Group Behaviour

Group behaviour refers to the ways in which individuals interact, influence each other, and function collectively within a group setting. It encompasses the patterns of behaviour and the dynamics that emerge when people come together to form a group. This concept is central to understanding how groups operate, make decisions, and achieve goals.

For many years, behavioural scientists have recognized that a group has a behaviour which is different form how an individual behaves when alone or when with another person. Even as groups evolve through their various stages of development they begin to exhibit certain characteristics. Some of the characteristics which shape the structure and behaviour of groups include group size, group status, group roles, group norms and degree of group cohesiveness. These characteristics help to explain and  predict individual behaviour within the group as well as the performance of the group itself.

Following are the determinants of Group behaviour:

1. Group Size

A group can have as few as two members or as many members as can interact meaningfully and influence one another. Group size can have an important effect on group performance. While a larger group has advantage over a smaller group in terms of idea generation and availability of resources, it may produce inhibition for interaction and communication among group members. A small group may be effective in terms of interaction and communication among group members but lacks ability to handle complex tasks. Therefore group size should be determined by taking into consideration such factors as nature of tasks to be performed, maturity of group members, and the ability of group leader to manage communication, conflict and group activities.

2. Roles

Role refers to the set of behaviour patterns which an individual occupying a certain position in society is expected to display. The role played by each member is a part of the overall structure that has been defined and accepted by all group members. The groups’ effectiveness is likely to be high when the members understand and accept roles that are in line with high performance. As every employee in an organization is required to play diverse roles within and outside an organization, in order to understand the ole being currently played by an individual it is necessary to understand the various dimensions of these roles. These are explained below:

i. Role Identity

ii. Role Perception

iii. Role Expectation

iv. Role Conflict

 

i. Role Identity

The attitude and behaviour of an individual give rise to role identity. When a certain situation requires the individual to make major changes in his behaviour and attitude, the individual does so in order to fit the role. For example a person working as a team member is asked to become the team leader for a particular project. To suit this situation, the person has to change his attitude as well as his behaviour to effectively play the role of a team leader.

ii. Role Perception

Role perception means the understanding of how one is supposed to behave in a particular role .Based on an interpretation of how we believe we are supposed to behave, we engage in certain types of behaviour. The person forms this perception on the basis of certain stimuli like job description, clues provided in training programmes, role narration by peers or his own observations. However this perception may or may not be correct.

iii. Role Expectations

Role expectations are defined as how others believe you should act in a given situation. In the organizational context, both the individual employee as well as the employer has certain role expectations regarding the behaviour of the other party. This forms the basis of the psychological contract between the emolyer and the employee, which clearly sets out the expectations that each party has of the other party. While employees expect the employer to pay them well and provide them with good working conditions and timely feedback, the employer too expects the employees to be obedient, cooperative and loyal towards the organization. Failure on the part of either side can have negative consequences.

iv. Role conflict

When an individual is confronted by divergent role expectations, the result is role conflict. It exists when an individual finds that compliance with one role requirement may make more difficult the compliance with another. At extreme, it would include situation in which two or more role expectations are mutually contradictory.

3. Group Norms

All groups  have established   norms,  that  is, acceptable   standards   of behaviour that  are  shared   by the group’s   members.   Norms  tell members   what  they ought and  ought   not  to do  under   certain   circumstances.    From  an  individual’s   stand- point,   they  tell what  is expected   of you  in certain   situations.   When  agreed   to and  accepted   by the group,  norms  act as a means  of influencing   the behaviour  of group   members   with  a minimum    of external   controls.   Norms   differ  among groups,  communities,    and  societies,  but  they all have  them. Thus norms are developed and enforced for the following purposes:

• To facilitate the survival of groups
• To simplify and clarify role expectations
• To help group members by protecting their self image
• To express key group values and enhance the group’s identity

 

4. Group Leadership

A group leader plays an important role in the functioning of the group. The group leader’s behaviour has a significant impact on the member’s behaviour and performance. A formal leader like a departmental head, a supervisor or project leader is essential for work groups. The style or behaviour exhibited by the leader of the group tends to be initiated or repeated by the members of the group and has a direct influence on the success or the failure of the group.

5. Group Cohesiveness

Group cohesiveness means the degree of attachment of the members or their groups. If group cohesion is high, the interaction between members of the group is high and the degree of agreement in group opinion. Members of a cohesive group tend to have the following characteristics:

• They have collective identity.
• They share the group goals and norms and have common interests and backgrounds.
• They share a sense of purpose, working together on a meaningful task or cause.
• They establish a structured pattern of communication,
• The members interact among themselves quite frequently and interpersonal communication is very effective.

Factors Affecting Group Cohesiveness

1. Size

Other things being equal, small groups have a greater probability of being cohesive than larger one. In larger groups the necessary interactions are inhibited, communication between member is reduced to a feeble walk and there is the danger of formation of sub-groups. Small groups offer frequent interaction opportunities leading to better understanding between members.

2. Degree of dependency

The more dependent a person is on group for some result or effect, the greater will be the group’s attractiveness, and consequently greater is its cohesiveness.

3. Location

People who work closely together in the same geographical location have numerous opportunities to interact and exchange ideas resulting in highly effective an d cohesive groups than do people who are geographically separated.

4. Outside Pressure

External threats create higher bonds between members. When there are pressures from outside, group members tend to minimize their personal differences to fight the common enemy.

5. Group Status

A high status group that is successful in achieving its goals tends to have greater cohesiveness. Membership in such a group is highly rated.

6. Success

There is nothing like success to increase group spirit and cohesiveness. A near universal finding is that cohesiveness generally increases with success.

7. Group Leadership

The qualities of the group leader determine the extent to which the group members bind themselves with the group. If leader is dynamic and energetic, he motivates the group members to work with zeal for the attainment of common goals. He tries to build and maintain high group loyalty among members.

8. Status

Status is a socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others. The existence of status is a common feature of every organised group whether it is society, organization or work group. In a group, relative status of group members has significant impact on the working of the group, particularly on its norms. According to status characteristics theory, differences in status characteristics create status hierarchies within groups. Moreover status tends to be derived from one of three sources: the power a person wields over other, a person’s ability to contribute to a group’s goals and an individual’s personal characteristics. People who control the outcomes of a group through their power tend to be perceived as high status. This is largely due to their ability to control the group’s resources. So group’s formal leader or manager is likely to be perceived as high status when he or she can allocate resources like preferred assignments, desirable schedule and pay increases.

 

Different scales have been developed to measure status:

1. Ascribed achieved

The ascribed achieved dimension of status measure the extent to which prestige or value is earned or is matter of birth right. In the society the certain amount of prestige is derived merely from being born into prominent family. On other hand a person may earn it through his own work and admiration of others.

2. Functional Scalar

It is related with vertical and horizontal positions. In an organization the position pf a person may be evaluated on the basis of its rank in the hierarchy. However, at the same time, this position may be compared with other positions in the different functional areas. From this point of view, positions in certain functional areas may be more prestigious, or they may enjoy more authority. Sometimes, thus may become a sufficient ground for organisational conflicts, particularity between line and staff persons.

3. Personal Positional

This scale relates status to the extent to which prestige or value Is based on characteristics of the individual himself is based on the position he holds without regard to the person who occupies it.

4. Active-Latent

Active latent dimension arises because a person performing various roles may have different status with each other. Apparently, the status attached to a particular role has nothing to do with other role, but in actual practice, such a status may affect his functioning in other roles too.

 

Social Facilitation Effect

Social facilitation effect refers to the tendency for performance to improve or decline in response to the presence of others. Though this tendency is applicable to individual performance also as some individuals do better in presence of some but poor in presence of some others. Because of operation of social facilitation effect and effect of group factors, two types of features may appear in groups:

1. Group Synergy

2. Social Loafing

 

1. Group Synergy

Groups are created basically to take advantages of synergistic effect. The concept of synergy is quite popular in strategic management and it is defined as follows:

“Synergy is the process of putting two or more elements together to achieve  a sum total greater than the sum total of individual elements separately. This effect can be described as :

2 + 2 = 5 effect.

Thus, synergistic effect is not automatic but depends on the complementarity of different elements that are put together and the way they interact among themselves, that is, how a particular element affects another and is affected by it. Putting the concept of synergy in group work means members of the group are complementary to each other and  they contribute positively tone another.

2. Social Loafing

Social loafing is antithesis of synergy in group work which suggests that people working together on a common task may actually decrease their individual efforts . Group work does not necessarily spurt group efforts. The possibility of occurring of social loafing in a group increases because of the following reasons:

i. When the division of work cannot be a accomplished properly and individual efforts are hard to determine, group efforts tend to slacken.

ii. When the group is not cohesive with high output norms, individual members do not contribute to the fullest extent. A group is not merely an assemblage of individuals but there should be a feeling that they are members of the group and share common interests, goals and attitudes.

 

How to overcome Social Loafing?

 Social loafing is a serious problem in organization because it reduces the efforts put in by each individual. Organisations are focusing on how to increase the level of individual efforts, in additive tasks. Researchers are suggesting several ways for overcoming the impact of social loafing.

i. Identify the performance of each individual’s contribution cannot be determined by people who adapt the tendency of ‘take it easy’.

ii. Make the task more important and interesting.

iii. The positive reinforcement encourages individual’s contribution to the group activity.

iv. Negative enforcement to individuals who are slacking off, may reduce loafing