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The topic of group cohesion receives little coverage in the media, online publications, and thematic social networks. This topic is hardly touched upon in secondary and higher school curricula, since it is considered to be the sphere of professional interests of social psychologists.
And social psychology itself as an applied science began to interest more or less the general public only with the beginning of the “coronavirus” protests that swept through practically the entire world.
A curious observation. Social psychology as a science was formed in 1908. In 2008, exactly 100 years later, humanity entered a protracted crisis that engulfed all countries of the world, all social groups, all spheres of life.
The juxtaposition of these two facts speaks volumes. By 1908, social influences around the world had become so intense, the observation and analysis of them so advanced in scientific thought, that it led to the official birth of a new direction in psychology.
By 2008, the social impacts on the planet had so destabilized the world economy, politics, science, ecology, psyche, and health of society in general and individuals in particular, that all the achievements of scientific and technological progress began to pale against the growing threat to life on Earth.
The entire previous history of mankind took shape as a social and psychological science only at the beginning of the twentieth century. The last 100 years, which is only a blink of an eye compared to all of history, have brought psychology and its branches to an entirely new level of human understanding of the self within the world and its phenomena.
What factor enabled psychology in general and social psychology in particular to make such a leap?
This factor is called selfishness. It is to the enormous development of selfishness in man, in interpersonal, intra-group and inter-group relations that humanity “owes” today’s crisis, which threatens the very existence of life.
What to do with this selfishness, how to correct it, what techniques to use, what words and forms of interaction to find, to prevent our further slide into the abyss? These and many other pressing issues worry not only social psychologists and educators, but also parents, teachers, law enforcement, doctors, scientists, officials, diplomats, politicians, and statesmen.
The study of egoism and all of its manifestations in interpersonal, intragroup and intergroup relations formed the basis of modern integral psychology. The purpose of studying the phenomenon of egoism is to find methods of prevention and correction of social disadaptation of an individual through a good group, which is the basis and unit of society, which should eventually lead to the stabilization of the entire society.
Our task is to find principles for forming good groups. In medicine, we know that in order to treat well, you need to be able to diagnose. And in order to make correct diagnoses, you need to know the norm, the physiology, in other words, the nature of the phenomenon or object of interest.
Only by starting from the norm can we think clearly and systematically in order to effectively and unobtrusively correct impaired social interactions and help people learn communication skills.
What is the norm in general and in social psychology in particular?
Without going into an endless list of characteristics of different kinds of norms, all phenomena of this world can be reduced to the interaction of two forces: egoism and altruism.
We live in a binary world of light and darkness, good and evil, right and left, hot and cold, so the existence of two forces within individuals and society-altruism and egoism-is not in dispute or doubt.
The norm is a balanced interaction of altruistic and egoistic forces. Balance is a mutual complement, when, without losing individual properties, each element of the system works as part of the whole, and all elements work as a whole. Thus, both selfishness and altruism are parts of the same whole, working toward the same goal.
Today we all need to start with ourselves. Build the right environment. Build the right relationships between different circles and groups.
Don’t stop along the way for a minute. And only by quantitatively and critically accumulating changes do we have any chance of coming to a qualitative leap in the balance of power on the planet.
A social group is an association of people who share a significant social attribute, on which their participation in some activity is based, connected by a system of relations, which are regulated by formal or informal social institutions.
Group cohesion is a systemic quality of a group as a whole, expressed by the degree of commitment of its members to the group.
Signs of group cohesion:
1) the group works as a unit, its members do not interfere with each other in their interaction;
2) team members actively and effectively participate in joint activities;
3) orientation towards a common goal;
4) rational use of resources;
5) openness of relations: mutual assistance and exchange of knowledge is developed.
Consequences of group cohesion:
1) group members spend more time communicating with each other, thus increasing both the quantity and quality of group interaction;
2) a cohesive group has a great influence on its individual members;
3) in a cohesive group the efficiency of group activity is higher, because. Cohesive group members adhere to group performance guidelines and get more job satisfaction.
In any group, cohesive and random, in each member of this group, social psychology distinguishes certain effects arising as a result of the impact of a variety of people on each other. These effects are a natural phenomenon that occurs in all of us when we come under the influence of one community or another.
The purpose and meaning of these phenomena is the adaptation of the individual to intragroup interaction. Thus, group effects are mechanisms of group functioning by means of which group processes are carried out and group states are achieved. They are the means to ensure the integration of individual actions in joint group activities and communication.
Here we are interested in the 8 main group effects manifested in the individual as part of the group:
- The effect of “belonging to a group” is a complex of three components (cognitive, emotional, behavioral) that make up group identity, i.e. the individual’s attitude to belonging to a certain group.
- The “synergy effect” is the surplus intellectual energy that arises when people are combined into a coherent group and is expressed as a group result that exceeds the sum of the individual results, i.e. meets the 1+1 requirement>2.
- The “groupthink” effect is a way of thinking that people acquire in a situation where the search for agreement becomes so dominant in a cohesive group that it begins to override the evaluation of possible alternative actions. For the group involved in such a decision-making strategy, the search for consensus becomes more important than solving the problem itself.
- The Imitation Effect. Imitation is one of the main mechanisms of group integration. In the process of group interaction, group members develop common standards and stereotypes of behavior, the adherence to which emphasizes and strengthens their membership in the group.
- The “we-they” effect is a sense of belonging to a certain group of people and, accordingly, a sense of detachment from others, separation from other groups. The effect of belonging to a group includes two more particular effects – the effect of belonging and the effect of emotional support. The first is expressed in the fact that a member of the group feels himself/herself involved in the problems, affairs, successes and failures of the group to which he/she really belongs or subjectively identifies himself/herself. A sense of responsibility for the results of the group’s activity is formed on the basis of the effect of ownership. The effect of emotional support manifests itself in the fact that a member of the group expects emotional support, sympathy, empathy and help from the rest of the group.
- The “group favoritism” effect is the tendency to favor members of one’s group in some way over members of another group. The effect of group favoritism is based on the “us and them” effect and seems to establish a “demarcation line” between those people who are perceived as “our own” according to certain criteria, and those who are perceived as “others” according to the same criteria.
- The “ripple effect” is the spread of ideas, goals, norms, and values within a group. A new idea originates in the mind of one person, he shares it with his immediate environment, which discusses, corrects, complements and develops the proposed idea. Then the idea spreads to the other members of the group, and there is a group evaluation and discussion. Like a pebble thrown into the water, the idea spreads and reaches more and more people. True, the ripple effect is only possible when the new idea meets the needs and interests of people, rather than contradicting them. In the first case, it is understood and developed by people, serves as a stimulus for their activity, and in the second case, the wave effect fades.
- The “pulsar effect” is a manifestation of group activity, which consists in a sharp increase in activity at the beginning of the activity process, then, when the task is completed, in a decline in activity, i.e. people need rest. Then group activity returns to the optimal level necessary for normal, well-coordinated, uninterrupted group work.
If we read these definitions carefully, we come to at least two conclusions:
- All of these phenomena are constantly observed by each of us, because our whole life is more or less intensive interaction with other people at home, at work, in transport, inside and outside the numerous objects of social, educational, cultural and other orientation.
- All these phenomena show us the law: the behavior of a group depends on the moral and ethical level of the leader of that group, either explicitly or implicitly, if there are several polar opinions in the group.
The leader of a group does not just appear out of nowhere. A leader is a person who is able to express and defend a collective opinion and position and who is deeply committed to that group because he was formed within it. A group rallied around such a leader seeks collective opinion.
The entire integral methodology is built on the principles of group cohesion and the effects of group interaction, involving a factor that has remained unexplained for social psychology.
Emergence as a phenomenon is considered by systems theory. The meaning of this concept is the emergence of system properties not inherent in its elements separately; irreducibility of system properties to the sum of the properties of its components. Similar concepts in systems theory and other fields of knowledge are synergy, holism, system effect, superadditive effect, noncompositional.
Something similar is observed in the small social group, where the emergent group effect of achieving wholeness and harmony leads to a much greater result than the sum of the efforts of each group member. Emergence in integral groups arises as a resulting quality of the group, felt as a field of unity. Like the untold treasure of ten men, which henceforth belongs not only to them, but to the whole world, for these ten plus, give birth to altruistic power.
Integral methodology is essentially the science of building cohesive groups organized on the principles of mutual respect, vouchsafety, equality and unity, based on the fundamental law of the universe “love your neighbor as yourself.
It has been proven that 10 people in a group is a necessary-sufficient number to build a cohesive collective unit capable of finding and making the highest and highest quality decisions in any field of human activity.
We vitally need to get a cohesive group of high moral people, united by a single intention to give back with the aim of revealing all the creative abilities of each member of the group, inherent in each person by nature, with the development of new, previously inexistent in each individually creative qualities, with the maximum development of personal potential of the person and the potential of the group as a whole.
What are the group properties that form the basis for building such a group?
Principles of equality, freedom and unity
When the principle of vouchsafety is upheld in a group-each member can rely on his group, and the group can rely on him completely. A group member’s opinion is not rejected by the ten and is not challenged. And he does not reject or challenge the group’s opinion, accepting it as his own. All the disagreements and tensions that inevitably arise in interactions “through” natural selfishness, the group “covers” with love, rising above disagreements when such situations arise.
Every group meeting, no matter what mood everyone came in with, ends with uplift, inspiration and joy. And through such efforts, over time, group members begin to feel united as in a real family. Equality within and between such groups is realized through the principle of “to each according to his needs, from each according to his capabilities.
Equality is not about receiving equal shares, which is impossible due to the inequality of our natural properties. And equality in the implementation of this principle. When a group replenishes the resources of each member in strict correlation with the value of that person’s contribution to the group.
Determining the magnitude of each person’s contribution and the significance of each person’s contribution to the common cause is determined by the very emergent property that emerges as an additional factor of collective wisdom and intuition, while observing all the principles of group building with the maximum contribution of each participant to the group center.
Such a group cannot appear out of nowhere. To create it, three external conditions must be met: the instructor, the methodology and the group of 10 people.
The integral methodology is being developed and continues to improve. In the meantime, it is vital for all of us to build the right environment, an integral relationship between different circles and groups. And only by accumulating quantitative and qualitative changes do we have any chance of coming to an evolutionary leap, to a balance of forces, to wholeness and harmony on the planet.
Bibliography
- G.M. Andreeva. Social Psychology. Moscow: Aspect Press, 1999.
- Dontsov A.I. Problems of group cohesion. М., 1979.
- Lightman M. IAC Archive. URL: https://kabbalahmedia.info/ru/
- Pochebut L.G., Meijis I.A. Social Psychology. Peter, 2010.
- Platonov Yu. P.From halo to boomerang: all the major group effects you often overlook. URL: http://www.elitarium.ru/gruppa-konformizm-jeffekt-oreola-povedenie-vosprijatie-jegoizm-socialnaja-psihologija/
- Chemerinskaya Yu. How to preserve drive in hard times. O.:Mann, Ivanov & Ferber, 2014
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This material is part of the Integral Psychology course being developed at the Integral World Research Institute(IWRI). Sci. course editor: prof. Eliab. General Course Editor: T. Asher. Material preparation: I. Melnikovich. Course Secretary: V. Shaposhnikova. Editor: A. Aleksandrova
