Group dynamics

Adapted from AOD: Residential care for people with Alcohol and Other Drugs issues by Ross M. Woods, used with permission.

What is group dynamics and why study it?

Group dynamics is the study of the ways in which people ineract when they are in a group. Because the same general principles apply to all kinds of groups, group dynamics is useful for studying almost any kind of group, such as work teams, discussion groups, and students in a classroom. If you are leading a group, an understanding of its particular dynamics will help you give leadership. For example, you might be the teacher who must manage a class of students or a manager who must implement changes in the workplace.

For starters ...

Group dynamics is a fact of human nature as a social being. A group of people left together will naturally set up social structures where some people are leaders and others are followers. They will often divide into sub-groups, where each sub-group will set up unwritten rules for its members and give some members more right to speak than others. This can happen in quite brief periods, because people naturally tend to drift to those they think are like them and look for people to lead them or follow them.

The group leaders exert power to decide what others will do. It might be by being cool, coming from a more prestigious social group, bullying, offering better solutions to their shared problems, presenting opinions most persuasively, or offering something that the others want. The powerless members of the group can find their own ways to counterbalance those with power. For example, they can set up their own little sub-groups with different values, discuss their own ideas, agitate for change, or resist authority.

Besides, groups change over time. Their environments change, people change, leaders come and go, and group members come and go. And as the group changes, the dynamics also change.

A value-laden question

When you need to use group dynamic for a purpose, as a teacher or a manager does, you will need to ask, Which aspects of the group dynamic are healthy? Which are not? Why? The question is quite valid, but it is value-laden. Check that your answers are a guide to an appropriate response to the group, not just a reflection of your personal values.

 

Assignment 1

Do an Internet search of group dynamics. Then write a paper of 500 words describing group dynamics and the aspects most relevant to your particular role.

Assignment 2

Describe the group dynamics of a group. This will be easiest to do as an observation rather than while leading the group yourself. Use the questions below to guide you, although you might need to add more questions to follow up particualr phenomena in the group you observe.

  1. What kinds of people are in this group?
  2. What do they have in common that holds them together?
  3. Who are the most influential people in it?
    1. What kinds of power do they have?
    2. How do they use it?
  4. Who are the followers and the powerless?
  5. What kinds of responses do the powerless make?
  6. Do the powerless have ways of counterbalancing those with power?
  7. How does the group naturally divide in subgroups? (e.g. similar backgrounds, age, newness to the group, socio-economic background)
  8. What are the rules for each sub-group?
  9. How is the group changing? Why?