LESSON 1 INTRODUCTION TO GROUP DYNAMICS

GROUP- is t w o o r   more individuals who are connected by and within social relationships.

A group can range in size from two members to thousands of members. Very small collectives, such
as dyads (two members) and triads (three members) are groups, but so are very large collections of
people, such as mobs, crowds, and congregations. On average, however, most groups tend to be
relatively small in size, ranging from two to seven members.

NETWORK- A set of interconnected individuals or groups; more generally, any set of social or
nonsocial objects that are linked by relational ties.

SOCIAL IDENTITY- Aspects of the self-concept that derive from relationships and memberships in
groups; in particular, those qualities that are held in common by two or more people who recognize
that they are members of the same group or social category.

RELATIONSHIP INTERACTION- Actions performed by group members that relate to or influence

the emotional and interpersonal bonds within the group, including both positive actions (social
support, consideration) and negative actions (criticism, conflict).

TASK INTERACTION- Actions performed by group members that pertain to the group’s projects,
tasks, and goals.

CIRCUMPLEX MODEL OF GROUP TASKS- A conceptual taxonomy developed by Joseph

McGrath that orders grouptasks in a circular pattern based on two continua:
cooperative – competitive and conceptual – behavioral. The circumplex model of group tasks is a
circle with four quadrants representing goal-related activities done by groups of people. The
activities are: generating a task, choosing correct procedure, negotiating resolutions to conflicts,
and executing the task.

McGrath’s task circumplex model of group tasks. The theory identifies eight basic activities undertaken by groups
planning, creating, solving problems, making decisions, forming judgments, resolving conflicts, competing, and
performing and arranges them in a circle based on two dimensions: executing, choosing and generating, negotiating.
Tasks in the upper four quadrants require cooperation among members, whereas conflict is more likely when groups
undertake those tasks in the lower quadrants. Tasks on the right side of the circle are behavioral ones, whereas those
on the left side of the circle are more intellectual, conceptual tasks.

INTERDEPENDENCE- means that members depend on one another; their outcomes, actions,
thoughts, feelings, and experiences are determined in part by others in the group. Interdependence
is the state of being dependent to some degree on other people, as when one’s outcomes, actions,
thoughts, feelings, and experiences are deter-mined in whole or in part by others.
GROUP STRUCTURE0 The underlying pattern of roles, norms, and relations among members that
organizes groups.
ROLE- A coherent set of behaviors expected of people who occupy specific positions within a
group.
NORM- A consensual and often implicit standard that describes what behaviors should and should
not be performed in a given context
GROUP COHESION- The strength of the bonds linking individuals to and in the group.
ENTITATIVITY- As described by Donald Campbell, the extent to which an assemblage of
individuals is perceived to be a group rather than an aggregation of independent, unrelated
individuals; the quality of being an entity.

TYPES OF GROUPS

1. PRIMARY GROUP- A small, long-term group, such as families and friendship cliques,
characterized by face-to-faceinteraction, solidarity, and high levels of member-to-
group interdependence and identification; Charles Cooley believed such groups serve as
the primary source of socialization for members by shaping their attitudes, values, and social
orientation.

THOMAS THEOREM- The theoretical premise, put forward by W. I. Thomas, which

maintains that an individual’s understanding of a social situation, even if incorrect, will
determine how he or she will act in the situation; “If men define situations as real, they are
real in their consequences.”

ESSENTIALISM- The belief that all things, including individuals and groups, have a basic
nature which makes them what they are and distinguishes them from others; this basic essence,
even though hidden, is relatively unchanging and gives rise to surface-level qualities.

2. SOCIAL GROUP- A relatively small number of individuals who interact with one another over
an extended period of time, such as work groups, clubs, and congregations.

3. COLLECTIVE GROUP- A relatively large aggregation or group of individuals who display

similarities in actions and outlook.

4. CATEGORY GROUP- An aggregation of people or things that share some common attribute
or are related in some way.

THE NATURE OF GROUP DYNAMICS

The social process by which people interact and behave in a group environment is called group
dynamics. Group dynamics involves the influence of personality, power, and behavior on the
group process. Group dynamics describes both a subject matter and a scientific field of study.
When Kurt Lewin (1951) described the way groups and individuals act and react to changing
circumstances, he named these processes group dynamics. But Lewin also used the phrase to
describe the scientific discipline devoted to the study of these dynamics. Later, Dorwin Cartwright
and Alvin Zander supplied a formal definition, calling it a “field of inquiry dedicated to advancing
knowledge about the nature of groups, the laws of their development, and their interrelations with
individuals, other groups, and larger institutions”.
ARE GROUPS REAL?

LEVEL OF ANALYSIS- The specific focus of study chosen from a graded or nested sequence of
possible foci. An individual-level analysis examines specific individuals in the group, a group-level
analysis focuses on the group as a unit, and an organizational level examines the individual nested

in the group, which is, in turn, nested in the organizational context. Some favored an

individual-level analysis that focused on the person in the group. Researchers who took this
approach sought to explain the behavior of each group member, and they ultimately wanted to
know if such psychological processes as attitudes, motivations, or personality were the true
determinants of social behavior.

Researchers working at both levels asked the question, “Are groups real?” but they often settled on
very different answers. Group-level researchers believed that groups and the processes that
occurred within them were scientifically authentic. Émile Durkheim (1897/1966), for example,
argued that individuals who are not members of friendship, family, or religious groups can lose their
sense of identity and, as a result, are more likely to commit suicide.
Durkheim strongly believed that widely shared beliefs what he called collective representations
are the cornerstone of society, and went so far as to suggest that large groups of people sometimes
act with a single mind. He believed that such groups, rather than being mere collections of
individuals in a fixed pattern of relationships with one another, were linked by a unifying
collective conscious.

GROUPMIND- A supra-individual level of consciousness that links members in a psychic, telepathic

connection.

ARE GROUPS DYNAMIC?

Kurt Lewin (1943, 1948, 1951), who many have argued is the founder of the movement to study
groups experimentally, chose the word dynamic to
describe the activities, processes, operations, and changes that transpire in groups. This word
suggests that groups are powerful and influential: they change their members and society-at-large.
Dynamic systems are also fluid rather than static, for they develop and evolve over time.

Groups also change people more dramatically. The earliest group psychologists were struck by the
apparent madness of people when immersed in crowds, and many concluded that the behavior of a
person in a group may have no connection to that person’s behavior when alone. Stanley
Milgram’s (1963) classic studies of obedience offered further confirmation of the dramatic power of
groups over their members, for Milgram found that most people placed in a powerful group would
obey the orders of a malevolent authority to harm another person. Individuals who join religious or
political groups that stress secrecy, obedience to leaders, and dogmatic acceptance of unusual or
atypical beliefs (cults) often display fundamental and unusual changes in belief and behavior.
Groups may just be collections of individuals, but these collections change their members.

GROUP DEVELOPMENT- Patterns of growth and change that emerge across the group’s life span.

MULTI-LEVEL PERSPECTIVE- Examining group behavior from several different levels of analysis,

including individual level (micro), group level (meso), and organizational or societal level (macro).

MICRO-LEVEL- factors include the qualities, characteristics, and actions of the individual members.

MESO-LEVEL- factors are group-level qualities of the groups themselves, such as their

cohesiveness, their size, their composition, and their structure.

MACRO-LEVEL- factors are the qualities and processes of the larger collectives that enfold the
groups, such as communities, organizations, or societies.

MEASUREMENT IN GROUP DYNAMICS

1. OBSERVATION- A measurement method that involves watching and recording individual

and group actions.
 2. OVERT OBSERVATION- Openly watching and recording group behavior with no attempt to
conceal one’s re-search purposes.
3. COVERT OBSERVATION- Watching and recording group behavior without the participants’
knowledge.
4. PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION- Watching and recording group behavior while taking part in
the social process.

The tendency for individuals to act differently when they know they are being observed is often
called the Hawthorne effect, after research conducted by Elton Mayo and his associates at the

Hawthorne Plant of the Western Electric Company. Hawthorne effect is a change in behavior

that occurs when individuals know they are being studied by researchers.

QUALITATIVE STUDY- A research procedure used to collect and analyze nonnumeric,

unquantified types of data, such as text, images, or objects.

STRUCTURED OBSERVATIONAL METHOD-
 A research procedure that classifies (codes) group members’ actions into defined categories.

QUANTITATIVE STUDY- A research procedure used to collect and analyze data in a numeric form,
such as frequencies, proportions, or amounts.

RELIABILITY- The degree to which a measurement technique consistently yields the same
conclusion at different times. For measurement techniques with two or more components, reliability
is also the degree to which these various components all yield similar conclusions.

VALIDITY- The degree to which a measurement method assesses what it was designed to
measure.

SELF-REPORT MEASURE- An assessment method, such as a questionnaire, test, or interview

that ask respondents to describe their feelings, attitudes, or beliefs.

MOTIVATIONAL AND EMOTIONAL PERSPECTIVES

MOTIVATIONS-are psychological mechanisms that give purpose and
direction to behavior. These inner mechanisms can be called many things like habits, beliefs,
feelings, wants, instincts, compulsions, drives but no matter what their label, they prompt people to
take action. It is our wants, needs, and other psychological processes that energize behavior and
thereby determine its form, intensity, and duration.

EMOTION- A subjective state of positive or negative affect often accompanied by a degree of

arousal or activation.

GROUP AFFECTIVE TONE- The collective emotional mood of a group.

BEHAVIORISM- A theoretical explanation of the way organisms acquire new responses to

environmental stimuli through such conditioning processes as stimulus-response associations and
reinforcement by BF Skinner.

SOCIAL EXCHANGE THEORY- An economic model of inter-personal relationships which

argues that individuals seek out relationships that offer them many rewards while ex-acting few
costs.

SYSTEMS THEORY- A general theoretical approach which assumes that groups

are systems — collections of individual units that combine to form an integrated, complex whole by
John Thibaut and Harold Kelley.

COGNITIVE PROCESS- Mental processes that acquire, organize, and integrate information.

Cognitive processes include memory systems that store data and the psycho-logical mechanisms
that process this information.
SELF-CATEGORIZATION THEORY- A conceptual approach developed by John Turner and his
colleagues that explains arrange of group behavior, including the development of social identity and
intergroup relations, in terms of the social cognitive categorization processes.

EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY
- A biological approach to understanding behavior which assumes that recurring patterns of
behavior in animals ultimately stem from evolutionary pressures that increase the likelihood
of adaptive social actions and extinguish non-adaptive practices.

ACTIVITY 1

Group yourselves into 6 groups. Make a digital poster about primary group and social group and its
functions to the welfare of an individual. Post it afterwards on your facebook account and whoever
gets many “heart” reaction starting today until next thursday 5pm will have 100% for this activity.

Rubric/Criteria:

Relevance to the topic- 50%

Facebook Reaction-30%
Quality of Work- 20%

ASSIGNMENT:

- List at least 5 icebreakers and 5 activities per group. Consult each group so that your
activities and icebreakers won’t be redundant to be submitted next meeting.