Each of the following ten questions are worth 10 points each.
Each answer should take approximately ¾-1 of a double-spaced page.
1. Explain how gender differences in communication patterns might link to a) differences in
communication by status (eg., how are men and women similar to high- and low-status individuals
when they communicate), and b) the two dimensions of a message.
2. Discuss Sumners ideal types of the in-group and out-group. How does this relate to the
interconnection of the task and social dimensions of groups?
3. How does group cohesion relate to influence/conformity. What did the variations in the Asch
experiments reveal about why people conform?
4. Under what conditions are task- versus relationship-oriented leadership styles more effective? How
does this relate to the three phases in the general pattern of leader emergence?
5. Detail the four phases of group development and the five factors that go into building group
cohesiveness. Once a group is formed, what are the three phases of leader emergence?
6. Discuss how the distribution of rewards in a group can affect group performance (in what situations
will the equality principle, equity principle, and relative needs principle maximize performance)? How
does reward distribution relate to hyper-competition?
7. What impact does intergroup conflict have on processes internal to the group? How does social
identity contribute to intragroup cohesion and intergroup conflict?
8. How does group size influence synergy? Under what conditions do a) groups outperform
individuals, and b) individuals outperform groups? How does this relate to team building?
9. What are the consequences of information overload on group decision-making? How does this
relate to collective inferential error?
10. Explain groupthink what are the symptoms and causes; how can it be prevented? How does
groupthink relate to the two types of group polarization in decision making?
