We are all members of many different groups. Some of those groups are formally recognized—such as your citizenship in a nation, which has specific requirements for membership, as does the sorority or fraternity you may belong to. Other groups are more informal—such as a group of friends that you might play basketball with on weekends, a church youth group you may be part of, or the fellow students that you are assigned to work with by the professor on a joint class project.

In these groups, we may need to communicate effectively with other group members and act in a coordinated way to produce some desired outcome together. Successful teamwork can produce a strong sense of accomplishment and heightened camaraderie, while unsuccessful teams can be rife with conflict among the members, resulting in poorer outcomes. In this chapter, we will address factors that influence the extent to which teams facilitate creativity—are more than “the sum of their parts”—and when they do the opposite.

People also often need to communicate about their group’s goals and products with the members of other groups. Much research suggests that communication across group lines—with members of different cultural groups or between different work groups in the same organization—can result in misunderstandings. We know that one key factor to effective communication and task performance in groups is the extent to which members feel they share a common identity ( Greenaway, Wright, Willingham, Reynolds, & Haslam, 2015 ). When that is lacking, group performance and relations among members often suffers. As shown in Figure 11.1 , groups can bring real joy to our lives, or they can be rather stressful and demoralizing.

Figure 11.1 Teamwork: When It Works and When It Doesn’t

Sometimes being part of team brings a sense of togetherness and accomplishment, but when a shared identity is lacking and there is interpersonal competition among the members, conflict and poor outcomes are more likely.

Many people hold the belief that groups, compared to individuals, are more likely to make disaster-prone decisions or “go off the deep end.” In this chapter, we will consider research addressing this question—do individuals or groups make more risky (or worse) decisions? Such a possibility is important because, if it is true that individuals are affected by processes that occur in groups, then understanding both the pitfalls and strengths of group decision making will be critical to managing our lives in the many group settings we find ourselves in.

Groups are central to most people’s lives, and group life certainly cannot be eliminated. Even though being a member of a group can sometimes involve negative experiences—at other times it can entail considerable fulfillment. In this chapter, we seek to illuminate both the benefits and costs of belonging to groups.

Let’s first consider a few of the potential hitches that come with joining a group. If it is a cohesive group —one where there are strong bonds among the members—it could be difficult to even get admitted, or it might result in some initiations we would wish to avoid. And, what if, after joining a group, we discover that there are group norms that we don’t like? When a person is new to a group, one’s status is likely to be low, which would make it rather difficult to change the group’s norms. Moreover, as a newcomer, one’s performance in the group may be judged by more established members, creating some evaluation anxiety.

Some conflict is likely within almost any group, and managing such difficult interactions can take a lot of effort. For this reason, people sometimes ask themselves whether they will have to put more effort into a group than the rewards they’d gain from being a member. Realistically, some groups do require major commitments of time, but it is also the case that some benefits can only be obtained by belonging to groups. For that reason, we will first turn to the question of why people join and stay in groups. Can we realistically just dispense with them, or might groups critically shape who we are?

Is being in groups a fundamental part of our evolutionary history? No one individual can know all the information necessary—particularly in our technologically complex world—to always make the best decisions alone on many issues. Perhaps we have to rely on other people for collective knowledge and information sharing, making being connected to groups essential to our survival. Brewer and Caporael (2006) argue that interdependence among group members is the primary strategy for survival among humans, with the group providing a critical buffer between the individual and the physical habitat. Such social coordination, and the skills necessary do so, could be therefore central to the species survival. There is certainly plenty of evidence that group memberships can enhance our health, serving as a resource that allows us to overcome adversity ( Jetten, Haslam, Haslam, Dingle, & Jones, 2014 ).

What implications does an evolutionary perspective have for our attitudes toward groups in the here-and-now? Schachter (1959) concluded that the arousal of any strong emotion in humans tends to create the need to compare this reaction with that of other people. This suggests that the complex emotional lives of humans may, in fact, be one of the causes of the human need for group affiliation. Indeed, it is under the most threatening or uncertain conditions that we need our groups most. In these instances, for psychological security, we may increasingly identify with our social groups ( Hogg, 2007 ). In fact, among the best predictors of psychological well-being across people is degree of connectedness to others ( Diener & Oishi, 2005 ; Lyubomirsky, King, & Diener, 2005 ).

Are all groups equally important to us? While we are born into some of our groups, such as our family or ethnic group, others are self-selected—we choose to join groups such as fraternities and sororities, work organizations, and sports teams. Some groups are temporary, coming into existence to accomplish a specific purpose such as completing a team project, while others are longer lasting and less linked to specific goals, for example, being a member of your university student community. Some groups, such as those in the workplace, may be joined explicitly because of the benefits (i.e., the pay check) that they provide. In addition to this material benefit, people

Figure 11.2 Will You Identify Strongly with the Occupation You Join?

As illustrated here, people are often highly attached to their work group and savor its accomplishments. Research reveals that people who identify with the organization that employs them, exhibit greater commitment and show positive organizational citizenship behavior that goes beyond the “call of duty.”

do form occupational identities that are of considerable personal importance to them, and many people also come to strongly identify with the organizations in which they are employed ( Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008 ; Haslam, 2004 ). In fact, if you ask people “Who are you?” many will reply in terms of their occupations: “I’m a student majoring in history,” “I’m a Kansas student,” or “I’m a psychologist, accountant, or computer engineer.” Will you, in the future, show equal pride in your occupational or organizational group and its accomplishments as the people shown in Figure 11.2 do?

For other groups, clear material benefits of membership might be hard to see, although such groups can still have considerable relevance for our identities, for example, a peer or friendship group. In fact, leaving behind our old friendship groups as we make life transitions, such as moving from high school to college, can be a stressful process ( Iyer, Jetten, & Tsivrikos, 2008 ). Thus, we have emotional connectedness to groups—we like them, like being in them, and often develop strong bonds with the people in them. Perhaps that is the point: joining groups, and staying in them, feels perfectly natural—we really want to belong, and freely choose to join!

Now, let’s turn to the issues of whether there are different types of groups, when we join them and why, and what determines when we choose to quit them. Then, we will examine the impact of what is, in some ways, the most basic group effect: the mere presence of others. As we will see, the presence of others, even if we are not in a formal group with them, can affect our performance on many tasks, as well as other important aspects of our behavior. Third, we will briefly examine the nature of cooperation and conflict in groups—why these contrasting patterns emerge and the effects they produce. After that, we will address the closely related question of perceived fairness in groups. Finally, we will turn to decision making in groups and the unexpected consequences of this process.