Group Influence

Group Influence

Social influences could be defined as the sum of all things that may change or have some effect on a person's behavior, thoughts, actions, or feelings. This is a concept studied both in social psychology and sociology. Studies may focus on ways in which behavior is influenced by outside factors, and this could be behavior of a whole group or of discrete individuals. Certainly in things like psychological practice or therapy, the degree to which a person is socially influenced may say much about his or her mental status (What Are Social Influences?).

In some circumstances, individuals perform better when other people are present. This phenomenon is called social facilitation. Social facilitation is more likely to occur on easy tasks. On difficult tasks, people are likely to perform worse in the presence of others (Myers, 2005). This concept also states that the person is more likely to fail because of nervousness if the task is not simple.

The theory worked in my sister's life, when she was involved in athletics. She had practices every week in the area near the beach and it took her around 2 hours to finish the trace. Once I observed how she acted, how much efforts she put. I can not say that she did not do her best at that time. But during the local competition, with a huge crowd around and few sportsmen taking part in the competition, she was more organized, accurate with every single move and targeted towards the goal to come to the finish as fast as possible. The basic knowledge that other athletes are there to compete in the race escalates the physical arousal of an individual to do his best on the race. The presence of the big crowd in the competition also lifts the athlete's morale (Social Facilitation).

Another concept is social loafing, which contributes to declines in the productivity of a group, and is defined as the reduced effort people invest in a task when they are working with other people. A person does not feel as responsible for working on a task if several others are also present, since responsibility is distributed among all those present (Myers, 2005). Social loafing is particularly likely to happen in the following circumstances: when the group is large, when it is difficult to evaluate individual contributions to a task, when people expect their coworkers to pick up the slack. One of the best examples can be the process of presidential elections. I noticed the tendency when people say that voting is really important. However, with each year in a row, the amount of people in Ukraine who participate in elections becomes smaller (Наші перемоги: 7 причин для оптимізму). It can be explained as people's perception that one vote is insignificant with a large population, that is why it is not worth to vote at all.

In addition, when people are in a large group that makes them feel aroused and anonymous, they may experience deindividuation. When people become deindividuated, they lose their inhibitions and their sense of responsibility and are not self-conscious about their behavior (Myers, 2005). Deindividuation is a