Social loafing occurs when an individual effort is reduced on a group project. The student must recognize that social loafing would have a negative effect on the group project. An example would be that it leads to poorer group projects because individual members of the group would not work as hard.
Mental set is the tendency to approach a problem in a specific way, typically in a way that has worked in the past. It could have either a positive or negative effect on the group project. A group of member assign each member a part of the project to prepare, as they have done in the past. When one group member does not prepare and present his or her part of the project, the entire group gets a bad grade. Using an approach that had worked in past projects was ineffective in this case.
Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when a person expectation of another person leads that person to behave in the expected way. This can have a negative of positive effect on the group project. If the leader of a group expected members of the group to do poorly/well, the members might do as well because of this self-fulfilling prophecy.
Extrinsic motivation occurs when a person has a desire to do something to gain a reward or avoid a punishment. In this case the reward would be the good grade that would result from effectively teaching the concept assigned to the group. Therefore, extrinsic motivation should have a positive effect on the group project. A member of the group might work epically hard because she is motivated to earn a high grade in the class.
Proactive interference occurs when an older memory disrupts the ability to recall newer memories. The material presented by an earlier group might make it more difficult for student to remember the material presented by a later group. Therefore, proactive interference would have a negative effect on the group project. An example would be when they take the exam, students in the class might have trouble remerging what a small group presented because something they had learned earlier interferes with the information.
Absolute threshold is the minimum stimulus strength necessity for a person to detect a stimulus. Students in the class must be aware of a small group’s presentation in order to retain the information from the presentation. If the presentation was too quiet to hear the students would not be able to retain the information because they never had the opportunity to absorb it. An example would be because it was below the students absolute threshold, a student in the back of the c lass count hear a small groups presentation. This student couldn’t retain the information that he never heard.