This article discusses the issues that people face when working with others. I believe that group dynamics are more complex than people realize and this article addresses that. This article is courtesy of PsyBlog.
Discover the essentials of group psychology.
When we’re in a group other people have an incredibly powerful effect on us. Groups can kill our creativity, inspire us to work harder, allow us to slack off, skew our decision-making and make us clam up.
The keys to understanding human behaviour—our lives as citizens, as workers, as friends—are in the research on group psychology, which PsyBlog has been exploring over the past few months.
This post provides an overview and you can follow the links to explore the experiments that reveal the power groups hold over us.
Formation, influence and leadership
The seeds of group behaviour are sown even before its members meet. Just knowing that some people are on ‘our side’ and others are not begins to shape our social identity. Group affiliation soon grows even stronger, though, bending our behaviour further, if we undergo an initiation rite. A rite as simple as reading rude words out loud can produce a measurable effect (see 10 rules that govern groups, #1, #2).
Once we are in a group it starts to shape us through conformity, pulling our attitudes and behaviour in line with others, threatening us with ostracism if we dare to rebel and, when facing rival groups, firing our competitive spirit (see 10 rules that govern groups, #3, #4, #10).
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