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Group dynamics is the study of groups, and also a general term
for group processes.
Relevant to the fields of psychology, sociology, and
communication studies
A group is two or more individuals who are connected to each
other by social relationships.
Because they interact and influence each other, groups develop
a number of dynamic processes that separate them from arandom collection of individuals.
These processes include norms, roles, relations, development,
need to belong, social influence, and effects on behavior.
Introduction
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Types of Groups
Congregations, workgroups, unions,
professional
associations
Larger, less intimate, moregoal-focused groups typical
of more complex societies
Secondarygroups
Families, close
friends, tight-knit
peer groups, gangs,
elite military squads
Small, long-term groups
characterized by face-to-
face interaction and high
levels of cohesiveness,
solidarity, and member
identification
Primary
groups
ExamplesCharacteristicsType ofGroup
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Study groups, friendship
cliques in a workplace,
regular patrons at a bar
Emerge when interacting individuals
gradually align their activities in a
cooperative system of
interdependence.
Self-organizing
Waiting lines (queues),
crowds, mobs, audiences,
bystanders
Emergent, unplanned groups that
arise when external, situational
forces set the stage for people to jointogether, often only temporarily, in a
unified group
Circumstantial
Groups that form spontaneously as individuals find themselves
repeatedly interacting with the same subset of individuals over time
and settings
Emergent groups
Study groups, small
businesses, expeditions,
clubs, associations
Planned by one or more individuals
who remain within the group
Founded
Production lines, militaryunits, task forces, crews,
professional sports teams
Planned by individuals or authoritiesoutside the group.Concocted
Deliberately formed by the members themselves or by an external
authority, usually for some specific purpose or purposes
Planned groups
ExamplesCharacteristicsType of Group
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Women, Asian
Americans, physicians,
U.S. citizens, New
Yorkers
Aggregations of individuals who are
similar to one another in terms of
gender, ethnicity, religion, or
nationality.
Social
categories
Crowds, audiences,
clusters of bystanders
Aggregations of individuals that
form spontaneously, last only a brief
period of time, and have verypermeable boundaries
Weak
associations
Teams, neighborhood
associations
Work groups in employment
settings and goal-focused groups ina variety of nonemployment
situations
Task groups
Families, romantic
couples, close friends,street gangs
Small groups of moderate duration
and permeability characterized bysubstantial levels of interaction
among the members, who value
membership in the group
Intimacy
groups
ExamplesCharacteristicsType of
Group
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Gustav Le Bon: was a French social psychologist whose seminal study, The
Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind(1896) led to the development of group
psychology.
Sigmund Freuds: Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, (1922)
based on a critique of Le Bon's work, led to further development in theories of
group behavior in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Kurt Lewin: is commonly identified as the founder of the movement to study
groups scientifically. He coined the term group dynamicsto describe the way
groups and individuals act and react to changing circumstances.
Chief Theorists
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Wilfred Bion: studied group dynamics from a psychoanalytic
perspective. Many of Bion's findings were reported in his published
books, especially Experiences in Groups. The Tavistock Institute has
further developed and applied the theory and practices developed by
Bion.
Bruce Tuckman: Four stage model.
S. H Foulkes: proposed the ideas of group matrix, group mind and
groups four levels of communication.
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Group dynamics form a basis for group therapy, often with therapeutic
approaches that are often formed of groups such as family therapy and
the expressive therapies.
Politicians and salesmen may use their knowledge of the principles of
group dynamics to aid their cause.
Increasingly, group dynamics are becoming of particular interest
because of online, social interaction made possible by the internet.
Organizational observation and consultancy
Applications
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French revolution (1789-1799)
Interested in why mobs (large groups) went out of control.
Good people, when part of a mob, could act as animals.
A group mind is created that swallows peoples judgment (Ashe, Mirror
Neurons).
Members give up their superego to the mob leader, letting him to set their
moral standards.
All people regress in all groups.
Adolf Hitler, Mussolini were very much influenced by his ideas a major
feature of democracy was the manipulation of the mass mind by media and
advertising.
1- LeBon (1841-1931)
Crowd Psychology (1895)
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A major feature of democracy is the manipulation of the mass mind by
media and advertising.
A knowledge of the psychology of crowds is not to govern them, but not to
be too much governed by them.
The convictions of crowds assume those characteristics of blind
submission, fierce intolerance, and the need of violent propaganda which
are inherent in the religious sentiment, and it is for this reason that it may be
said that all their beliefs have a religious form.
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2- Freud (1856-1939)
Group Psychology and Analysis of the Ego (1922)
the scientific myth of the father of the primal hordehe was the ideal
of each one of them, at once feared and honoredThese many
individuals eventually banded together, killed him and cut him to pieces.
None of the group of victors could take his place, or if, one of them did,
the battles began afresh, until they understand that they must all
renounce their fathers heritage. They then formed the totemic -
community of brothers, all with equal rights and united by the totemprohibitions which were to preserve and expiate the memory ofthe murder.
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Two key ideas from field theory:
Interdependence of fate: Here the basic line of argument is that groups come into
being in a psychological sense not because their members necessarily are similar
to one another (although they may be); rather, a group exists when people in it
realize their fate depends on the fate of the group as a whole. This is how Lewin
put it when discussing the position of Jews in 1939.
Interdependence of task: Interdependence of fate can be a fairly weak form of
interdependence in many groups, argued Lewin. A more significant factor is where
there is interdependence in the goals of group members. In other words, if the
groups task is such that members of the group are dependent on each other for
achievement, then a powerful dynamic is created.
3- Kurt Lewin (1890-1947)
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4- Bion (1897-1979)
Experiences in Groups (1961)
The apparent difference between group psychology and
individual psychology is an illusion.
The central position in group dynamics is occupied by the more primitive
mechanisms which Melanie Klein has described as peculiar to the paranoid-
schizoid and depressive positions.
According to Klein, our minds are always in one or the other of two positions.
One involves extreme splits, part object relations, brittle guilt, blaming, hating,
scape-goating, paranoia and the tendency to aggression and fighting, whether
verbal or physical. The other involves granting that life is not just extremes but
consists of things all mixed up, some good, some bad: the middle ground. In this
frame of mind guilt is not punitive but reparative. One is not in a manic state but
a rather subdued , depressive (not to say depressed) one. live and let live.
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The group approximates too closely, in the minds of the individuals
composing it, to very primitive phantasies about their mothers breast.
Dynamics of the group is therefore perturbed by psychotic anxieties
and mechanisms.
At the heart of his ideas about groups is the observation that although
groups are normally set up to pursue sensible and realistic goals -- he
calls this the work group -- they inevitably from time to time fall into
madness, which he calls basic assumption functioning. Bion specified
three types of basic assumption functioning - dependency, pairing and
fight-flight.
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Bion puts groups into two categories: work groups (getting things
done) and basic assumption groups (acting out primitive fantasies and
preventing things from getting done)..
Basic Assumptions:
- Dependency (D)
- Fight and Flight (F)
- Pairing (P)
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The dependency basic assumption is a defense against depressive anxieties
and is operative when group members behave as if only someone else, usually the
group analyst, had the power, ability and knowledge to satisfy their needs. Group
members experience themselves as weak, ineffectual and incapable of helping each
other.
The underlying fear is that their greed will engulf the therapist and result in their
being abandoned. To defend against the anxiety and guilt connected with their
potential destruction of the therapist (i.e., their mother at an unconscious level), the
patients believe that the therapist is an inexhaustible, omniscient and omnipotent
figure who will always be there for them and who will always have the answers.
Example: Church, Mosque, Department
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In the fight or flight basic assumption, group members behave as if
there were some external threat, the response to which can result only
in a fight or flight. Paranoid fantasies abound and the group becomes a
fearful and non-reflective place, with action being thought of as the only
solution. The group can feel united against the perceived threat and
does all it can to maintain the badness as external. In this basic
assumption, the group can be understood as having regressed to the
paranoidschizoid position formulated by Klein.
Example: Army, Departments
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The pairing basic assumption can be seen to operate when two members pair
up and become involved in long and intense discussions; other group members
behave in a way that facilitates the exchange and make no attempt to discuss their
own problems. A pervasive atmosphere of optimism and hopefulness develops,
along with a buoyant attitude that almost anything is possible. This may be viewed
as a form of collective manic defense against the group's anxieties about its own
destructiveness; the unspoken and usually unconscious belief is that the two
people involved will create something beautiful and enduring that will passively
transform the other members.
Example: Scientists in lab, Department
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Dependency
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Fight and Flight
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Pairing
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Link
At the heart of Bions ideas about groups is the observation that
although groups are normally set up to pursue sensible and realisticgoals -- he calls this the work group -- they inevitably from time to time
fall into madness, which he calls basic assumption functioning.
Link (L) and breaking/attacking the link (i.e. Mervat and others)
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Bruce Tuckman (1965) proposed the four-stage model calledTuckman's Stages for a group.
- Forming (pretending to get on or get along with others);
- Storming (letting down the politeness barrier and trying to get down to theissues even if tempers flare up );
- Norming (getting used to each other and developing trust and
productivity);
- Performing (working in a group to a common goal on a highly efficient
and cooperative basis).
- Adjourning: Dissolution. It entails the termination of roles, the completion
of tasks. Mourning the loss sometimes felt by former participants.
4- Bruce Tuckman (1938- )
Four-stage Model (1965)
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5- Foulkes (1948-1975)
Group Analysis (1968)
Psychoanalysis in the group:
- Man is a social being.
- In a group, members has transferences to other group members as well as the
group leader.
- Resistance occurs as members use a variety of ego defenses to porotect against
anxiety.
- The group members often operate as a whole.
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Four levels of communication:
1- Current level: what is the reality level of the group-the setting of the group, the
identity of leader and members, the circumstances of the group meeting.
2- Transference level: member to member, member to leader, member to group
3- Projective level: What are the primitive part objects that members project on
one another? Is one members anger seen in another and not in himself? Or his
sexuality? Or love? Is someone being scape-goated: all the members projecting
their despicable parts onto one person?
4- Primordial level: What about the collective unconscious of the group? What are
the archetypes shared image that no one talks about? Feminine and masculine
images?
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Dear Bob.
We assume that a group is a complete being of its own, that is comparable to the
human being in having consciousness, unconsciousness and growth stages. Here,
we will deal with the concept of Group Unconsciousness.
Our therapy groups are open continuous ones that permit patients to join the group
at any time or stage of the therapeutic process, i.e. a group session may contain
patients who are group members for years and patients who are group members
for days or months.
There is something we noticed through participation, observation and analysis of
several group sessions that contained new patients. Most of those patients could
easily get involved in the ongoing group work, as follows:
Letter to Hinshelwood (2006)
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- They could easily accept group rules, group norms and group values.
- They could easily speak the same group language and apply the same group
terminology.
- They could easily share feelings and thoughts with older group members.
- They could easily reach the worked-inlevel of awareness in the group session(s).
- They could easily join the growth stage of the group as a whole with all of its
characteristics.
- New patients who joined group sessions in the later stages of the group showed
much less resistance in applying the above items than new patients who joined
group sessions in the earlier stages of the group therapy training program.
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It seems that the group as a whole has an unconscious
apparatus/system/entity/space of its own. This apparatus collectively stores all of
group's past experience, memories and work (Collective Group Unconsciousness).
This unconscious space starts to exist from the first group session and it continues
to grow/develop/widen throughout the sessions that follow.
It draws its material from many sources, of them:
Leader: his therapeutic experience, his personal mode of existence, his own
unconscious processes,
Patients: their psychopathological experiences, their therapeutic experiences, their
own unconscious processes,Trainees: their training experiences, their sharing mode, their own unconscious
processes,..
Group as a whole: its rules, norms, values, general atmosphere, goals,
orientations, dominating therapeutic techniques, past and current stages of
development..
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This space seems to have some criteria, which became more obvious as the
therapy group goes on:
Size: in the early group sessions, CGU was small sized. In later sessions, it is
larger.
Configuration: in the early group sessions, CGU was poorly configured. In latersessions, it is more and more well-configured.
Content: in the early group sessions, CGU contained less material. In later
sessions, it is contains more material. Any new member who joins the group adds
something to the (CGU). Any new group session also adds something to it.
Accessibility: in the early group sessions, CGU was hardly accessible by new
members. In later sessions, it is more easy to be accessed.Flexibility: in the early group sessions, new patients showed more resistance to
accept the CGU material. In later sessions, new patients showed much less
resistance to accept CGU material.
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When a new patient joins the group, an interaction between his personal
unconsciousness and the Collective Group Unconsciousness takes place. The
results of this interaction depend mostly on the above variables (criteria) of the
CGU. These results determine the following:
- Degree of digestion and assimilation of past group experiences that was notattended by the new member and which are stored in the CGU.
- Degree of being involved in the group work.
- Degree of accepting group language, terminology, norms,
- Degree of feeling contained in the group.
At its extreme or near, this interaction results in making a new group member feels,thinks and behaves as if he is an old one because he could easily digest and
assimilate the contents of the Collective Group Unconsciousness. He can then
speak the same language, apply same terms and accept same rules, norms and
values.
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Dear Mohammad,
About your idea of a common group unconscious. I think this is a very important
idea.
In British group therapy theory there are two versions of this. Foulkes talks about
the commun icati on matr ix which arises in a group. Bion calls it the 'groupmental i ty ' and he defines three basic assumptions around which the unconsciousattitudes and behavior orbit. For myself, I tend to think of it as the group culture and
relate it more to sociological theory. That is to say, there are attitudes shared
unconsciously in a group.
In American group therapy, it is a little different (e.g. Yalom). There is much more
respect for the individual who seems to retain individuality more robustly. Different
from Freud and psychoanalytic theory, which suggest that the individual changes -
radically sometimes - when entering a group.
Reply
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Jungian psychology has another view - the collective unconscious. If people
change when they join a group because of unconscious things in the group, it leads
to a question: Does change in group therapy mean a person has really changed
from treatment, or is he just different because he is influenced by the unconscious
when in that group? How could that question be answered?
best wishes,Bob
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