Us and them

IMD09120: Collaborative Media

Brian Davison 2011/12

Us and them

• Social identity• Distance• Decision making• Effects of media choice• Summary

Lumet, S (1957) 12 Angry Men

Impression management

• How we manipulate how others see us• Requires seeing ourselves from the viewpoint of others• Major components (Fiske & Taylor, 1991)

– Behaviour matching, e.g. level of self-disclosure– Conformity to social situational norms, by self-monitoring– Ingratiation - showing appreciation, or flattery– Showing consistency in beliefs and behaviour– Consistency in verbal and non-verbal behaviour

Social identity

• Tajfel, 1974• Attempt to understand discrimination• 3 main factors:

a) the extent to which individuals identify with an ingroup to internalize that group membership as an aspect of their self-concept

b) the extent to which the prevailing context provides ground for comparison between groups

c) the perceived relevance of the comparison group, which itself will be shaped by the relative and absolute status of the ingroup

• Self/group-serving bias

Distance

• Psychological/social distance from oneself• Several “personal selves” corresponding to widening

group belonging

Increasing social distance

Bradner and Mark (2002)

• Effects of perceived geographic distance• 98 student participants and a confederate in a decision-

making task• Told other person either in the same city or 3000 miles

away• In reality just next door• Video-conferencing and instant messaging• Confederate attempted to change the participant’s

rankings of value of different items

Subjects’ drawings of setup

In technical terminology...

• Variables (or factors)– Quantities that can have

different values

• Levels– The different values a

variable can take

• Condition– One combination of

variables

• Hypothesis– A suggested relationship between

variables

• Null hypothesis– The suggestion that any observed

variation is the result of chance

Variable Levels of variable

DistanceSame city (near)

Different city (far)

Media typeVideo

IM

Desert survival task

• The group has survived a plane crash in a desert• A set of items are available, but only one can be kept• The task is to decide which one

• In the experiment:– Participant ranks items– Confederate’s equivalent list is determined by an algorithm– Confederate tries to persuade the participant to change the order– Participant submits final ranking– High correlation between initial and final rankings = low

persuasion

Results

The mean correlation between subjects’ first and second responses was r = .49 (sd = .51) in the Distant city condition, and r = .35 (sd = .51) in the Same city condition.An ANOVA showed that this difference is significant (F (1, 94) = 4.14, p<.05). No effect for media (F(1,94)=1.66, p<.21), or interaction was found (F(1,94)=.04, p<.85). Thus, those in the Same city condition were more persuaded by the confederate than those in the Distant city condition.

Group decision-making• Imagine you have a serious illness which is extremely

unpleasant but not life-threatening

• A new but risky cure is available. If it works your quality of life is restored but there is a risk of death.

• What is the lowest survival rate you would accept from the treatment?

The risky-shift effect• There is clear evidence that groups will take greater risks

than individuals (Stoner, 1961)

• The size of the risk is greater than the mean of the group’s judgement

• Explanations– the risky leader hypothesis– diffusion of responsibility

Groupthink

When concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in-group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action.

Janis (1971)

The Challenger disaster

• NASA: management• Morton Thiokol: engineers• Temperature below previous levels• Fears over safety of o-ring seals

The NASA decision

Short break

Effects of media choice

• Decision quality?• Satisfaction?• Confidence in decision?

• Decision Support Systems• DSS, GDSS, DGDSS, CGDSS• Power, 2007

Media richness theory

• Daft & Lengel, 1984• Hierarchy defined by four criteria:

a) the availability of instant feedback

b) the capacity of the medium to transmit multiple cues such as body language, voice tone, and inflection

c) the use of natural language

d) the personal focus of the medium

• Hypothesis: some media are more suitable for certain tasks

Medium

Face to face

Telephone

Written (personal)

Written (formal)

Numeric (formal)

Highest

High

Moderate

Low

Lowest

Richness

CMC and decision making• Typical study: Sumner and Hostetler (2000)

• Students using computer conferencing (email) or face-to-face meetings to complete a systems analysis project

• Computer condition– better decisions: broader participation, wider range of opinions,

greater analysis, greater psychological distance– but greater time to arrive at a decision

Anonymity• Postmes and Lea (2000)• Meta-analysis of 12 independent studies

• Only reliable effect of anonymity is to lead to more contributions, especially critical ones

• Argue that performance in decision-making depends on social context and relevant social norms as well as on system characteristics such as anonymity

Fundamental attribution error

• People over-estimate the effect of personal qualities in others– ie others are simplified

• People over-estimate the effect of context on self– ie the self is complex

– Spotlight effect– Confirmation bias– Self-serving bias

Attribution

• Walther & Bazarova, 2007

• Members of distributed groups eschewed personal responsibility and blamed partners.

• Unseen, unknown, remote partners in short-term distributed groups become scapegoats for individuals’ own performance decrements.

Judgment of quality of the group’s decisions• Roch and Ayman (2005)• 3 person student groups using chat or FtF

• No significant difference between the two conditions in the performance of the group

• But CMC groups were better judges of whether they had made the right decisions– Because they could focus more on the content of message without

being distracted?

Connell et al. (2001)

• ‘Naturalistic’ lab study of pairs of people and field study– Effect of media richness– Degree of social presence / satisfaction

• Perceptions of behaving naturally and intentionally – both self and others

Media and hypotheses• Face-to-face (FTF)• Computer-mediated (CMC) - chat and email• Telephone

• Self-awareness/self monitoring– Facilitated by CMC?

• Inhibition/conformity to norms– Less inhibited in CMC?

• Responsiveness (awareness of others’ reactions)– Influenced by range of non-verbal cues and delays

Experiment

• 280 undergraduate students• Divided into pairs• ‘Get acquainted’ prior to group discussion• FTF, chat and telephone conditions

• Variables:– Communications medium – independent variable– Intentionality – dependent variable– Sincerity– dependent variable– Satisfaction – dependent variable

Intentionality, sincerity and satisfaction• Post-experimental questions:

1. To what extent did you act the way you intended to?

2. To what extent did you act like yourself, the way you really are, with each of your conversation partners?

3. How satisfied are you with the way that you acted during each conversation?

• Versions of Q1 & Q2 about perceptions of partner

Results

Field survey

• Did these results generalise to real life?

• What would be the effects of differential power?– Higher powered people tend to be less ingratiating and feel

greater freedom to be themselves

Method & results

• 142 employees of a public utility company• Similar questions in relation to FTF, email and telephone• Interactions with supervisors, peers and subordinates

• Similar results to lab experiment, but less pronounced

• Power relationships did NOT make a difference

Field study results

Summary

• Baltes et al. 2002– 22 published & 5 unpublished studies– Outcome criteria– Anonymity– Time to decision– Limited/unlimited discussion– Group size– Task type

• Face to face condition is always preferable• Mediated conditions can be more or less detrimental• The most successful mediated conditions are those least

likely to occur in organisations: anonymous and unlimited