. Everyone then worked seriously.
Incident 2 – Cleaning the classroom / decorating for Annual Day: During a class decoration activity, many students chatted and left the work to a few. How we overcame it: the class monitor made a duty chart with names against specific tasks and timings; we reminded everyone that our class decoration would be judged in a competition (increasing the importance of the task and group cohesiveness). The activity was completed quickly with everyone’s participation.
Reduce social loafing by making each person’s effort identifiable, increasing commitment and pressure to work hard, raising the task’s importance, making individual contributions feel important, and building cohesiveness. E.g. in a group science project and in class decoration, we assigned specific tasks, recorded and evaluated individual contributions and stressed the competition, so everyone contributed.
Question Project 1
Identify any Test series in cricket which India played recently. Collect the newspapers of that period. Evaluate the reviews of the matches and comments made by Indian and rival commentators. Do you see any difference between the comments?
Answer
Guidance
- Select a recent Test series (e.g. India vs Australia — Border–Gavaskar Trophy, or India vs England).
- Collect newspaper reports, online reviews and commentary from Indian and rival-country sources for the same matches.
- Analyse the comments under headings: praise of own team, criticism of own team, praise/criticism of rival team, explanations given for wins and losses, reaction to controversial decisions.
- Expected findings (ingroup–outgroup bias):
- Each side’s commentators tend to favour their own team (ingroup) — praising its players’ skill and attributing its wins to ability and its losses to bad luck, pitch, weather or umpiring (self-serving / group-serving attribution).
- They tend to attribute the rival (outgroup) team’s success to external factors (luck, home advantage) and its failures to lack of ability; outgroup players may be described in more stereotyped terms.
- Controversial incidents are interpreted differently by the two sides.
- Conclusion: relate the findings to ingroup–outgroup distinction, ingroup favouritism and social identity; note how this can lead to stereotyping and conflict, and the value of objective reporting.
Compare Indian and rival commentary on the same Test series; typically each side praises its own team, attributes its wins to ability and losses to external factors, and does the reverse for the rival — showing ingroup favouritism and group-serving attribution bias.
Topic checklist
- ☒ Nature, types and formation of groups (Q 1, 2, 3)
- ☒ Influence of groups on behaviour (Q 4, 5)
- ☒ Project (P 1)