Group

Question 1

What is group behavior and what are the three categories?

Answer 1

Group is closer to a bunch of individuals; more individualistic

1) Roles
2) Social loafing
3) Risky shift

Question 2

What are roles? And what are the two categories?

Answer 2

Set of expectations of behavior

1) Role sender: they say how they think you should do your job; employer
2) Role taker: they accept the role senders requirements; employee

Question 3

What is social loafing?

Answer 3

Individual in group ride on group performance

-Reduced by indentifiable individual contributions / member evaluations (strong indicator)

Question 4

Name something about superordinate goals.

Answer 4

Everyone has to contribute to succeed

Question 5

What is risky shift? And give the reasons for it.

Answer 5

-Group becomes more extreme than individuals
Reasons:
1) Social comparison: individual mistake extreme individual for group direction
2) Persuasion: extreme individual more persuasive than moderate
-Good examples: court trials

Question 6

What are the two categories of group development?

Answer 6

1) Social cohesion: stick togetherness of group; especially in face of problems
2) Task cohesion: cohesion around task performance; don’t have to love everyone

Question 7

What are the 6 sources for social cohesion?

Answer 7

1) Severe initiation
2) Commonalities: similar psychology; background/leads to friendships (something that the group shares)
3) Time: longer you interact, the more you get to know each other
4) Size: smaller group, more interaction/optimal size is 4-7 (limits social loading and enables people to bring ideas)
5) Common enemy: external pressure
6) Successes: people want to belong to successful group

Question 8

What is the problem with social cohesion?

Answer 8

Difficult to have diversity and cohesion

Question 9

What are the 3 sources for task cohesion?

Answer 9

1) Common goals: quality, customer service
2) Interdependent tasks: everyone has to participate
3) Leadership focuses on task completion

Question 10

Define “teams.”

Answer 10

More closely nit and collectively oriented/more cohesion

-Teams are more task oriented, more interactive than groups

Question 11

What is the difference between teams and groups?

Answer 11

Teams: collective orientation, performance, cooperation
Groups: more individual orientation, performance, less coordination

Question 12

What are 3 examples of teams?

Answer 12

1) Quality teams: suggest quality improvements
2) R&D teams: produce prototype
3) Medical teams: nurses have more to say and doctors trust their opinion more than in the past

Question 13

What are team functions?

Answer 13

Need a number of people to do a number of things/ some people have more than one job

Question 14

What are the two categories in team functions?

Answer 14

1) Task functions: focus on task/ getting the job done

2) Maintenance functions: focus on interpersonal relations

Question 15

List the order of task functions.

Answer 15

1) Initiate ideas
2) Seek info
3) Elaborate
4) Coordinate
5) Summarize
6) Evaluate

Question 16

List the order of maintenance functions.

Answer 16

1) Support
2) Set standards
3) Get others to express feelings
4) Bring about consensus
5) Resolve conflicts
6) Reduce tension

Question 17

List the 5 things you must do to create an effective team?

Answer 17

1) Diverse composition
2) Skill mix
3) Define mission
4) Esprit de corps
5) Task cohesion

Question 18

What is diverse composition?

Answer 18

Different types of people with different attributes

Question 19

What are the two categories of skill mix?

Answer 19

• Skills audit: take inventory of what you have and what you need.
• Train in skills lacking: try to balance all the skills you need

Question 20

How do you define a mission in creating an effective team?

Answer 20

Why does this group exist?
What is its purpose?
What do you need to accomplish?

Question 21

What is Esprit de corps?

Answer 21

It means spirit of the body; want to build a sense of identity; can do this by having a name for the group (should reflect the mission); have a logo and advertise (ex. t-shirts and merchandise)

Question 22

What is task cohesion in creating an effective team?

Answer 22

Task will be the commonality.