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Interpersonal Communication: groups
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Interpersonal Communication: groups
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Whether a group works well or not depends on a whole variety of different factors. The three classes of variables identified by Davis are:
Davis (1969), cited in Burton and Dimbleby (1988)
You'll presumably be aware of that from your own experience of groups.
Under 'person variables', for example, it seems quite common for my young adult students to run into conflicts with their parents, sometimes to the extent that they move out - so their family group was not particularly cohesive as a result of person variables.
Under 'environmental variables', you can probably think of a group that stopped meeting because they couldn't stand meeting in a draughty, unheated church hall any more; in my local union branch, attendance at meetings has fallen since around half the members were moved to a different timetable form the others; attendance at evening classes tends to less regular by those who live far away. Under 'environmental variables' might also be listed the size of the group.
Some of the observations of management guru, Tom Peters would also fall under 'environmental variables'. Peters (1995 : 127) cites academic evidence which supports his own findings that the optimum size of a group is somewhere from five to ten. Much above that, and communication becomes unclear. Peters also claims that a group is more likely to achieve its goals efficiently if only the principal actors are involved. Note that he is referring here to the special case of task groups within a commercial company and so his observation does not necessarily apply to other groups. For example, the local philately club may stand a better chance of achieving its aims if membership is as large as possible since that would introduce a larger range of stamps to be swapped, bought and sold as well as increasing the likelihood of introducing specialist knowledge, held by members with a special interest in the stamps of Chad, Qatar or wherever. The increased difficulty in managing communication may be an acceptable price to pay. Note also that Peters points out that restricting group membership to the principal actors only would not work if there were not a climate of trust in the organization, since those excluded from the group could not be confident that their interests would be represented.
As regards optimum group size, Fukuyama (1999 : 213) suggests that it cannot reasonably exceed fifty to one hundred members, since the various biological mechanisms for detecting 'free-riders' in groups were developed in our evolutionary past in hunter-gatherer societies, which must have been around that size. This is probably another example of a theorist attracted by evolutionary psychology finding what works today and concluding that evolution must have conditioned us for it. The next step is to use that assumption about our evolution as an explanation of our contemporary behaviour. Somewhat circular, but that probably doesn't matter, as most of us would probably share his view that fifty to one hundred is somewhere around the maximum.
Also referred to by Peters is the duration of the group. According to him, a group is likely to be more successful in realizing its goals if it is of limited duration. It should be borne in mind, though, that Peters is concerned with groups such as task groups in industrial organizations, who would benefit from setting themselves a goal of, say, planning the retooling of a production line by a given date. This obviously doesn't apply to a group whose members just want to go on collecting and swapping stamps until they drop dead.
'Task variables' is perhaps a less obvious term. It refers to factors associated with the tasks or goals that the group is trying to achieve. At the time of writing, for example, a number of Conservative MPs, including cabinet ministers, are out of sympathy with the pro-European goals being officially pursued by the party and the consequences of this disagreement are potentially disastrous for the party's future prospects.
Most writers on the formation and development of groups will refer to the stages identified by Tuckman (1965) as:
Of course, not all groups will go through these stages of development, though you can probably identify them in groups which you have joined, whether formally established groups such as a committee or informal groups such as a circle of friends.
It is quite possible also for a group to be quite cohesive even though there is plenty of conflict and disagreement. This is fairly typical of what is often referred to as a mature group, characterized by positive regard for the members and their opinions, a willingness to adapt to a point of disagreement and, ultimately, the members'' preparedness to reach a compromise position.
Again, taking the example of my local union branch, branch meetings will reflect a considerable range of views and consequent disagreement, not only as regards policies currently under discussion, but even as regards what a union ought to be trying to achieve. These views range from those who feel that the union should concern itself only with its members' pay and conditions of service to those who feel that it should be in the business of trying to topple the present government, from those who make it clear that they would never take industrial action under any circumstances to those who frequently call for strike action. The branch continues to function nevertheless, despite such fundamental disagreements. There's a number of reasons for that, I think. Firstly, all members, whatever else they may believe about the union, share the view that it should concern itself with the pay and conditions of its members; secondly, there is a clearly established procedure for determining who should speak, for how long, for calling them to order if they stray from the point and for resolving conflict by a majority vote - all characteristic of the 'conforming' stage.
The 'conformity' stage can be far less positive than portrayed above, resulting in rather sterile groupthink. In such a case, the survival of the group becomes more important than the achievement of its goals and conflict is deliberately side-stepped in order to avoid any threat to the group's existence (whereas the 'mature' group can cope with disagreement). (For further information on group pressures to conform, see the sections on social influence).
Quite why we have this tendency to conform is not very clear, but it might well be related to the behaviour of animals in herds and birds in flocks. Once a couple of antelopes start running from a lion, it makes sense for the others to start running as well, rather than hanging around to check whether there really is a lion. There's also the possibility that a tendency to imitate others is built into our make-up, since it is an important way of learning (see the section on Bandura and social learning theory).
Conceivably, we are genetically predisposed towards social conformism and ethnocentrism (i.e. the tendency to support and conform to our own group). Such a predisposition would be advantageous in promoting cultural group selection in the same way that in natural selection sharp teeth or the ability to run fast from danger confer an advantage. Sociobiologists have found it difficult to account for such behaviours as altruism, co-operation and group loyalty in terms of Darwin's theory of evolution, which would be expected to lead to primarily egocentric behaviour. However, it might be possible to demonstrate (theorists disagree over this) that cultures whose members' behaviour is purely egocentric tend to die out whereas co-operative cultures survive. If so, then it would follow that the surviving cultures are those with the 'co-operation gene'. (Further, brief comment on evolutionary psychology)
Not all people conform, of course, and there is evidence that those who don't tend to have a healthy level of self-esteem and to have mature social relationships, as well as being fairly flexible and open-minded in their thinking.
Social loafing
Over half a century ago the German psychologist Ringelman identified the phenomenon now generally known as social loafing. He noticed that, as you added more and more people to a group pulling on a rope, the total force exerted by the group rose, but the average force exerted by each group member declined. This social loafing has been identified repeatedly in a variety of experiments since Ringelman and it now seems to be generally accepted that it is a widespread phenomenon affecting both sexes, a variety of cultures and a wide range of different group tasks. Social loafing is naturally a threat to a group's performance (whether a mature group or not). Tests have shown that it is possible to eliminate social loafing if things can be arranged so that an individual member's contribution to the group effort is identifiable. In practice, of course, this can be very difficult.
For an exploration of the relationship between individual and group, click here.
What is a group?
Group goals
Group dynamics
Group leadership
Group norms and social influence
Management theory
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