Group-level Influences Research Articles

Discussion: modeling and maximizing peer effects in school

This chapter discusses issues that are common across the literatures and makes connections across the different levels of inquiry to develop a conceptual model of peer influences on learning. Based on the premise that compositional effects operate through a nested series of hierarchical layers, the chapter proposes a multi-layered model with effects propagating from school-level influences to class-level influences to group-level influences to ambient and configured environments for learning among peers. It is proposed that many of the effects are indirect. Hence, peer effects ‘look’ smaller the further we move away from the instructional coalface because they are mediated by intervening layers. It is also noted that there may be reciprocal effects whereby peers influence teachers and school organization and management. Finally, the chapter describes four instructional approaches that utilize peer resources to maximize learning. These approaches demonstrate additional ways of capitalizing on peer effects beyond altering student composition.

Collective Efficacy: A Multilevel Analysis

A full understanding of how efficacy beliefs influence collective action requires considering the social nature of groups. The authors focus on collective efficacy, a shared belief that individuals hold about the group. Collective efficacy can be influenced by both individual- and group-level variables. A multilevel framework is employed to analyze the antecedents and consequences of collective efficacy in college basketball teams. Individual-level influences on collective efficacy included self-efficacy, optimism, perceptions of leader effectiveness, and perceptions of recent team performance. Group-level influences included group size, past team performance, and confident leadership. The authors also found support for collective efficacy as a shared belief. This support came from showing within-team agreement and the interdependence of team members’ collective efficacy beliefs. Collective efficacy beliefs were persistent and affected group performance. Finally, the role of leadership in the creation, maintenance, and enhancement of collective efficacy was analyzed.

Drinking patterns within households: the estimation and interpretation of individual and group variables.

Levels of alcohol consumption tend to be similar for individuals living in the same household. This may be because: (a) individuals with similar characteristics collect in households (correlated effects); (b) individuals in the same household are influenced by common factors (exogenous effects); and/or (c) the consumption levels of an individual directly influences the consumption levels of other individuals in the same household (endogenous effects). Whichever of these three possibilities is the principal reason underlying household clustering of consumption levels has important policy implications. In this paper we propose a testing strategy to distinguish between the three types of effect in a cross-sectional data-set. Allowing for exogenous or endogenous effects shows that the significant socio-economic gradient in a model containing only individual variables arises because of misspecification. However, because we find significant evidence of correlated effects, we cannot identify whether it is endogenous or exogenous effects which give rise to statistically significant group level variables. The results indicate the possible pitfalls of omitting group level influences.

Multi-level information-processing explanations of followers' leadership perceptions

The information-processing and person perception literatures imply that leadership perceptions will be based on both affective and cognitive processing strategies. We propose that both affective and cognitive information-processing mechanisms may work at a variety of levels (individual, dyad, and group) to determine followers' perceptions of leaders. Although the role of affective processing in leadership perception has been little investigated, it plays a key role in the rapid formation of a general liking (or disliking) that then sets the basis for more elaborate cognitive and affective processing. Especially interesting is the possibility that the development of mutual liking depends not only upon characteristics of individual followers or leaders but also upon dyadic and group-level influences on affective processing. Cognitive processing is also subject to dyad- and group-level effects, as leader characteristics have the potential to cue different prototypes in dyadic relations. Similarly, groups can influence prototype availability, mood, information used, and other determinants of subsequent leadership perceptions.

Group Interactional Processes: Individual and Group Level Effects

Though it is generally held that groups can influence individual behavior and affective responses, the majority of group studies fail to test for such effects. Using data collected at an individual level to make inferences con cerning the effects of group level processes on individual behavior and atti tudes often results in unrecognized inaccuracies. Similarly, operation alizing group constructs through within-group aggregation of individual responses across groups for inferential purposes is also problematic. This article demonstrates a multilevel approach for examining the individual and group level influences of a social interaction variable on various indi vidual outcomes. In doing so, it illustrates a means for simultaneously considering micro and macro organizational phenomena.