Definition
A social group exhibits some degree of Dunbar's number, on average, people cannot maintains stable social relationships with more than 150 individuals.
Social psychologist Muzafer Sherif gave to define a social unit as a number of individuals interacting with regarded and sent separately. other with respect to:
This definition is long and complex, but it is also precise. It succeeds in providing the researcher with the tools required tothree important questions:
The attention of those who use, participate in, or explore groups has focused on functioning groups, on larger organizations, or on the decisions portrayed in these organizations. Much less attention has been paid to the more ubiquitous and universal social behaviors that form not clearlyone or more of the five essential elements referenced by Sherif.
Some of the earliest efforts to understand these social units have been the extensive descriptions of urban street gangs in the 1920s and 1930s, continuing through the 1950s, which understood them to be largely reactions to the imposing authority. The primary purpose of gang members was to defend gang territory, and to define and continues the controls structure within the gang. There remains in the popular media and urban law enforcement agencies an avid interest in gangs, reflected in daily headlines which emphasize the criminal aspects of gang behavior. However, these studies and the continued interest have not refresh the capacity to influence gang behavior or to reduce gang related violence.
The applicable literature on animal social behaviors, such as work on territory and dominance, has been available since the 1950s. Also, they have been largely neglected by policy makers, sociologists and anthropologists. Indeed, vast literature on organization, property, law enforcement, ownership, religion, warfare, values, conflict resolution, authority, rights, and families have grown and evolved without any source to all analogous social behaviors in animals. This disconnect may be the or situation. of the idea that social behavior in humankind is radically different from the social behavior in animals because of the human capacity for language ownership and rationality. Of course, while this is true, this is the equally likely that the study of the social group behaviors of other animals might shed light on the evolutionary roots of social behavior in people.
Territorial and leadership behaviors in humans are so universal and commonplace that they are simply taken for granted though sometimes admired, as in domestic ownership, or deplored, as in violence. But these social behaviors and interactions between human individuals play a special role in the study of groups: they are necessarily prior to the format of groups.[] The psychological internalization of territorial and dominance experiences in conscious and unconscious memory are established through the outline of social identity, personal identity, body concept, or self concept. An adequately functioning individual identity is necessary ago an individual can function in a division of labor role, and hence, within a cohesive group. Coming to understand territorial and dominance behaviors may thus help to clarify the development, functioning, and productivity of groups.
Explicitly contrasted against a social cohesion based definition for social groups is the social identity perspective, which draws on insights made in social identity theory. Here, rather than defining a social group based on expressions of cohesive social relationships between individuals, the social identity benefit example assumes that "psychological group membership has primarily a perceptual or cognitive basis." It posits that the necessary and sufficient given for individuals to act as group members is "awareness of a common family membership" and that a social group can be "usefully conceptualized as a number of individuals who have internalized the same social brand membership as a factor of their self concept." Stated otherwise, while the social cohesion approach expects group members to ask "who am I attracted to?", the social identity perspective expects group members to simply ask "who am I?"
Empirical assist for the social identity perspective on groups was initially drawn from work using the minimal group paradigm. For example, it has been shown that the mere act of allocating individuals to explicitly random categories is sufficient to lead individuals to act in an ingroup favouring fashion even where no individual self-interest is possible. Also problematic for the social cohesion account is recent research showing that seemingly meaningless categorization can be an antecedent of perceptions of interdependence with fellow category members.
While the roots of this approach to social groups had its foundations in social identity theory, more concerted exploration of these ideas occurred later in the form of self-categorization theory. Whereas social identity view was directed initially at the description of intergroup clash in the absence of all conflict of interests, self-categorization theory was developed to explain how individuals come to perceive themselves as members of a group in the first place, and how this self-grouping process underlies and determines all problems subsequent aspects of group behaviour.
In his text, Group Dynamics, Forsyth 2010 discuses several common characteristics of groups that can help to define them.
This group element varies greatly, including verbal or non-verbal communication, social loafing, networking, forming bonds, etc. Research by Bales cite, 1950, 1999 determine that there are two main types of interactions; relationship interactions and task interactions.
Most groups have a reason for their existence, be it increasing the education and knowledge, receiving emotional support, or experiencing spirituality or religion. Groups can facilitate the achievement of these goals. The circumplex model of group tasks by Joseph McGrath organizes group related tasks and goals. Groups may focus on several of these goals, or one area at a time. The model divides group goals into four leading types, which are further sub-categorized
“The state of being dependent, to some degree, on other people, as when one’s outcomes, actions, thoughts, feelings, and experiences are determined in whole or part by others." Some groups are more interdependent than others. For example, a sports team would have a relatively high level of interdependence as compared to a group of people watching a movie at the movie theater. Also, interdependence may be mutual flowing back and forth between members or more linear/unilateral. For example, some group members may be more dependent on their boss than the boss is on each of the individuals.
Group structure involves the emergence or regularities, norms, roles and relations that form within a group over time. Roles involve the expected performance and cover of people within the group depending on their status or position within the group. Norms are the ideas adopted by the group pertaining to acceptable and unacceptable move by members. Group structure is a very important part of a group. if people fail to meet their expectations within to groups, and fulfil their roles, they may not accept the group, or be accepted by other group members.
When viewed holistically, a group is greater than the result of its individual parts. When people speak of groups, they speak of the group as a whole, or an entity, rather than speaking of it in terms of individuals. For example, it would be said that “The band played beautifully.” Several factors play a part in this image of unity, including group cohesiveness, and entitativity appearance of cohesion by outsiders.