Cohesion and Development Flashcards
What is cohesion?
- Join the individuals together in interlocking interdependencies
- Solidarity or unity
- Necessary for a group to even exists
- Its prosper over time
- Its gives insights over core processes that occurs in groups
What does cohesion do?
- It helps connect people with each other, easier to reach goals
- People stay and are unified over times and across situations
- More cohesive groups runs a less risk of creating subgroups at conflicts, loose members and fail to reach goals
Equifinality
Final states or objects or goals may be reached in different ways and from different starting points
What is social cohesion?
- Determined by how much the members like each others and the group itself
- Based on two concepts
Interpersonal attraction - attraction between members, increased attraction leads to more cohesive groups
Group attraction - multilevel process, is it the members, the group or organization they are attracted to?
What is task cohesion?
- A shared commitment to achieve a goal
- Require collective effort of the group
- Performing unit
Group efficacy and potency tend to be high
What is group motivation?
- The base of task cohesion
- Group motivation to surpass individual motives, if task cohesion is strong
Group efficacy
- The belief that the croup is capable of organising and completing the actions required to finish the task
- The majority needs to believe
Group potency
- A generalized positive expectation about the groups chances of success
- High levels tend to lead to more challenging tasks
What is collective cohesion?
- The degree which the group unites, from I to We
- Perceived as solidarity
- High entativity in high cohesive groups
- Social Identity Theory - membership fuse with the group
Identity fusion theory
- A conceptual analysis that explains the extreme self sacrificing that can happen when ones identity fuse with the group
What is emotional cohesion?
- The emotional intensity of the group and their individuals when in that specific group
Group-level emotions - Interpersonal and socially shared
- Cohesive groups can display collective mood states
Affect and relational cohesion - Positive emotions due to positive interactions
Relational cohesion theory
- Assumes that members of a group forms stronger ties to groups that are perceived to be from positive sources, and the opposite
- Task-oriented groups
What is structural cohesion?
- The unity of a group that derives from the groups structural integrity
- Normative coherence, clarity of roles and intermember relations
What are normal assumptions of cohesion, and their assesments of it?
- The definitions lack cohesion
Multicomponent assumption - Many different factors contribute to cohesion
- Primary and secondary forms of cohesion
Multilevel assumption - Cohesion is more than one dimension
- One type of cohesion can work on more than one level - identity or emotions
- Vertical bonding: relations member and leader
- Organizational bonding
Multimethod assumption - Variety of methods, experience of social network methods
- Lead to different assumptions
- Operationalising cohesion differently
How does a group develop cohesion?
- New group differs from established group, with the same group - football matches
- The changes a group and its members undergo are specific to that group
- Predictable patterns of change most groups undergo
- The process cant be time restricted
Step 1 - Forming: The orientation stage
- Monitoring their behaviours
- No structure, alot of uncertainty and tension
- Information gathering, forming impressions and relations with others
- Self disclosure
- Finding your place
Step 2 - Storming: The conflict stage
- Lack of unity, personality clashes, disagreement over task
- Disagreement over the leadership position or who should have it
Conflicts are natural, doesnt have to be dramatic - Lack of conflicts not always a good sign
- Establishing communication, and for future conflicts
Step 3 - Norming: The structure stage
- High levels of intimacy, trust, support and coop
- Goals, norms and roles get clearer and establishes
- Open communications
- Growth in cohesiveness and unity
- Accepting of others and increases individual responsibility
Step 4 - Performing: The work stage
- Increased productivity
- Mature group, communicate better
- Focusing on the task at hand
- Not all groups reaches this stage
Step 5 - Adjourning: The dissolution stage
- The group end, planned or spontaneous
- Social Exchange Theory
- Spontaneous disbanding can be stressful
- Reduction in dependency
What is the cycles of development?
- Different from group to group, the patterns isnt always the same
- Stages arent clear cut, you can repeat stages several times
- Task-orientated and relations-oriented group tend to be more cohesive and more successful
Equilibrium model
A conceptual analysis of a group development that assumes the focus of a group shifts back and forth between task and interpersonal relationship
Punctuated equilibrium model
Adds the dimension that the periods of slow growth are punctuated by brief periods of relatively rapid growth . Such as deadlines or other outside pressure
What are the consequences of cohesion?
- The more cohesive a group is, the more intense it is as well; promoting bad behaviours, group pressure, decrease in open communication, ingroup and outgroup
- Enjoyment and satisfaction
- Health benefits
- Leaving cohesive groups can lead to negative feelings
- Cohesive groups can lead to damage to relations with nongroup members
- Feelings of being an outsider
- Can be more productive but takes time, or can be underperformig, enhanced coordination, reciprocal relationships
- A groups performance seems to be a predictor of cohesiveness
Old sergeant syndrome
Happens usually in military groups, people isolates themselves after their groups gets reinforced with new people (after loosing old ones). Leads to reluctant feelings of creating new emotional bonds
What is initiation?
Means of unifying a group from the getgo
- Requirements of prior commitment before joining, can be positive thing
- Cognitive Dissonance Theory
- Can influence attraction to the group and dependency , save face
- Should not make people angry or frustrated
Hazing
An initiation into a group that subject new members to mental or physical discomfort, harassment, embarrassment, ridicule or humiliation. Has nothing to do with whats needed to be a successful member
What is hazing?
- Create a dependency for the group
- Subgroup unity
- A “humbling” experience, youll do it to others eventually
- You feel worthy of joining
- Honoring old traditions
- Foot in the door, cognitive dissonance
- Affects one free will
- Not really affective
