Walden Are Groups Good or Bad? Challenges in Intergroup Relations Research
Humanities
Respond in one or more of the following ways:
- Ask a probing question.
- Share an insight from having read your colleague’s posting.
- Offer and support an opinion.
- Validate an idea with your own experience.
- Make a suggestion.
- Expand on your colleague’s posting.
Please view the example before you start!
Please include at least one references in the response.
Post 1 (Write a 50-100 words response)
Are Groups Good or Bad?
Hello Everyone,
After considering the statement of Buys (1978), “Humans would do better without groups.” I also found it to be a bit humorous because I can see where he’s coming from. Personally, I feel that groups have both pro’s and con’s, meaning that groups can be both beneficial and detrimental to an individual’s life. Reflecting back on some of my previous and current experiences being a part of a group, I found it to be very beneficial in my case. For instance, one month after my husband and I having our first child he was given a new work assignment and we had to relocate. The place where we move to, I knew no one and it was really scary for me being a new mom without any support. I eventually join a group called first-time mommy’s. We met on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays at various locations such as parks, indoor playgrounds, and libraries. We would share parenting tips and the different stages of development in which our children were going through.
My baby and I both benefited from this group, I became a better and knowledgeable first-time mom and my child became very sociable due to the scheduled play-dates. However, there are many cases in which groups can be also detrimental to an individual’s life, for example when I was about 8 or 9 years old, I remember my uncle’s best friend joined a group called the bangers, which was a gang of some sort. They were known for terrorizing the surrounding neighborhoods in which we lived in. I remember my uncle’s friend had gone on vacation with my family and while we were away, 5 houses were broken into and two people had gotten hurt. Some of the gang members set up my uncle’s friend and told the police that he was the person that had broken into the homes. Even though my uncle’s friend was thousand’s of miles away on vacation, he was still arrested and had to serve 10 years in jail. After serving three of those ten years, he hung himself while in jail. People join groups for multiple reasons, Eisen (2013), explains that some individuals join groups because of shared interests, decision making and problem solving, for recognition, leadership, support, belonging, or to just make a connection to something larger. I joined the first-time mommy group for support and my uncle’s best, friend I believed he joined the banger’s group because he just wanted recognition and to belong.
References:
Buys, C. J. (1978). Humans would do better without groups. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 4(1), 123–125.
Eisen, M.(2013). Why people join groups & committees. Retrieved on February 23, 2019 from https://ezp.waldenulibrary.org/login?url=https://s…
Post 2 (Write a 50-100 words response)
Challenges in Intergroup Relations Research
Hello Everyone,
After researching and reading our materials it appears to be many possible challenges that might arise while researching intergroup relations. One of the challenges from the laboratory experimentations consist of over justification. This experiment was called the felt tip marker study conducted by Lepper, Greene, and Nisbett (1973). The challenge that came about was the overjustification effect which happens when an external incentive like a reward, decreases a person’s intrinsic motivation to perform a particular task (Lepper, Greene & Nisbett,1973). The overjustification effect happened in their field experiment at a nursery school. I don’t believe the environment, in particular, had anything to do with overjustification effect of the group, I believe that it might have been the technique itself. A strategy that I might use would be to continue the extrinsic reward in the same controlled environment, using the same group but use the extrinsic reward sparingly during the initial experimental period, as the group becomes more interested in the experiment, I would then began to phase out these rewards while increasing motivation.
One of the field research that I came across as a social conflict experiment with people of different nationalities placed in a group to see if they all would get along with one another, the experiment took place in a school. Some challenges that came about during this experiment was prejudice attitudes and beliefs. This experiment was conducted by Devine (1989), who explains a great deal of research on the factors that lead to the formation of prejudice attitudes and beliefs, the explanations for these challenges had a great deal to do with individuals prejudice attitudes and beliefs against others race, gender, sexual orientation, class status, religion, nationality, and amongst other things. A Strategy that I might use to address these specific challenges and to ensure that they would all get along in a research project would be to use the jigsaw technique, which is a method of organizing classroom activities that make people that are in a group dependent on each other to succeed with getting along.
This strategy was used by social psychologist Carroll (1986), who explains that each member of a group has a piece of information needed to complete a group task and suggest this strategy help weaken racial cliques in forcibly integrated schools which allowed everyone to eventually get along with one another. I believe despite one’s prejudiced attitudes, beliefs or the environment in which the experiment is conducted that using the jigsaw technique would encourage everyone to put their differences to the side or at the most reduce individuals prejudiced attitudes and beliefs towards one another.
References:
Lepper, M. R., Greene, D., & Nisbett, R. E. (1973). Undermining children’s intrinsic interest with extrinsic reward: A test of the overjustification hypothesis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 28, 129 – 137.
Devine, P. (1989). Stereotypes and prejudice. Their automatic and controlled components. Retrieved on February 24, 2019, from https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/c6aa/dfa3etcacll
Carroll, D. (1986). Use of the jigsaw technique in laboratory and discussion classes, teaching of psychology. Retrieved on February 24, 2019, from https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1207/s15328…
