Groups

The essentials

A group is an organised system of two or more individuals who are interacting and interdependent, who have common motives, have a set of role relationships among members, and have norms that regulate their behaviour. Members perceive themselves as belonging to the group and have shared goals.

A crowd is a collection of people who happen to be present at a place by chance, without structure or feeling of belonging. A team is a special group in which members have complementary skills and are committed to a common goal for which they are mutually accountable; in a team, performance depends on both individual contributions and teamwork. An audience gathers for a special purpose, such as watching a film.

Key points

• Why people join groups: security, status, self-esteem, satisfaction of psychological and social needs, goal achievement and provision of knowledge and information.
• Group formation is helped by proximity, similarity and common motives and goals.
• Tuckman's stages: forming (uncertainty), storming (conflict over leadership and goals), norming (norms develop, group identity forms), performing (working towards goals) and adjourning (group disbands after the task).
• Group structure: roles (expected behaviour of a position), norms (unwritten rules), status (relative position or prestige) and cohesiveness (togetherness and mutual attraction among members).
• Types: primary groups (pre-existing, face-to-face, such as family) versus secondary groups (joined by choice, such as a political party); formal (rules and roles explicitly stated, such as an office) versus informal (loosely formed, such as friends); ingroup (our group) versus outgroup (another group).

Common mistakes

• Not every group passes through all stages in a fixed order; the stages are a general model.
• A crowd is not a group because it lacks structure and shared goals.