This document explores group cohesion within organizational psychology, defining groups as individuals connected by social relationships. It discusses group dynamics, the various forms of cohesion (social, task, collective, emotional, and structural), and factors that influence cohesion such as stability, inter-group competition, and size. Additionally, it emphasizes the importance of cohesion for group success and provides strategies for enhancing it, alongside a structured approach to building effective teams.

1. Organizational psychology:
Group Cohesion
A brief summary of an important topic related to teams
Kristian Svantorp

2. First, what is a group?
• Two or more people working together
• Two or more people who perceive themselves to be members of the same social category
(Turner)
• A dynamic whole based on interdependence rather than similarity. (Lewin)
• Etc…
• Forsyth summarizes:
Two or more individuals who are connected by and within social relationships.
Hogan believes it must be 3 or more, since the dynamics in a team with only 2 individuals are so much simpler

3. Second, what is group dynamics?
• The actions, processes and changes that occur within groups
• Intra-group dynamics
• The actions, processes and changes that occur between groups
• Inter-group dynamics
• And, the background of why this happens
• Social identity theory, In-/outgroup bias,
• Discontinuity effect, need to belong (inclusion), self-worth
• Individualism, collectivism, personalities, discontinuity effect
• Etc… (summary)

4. Then, Group Cohesion
How well does a group stick together, feel a unity, fit?
Forsyth: “Group Cohesion is the integrity, solidarity, social integration, unit and groupiness of a
group”
The glue that keeps a group together as a group. The motivation members have to stay in the group.
A minimum of stickiness is required for a group not to disintegrate, but cohesion can be a lot
stronger than just that.

5. What drives Cohesion
• Social cohesion
• The attraction of members to one another and to the group as a whole
• Task cohesion
• A shared commitment among members to achieve a goal and the capacity to perform successfully as a coordinated
unit
• Collective cohesion
• Members identification with the group, unity being based on shared identity and belonging
• Emotional cohesion
• Emotional intensity of the group and individuals when in the group.
• Structural cohesion
• The unity of a group derived from the structural features, like norms, roles, member relations, organization etc
According to Forsyth

6. What drives Cohesion
In addition, some other drivers and aspects
• Stability
• Low turnover. Participate in the team over a longer duration, can switch roles within the team.
• Initiation process
• Hard to get in, be accepted? If so, it will increase cohesion between the included members
• Inter-group competition. Common enemy
• Especially if you have chosen groups yourselves. If not, it can also drive down cohesion
• Performance and success
• Nothing succeeds like success. When a group performs well, cohesion increases.
• Cohesion-performance relation is bidirectional. Cohesive groups perform better, but performance drives cohesion. The last is strongest
• Size
• If a group gets to big, it may reduce cohesion within the large group, due to the share number of relations
• Similarity
• Shared values, norms, beliefs

7. And why care about cohesion?
Cohesion is considered by many to be a key ingredient for group success, but it’s not that simple
• Cohesive groups usually outperforms less unified groups, but impact varies across teams and tasks
• Weakest in ad hoc teams, strong impact in sports, military and project groups. Less in production/service teams
• Enhances coordination between members.
• A shared and more consistent mental model of the task and what to achieve
• Not necessarily more productive than less unified groups, but less variance between the members
• Assignments with a lot of interdependencies between members will benefit from cohesion
• Culture that values productivity and efficiency makes cohesion and productivity positively related. Increased cohesion will increase
existing norms, make sure they’re right… (Langfred)
• Task cohesion and commitment to the groups goals are needed to increase productivity. The other cohesive drivers alone might not
be enough (Beal)
• Improved work environment, good morale and motivations
• Improved communication and coordination

8. How to increase cohesion - samples
• Group goals instead of individual
• Ensure commitment to tasks through early involvement
• Reduce the size of teams
• Reward teams and not persons for success (should maybe be balanced a bit however)
• Increase homogeneity in the teams (will have other “side effects” you might not consider good)
• Introduce competition with other groups
• Physical isolation from other groups (again, the side effects…)
• To reduce cohesion, flip the points made above

9. Building teams– by Curphy
• 7 steps/topics a team needs to go through sequentially
• The steps are
• Mission – Common direction, goals, performance standards
• Talent – individual suitability for this team, fit with the task, fit with the team culture
• Norms – clearly, consciously defined norms that fit the goal
• Buy-in – commitment to goals, norms etc
• Power – understand what you have and use it well
• Morale – Stick together, solve your issues (cohesion falls under this)
• Results - What to be accomplished