Small Group Behavior Research Articles

Explaining Individual Communication Processes in Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Groups Through Individualism-Collectivism and Self-Construal

The objective of this study is to test the effective decision-making theory's (EDMT) prediction that cultural individualism-collectivism (I-C), self-construal, and group composition influence turn-taking behavior and conflict behavior in small groups. Eighty-six European Americans and 62 Japanese participated in a decision-making activity in either a homogeneous or a heterogeneous group. The major findings of the study include: (a) Independent self-construal is a predictor of the number of turns and competitive conflict tactics in both homogeneous and heterogeneous groups; (b) interdependent self-construal is a predictor of cooperative conflict tactics, but the findings are not consistent for individuals across both group compositions; (c) cultural l-C is a predictor of the number of competitive conflict tactics in both homogeneous and heterogeneous groups; and (d) cultural I-C is a predictor of the number of turns and initiated conflicts only in heterogeneous groups. Implications for the EDMT and future directions are discussed.

Agency and Communion as Related to “Big Five” Self-Representations and Subsequent Behavior in Small Groups

Associations between self-representations and behavior were hypothesized as varying in accordance with the interpersonal meta-concepts of agency and communion (Wiggins, 1991). The NEO-Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae, 1985) was completed by 250 undergraduates, to address the Big Five factors (Openness, Extraversion, Agree-ableness, Conscientiousness, and Neuroticism) and 18 subscales. Several weeks later, after both 23 and 46 interaction hours in small groups, the same participants rated self and others for self-accepting and other-accepting conduct. Self-accepting conduct ratings from pooled peers and self were consistently correlated more positively (p < .01) with NEO-PI Assertiveness, Openness, Feelings, Extraversion, and Values; ratings of other-acceptance had parallel positive associations with Agreeableness, Warmth, and Positive Emotions, and negative associations with Hostility. All ratings were related only weakly to Conscientiousness and Neuroticism. The findings support Wiggins's views of the relevance of agency and communion.

Small group behaviour experiments in the Coven project

The Collaborative Virtual Environments (Coven) project, a four-year European project launched in October 1995, designs and explores collaborative virtual environment (CVE) technology. It aims to investigate the feasibility of scalable CVE worlds through developing CVE systems and demonstrating prototype applications in a virtual travel rehearsal scenario. Our experiments in collaborative virtual environments investigated group behavior issues such as relationships between emergent leadership and computational resources, and the sense of presence and copresence among participants.

A Second Chicago School? The Development of a Postwar American Sociology

From 1945 to about 1960, the University of was home to a group of faculty and graduate students whose work has come to define what many call a second Chicago School of sociology. Like its predecessor earlier in the century, the postwar department was again the center for qualitative social research - on everything from mapping the nuances of human behaviour in small groups to seeking solutions to problems of race, crime and poverty. Howard Becker, Joseph Gusfield, Herbert Blumer, David Riesman, Erving Goffman and others created a large, enduring body of work. In this book, sociologists critically confront this legacy. The eight original chapters survey the issues that defined the department's agenda: they focus on deviance, race and ethnic relations, urban life and collective behaviour; the renewal of participant observation as a method and the refinement of symbolic interaction as a guiding theory; and the professional and institutional factors that shaped this generation, including the leadership of Louis Wirth and Everett C. Hughes; the role of women; and the competition for national influence sociology faced from survey research at Columbia and grand theory at Harvard. The contributors also discuss the internal conflicts that call into question the very idea of a unified school.

Flexibility in Negotiation and Mediation

This introductory article provides an overview of the concept of flexibility and the articles to follow. Both positive and problematic aspects of flexibility for conflict resolution are discussed: if manifest in joint problem-solving behavior, flexibility can contribute to improved negotiated outcomes; if used tactically by one or another party, it can lead to unfavorable outcomes for at least one of the parties. Flexibility can be understood at each of three levels of analysis—individual, small group, and organizational behavior—and the articles in this collection reflect these different levels. A variety of factors have been shown to influence flexible behavior, including the way negotiators plan, their orientations, tactics, and a number of aspects of the negotiating situation. These and other factors are treated in the articles to follow, each of which is summarized in this article. The articles in this collection are intended to contribute to our understanding of this concept, and the key lessons learned are presented in a final article.

Group dynamics training for manned spaceflight and the capsuls mission: Prophylactic against incompatibility and its consequences?

On February 7, 1994, four Canadian Astronauts were sealed off in a hyperbaric chamber at the Canadian Government's Defense and Civil Institute for Environmental Medicine in Toronto, Canada. This space lab training mission lasted seven days and was the first to be conducted with astronauts outside of Russia. The objective of this mission was to give Canadian astronauts, space scientists and the staff of the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the opportunity to gain first hand experience on preparational and operational aspects of a typical space mission. Twenty-one scientific experiments involving six countries from several disciplines were involved in this mission. This paper describes the goals and preliminary results of a psychological experiment/training program that used the CAPSULS mission as a test bed for its application in the manned space flight environment. The objective of this project was to enhance the understanding of small group behaviour with a view to maximizing team effectiveness and task accomplishment in teams living and working in isolation under difficult and confined conditions. The application of this model in the light of future missions is a key thesis in this paper.

Fifth and Sixth Graders' Involvement and Participation in Cooperative Small Groups in Mathematics

This study examined 48 fifth- and sixth-grade students' responses in cooperative small groups in mathematics. Students' attending and participating behavior was observed in small-group and whole-class settings in 1 fifth-grade and 5 sixth-grade classes in 3 schools. Findings showed that students generally spent more time on-task, and especially more quality time on-task, in groups than in the whole-class setting. Students were also more active participants in groups. Boys showed more initiating behavior in cooperative small groups than did girls. Low achievers were more passive than high achievers in cooperative small groups.

Stomatal patchiness

Different behaviour of small groups of stomata on a single leaf blade (stomatal patchiness) is reviewed. The occurrence of stomatal patchiness depends on plant species, age, leaf position, environmental conditions,etc. The possibility of errors in conventional evaluation of stomatal and non-stomatal (biochemical) limitations of photosynthesis resulting from patchy stomatal closure is analysed. The consequences of stomatal patchiness for leaf and plant photosynthesis and water economy are discussed. A brief survey of the techniques currently used for detection and quantification of stomatal patchiness is presented.

Multi-dimensional interaction analysis: a collaborative approach to the study of medical discourse.

This paper reviews the conceptual frameworks of several research approaches to the study of medical interactions. Two methods are discussed: process analysis and microanalysis. Adapted from Robert Bales's study of the behavior of small groups, process analysis sorts and tallies such interviewing processes as questioning and informing, achieving analysis of large numbers of interviews at the expense of attention to the content or context of the interview. When used in medical interaction research, process analysis seeks correlation between processes documented in the interview and outcomes of the interview. The methods of conversation analysts and discourse analysts, microanalyses subject medical conversations to close linguistic study and contextualization. This review focuses on the underlying assumptions, generalizability of findings, and the types of subjective judgment applied by the methods. It then describes the Multi-Dimensional Interaction Analysis (MDIA) system, a linguistic analytic instrument that combines features of process analysis and microanalysis to capture content, process, and context of medical conversations. The MDIA's validity and reliability are reported and implications for future research are outlined.

Nationalism, Patriotism, and Group Loyalty: A Social Psychological Perspective

The purpose of this essay is to introduce the reader to a social psychological perspective on the roots of nationalism. At its heart is the description of how individuals develop feelings about and attachments to groups-how they build loyalty to groups. The review explores how such loyalty can lead to hostile reactions to other groups, can become translated into stereotypes that are shared by individuals, can shape the collective behavior of groups, and can help differentiate the multiple groups that define any political environment. At a time when ethnic nationalism seems insurgent and capable of pushing much of the world into chaos and war, there is increased need both to understand and to learn how to cope with the conditions that promote such extreme group loyalty. While each of the social sciences has something to say about nationalism, social psychologists have, over the years, contributed, in often neglected ways, to our knowledge about the roots of nationalism. Specifically, they have explored the factors that arouse feelings of group loyalty when such group loyalty promotes hostility toward other groups; how cross-cutting or multiple loyalties can change the face of nationalism; and how individual group loyalties influence and shape collective behavior. It is the purpose of this article to discuss this literature and show its relevance to what is happening in the postCold War world. Focusing their attention primarily on individuals and small interacting groups, social psychologists have sought basic knowledge about the ways in which people relate to groups and nations. Central to this focus is the role played by feelings of loyalty to groups and the conditions that arouse or reduce attachments. While relying largely on data from laboratory experiments and surveys of college students, the results are relevant to a wide variety of situations and populations. Whether or not the findings have such broad implications depends on the conditions under which we can reasonably draw conclusions from them about the behavior of national aggregates. It may be that the phenomena do, in fact, aggregate directly from the individual to the collective much as votes can be aggregated. Or, we may be able to make a strong analogy between the behavior of individuals and small groups, on the one hand, and that of leaders, social movements, and whole national populations on the other. We will use both approaches and consider some of the implications of such issues as we review the research.

The costs and benefits of predator inspection behaviour in Thomson's gazelles

When Thomson's gazelles (Gazella thomsoni) detect stalking predators, such as cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) and lions (Panthera leo), they often approach and follow the predator for up to 72 min (average 14 min). Coursing predators are rarely approached. Gazelle groups were more likely to approach cheetahs if the groups were larger, if the vegetation was low, or if the cheetahs came closer to the group. Immature gazelles were more likely to approach than adults, and a higher proportion of group members participated in inspection behaviour in small groups than in large ones. Gazelles approached closer in less risky situations: if they were in larger groups or if the vegetation was low. Inspection behaviour caused cheetahs to move further between rests and between hunting attempts. Approaching cheetahs was risky, particularly for younger gazelles (probability of being killed while inspecting a cheetah was 1 in 5000 approaches for adults and 1 in 417 approaches for half-grown/adolescent gazelles), and the risks were higher than monitoring cheetahs from a distance. The time costs of predator inspection were also considerable (less than 4.2% of daylight time budget), suggesting that the benefits must be substantial to offset these costs. The results suggested that inspection behaviour was multifunctional, causing stalking predators to move out of the vicinity, enabling gazelles to monitor the predators' movements, and providing an opportunity, particularly for younger animals, to learn about predators. By approaching, gazelles also inform predators that they have been detected and alert other gazelles to the predators' presence.

A Definition of Small Group Democracy

This article clarifies the conceptual relationship between democracy and small group processes by providing a definition of small group democracy. A small democratic group is (a) powerful and (b) inclusive, with (c) a membership that is committed to the democratic process. A fully democratic group (d) maintains healthy, democratic relationships and (e) practices a democratic form of deliberationm including equal and adequate speaking opportunities and both comprehension and consideration. The concluding section makes recommendationsforfuture research, including the suggestion that researchers integrate theories of small group behavior with theories of democratic social change.

Student Passivity During Cooperative Small Groups in Mathematics

Abstract Recent studies of cooperative small-group instruction in mathematics have drawn attention to individual differences in students' responses to the demands and opportunities of that instructional format. In this article, findings of a study (Mulryan, 1989) that investigated fifth- and sixth-grade students' attending and participating behavior in cooperative small groups in mathematics are reported. A major finding of the study was that some students, mainly low achievers, manifested a high level of passive behavior in cooperative small groups. Some possible reasons for passivity among low achievers are suggested, and a categorization of types of passivity in cooperative small groups is provided. Student and teacher perceptions of passivity are also reported, as well as suggestions for further research in this area.

Applying small‐group behavior dynamics to improve action‐team performance

Applying small‐group behavior dynamics to improve action‐team performance

Quality Circle Performance

Quality circle advocates suggest a wide array of positive results when this participation technique is used. This study explores the importance of company, employee group (circle or non-circle), and time as well as their interactions. Assessment of circle performance was measured by employee attitudes, actual performance, and facilitator perception. This study did not support small group behavior and group dynamics research, as well as quality circle case study reports, that suggest attitudes will improve when quality circles are formed and will remain improved over time. Actual performance indicated cost savings and perceived circle success in three of the four circles, even though neither attitudes nor quality significantly improved over time.

Nest digging ofKalotermes flavicollis(Fabr.) (Isoptera Kalotermitidae) by groups of different numbers of pseudergates

The behaviour of small orphan groups of pseudergates of Kalotermes flavicollis during the initial digging of their new nest was studied. The groups were formed by 1, 5, 10, 20, 30 or 40 insects. (1) Some behaviours were the same for all the groups, as they did not depend on the number of the insects: the beginning of digging of both primary and secondary tunnels; the regularity and continuity of the digging; the structure of the nests mainly made of long primary tunnels with few branches and openings; the filling of tunnels with bits of wood taken from other parts of the nest. (2) Other behaviours may show that there is some kind of polyethism in the pseudergates' behaviour: the more numerous groups of pseudergates dug more quickly, but the amount of work of each individual decreased as the number of insects of the group increased. A pseudergate, when alone, hardly ever tried to dig a shelter and its tunneling, if begun, was soon stopped.

Human Territorial Functioning: An Empirical, Evolutionary Perspective on Individual and Small Group Territorial Cognitions, Behaviors, and Consequences.

Human Territorial Functioning: An Empirical, Evolutionary Perspective on Individual and Small Group Territorial Cognitions, Behaviors, and Consequences.

Theory and Practice

The literature regarding small group behavior poses an interesting anomaly. On the one hand, the professional literature emphasizes the contribution of small group participation to organizational effectiveness. On the other, there is disquieting evidence of dissatisfaction among organizational members regarding their experiences in groups. This study examines the nature of this implicit disparity, suggests sources of group members' dissatisfaction, and discusses theoretical and practical implications for students of small group behavior.

Careers in Organizations: Recent Trends and Future Directions

This review explores some of the important trends in the study of careers in organizations over the past 10 years. Content issues that have received increased attention include job stability, job exit, and resocialization within and across organizations. Along with the adult development perspective, other theoretical approaches that have gained prominence in the study of careers include the stresslcoping paradigm, small group behavior research, attribution theory, and population ecology. Future directionsfor theory development, research methodology, and career management practice are examined as well.

Verbal Interaction and Problem-Solving within Computer-Assisted Cooperative Learning Groups

Verbal interaction and problem-solving behavior of small cooperative peer groups were observed while these groups worked on a computer-assisted (non-programming) problem-solving task. The purpose of the study was to identify problem-solving behaviors which relate to success within this context. Thirty-six fourth grade students were assigned to groups of three to form six groups of high and six of average academic ability. All groups used a nonprogramming version of Logo turtle graphics to reproduce a given line design on the computer screen. Results indicate that there was no relationship between success and ability, and that successful groups asked more task-related questions, spent more time on strategy, and reached higher levels of strategy elaboration than did unsuccessful groups. High ability groups made a greater number of long task statements than did average groups, bindings are discussed within the theoretical frameworks of social cognition and modeling. Instructional implications, including those for the development of computer-assisted learning materials for peer group problem solving, are also discussed.