Group process: navigating the dynamics Flashcards
What is a primary group
- Primary groups are spontaneous and have informal social processes and structures
- Membership is automatic, or freely chosen (family group, childhood peer group, neighbours, friendship groups)
- Our first primary group is our family
- RNs are both members of groups and facilitators/leaders of groups
What is a secondary group
- Secondary groups exist for a specific purpose; emphasizing completing a job and/or accomplishing specific goals
- Membership is more selective and the group’s social processes and structures are formalized (a student council, an exercise group, a patients’ rights committee)
- Specific purpose
- Usually a selected leader
- Formal beginning, formal structure, formal end
Definition of a group
- “A collection of persons who engage in repeated, face-to-face communication, identify with each other, are interdependent, and share a common purpose or purposes”
- Can meet basic individual needs for belonging, security, safety and the opportunity to help others
- Also shape their members’ thinking and behaviour through internal processes of acceptance and rejection
- We are all reliant on each other to create this climate of learning and achieve our common goal
- Can be both constructive positive force or a destructive force, or both
Characteristics that influence/shape functionality of small groups
- Group purpose
- Group goals
- Group size
- Group member composition
- Group norms
Group purpose
- Want to have a clearly defined group purpose; directs everything that will be going on in the group
- There are different kinds of purpose
Health education
– knowledge of skills; particular interventions, how to self manage particular issue
Support
– promoting health behaviours and preventing maladaptive coping habits among members; sense of community, compassion and empathy , having suffering witnessed
Socialization
– i.e. music group, help people who have difficulties making connections socially, expressing themselves interpersonally
– based on common interest, facilitate social connections
Psychotherapy
- intention is on having therapeutic benefit related to some sort of mental health issue
- Common experience of mental health issue
– can be health education group or psychotherapy group regarding mental health issues
Group goals
- Achievable, measurable and within the capabilities of the group
- Goals are tied to particular group’s purpose
- Needs to be achievable
- Is it within the capabilities of this group; what do they want to accomplish, what do I want to accomplish
- Is it realistic given the time and space we have together
- Make sure it’s not too easy or difficult
Group size
- Dictated by the purpose of the group
- 6-8 members ideal for therapeutic group
- 10 members for educational group
- Group too big; fish bowl effect
- Too small of a group; also feel on display; is somebody is away, more pressure in terms of participation
- 10 good for education; generally not disclosing the same intimate information as therapeutic group
Group member composition
- Functional similarity of participants
Who the group members are plays a role in how the group interactions
- How similar are these participants
- How well will they be able to share emotionally, psychologically to what is happening to them
- Risk of functional similarity screening: you can segregate out people who need the service the most who are typically marginalized within society
- We live and work in a finite society; what are the implications of the people being excluded and where will they go
- Need to self interrogation of what is at the root of the decision making, what are the implications of the decision making and for whom?
Group norms
- Unwritten behavioural rules of conduct expected of group members
- Universal norms vs. group-specific norms
- All about how we conduct ourselves within the group
- Universal norms – do they exist? Everything needs to be negotiated
- Our behaviour is governed by the particularities of the group
Group dynamics
- Communication processes and behaviours occurring during the life of the group
- Both “individual” and “group characteristics” combined
- Group dynamics influence success of reaching goal, and/or membership satisfaction
- Can be both verbal and non-verbal things that are going on within the context of the group
Group functions
- The behaviour of every small group serves two types of functions:
1) Task-related function
- Focus on completing the job
- Goal-oriented and instrumental
2) Group maintenance function
- Focus is on how members are interacting
- Member-related and interpersonal
- Have to have both functions attended to
- To only attend to one is at the detriment of the other
Building group cohesiveness
- Group cohesion is that sense of unity or togetherness that is formed amongst its membership
- Sense of pride in membership
- Emotional commitment to members of the group (sense of loyalty)
- Allows groups to weather internal problems/conflict and prevent the group’s disintegration
Group think
- Risk with increased cohesion
- Group think: everyone is so invested in the group that everyone starts thinking in a particular way and starts suppressing other ways of thinking
- Flags that group think is happening; suppression of dissenting voice, self censor ship of members, self appointment mind guards (policing how others are feeling about things)
- These can work against achievement of particular goals
Phases of group development
- Forming
- Storming
- Norming
- Performing
- Mourning
Group development: forming
- everyone feeling it out
- getting to know each other
- playing nice
Group development: storming
- when drama starts
- jockeying for power
- people want to assert themselves
- people fall into more submissive role
- who will do what kinds of tasks
- conflict around leadership, structure, power
- members testing one another
- more authentic in engagement (true lay of the land of how group will play out)
Group development: norming
- group falling into a rhythm
- group cohesion and better understanding of group itself
- knowing how to engage with each other
- creativity high and productivity high
Group development: performing
- not all groups reach this stage
- true interdependence
- group functioning really well
- robust
- most groups don’t last long enough to achieve this stage
Group development: mourning
- sad that the group is coming to an end
- looking to leader about what happens next
- hopefully have achieved goal
- emotional work of disengaging with one another
Leading role vs facilitating role
- Important distinction between role as a group leader vs. role as a group facilitator
- Leader is in a position of authority over the group that exerts a varying degree of control over both the content and processes of a group
- Facilitator is a “self-reflective, process-person who has a variety of human, process, technical skills and knowledge, together with a variety of experiences to assist groups of people to journey together to reach their goals”
Leader – you are opposing authority over group, determining the content, how it rolls out
Facilitator – resource to the group, brings a set of skills/knowledge that meets the groups, encourages the group to mobilize their own resources
Types of communication
- Example of owl, peacock, dove, eagle
- People have different communication methods
- May need to adapt to meet other peoples needs
- Be mindful when communicating that others may communicate effectively in different ways
Facilitator roles
- Designing an appropriate process to achieve the outcome desired by the group
- Observing what is happening, or not happening in the group and highlighting this to the group
- Identifying and raising problems that are holding the group back
- Challenging inappropriate behaviour
- Drawing out ideas
- Posing new approaches for problem-solving
- Mobilizing interventions to improve functioning
Group member roles: task-related behaviours
- Initiator
- Information seeker
- Opinion seeker
- Informer
- Clarifier
- Summarizer
- Reality tester
- Orienter
- Follower
Group members roles: maintenance-related behaviours
- Harmonizer
- Gatekeeper
- Consensus taker
- Encourager
- Compromiser
- Standard Setter
Group member roles: idiosyncratic behaviours
- Aggressor
- Blocker
- Self-confessor
- Competitor
- Sympathy-seeker
- Special pleader
- Horsing around(er)
- Recognition seeker
- Withdrawer
Characteristics of an ineffective group
- Goals are vague or imposed on the group without discussion
- Communication is guarded and feelings are not always given attention
- Power resides with the leader- it is not shared
- Decision-making occurs with little or no consultation
- Controversy and open conflict are not tolerated
- There is a one-sided focus on task or maintenance role functions to the exclusion of the complimentary function
- Individual resources are not used
- Problem-solving abilities and interpersonal effectiveness are low
- Or goals imposed on a group where there hasn’t been any participation on it; if there is no buy in
- Need to have conflict out in the open so it can get resolved
Ineffective groups: solution focused interventions
Guiding principles:
- Assess what is happening
- Identify the problem
- Review the evidence for interventions that address your group’s specific problem
- Identify some expected outcomes for your intervention
- Ensure outcomes are specific, achievable & measurable
- Evaluate your intervention and re-assess
Relationship development
- Icebreakers
Idea generation
- Brainstorming
- Nominal group technique
Capacity-building
- Improving group relationships
Adaptive learning
- Appreciative Inquiry; what’s going well and what can we keep doing
