Chapter 9: Foundations of Group Behavior

A group is defined as two or more people coming together to achieve an objective.

Group types

 Formal group – a work group defined by organisational structure

o Command group – group composed of people who report directly to a manager
o Task group – composed of people working and aiming at completion of a task

Command groups are also task groups, but not necessarily vice versa.

 Informal group – is not formally structured, formed by the needs of social contacts
o Interest group – people working together to achieve some objective, but at the same time each and every
single member is concerned about the issue/aim
o Friendship group – people who share one or more common features/characteristics

Reasons to join a group: security, status, self-esteem, affiliation, power and goal-achievement.

Stages of group development

1. Five-Stage model
2. An alternative model for temporary groups with deadlines. Punctuated-equilibrium model

Five-stage model:

Stage 1. Forming: orientation, testing, dependence. Members come together to form a group.

Stage 2. Storming: conflict, emotionality, and resistance to influences and task requirements. Members become
hostile and combative. Leadership is formed during this stage.

Stage 3. Norming: in-group feeling and cohesiveness develops, new standards evolve, new roles adopted. Members
accept roles and behaviors of others.

Stage 4. Performing: the group becomes a functional instrument for dealing with tasks and present reality. Members
have established norms and are able to diagnose problems and come up with solutions.

Stage 5. Adjourning: the group ends its existence, closure. For temporary groups, it is a stage when members
prepare for group dissolution.

Assumptions:

 What makes an effective group is more complex than the model suggests
 Groups do not have to go through all the stages, they may jump e.g. from 1st to 4th stage
 Stages may go simultaneously
 Critique: the model ignores organisational context

Punctuated-equilibrium model:

1. Setting the group’s direction

2. First phase of group activity – inertia (inactivity, apathy, lethargy)
3. At the end of first phase a transition takes place (group has already used ½ its time)
4. Transition leads to major changes
5. Second phase of inertia follows transition
6. Group’s last meeting can be described as accelerated activity
The model does not apply to all groups, but only those which work temporarily and have a set deadline to complete
work.

Group properties

Roles: a set of expected behaviors ascribed to a person occupying a particular position in a social unit (e.g. one can
have a role of student, son/daughter, (boyfriend, worker, etc.) Zimbardo’s Prison Experiment shows that people
quickly learn/assume roles, sometimes through stereotypes and information that mass media and other parties
disseminate.

 Role identity – situation when attitudes and behaviors are consistent with a role
 Role perception – person’s vision on how he/she should behave in a certain circumstances
 Role expectations – how other people believe one should behave in a certain situation
 Role conflict - takes place when one is forced to take on two different and incompatible roles at the same
time and as a result he/she faces conflicting role expectations

Norms: standards of behavior shared by a group’s members. Norms tell us what we should do in particular
situations. Groups, communities, units, cultures, nations have norms. There are performance roles, appearance
roles, social arrangement roles and resource allocation roles.

The Hawthorne studies proved that people behave differently if they are aware of being watched, observed, or
examined, but as a group, they don’t violate the norm established. They also emphasised the role of norms in one’s
work behavior.

As a member of a group, one often experiences the conformity phenomenon – it is the adjustment of one’s behavior
to align with the norms of the group. There are group norms which press us to conform with them, to be one of the
group’s members.

Deviant workplace behavior is intentional behaviors that violate organizational norms, which threatens the members
and well-being of an organization (e.g. wasting resources, sabotage properties, spreading rumours, sexual
harassment). Individuals who belong to a group are more likely to engage in deviant behaviors.

Size: the size of the group affects it’s functioning. Smaller groups tend to be faster, but larger groups are better for
complex problem-solving issues. General rule may be that large groups can put more diverse input, but smaller
groups do it more productive. The concept of social loafing appears. This concept states that individuals try less
when working in a group than when working individually. To prevent this phenomenon the following tactics can be
used: a) set group goals, b) increase competition within a group, c) set an evaluation plan – peers evaluate peers, d)
distribute group rewards.

Cohesiveness: it is a degree of members attraction to each other combined with motivation to stay in the group. It is
easier for smaller groups to achieve cohesiveness. Cohesiveness relates to group productivity. If performance-
related norms are high, a cohesive group will experience more productivity.

What can encourage group cohesiveness? Smaller groups, consensus on common goals, more time spent tighter by
group members, enhance the group’s status, encourage competition with other groups, reward group, not just
members, physically isolate the group.
Group decision- making

Group versus individual:

PROs GROUP DECISION MAKING CONs GROUP DECISION MAKING

 Time consuming
 Generate more complete information and
 Conformity phenomenon hinters the decision
knowledge
making process
 More inputs to the decision making process
 Decision may be dominated by individual(s) in a
 Enhance diversity of views – more perspectives,
group
more solutions
 Ambiguous responsibility, collective
 Increased acceptance of a solution
responsibility

Effectiveness:

When we take into account accuracy, group decision making is better, when speed is the concern, then individual
decision making is more effective, In terms of creativity, groups will also bring more to the table.

Efficiency:

It takes longer for a group to make a decision than it does for an individual.

There are two phenomena that can take place in group decision -making: groupthink and groupshift.

Groupthink is exhibited by group members trying to minimise conflict and reach consensus, which can lead to a lack
of critical testing, analysing, and evaluation of ideas. Conformity pressures are very high and group members decide
to follow the ideas, thinking, and decisions made by others. There are few signs of groupthink:

 Illusions of unanimity among group members; silence is viewed as agreement.

 Self-censorship of ideas that deviate from the apparent group consensus.
 Direct pressure to conform placed on any member who questions the group’s consensus.
 Rationalising warnings that might challenge the group's assumptions.

Groupthink does not characterise all groups. It happens more often when the group’s identity and cohesiveness is
high. Also groups that have a negative self image are more threatened by groupthink.

The remedies for groupthink can be:

 Monitoring the size of the group. The bigger group, the more probable the occurrence of groupthink.
 At least one group member should be assigned the role of Devil's advocate. This should be a different person
for each meeting.
 Leaders should be impartial and should encourage different opinions and views.
 Using techniques that stimulate discussion.
Groupshift is a phenomenon in which the initial positions of individual group members become exaggerated because
of the interactions of the group. Group opinions are more conservative than individual’s. There are risky shifts and
cautious shifts. More often, the shift is towards greater risk. The best explanation for that is that group diffuses
responsibility and the accountability objects are not clearly defined and that’s why members dare to take riskier
decisions.

Group decision- making techniques

Interacting groups are typically groups where there is face-to-face contact.

Brainstorming is the idea-generation process or creativity-technique that is meant to generate many, different ideas
in order to solve a problem. The drawback of this technique is that it is not efficient. Individuals are more productive
in this respect; as groups tend to face “production blocking” – many people talking at once, thoughts are blocked,
communication is hampered.

Nominal group technique (NGT) is a decision making method for use amongst groups of many sizes who want to
make their decision quickly, as by a vote, but where everyone's opinions are taken into account. Discussion and
interpersonal communication are limited. NGT outperforms brainstorming.

Steps in NGT:

1. Silent generation of ideas - members meet and write down individually ideas on a sheet of paper.

2. Sharing ideas - each group member presents one idea to the group members. There are turns until all ideas are
shared.

3. Group discussion – the group discusses ideas and clarifies them.

4. Voting and ranking – each member ranks ideas. The idea with the biggest amount of votes win

Electronic meeting or computer-assisted group:

Group members work with computers to make a decision. First issues are presented. Then, group members type
their responses. On the projection screen there are comments and cumulated votes. Ideas that a person types,
appears on the screens of the other team members. Advantages of this technique: anonymity, speed, honesty.
However, researches showed that this method causes decreased group effectiveness, is time-consuming and leads
to lower satisfaction than face-to-face meetings.

Global consequences:

 Cultural differences affect status. It is important to know the role of status in a given culture.
 Social loafing is consistent with individualistic cultures/societies, not with collective ones.
 Group diversity (especially ethnical and cultural) can lead to increased conflict and low group morale.
However, if they survive initial conflicts over time diverse groups perform better.