PSY EL 321: Group Dynamics (Module 1)

MODULE 1: INTRODUCTION TO GROUP DYNAMICS

LEARNING OUTCOMES:
After successfully completing this module, you should be able to:
1. Define what is a group
2. Understand the different varieties of groups.
3. Discuss the importance of studying groups and their value.

CONTENT:
Groups come in all shapes and sizes and their purposes are many and varied, but their influence is universal.
The tendency to join with others in groups is perhaps the single most important characteristic of humans, and the
processes that unfold within these groups leave an indelible imprint on their members and on society. Yet, groups
remain something of a mystery: unstudied at best, misunderstood at worst. This investigation into the nature of
groups begins by answering two fundamental questions: What is a group and what are group dynamics?
■ What are groups?
■ What are the four basic types of groups?
■ What distinguishes one group from another?

WHAT ARE GROUPS?

Defining Groups

A group is defined as two or more individuals who are connected by and within social relationships.

Two or More Individuals

Groups come in a staggering assortment of shapes and sizes, from dyads (two members) and triads
(three members) to huge crowds, mobs, and assemblies (Simmel, 1902). Sociologist John James was
so intrigued by the variation in the size of groups that he took to the streets of Eugene and Portland,
Oregon, to record the size of the 9,129 groups he encountered there. He defined a group to be two or
more people in “face-to-face interaction as evidenced by the criteria of gesticulation, laughter, smiles,
talk, play or work” (James, 1951, p. 475). He recorded pedestrians walking down the city streets, people
shopping, children on playgrounds, public gatherings at sports events and festivals, patrons during the
intermissions at plays and entering movie theaters, and various types of work crews and teams. Most of
these groups were small, usually with only two or three members, but groups that had been deliberately
created for some specific purpose, such as the leadership team of a company, tended to be larger. His
findings, and the results of studies conducted in other settings (e.g., cafeterias, businesses), suggest
that groups tend to “gravitate to the smallest size, two” (Hare, 1976, p. 215; Jorgenson & Dukes, 1976;
Ruef, Aldrich, & Carter, 2003).

Who Are Connected

Definitions of the word group are as varied as groups themselves, but a commonality shared by many
of these definitions is an emphasis on social relations that link members to one another. Three
persons working on math problems in separate rooms can hardly be considered a group; they are not
connected to each other in any way. If, however, we create relationships between them— for example,
we let them send notes to each other or we pick one person to distribute the problems to the others—
then these three individuals can be considered a rudimentary group. Neither would we call people who
share some superficial similarity, such as eye color, a favorite football team, or birth date, group
members for we expect them to be connected to each other in socially meaningful ways. A family is a
group because the members are connected, not just by blood but also by social and emotional
relationships.

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By and Within Social Relations

The relations that link the members of groups are not of one type. In families, for example, the
relationships are based on kinship, but in the workplace, they are based on task-related
interdependencies. In some groups, members are friends, but in others, the members are linked by
common interests or experiences. Nor are the relationships linking members equally strong or enduring.
Some relationships, like the links between members of a family or a clique of close friends, are tenacious,
for they have developed over time and are based on a long history of mutual influence and exchange.
In others, the ties between members may be so fragile that they are easily severed. Every individual
member of the group does not need to be linked to every other person in the group.

VARIETIES OF GROUPS

No one knows for certain how many groups exist at this moment, but given the number of people on the planet
and their groupish proclivities, 30 billion is a conservative estimate. Groups are so numerous that the differences
among them are as noteworthy as their similarities. Figure 1.1 brings some order to this challenging miscellany
by distinguishing between four types of groups: primary groups, social groups, collectives, and categories.

Primary Groups

Sociologist Charles Horton Cooley (1909) labeled the small, intimate clusters of close associates, such
as families, good friends, or cliques of peers, primary groups. These groups profoundly influence the
behavior, feelings, and judgments of their members, for members spend much of their time interacting
with one another, usually in face-to-face settings with many of the other members present. Even when
the group is dispersed, members nonetheless feel they are still “in” the group, and they consider the
group to be a very important part of their lives.

Social (Secondary) Groups

In earlier eras, people lived most of their lives in primary groups that were clustered together in relatively
small tribes or communities. But, as societies became more complex, so did our groups. We began to
associate with a wider range of people in less intimate, more public settings, and social groups emerged
to structure these interactions. Social groups are larger and more formally organized than primary
groups, and memberships tend to be shorter in duration and less emotionally involving. Their boundaries
are also more permeable, so members can leave old groups behind and join new ones, for they do not
demand the level of commitment that primary groups do. People usually belong to a very small number
of primary groups, but they can enjoy membership in a variety of social groups. Various terms have been
used to describe this category of groups, such as secondary groups (Cooley, 1909), associations
(MacIver & Page, 1937), task groups (Lickel, Hamilton, & Sherman, 2001), and Gesellschaften
(Toennies, 1887/1963). Social groups, such as the Adventure Expedition, military squads, governing
boards, construction workers, teams, crews, fraternities, sororities, dance troupes, orchestras, bands,
ensembles, classes, clubs, secretarial pools, congregations, study groups, guilds, task forces,
committees, and meetings, are extremely common (Schofer & Longhofer, 2011).

Collectives

Some groups come into existence when people are drawn together by something— an event, an activity,
or even danger—but then the group dissolves when the experience ends. Any gathering of individuals
can be considered a collective, but most theorists reserve the term for larger, less intricately
interconnected associations among people (Blumer, 1951). A list of examples of collectives would
include crowds watching a building burn, audiences seated in a movie theater, line (queues) of people
waiting to purchase tickets, gatherings of college students protesting a government policy, and panicked
mobs fleeing from danger. But the list would also include social movements of individuals who, though
dispersed over a wide area, display common shifts in opinion or actions. The members of collectives are
joined by their common interest or shared actions, but they often owe little allegiance to the group. In
many cases, such groups are created by happenstance, convenience, or a short-lived experience, and

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so the relations joining the members are so transitory that they dissolve as soon as the members
separate.

Categories

A social category is a collection of individuals who are similar to one another in some way. For example,
citizens of Ireland are Irish, Americans whose ancestors were from Africa are African Americans, and
men who are sexually attracted to other men are gay. If a category has no social implications, then it
only describes individuals who share a feature in common. If, however, these categories set in motion
personal or interpersonal processes—if someone celebrates St. Patrick’s Day because of his Irish
heritage, if people respond to a woman differently when they see she is an African American, or if a gay
man identifies with other LGBTQ persons—then a category may be transformed into a highly influential
group (Abrams, 2013). As social psychologist Henri Tajfel (1974) explained, members of the same social
category often share a common identity with one another. They know who is in their category, who is
not, and what qualities are typical of insiders and outsiders. This perception of themselves as members
of the same group or social category—this social identity—is “that part of an individual’s self-concept
which derives from his knowledge of his membership of a social group (or groups) together with the
emotional significance attached to that membership” (Tajfel, 1974, p. 69). But social categories can also
influence the perceptions of people who are not part of the category. When perceivers decide a person
they encounter is one of “those people,” they will likely rely on any stereotypes they have about the
members of that social category to formulate an impression of the person. Social categories tend to
create divisions between people, and those divisions can result in a sense of “we and us” versus “they
and them”.

CHARACTERISTICS OF GROUPS

Each one of the billions of groups that exist at this moment is a unique configuration of individuals, processes,
and relationships. The Adventure Expedition mountaineering group, for example, differed in a hundred ways from
the other teams of climbers on Mt. Everest that season. But all groups, despite their uniqueness, share some
common features. Some of these features, such as the size of the group and the tasks they are attempting, are
relatively obvious ones. Other qualities, such as the group’s cohesiveness or the permeability of the group’s
boundaries, must be uncovered, for they are often overlooked, even by the group members themselves.

Composition: Who Belongs to the Group?

To understand a group, we must know something about the group’s composition: the qualities of the individuals
who are members of the group. Groups may be more than the sum of their parts but each part defines the whole
(Moreland, 2013). A group with a member who is naturally boisterous, mean-spirited, hard-working, chill, or close-
minded will be different from the group with a member who is domineering, self-sacrificing, lazy, anxious, or
creative. A group with many members who have only just joined will differ from one with mostly longterm, veteran
members. A group whose members differ from each other in terms of race, sex, economic background, and
country of origin will differ from a group with far less diversity. Were we to assign 100 people to twenty 5-person
groups, each group would differ from every other group because it joins together 5 unique individuals.

Boundaries: Who Does NOT Belong?

The relationships that link members to one another define who is in the group and who is not. A group is
boundaried in a psychological sense; those who are included in the group are recognized as members and those
who are not part of the group are excluded outsiders. In some cases, these boundaries are publicly
acknowledged: Both members and nonmembers know who belongs to an honor society, a rock band, or a
baseball team. But in other cases, the boundaries may be indistinct or known only to the group members
themselves. A secret society, for example, may not reveal its existence or its membership list to outsiders. A
group’s boundary may also be relatively permeable. In open groups, for example, membership is fluid; members
may voluntarily come and go as they please with no consequences (and they often do), or the group may
frequently vote members out of the group or invite new ones to join. In closed groups, in contrast, the membership

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roster changes more slowly, if at all. But, regardless of the reasons for membership fluctuations, open groups are
especially unlikely to reach a state of equilibrium since members recognize that they may lose or relinquish their
place within the group at any time. Members of such groups, especially those in which membership is dependent
on voting or meeting a particular standard, are more likely to monitor the actions of others. In contrast, closed
groups are often more cohesive as competition for membership is irrelevant and group members anticipate future
collaborations. Thus, in closed groups, individuals are more likely to focus on the collective nature of the group
and to identify with the group (Ziller, 1965).

Size: How Large Is the Group?

A group’s size influences many of its other features, for a small group will likely have different structures,
processes, and patterns of interaction than a larger one. A two-person group is so small that it ceases to exist
when one member leaves, and it can never be broken down into subgroups. The members of dyads (e.g., best
friends, lovers) are sometimes linked by strong emotional bonds that make their dynamics so intense that they
belong in a category all their own (Levine & Moreland, 2012). Larger groups can also have unique qualities, for
the members are rarely connected directly to all other members, subgroups are very likely to form, and one or
more leaders may be needed to organize and guide the group.

A group’s size also determines how many social ties—links, relationships, connections, edges—are needed to
join members to each other and to the group. The maximum number of ties within a group in which everyone is
linked to everyone else is given by the equation n(n – 1)/2, where n is the number of people in the group. Only
one relationship is needed to create a dyad, but as Figure 1.2 illustrates, the number of ties needed to connect
all members grows as the group gets larger. Three relationships would be needed to join each member of a three-
person group, but six, ten, and fifteen relationships are needed to link the members of four-, five-, and six-person
groups. Even larger groups require even more ties. For example, a group the size of the Adventure Expedition
(26 members) would require 325 ties to completely link each member to every other member.

Because of the limits of most people’s capacity to keep track of so many social relationships, once the group
surpasses about 150 individuals, members usually cannot connect with each and every member of the group
(Dunbar, 2008). In consequence, in larger groups, members are connected to one another indirectly rather than
directly. Beck Weathers might, for example, be linked to guide Mike Groom, and Groom might establish a bond
with Jon Krakauer, but Weathers may not get to know Krakauer. In even larger groups, members may only feel
connected to the group as a whole, or to subgroups within the larger group (Katz et al., 2005). Larger groups are
more schismatic than smaller ones; they more easily break up into smaller groups.

Interaction: What Do Members Do?

Groups are the setting for an infinite variety of interpersonal actions. If we were to watch a group for even a few
minutes, we would see people doing all sorts of things: talking over issues, getting into arguments, and making
decisions. They would upset each other, give each other help and support, and take advantage of each other’s
weaknesses. They would likely work together to accomplish difficult tasks, find ways to not do their work, and
even plot against the best interests of those who are not a part of their group. Many of the most interesting,
influential, and entertaining forms of human action are possible only when people join with others in a group.

Sociologist Robert Freed Bales (1950, 1999), intrigued by the question “What do people do when they are in
groups?” spent years watching and recording people in relatively small, face-to-face groups. He recognized the
diversity of group interaction, but eventually concluded that the countless actions he had observed tend to be of
two types: those that focused on the task the group was dealing with and those that sustained, strengthened, or
weakened interpersonal relationships within the group

Task interaction includes all group behavior that is focused principally on the group’s work, projects, plans, and
goals. In most groups, members must coordinate their various skills, resources, and motivations so that the group
can make a decision, generate a product, or achieve a victory. When a jury reviews each bit of testimony, a
committee discusses the best course of action to take, or the Adventure Expedition plans the approach they will
take to the summit, the group’s interaction is task-focused.

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But groups are not simply performance engines, for much of what happens in a group is relationship interaction
(or socioemotional interaction). If group members falter and need support, others will buoy them up with kind
words, suggestions, and other forms of help. When group members disagree with others, they are often roundly
criticized and made to feel foolish. When a coworker wears a new suit or outfit, others in his or her work unit
notice it and offer compliments or criticisms. Such actions sustain or undermine the emotional bonds linking the
members to one another and to the group. We will review the method that Bales developed for objectively
recording these types of interactions, Interaction Process Analysis (IPA), in Chapter 2.

Structure: How Is the Group Organized?

Group members are not connected to one another at random, but in organized and predictable patterns. In all but
the most ephemeral groups, patterns and regularities emerge that determine the kinds of actions that are
permitted or condemned: who talks to whom, who likes whom and who dislikes whom, who can be counted on to
perform particular tasks, and whom others look to for guidance and help. These regularities combine to generate
group structure—the complex of roles, norms, and intermember relations that organizes the group.

Roles specify the general behaviors expected of people who occupy different positions within the group. The roles
of leader and follower are fundamental ones in many groups, but other roles—information seeker, information
giver, and compromiser—may emerge in any group (Benne & Sheats, 1948). Group members’ actions and
interactions are also shaped by the group’s norms that describe what behaviors should and should not be
performed in a given context. Roles, norms, and other structural aspects of groups, although unseen and often
unnoticed, lie at the heart of their most dynamic processes. When people join a group, they initially spend much
of their time trying to come to terms with the requirements of their role. If they cannot meet the role’s demand,
they might not remain a member for long. Norms within a group are defined and renegotiated over time, and
conflicts often emerge as members violate norms. In group meetings, the opinions of members with higher status
carry more weight than those of the rank-and-file members. When several members form a subgroup within the
larger group, they exert more influence on the rest of the group than they would individually. When people manage
to place themselves at the hub of the group’s information-exchange patterns, their influence over others also
increases.

If you had to choose only one aspect of a group to study, you would probably learn the most by studying its
structure. The Adventure Expedition’s structure, for example, improved the group’s overall efficiency, but at a
cost. When researchers surveyed expert mountain climbers asking them to evaluate the wisdom of hiking in a
team with a clear chainof-command versus one with a less leader-centered culture, these experts favored a
hierarchical structure for its efficiency. However, they also warned that such groups were not as safe as groups
that were more egalitarian, since members were less likely to share information about threats and concerns.
These researchers then confirmed the experts’ prognosis by examining the records of 5,104 group expeditions
in the Himalayas. Sure enough, more climbers reached the top of the summit when they hiked in teams with
hierarchical cultures, but more climbers also died in these groups during the expedition. The researchers
concluded: “Hierarchy, structurally and as a cultural value, can both help and hurt team performance” (Anicich,
Swaab, & Galinsky, 2015, p. 1340).

Unity: How Cohesive Is the Group?

In physics, the molecular integrity of matter is known as cohesiveness. When matter is cohesive, the particles
that constitute it bond together so tightly that they resist any competing attractions. But when matter is not
cohesive, it tends to disintegrate over time as the particles drift away or adhere to some other nearby object.
Similarly, group cohesion is the integrity, solidarity, social integration, unity, and groupiness of a group. All
groups require a modicum of cohesiveness or else the group would disintegrate and cease to exist as a group.
Close-knit, cohesive groups suffer little from turnover or intragroup conflict. Cohesive groups hold on to their
members tightly, and members usually value their membership, and are quick to identify themselves as members.
A group’s cohesiveness, however, is often based on commitment to the group’s purposes, rather than on social
bonds between members. Individuals may not like each other a great deal, and yet, when they join together, they
experience powerful feelings of unity as they work collaboratively to achieve an important end (Dion, 2000)

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REFERENCES:
Textbooks

Mojoyinola, J.K. (2009). Introduction to group dynamics. Distance Learning Center. University of Ibadan: Nigeria

Attahiru, S.I. (2017). Group dynamics. National Open University of Nigeria: Nigeria

Corey, M.S. (2010). Group process and practice, eight edition. Cengage Learning: United States

Forsyth, D.R. (2019). Group dynamics, seventh edition. Cengage Learning: United States

Okunade, B. (2009). Introduction to group dynamics. Distance Learning Center: Ibadan