Ch 7Social Influence and Group Processes — Class 12 Psychology, concept-first.

Groups are not just collections of people standing together. They are the basic units of social life, and your daily experience is woven through them.

Not every gathering of people is a group. A crowd watching a cricket match or an audience at a school function are collections of individuals who happen to be in the same place at the same time.

Not every gathering of people is a group. Think of a crowd watching a cricket match or an audience at a school function.

You are already a member of many groups — your family, your class, the team you play with, the friend circle you hang out in. At any given time, every person belongs to several groups at once.

Groups do not appear out of nowhere. They form because people come into contact and interact with each other.

A collection of people does not become a group the moment they come together. Like any living thing, a group develops over time.

Groups differ in many ways — size, duration, structure, and purpose. A country is a large group, a family is small.

The distinction between primary and secondary groups is one of the most fundamental ways to understand how groups shape our lives.

Formal and informal groups are distinguished by how they are created and the basis of their structure. A formal group is deliberately formed by an organisation to achieve specific, stated objectives.

The way we see ourselves is deeply tied to the groups we belong to. Just as a person compares themselves with others, groups compare themselves with other groups.

Groups are powerful because they shape how individuals behave. But the nature of this influence changes depending on whether a person is simply in the presence of others or actually working with them…

Social loafing is the flip side of social facilitation. While the presence of others can sometimes boost individual performance, that boost depends on the person’s efforts being seen and evaluated ind…

Group polarisation is a tendency that emerges when groups make decisions. You already know that important decisions — like whether to build a school in a village — are taken by groups, not by individu…

- Group: Two or more individuals who interact and share a common identity or goal. - Social facilitation: Improvement in performance on simple or well-learned tasks in the presence of others.

- Group defined as a collection of two or more people interacting interdependently, with a shared identity and common goals.