Short summary of the topic Group Cohesion - organizational psychology. What drives cohesion and what is the benefits, in short

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