Team Dynamics

• Group


  Two or more individuals who are connected by and within social relationships
• Social identity theory


  Broad social categories can become psychologically meaningful to members, and in those cases social categories function very much like dynamic, socially based groups
• Group/Team Dynamics


  Field of inquiry dedicated to advancing knowledge about the nature of groups, the laws of their development, and their interrelations with individuals, other groups, and larger institutions
• Assumptions about groups


  • Groups are real
  • Groups are more than the sum of their parts
  • Group processes are real
  • Groups are influential
  • Groups shape society
  • Groups are living systems
  • Groups can be studied on several levels
  • The field of group dynamics is an interdisciplinary one
• Tuckman's Theory of Group Development

  1. Forming

  2. Storming

  3. Norming

  4. Performing

  5. Adjourning
• Forsyth's Stages of Group Development

  1. Orientation

  2. Conflict

  3. Structure

  4. Performance

  5. Dissolution
• Johnson's Stages of Group Development

  1. Conforming to procedures and getting acquainted

  2. Rebelling and differentiating

  3. Mutuality

  4. Structure

  5. Commitment

  6. Productivity

  7. Termination
• Recurring-phase theory of group development


  Focuses on the issues that dominate group interaction again and again
• Sequential-stage theory of group development

  Focuses on group members who go through predictable, sequential stages of membership
• Levels of group dynamics

  • Micro-level factors
  • Meso-level factors
  • Macro-level factors
• Common characteristics of groups

  • Interaction
  • Goals
  • Interdependence
  • Structure
  • Unity
• Interaction


  Relationship interaction and task interaction
• Goals


  Refer to McGrath's Circumplex Model of Tasks
• Interdependence


  The state of being dependent to some degree on other people
• Structure


  The underlying pattern of roles, norms, and relations among members that organizes groups
• Unity


  A group is a unified whole, with group cohesion and entitativity
• Group Cohesion


  The strength of the bonds linking individuals to the group
• Entitativity


  Perceived as groupness rather than an aggregation of independent, unrelated individuals, based on common fate, similarity, and proximity