Group identity statements (pressure not to disagree)
A team believes themselves to be the best at what they do and that their training methods etc. are all the best/correct approach. If you suggest a new training method that seems to be yielding good results for other teams, they wouldn’t treat it seriously because it’s a threat to their identity. However, if the team also takes pride in their ability to continuously refine their training methods, they would be happy to discuss the new method.
If a group considers themselves to be “anti-pineapple” people, then saying “I like pineapples on my pizza” would signal that you’re not really part of the group. Or maybe they think X is harmful and everyone knows pineapples contain X, then proudly declaring “I like pineapples on pizza” would mark you as an outsider.
Self-fulfilling prophecies (coordination + presure not to disagree publicly)
It’s the first week of school and the different student clubs and societies have set up booths to invite students to join. The president of club X tells you that they are the second largest club in the school. This makes club X seem like an established group and is one of the reasons you register your interest and eventually decide to join the group. Later on, you find out that club X actually had very few members initially. The president was basing his claim on the number of people who had registered their interest, not the actual members. However, since he managed to project the image of club X as a large and established group, many people join and it indeed becomes one of the largest student groups.
A captain tells the team before a game that they are going to win. The team is motivated and gives their best, therefore winning the game. (Some people may know the statement is false, which they may reveal to others in private conversations. They won’t state it in public because they know that the statement is intended to coordinate the team (i.e. it’s not meant to be literally true) and that they are more likely to succeed if everyone believes it to be true. It is important only for those who think this is a factual statement and are likely to give up if it’s false to believe the statement is true. People who think this is just a pep talk would assume that the captain will say the same thing regardless of what’s true.)
The Designated Driver Campaign successfully introduced the practice of having a designated driver when out for drinks by portraying it as a norm in entertainment shows. I’m not sure what it was like, whether people adopted the idea because they thought it was a good one even when they knew it was artificial or because it seemed like everyone was doing it, but here we have a social norm that existed only on TV that became an actual social norm because enough people decided to go along with it.
Group norms (coordination + disagreement is rejected)
We use 2 whitespaces instead of 4 whitespaces for indentation as a convention.
We act as one team. If we have come to a decision as a team, everyone follows the decision whole-heartedly even if they disagree. If you don’t want to, please quit.
Potentially related examples:
Group identity statements (pressure not to disagree)
A team believes themselves to be the best at what they do and that their training methods etc. are all the best/correct approach. If you suggest a new training method that seems to be yielding good results for other teams, they wouldn’t treat it seriously because it’s a threat to their identity. However, if the team also takes pride in their ability to continuously refine their training methods, they would be happy to discuss the new method.
If a group considers themselves to be “anti-pineapple” people, then saying “I like pineapples on my pizza” would signal that you’re not really part of the group. Or maybe they think X is harmful and everyone knows pineapples contain X, then proudly declaring “I like pineapples on pizza” would mark you as an outsider.
Self-fulfilling prophecies (coordination + presure not to disagree publicly)
It’s the first week of school and the different student clubs and societies have set up booths to invite students to join. The president of club X tells you that they are the second largest club in the school. This makes club X seem like an established group and is one of the reasons you register your interest and eventually decide to join the group. Later on, you find out that club X actually had very few members initially. The president was basing his claim on the number of people who had registered their interest, not the actual members. However, since he managed to project the image of club X as a large and established group, many people join and it indeed becomes one of the largest student groups.
A captain tells the team before a game that they are going to win. The team is motivated and gives their best, therefore winning the game. (Some people may know the statement is false, which they may reveal to others in private conversations. They won’t state it in public because they know that the statement is intended to coordinate the team (i.e. it’s not meant to be literally true) and that they are more likely to succeed if everyone believes it to be true. It is important only for those who think this is a factual statement and are likely to give up if it’s false to believe the statement is true. People who think this is just a pep talk would assume that the captain will say the same thing regardless of what’s true.)
The Designated Driver Campaign successfully introduced the practice of having a designated driver when out for drinks by portraying it as a norm in entertainment shows. I’m not sure what it was like, whether people adopted the idea because they thought it was a good one even when they knew it was artificial or because it seemed like everyone was doing it, but here we have a social norm that existed only on TV that became an actual social norm because enough people decided to go along with it.
Group norms (coordination + disagreement is rejected)
We use 2 whitespaces instead of 4 whitespaces for indentation as a convention.
We act as one team. If we have come to a decision as a team, everyone follows the decision whole-heartedly even if they disagree. If you don’t want to, please quit.