Group Cohesiveness

Group Cohesiveness

INTRODUCTION

According to Cartwright, group cohesiveness refers to degree to which members of a group desire to remain in a group. Thus members of highly cohesive groups display concern about their membership and my extension are more motivated to contribute to groups’ welfare to advance group goals and activities. Cohesiveness injects life to groups.

Cartwright identified two forces of cohesion in groups: force of attraction (what I call pull factors) and attractiveness of alternative membership (what I call push factors). Group cohesiveness focused on attractiveness from within the group. He identified 4 approaches to measuring group attractiveness.

Indicators of group cohesiveness

1.      Interpersonal attraction among members: - the more members like one another, the more attractive a group becomes. Cohesiveness gives members power to influence other members. Thus, mutual attraction between individuals is good for unity.

2.      Evaluation of a group as a hole: - members tend to favor group participatory leadership than command centered leadership. Probably autocratic leadership has lost taste and fashion today in leadership and governance respectively.

3.      Closeness/ identification within a group: - the question is how strong ‘a sense of belonging’ do you feel? Peoples we work with, personal involvement, interest and identification with the group enhances cohesiveness. In fact people are driven by the social bonds to acquire, defend, and esteem. In families, intimacy sustains the love and institution like marriage or family. 

4.      Expressed desire to remain in a group: through rational cost benefit comparisons. When more members want to remain in a group the cohesiveness also increases. But when it reaches a time when everyone wants to break off then we can say cohesiveness is low.

Causes/factors of attraction to a group

To individuals, attraction depends on assessment of the desirable and undesirable consequences upon membership in the group. Each will continue participation so long as inducements are offered. Assumes humans choose to remain in a group if he/she stands to get favorable outcomes. Individuals have needs and values. In this light, groups which engage in a contest might yield rewards to a self- confident individual with a strong achievement orientation but costs to a timid person fearing failure.

1.      Motive base: needs for affiliation, recognition, security, money and other values. E.g. Maslow hierarchy of needs theory.

2.      Incentive properties of a group: goals, programmes, characteristics of members, style of operation and prestige.

3.      Expectancy: probability of having beneficial or detrimental consequences. So long as the group serves its purpose then it will attract members, but when it fails it has outlived its usefulness and it would be time to dissolve the group and members walk separate ways.

4.      Comparison level: rational level of outcomes expected of group membership vis-à-vis alternative membership.

INCENTIVENESS CHARACTERISTICS OF A GROUP

1.      Attractiveness of members: - frequent interaction of members affects evaluation of each other. Indeed job appointments only open the doors to recruits. To keep one in requires skills of star performer who works smart in the office.

2.       Similarities among members: - two people get attracted to each other because of common/shared goals. The more similar members the more group attractiveness. People get attracted to situations in which others are similar to him in abilities and opinions rather than those with divergent opinions. Common values, interests, attitudes and beliefs important to the group raise membership.

The opposition politicians lacked any guiding political principle on the basis of which they could unite to unseat the ruling party. Within another year this broad coalition FORD would disintegrate into FORD-Kenya (led by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga) and FORD-Asili (led by Kenneth Matiba). The opposition politicians did not, and maybe would not and could not, cooperate to fight a common enemy.

3.      Group goals: - distinctive goal or purpose serves to attract members to the group through its special motive base. A Disruptive disagreement reduces members’ attraction to the group.

Politics has been defined as the process by which a group of people whose opinions are initially divergent, reach collective decisions which are accepted by the majority as right and is enforced as group policy.

4.      Types of interdependence among members: - each member gains satisfaction from contributions made by others towards attainment of common goals. Consider the case of study groups. Competitive group’s means each member would be graded on his/her merits relative to others. Cooperative groups imply members would be given similar grades depending on quality of group’s product. In the end, cooperative groups showed higher symptoms of cohesiveness. A good example is Durkheim’s organic society in which coherence is achieved by differentiation. Individuals pursuing different functions are united by their complementarily.

5.      Group activities: - if group has so high standard of performance, that members cannot meet, repeated personal failure adversely affects attractiveness of the group. A case in point is the Merton’s retreatist society; members resign to non striving lifestyle.

6.      Leadership & decision making: - members tend to prefer group with democratic leadership than one with autocratic leadership. Participatory leadership and decision making make members feel satisfied with group product, task, interests as well as belief in group efficiency and positive attitudes. Surely people want to feel part and parcel of group. It is natural for humans to crave for ego.

7.      Group structure: - members in strategic positions get more satisfied with groups performance than those with peripheral posts. Thus persons who are secure in their high status post and those who felt they may rise in status were more attracted than the rest of the members.

In Marxist parlance, the poor have nothing to lose unlike the haves. In equal measure members pushed to the periphery of organization are less likely to defend the organization.

8.      Group climate: - whilst some groups were relaxed, warm and friendly, others were ridden with tension and suspicion. In an environment where members feel accepted valued and appreciated attraction is high. Deep suspicions have been known to bring down KANU during the Kenyatta regime between various competing and warring factions. From jaramogi to mboya and moi, successions elicited great fallouts.

9.      Group size: - as the size of nits within organization increases, job satisfaction declines leading to absence, low turnover and labor disputes. It is practically unmanageable to have very large study groups in campus due to low performance incumbent with it.

APPDLICATION OF GROUP COHESIVENESS

1.      Maintenance of membership: - ability to retain membership is pegged on comparison level for alternatives. These are levels of outcomes a person believes he/she will receive from best available alternative membership. An individual remains in a group if and only if his levels of outcomes lie above comparison levels in alternative.

2.      Power of groups over members: - the more members conform to group norms, the more cohesive a group gets. Members of a cohesive group are expected to readily conform to group’s goals, decisions and tasks. Otherwise the group suffers various strains to groups performance.

3.      Participation & loyalty: - as cohesiveness increases, communication participation and commitment also increases. Just to borrow Durkheim’s idea, group cohesion result to solidarity and civil order.

4.      Personal consequences: - improved interpersonal relations lead to increase in cohesiveness which in turn leads to conformity, trust and confidence. Ultimately, each member develops a sense of security and self worth. Thus the group cohesion transcends beyond personal satisfaction to the individual level.