NCERT solutions for Psychology [English] Class 12 chapter 7 - Social Influence and Group Processes [Latest edition]

Identifying Stages of Group Formation

Select 10 members from your class randomly and form a committee to plan an open house. See how they go ahead. Give them full autonomy to do all the planning. Other members of the class observe them as they function.

Do you see any of these stages emerging? Which were those? What was the order of stages? Which stages were skipped?

Discuss in the class.

Ingroup and Outgroup Distinctions

Think of any interinstitutional competition held in the near past. Ask your friends to write a paragraph about your school and its students, and about another school and students of that school. Ask the class and list the behaviour and characteristics of your schoolmates, and students of the other school on the board. Observe the differences and discuss in the class. Do you also see similarities? If yes, discuss them too.

Assessing Polarisation

Give the class a short, 5-item attitude scale developed by your teacher to assess attitudes towards capital punishment. Based on their responses, divide the class into two groups, i.e. those pro-capital punishment and those anti-capital punishment. Now seat these groups into two different rooms and ask them to discuss a recent case in which death sentence has been given by the court. See how the discussion proceeds in the two groups. After the discussion, re-administer the attitude scale to the group members. Examine if, in both groups, positions have hardened in comparison to their initial position as a result of group discussion.

Compare and contrast formal and informal groups, and ingroups and outgroups.

Are you a member of a certain group? Discuss what motivated you to join that group.

How does Tuckman’s stage model help you to understand the formation of groups?

How do groups influence our behaviour?

How can you reduce social loafing in groups? Think of any two incidents of social loafing in school. How did you overcome it?

Identify any Test series in cricket which India played recently. Collect the newspapers of that period. Evaluate the reviews of the matches and comments made by Indian and rival commentators. Do you see any difference between the comments?