Group cohesiveness is the extent to which group members like and trust one

another, are committed to accomplishing a team goal, and share a feeling of group
pride. In general, the more cohesive the group, the greater its:
Productivity and efficiency
Decision quality
Member satisfaction
Member interaction
Employee courtesy

Group Homogeneity- is the extent to which its members are similar.

Homogeneous group contains members who are similar in some or most ways,
whereas a Heterogeneous group contains members who are more different than
alike.

Aamodt, Kimbrough, and Alexander (1983) hypothesized that previous research yielded
mixed results because the compositions of the best- performing groups were actually
somewhere between completely homogeneous and completely heterogeneous. These
authors labeled them slightly heterogeneous groups.

Stability of Membership
The greater the stability of the group, the greater the cohesiveness. Thus, groups in
which members remain for long periods of time are more cohesive and perform better
than groups that have high turnover and groups whose members have previously
worked together perform better than groups whose members are not familiar with one
another.

Isolation
Physical isolation is another variable that tends to increase a groups cohesiveness.
Groups that are isolated or located away from other groups tend to be highly cohesive.

Outside Pressure
Groups that are pressured by outside forces also tend to become highly cohesive. To
some degree, this response to outside pressure can be explained by the phenomenon
of psychological reactance. When we believe that someone is trying to intentionally
influence us to take some particular action, we often react by doing the opposite.

Straw manan opponent who does not actually exist but to whom negative statements
about the group can
be attributed.
Group Size
Groups are most cohesive and perform best when group size is small. Studies have
shown that large groups have lower productivity, less coordination, and lower moral and
are less active, less cohesive, and more critical than smaller groups. In fact, research
suggests that groups perform best and have greatest member satisfaction when they
consist of approximately five members. Thus, a large organization probably works best
when it is divided into smaller groups and committees and when work groups contain
approximately five people.

This does not mean, however, that small groups are always best. Although small groups
usually increase cohesiveness, high performance is seen with only certain types of
tasks.

Additive tasks are those for which the groups performance is equal to the sum of the
performances by each group member.

Conjunctive tasks are those for which the groups performance depends on the least
effective group member (a chain is only as strong as its weakest link).

Disjunctive tasks are those for which the groups performance is based on the most
talented group member.

Group Status
The higher the groups status, the greater its cohesiveness. This is an important point: A
group can be made more cohesive by increasing group status. The group does not
actually have to have high status, but it is important that its members believe they have
high status.

Diana B. Salvador

Reporter