Group Personality Composition Research Articles

Individual survival is dictated by group personality in a marsh ecosystem predator–prey interaction

Abstract Predator–prey interactions structure ecological communities, and personality can significantly mediate these interactions. Personality expression is often contingent on social context, suggesting that group personality may be key in determining the outcomes of predator encounters. Here, we test the influence of individual personality and group composition on survival of the marsh periwinkle, Littoraria irrorata, when exposed to its main predator, the blue crab, Callinectes sapidus, both integral players in mediating the productivity and health of salt marsh ecosystems. Snails were categorized as having bold or shy personality types, which were unrelated to shell length, though neither trait influenced survival when individual snails were exposed to a predator. However, when snails were partitioned into groups differing in personality composition, snails in groups with bold individuals had higher survival than those in groups with none. While group type did not influence the survival of bold snails, shy snails performed better in mixed groups: the presence of a few bold individuals emerged as especially effective in decreasing mortality of shy snails. The effect of personality on predator escape is thus conditional on group personality composition, indicating that social context can directly impact the survival and success of its individual members, with broad implications for community dynamics.

Social groups with diverse personalities mitigate physiological stress in a songbird.

Social groups often consist of diverse phenotypes, including personality types, and this diversity is known to affect the functioning of the group as a whole. Social selection theory proposes that group composition (i.e. social environment) also influences the performance of individual group members. However, the effect of group behavioural composition on group members remains largely unexplored, and it is still contentious whether individuals benefit more in a social environment with homogeneous or diverse behavioural composition. We experimentally formed groups of house sparrows Passer domesticus with high and low diversity of personality (exploratory behaviour), and found that their physiological state (body condition, physiological stress and oxidative damage) improved with increasing group-level diversity of personality. These findings demonstrate that group personality composition affects the condition of group members and individuals benefit from social heterosis (i.e. associating with a diverse set of behavioural types). This aspect of the social life can play a key role in affiliation rules of social animals and might explain the evolutionary coexistence of different personalities in nature.

Personality composition determines social learning pathways within shoaling fish.

In shaping how individuals explore their environment and interact with others, personality may mediate both individual and social learning. Yet increasing evidence indicates that personality expression is contingent on social context, suggesting that group personality composition may be key in determining how individuals learn about their environment. Here, we used recovery latency following simulated predator attacks to identify Trinidadian guppies (Poecilia reticulata) that acted in a consistently bold or shy manner. We then employed network-based diffusion analysis to track the spread of a novel foraging behaviour through groups containing different proportions of bold and shy fish. Informed associates promoted learning to a greater extent in bold individuals, but only within groups composed predominately of bold fish. As the proportion of shy fish within groups increased, bold individuals instead emerged as especially effective demonstrators that facilitated learning in others. Individuals were also more likely to learn overall within shy-dominated groups than in bold-dominated ones. We demonstrate that whether and how individuals learn is conditional on group personality composition, indicating that selection may favour traits enabling individuals to better match their behavioural phenotype to their social environment.

The Influence of Group Big-Five Personality Composition on Student Engagement in Online Discussion

To explore the influence of the group personality composition on students' engagement in the online discussion, correlation analysis was conducted among the Big-5 personality of group members and student engagement in the group. This study comprehensively used four measurement indicators of the Big-Five personality of group members as group composition: average, variance, maximum, and minimum. In this study, student engagement was divided into behavioral engagement, affective engagement, and cognitive engagement. The study found that the combination of the Big-Five personalities in the group could have an impact on student engagement, especially affective engagement. When organizing students' online discussion, the instructors need to consider the personality characteristics of the group members carefully.

The Lone Wolf vs. A Pen Full of Wolves: A Composition-Dispersion Model of Group Machiavellianism

The current study incorporates the composition-dispersion framework while integrating dark personality into group personality composition research. More specifically, we study the group level effects of Machiavellian composition in regards to group deviance. We provide a brief critique of the two most commonly used theoretical approaches to studying group personality composition and contend that the composition-dispersion approach, via polynomial regression and surface plotting, depicts a more complex and comprehensive set of relationships between group personality and group outcomes. Based upon prior research, we made hypotheses in line with both the supplementary (mean-level Machiavellianism) and complementary (level of dispersion) approaches to personality composition. Additionally, we hypothesized an effect of incongruence such that mean-level Machiavellianism and dispersion would jointly impact deviance. We found partial support for the supplementary approach, in that the group mean level of Machiavellianism was positively related to both interpersonal and organizational deviance. We did not find support for the complementary approach, in that dispersion level of Machiavellianism was not related to deviance. Using polynomial regression, we found further support that simple linear effects only explained part of the relationship between group Machiavellianism and deviance. Our findings elucidate the impact of incongruence on the Machiavellianism-deviance relationship within groups. We offer theoretical and practical implications to our findings.

Colony personality composition alters colony-level plasticity and magnitude of defensive behaviour in a social spider

The ways in which animal societies respond to threat has enormous consequences for their success. In the present study, we investigated how group personality composition in social spiders (Stegodyphus dumicola) alters groups' average response towards predators and how their responses change with experience with important predators, Anoplolepis custodiens ants. We found that colonies composed of a mixture of ‘bold’ and ‘shy’ personality types exhibited twice as much defensive web-making behaviour as other colony compositions. Colony defensive behaviour was also more temporally stable following experience with predators for ‘mixed’ colonies than for either monotypic composition (all shy or all bold). Colonies composed of bold individuals were particularly erratic in their defensive behaviour over time. Thus, colony composition altered colony-level plasticity in response to experience with one of their most voracious predators. We additionally observed the behaviour of marked individuals within colonies to determine which individual traits were associated with task participation during encounters with predators. Individual morphology and boldness both predicted task participation at the individual level, with boldness being negatively associated with participation in the attack sequence, but positively associated with defensive silk making. Low body condition also proved to be important for predicting participation in any task. Lastly, despite a tight association between colony composition and colony defensive behaviour, we found no evidence that colony composition affected colony survival during ant attacks in situ. Instead, older and more established nests were positively associated with colony persistence during attacks.

When women emerge as leaders: Effects of extraversion and gender composition in groups

Focusing on the gender of emergent leaders in initially leaderless groups, we explore contextual factors that may influence when women are likely to emerge as leaders. We take a multi-level perspective to understand and unpack the complex interplay between individual gender, group gender composition, and group personality composition. Drawing from perspectives such as social role theory and the social identity model of leadership, we theorize as to when women are most likely to emerge as leaders, even in groups composed predominantly of men. Results from two studies indicated that individual level gender does not interact with group gender composition to predict leadership emergence, suggesting that groups with more men do not disproportionally choose men as leaders, and groups with more women similarly do not tend to have women emerge as leaders. However, a three-way interaction consistently appeared in our studies when group-level extraversion was added to individual and group gender, in a pattern suggesting that group extraversion alters leader emergence patterns in groups with more men. Our findings demonstrate that women become more likely to emerge as leaders when their groups are both high in extraversion, and composed of more men than women. Implications for practice and future research directions are discussed.

A Longitudinal Study of the Antecedents and Consequences of Collective Personality

In this study, we explored the development and relevance of collective personality to group effectiveness. To this end, we followed a sample of 94 newly formed groups over a 4-month period. First, the results showed support for the emergence of a Big Five structure of collective personality over time. This factor structure appeared to be well developed sometime between 2 and 3 months after group formation. Second, many group personality composition variables were significant antecedents of corresponding collective traits over time. Third, collective Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Emotional Stability predicted group task performance, group social loafing, and group task conflict, after controlling for group personality composition and group ability composition. These findings highlight the potential usefulness of collective personality traits in understanding group outcomes.

Social factors in group recommender systems

In this article we review the existing techniques in group recommender systems and we propose some improvement based on the study of the different individual behaviors when carrying out a decision-making process. Our method includes an analysis of group personality composition and trust between each group member to improve the accuracy of group recommenders. This way we simulate the argumentation process followed by groups of people when agreeing on a common activity in a more realistic way. Moreover, we reflect how they expect the system to behave in a long term recommendation process. This is achieved by including a memory of past recommendations that increases the satisfaction of users whose preferences have not been taken into account in previous recommendations.

Follow the crowd in a new direction: When conformity pressure facilitates group creativity (and when it does not)

Adopting a person by situation interaction approach, we identified conditions under which conformity pressure can either stifle or boost group creativity depending on the joint effects of norm content and group personality composition. Using a 2×2×2 experimental design, we hypothesized and found that pressure to adhere to an individualistic norm boosted creativity in groups whose members scored low on the Creative Personality Scale (Gough, 1979), but stifled creativity in groups whose members scored high on that measure. Our findings suggest that conformity pressure may be a viable mechanism for boosting group creativity, but only among those who lack creative talent.

The role of group personality composition in the emergence of task and relationship conflict within groups

AbstractConflict is a ubiquitous feature of groups in organizations that clearly affects group performance. While prior research has investigated the role of personality on conflict resolution styles at the individual level, little work has examined the role of personality on the emergence of conflict. This may be partially due to the fact that the emergence of conflict is inherently a group-level phenomenon, and thus requires the aggregation of personality to the group (or at least dyadic) level of analysis. I propose that each of the Big Five personality traits (or specific facets), at the group level, affect the emergence of either task conflict, relationship conflict, or both. Developing our understanding of how group personality composition affects both of these types of conflict is necessary to better enable groups to manage conflict, and thereby lessen potentially harmful outcomes resulting from conflict.

The role of group personality composition in the emergence of task and relationship conflict within groups

AbstractConflict is a ubiquitous feature of groups in organizations that clearly affects group performance. While prior research has investigated the role of personality on conflict resolution styles at the individual level, little work has examined the role of personality on the emergence of conflict. This may be partially due to the fact that the emergence of conflict is inherently a group-level phenomenon, and thus requires the aggregation of personality to the group (or at least dyadic) level of analysis. I propose that each of the Big Five personality traits (or specific facets), at the group level, affect the emergence of either task conflict, relationship conflict, or both. Developing our understanding of how group personality composition affects both of these types of conflict is necessary to better enable groups to manage conflict, and thereby lessen potentially harmful outcomes resulting from conflict.

The ASA Framework

A theoretical model integrating Schneider's Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) framework, group personality composition, and group performance is presented. The proposed model focuses on three operationalizations of group composition based on the Big Five personality traits. This model suggests that for certain types of teams group minimum scores vary more than group mean scores, resulting in more robust predictors of group effectiveness. Results indicate that group minimum Agreeableness and Conscientiousness correlate positively with supervisor ratings of performance, group average scores correlate positively with performance, and variance of Conscientiousness correlate inversely with group performance. Minimum scores for both Agreeableness and Conscientiousness vary more than mean scores, and teams with increased levels of both Agreeableness and Conscientiousness receive higher performance ratings than other types of teams. Initial support for the proposed model is presented, practical and research implications are discussed, and future directions for research are suggested.

Group Personality Composition and Group Effectiveness

This review examines relationships between group personality composition (GPC) and group effectiveness, focusing on four questions: (a) How have researchers operationalized GPC? (b) What criteria have been used as measures of group effectiveness? (c) Is GPC related to group effectiveness? (d) Under what conditions is GPC associated with group effectiveness? A review of 31 studies yielding 334 unique relationships distinguished task and relationship predictors and criteria. Findings indicate operational definitions of GPC are varied, variance scores correlate negatively with group effectiveness, and minimum scores predict as well as mean scores. GPC is related to group effectiveness, and the effect is stronger in field studies than lab studies. Implications are discussed.

Group Personality Composition and Performance in Military Service Teams

A field study of intact military teams tested hypotheses about group personality composition on conscientiousness and agreeableness. Members of 47 intact military service teams completed questionnaires assessing individual personality traits, and their supervisors rated team performance. Group average agreeableness and conscientiousness correlated positively with group performance ratings, as did the group minimum score for both traits. Variance for group agreeableness correlated negatively with group performance. Groups with high scores on both conscientiousness and agreeableness received higher performance ratings than all other group compositions, pointing to the possibility of synergy of complementary, collective personality traits in work teams. Results carry implications for theory, application, and future research.