Unit 5: Groups - Practice Quiz

1 Which of the following best defines a group in psychology?

2 A group that is officially defined by an organization's structure with assigned tasks is called a:

3 Which type of group forms naturally in response to the need for social contact rather than by organizational design?

4 A reference group is one that an individual:

5 Which of the following is an example of a command group?

6 In group behaviour, a role refers to:

7 Acceptable standards of behaviour shared by a group's members are known as:

8 Status in a group is best described as:

9 The number of people a group contains is referred to as its:

10 Social loafing refers to the tendency for individuals to:

11 Cohesiveness in a group refers to the degree to which members:

12 According to Tuckman's model, the correct order of the first three stages of group development is:

13 In Tuckman's model, which stage is characterized by intragroup conflict as members resist the group's constraints?

14 The stage where the group is fully functional and members work toward achieving goals is called:

15 The final stage in Tuckman's model, applying to temporary groups that wrap up their activities, is:

16 During the forming stage of a group, members typically experience:

17 The term group dynamics refers to:

18 Groupthink is best described as a situation where:

19 Social facilitation refers to the tendency for performance to change when:

20 The tendency for group discussion to strengthen members' pre-existing views is known as:

21 A newly hired employee joins a project team where members share tasks, interact regularly, and see themselves as 'us.' Which defining characteristic of a group does this best illustrate?

22 Passengers waiting at a bus stop who do not interact are best classified as which of the following rather than a true group?

23 An athlete admires a national Olympic team and adopts their training habits and values despite never being a member. That team functions as which type of group for the athlete?

24 A close-knit family and a large corporation differ mainly in that the family is a primary group. What best distinguishes primary from secondary groups?

25 A basketball player fully understands the defensive scheme but hesitates to state it because teammates seem confused. This reflects the distinction between which two concepts in group behaviour?

26 In Solomon Asch's line-judgment studies, many participants gave clearly wrong answers to match the group. This demonstrates which foundation of group behaviour?

27 A team captain is expected to be both a strict enforcer of rules by the coach and a supportive friend by teammates. This situation is an example of:

28 A rookie earns respect and influence in a team based on skill and contributions rather than a formal title. This informally acquired standing is best termed:

29 Group norms most strongly influence individual behaviour when:

30 During which stage of Tuckman's model do members openly disagree over roles, leadership, and how tasks should be done?

31 A project team has resolved its conflicts, agreed on norms, and now works smoothly toward its goals with high autonomy. Which Tuckman stage best describes this?

32 According to social exchange theory, a person is most likely to join and remain in a group when:

33 A short-term committee formed to plan a single event completes its work and disbands. Which Tuckman stage captures this ending phase?

34 Two employees who sit near each other and see each other daily gradually become close friends. Which principle of group formation does this best illustrate?

35 In a tug-of-war, individuals pull less hard as team size increases because their effort is harder to identify. This effect is known as:

36 A cohesive advisory group makes a poor decision because members suppressed doubts to preserve harmony and unanimity. This phenomenon is called:

37 After a group discussion, members who initially leaned toward a risky option end up endorsing an even riskier choice. This shift best illustrates:

38 A skilled sprinter runs faster during a race with spectators than when practicing alone. This performance boost on a well-learned task reflects:

39 A coach wants to reduce social loafing on a relay team. Which strategy is most likely to work?

40 Highly cohesive teams generally show higher performance, but cohesion can harm outcomes when:

41 A project team of five engineers meets daily, shares interdependent tasks, and identifies collectively as "the deployment squad," while a set of 200 employees who happen to use the same cafeteria do not. According to the psychological criteria distinguishing a group from a mere aggregate, which single factor is most decisive in classifying the squad as a true group but the cafeteria users as not?

42 A researcher argues that a large online forum with 50,000 members is not a single psychological group but a collective containing many nested groups. Which conceptual distinction best supports this argument?

43 In role theory, a newly promoted supervisor experiences stress because her former peers still expect friendship-based leniency while upper management expects strict enforcement of quotas. This situation is most precisely classified as:

44 A manager observes that a team's productivity norm is set well below its actual capability, and high performers deliberately slow down to match it. Applying the Hawthorne studies' findings on group norms, which mechanism best explains the high performers' behaviour?

45 Status incongruence occurs when an individual's standing on one status dimension conflicts with another. Which scenario is the clearest example of status incongruence generating group tension?

46 A group forms, immediately experiences intense disagreement over leadership and direction, then settles into cooperative work. Using Tuckman's model, a critic notes that the group skipped a stage. Which stage was most likely compressed or bypassed, and why is this theoretically significant?

47 According to social exchange theory applied to group formation, an individual will remain in a group only if which condition holds, even when absolute rewards are high?

48 Two teams are formed: Team A around a shared superordinate goal requiring interdependence, Team B around mere assignment of members with independent tasks. Sherif's Robbers Cave findings predict that cohesion and cooperation will be strongest in which team, and through what mechanism?

49 In a brainstorming task, a nominal group (individuals working alone, ideas pooled later) consistently outperforms an equal-sized interacting group. Which combination of process losses best explains the interacting group's inferior output?

50 A cohesive executive team makes a disastrous decision after suppressing dissent, sharing an illusion of invulnerability, and pressuring doubters to conform. To most effectively counter this groupthink dynamic in future decisions, which structural intervention is theoretically strongest?

51 In a group discussion, initially moderate members shift toward a more extreme collective position after deliberation. If the shift occurs primarily because members hear novel arguments favouring their initial leaning, this reflects which explanatory mechanism of group polarization?

52 A group of eight people is pulling a rope; measured total force is markedly less than the sum of each member's individual maximum. Careful measurement shows the loss is due partly to reduced motivation and partly to poor coordination. Which pair of concepts most precisely captures these two components?

53 If four workers each exert 100 units alone, but a coordination inefficiency causes total group output to be modeled as where is group size, what is the approximate per-person output at ?

54 A well-practiced expert dancer performs flawlessly before a large audience, while a novice makes many more errors than when alone. Which theoretical account best integrates both outcomes under a single principle?

55 A consultant claims a department is a "team" while another calls it merely a "working group." Which distinguishing feature most accurately separates a genuine team from a working group in organizational psychology?

56 During group formation, members exhibit strong initial attraction based on perceived similarity, but longitudinal data show the strongest lasting bonds form around complementary skills instead. Which principle reconciles this apparent contradiction between attraction and durable cohesion?

57 A cohesive sales team shows very high cohesion but low alignment with organizational goals, and its performance is poor. Research on the cohesion–performance relationship suggests the key moderating variable being violated here is:

58 In Asch-type conformity research, a single dissenting confederate who breaks unanimity dramatically reduces a naive participant's conformity even when that dissenter gives a different wrong answer. What does this finding most strongly imply about the mechanism of normative influence?

59 An individual in a large, anonymous, emotionally charged crowd behaves aggressively in ways they never would alone. Which combination of processes best accounts for this shift according to deindividuation theory?

60 A theorist distinguishes reference groups from membership groups, noting a junior analyst who belongs to the finance team but models her attitudes on senior partners she does not belong to. Which statement about this distinction is most accurate?