Group dynamics studies groups and group processes. A group is defined as two or more people interacting with one another and having an effect on one another.
Deindividuation is a mental state whereby people lose their individual identities and feel immersed in a group. Deindividuation tends to increase the occurrence of unacceptable behaviour.
I came across this article entitled ‘Girls behaving badly’ in the Straits Times website.
The article reported that young girls in Singapore appear to be becoming wilder and getting into trouble with the law more frequently. These girls get arrested for inflicting injuries on others as well as rioting. Experimentation with sex also occurs much earlier and many join gangs.
According to the authors, it appears that parents are unable to control their children .The internet has led to development of rampant cyber bullying among girls as well as an avenue for advertising for sexual services. It was also reported that many of these girls do not feel guilt over selling their bodies in return for money.
One particular case mentioned in the article mentioned a video on the internet that showed a group of girls abusing a girl. ‘It showed four girls laughing gleefully as they punched, slapped and stripped their 13-year-old victim at an HDB staircase landing. They stopped only when onlookers gathered.’
When reading this article I was quite surprised that the girls would dare commit such a terrible and obscene act in a public place. Even more surprising was that they let someone film the whole thing and post it online.
After reading the textbook chapter on group dynamics, I feel that the girls’ behaviour might be attributed to the state of deindividuation that occurs when a group acts together. When acting as a group, the young girls tend to feel less responsibility for committing the act. They feel much less personal responsibility as they feel that it is the group and not themselves that is at fault.
Another possible explanation for their behaviour might be that even though the girls knew that their behaviour was wrong, groupthink (a way of thinking that leads to poor decisions and a skewed vision of options due to the pressure to agree) might have caused the girls to conform to decisions made by the other group members even though they initially didn’t want to commit the act. They might have been afraid that if they did not conform, they would be kicked out of the group.
Group polarization (tendency for group discussion to strengthen the initial opinions of the group) might also have caused the other group members to agree to commit the act. Some of the members might have disagreed to commit the act, however, after discussing this with the group, the rest of the group presented a convincing argument and the members who initially disagreed to go through with the act conform due to the pressure to conform to the view of the majority. This topic has helped me to understand the mentality of gangs better and has better equipped me with knowledge on how to avoid making the same mistakes in a group situation.
References
Chew, J., Chia, M.L, He, Y. Y., & Ong, D. L. (2008, March 22). Girls behaving badly. The Straits Times. Retrieved March 22, 2008, from http://www.straitstimes.com/Free/Story/STIStory_219266.html.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Counterfactual thinking
Social Cognition
This topic deals with how we process and store information about people. It covers areas such as how our mind works; how we reconstruct memory, heuristics and biases we deal with in daily judgments, counterfactual thinking, and the effects of emotion and motives on social cognition.
Counterfactual thinking
I have chosen to focus on counterfactual thinking in this blog entry. Counterfactual thinking involves thinking about how events in the past could have turned out differently. Counterfactual thinking may be said to be a form of thinking that is not based on facts as it involves thinking about memories in a way that is not very accurate.
Counterfactual thinking is a form of social cognition that may or may not involve others.
Upward counterfactual thinking is looking back and thinking about how things could have been better.
Downward counterfactual thinking is looking back and thinking about how things could have been worse.
My Personal Experience
When I was in junior college, I experienced a lot of personal problems and as a result, I failed all my tests and exams and ended up repeating my first year. This was a very difficult experience. I was unable to recover from my problems quickly enough, and barely made it through my A levels. Consequently, I only passed marginally.
Having been a strong student previously in secondary school, I was deeply disappointed in my performance and felt rather depressed. As a result of my poor performance, I was unable to get into any Singaporean university together with all my other classmates.
Following that, I entered polytechnic and studied there for another three years. I emerged with my diploma. Following that, I joined JCUS and have been studying here ever since.
Despite knowing that my problems had definitely been too large to handle when I was in junior college, I engaged in extensive upward counterfactual thinking after my A levels. I blamed myself for going off track, and falling so far behind my other classmates who had all gotten into university and had started working by the time I got into JCUS. I kept thinking that if I could have just coped better with my problems, have been more resourceful and disciplined, I would not have wasted three years in junior college coming out with only a pass.
As a result of this fruitless thinking, I ended up even more depressed and spent much time just mentally punishing myself.
Fortunately, I slowly managed to recover and focus on my work and I ended up doing well in polytechnic and making it into JCUS. Thoughts that if I had tried harder I would not have had to waste so much time still haunt me, and I still have trouble letting go of the past. However, thankfully it is currently much less persistent.
After studying this topic, I realize that I should stop engaging in upward counterfactual thinking and engage in more downward counterfactual thinking in regards to this situation. Downward counterfactual thinking would make me feel much better about my situation, and upward counterfactual thinking does not help at all, as there is nothing I can change about the past.
I should focus on how fortunate I was to be able to get into polytechnic and JCUS, and how I have had an opportunity unlike most people to have been able to experience both polytechnic and junior college, and to have learnt so much more.
I have also realized that upward counterfactual thinking can be very useless and it can only serve to make things worse and prevent a person from moving on. I now realize how much time I wasted tormenting myself unnecessarily.
This topic deals with how we process and store information about people. It covers areas such as how our mind works; how we reconstruct memory, heuristics and biases we deal with in daily judgments, counterfactual thinking, and the effects of emotion and motives on social cognition.
Counterfactual thinking
I have chosen to focus on counterfactual thinking in this blog entry. Counterfactual thinking involves thinking about how events in the past could have turned out differently. Counterfactual thinking may be said to be a form of thinking that is not based on facts as it involves thinking about memories in a way that is not very accurate.
Counterfactual thinking is a form of social cognition that may or may not involve others.
Upward counterfactual thinking is looking back and thinking about how things could have been better.
Downward counterfactual thinking is looking back and thinking about how things could have been worse.
My Personal Experience
When I was in junior college, I experienced a lot of personal problems and as a result, I failed all my tests and exams and ended up repeating my first year. This was a very difficult experience. I was unable to recover from my problems quickly enough, and barely made it through my A levels. Consequently, I only passed marginally.
Having been a strong student previously in secondary school, I was deeply disappointed in my performance and felt rather depressed. As a result of my poor performance, I was unable to get into any Singaporean university together with all my other classmates.
Following that, I entered polytechnic and studied there for another three years. I emerged with my diploma. Following that, I joined JCUS and have been studying here ever since.
Despite knowing that my problems had definitely been too large to handle when I was in junior college, I engaged in extensive upward counterfactual thinking after my A levels. I blamed myself for going off track, and falling so far behind my other classmates who had all gotten into university and had started working by the time I got into JCUS. I kept thinking that if I could have just coped better with my problems, have been more resourceful and disciplined, I would not have wasted three years in junior college coming out with only a pass.
As a result of this fruitless thinking, I ended up even more depressed and spent much time just mentally punishing myself.
Fortunately, I slowly managed to recover and focus on my work and I ended up doing well in polytechnic and making it into JCUS. Thoughts that if I had tried harder I would not have had to waste so much time still haunt me, and I still have trouble letting go of the past. However, thankfully it is currently much less persistent.
After studying this topic, I realize that I should stop engaging in upward counterfactual thinking and engage in more downward counterfactual thinking in regards to this situation. Downward counterfactual thinking would make me feel much better about my situation, and upward counterfactual thinking does not help at all, as there is nothing I can change about the past.
I should focus on how fortunate I was to be able to get into polytechnic and JCUS, and how I have had an opportunity unlike most people to have been able to experience both polytechnic and junior college, and to have learnt so much more.
I have also realized that upward counterfactual thinking can be very useless and it can only serve to make things worse and prevent a person from moving on. I now realize how much time I wasted tormenting myself unnecessarily.
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