Group cohesiveness is the

extent to which group members

like and trust one another, are
committed to accomplishing a
team goal, and share a feeling
of group
pride.
In general, the more cohesive the
group, the greater its:

-Productivity and efficiency

-Decision quality
-Member satisfaction
-Member interaction
-Employee courtesy
Group Homogeneity- is the extent to which
its members are similar.

Homogeneous group contains members

who are similar in some or most ways,
whereas a Heterogeneous group contains
members who are more different than
alike.
Aamodt, Kimbrough, and Alexander (1983)
hypothesized that previous research
yielded mixed results because the
compositions of the best- performing
groups were actually somewhere between
completely homogeneous and completely
heterogeneous. These authors labeled
them slightly heterogeneous groups.
Stability of Membership
The greater the stability of the group, the greater the
cohesiveness. Thus, groups in which members remain for
long periods of time are more cohesive and perform better
than groups that have high turnover and groups whose
members have previously worked together perform better
than groups whose members are not familiar with one
another.

Isolation
Physical isolation is another variable that tends to increase
a groups cohesiveness. Groups that are isolated or located
away from other groups tend to be highly cohesive.
 Outside Pressure
Groups that are pressured by outside forces also tend
to become highly cohesive. To some degree, this
response to outside pressure can be explained by the
phenomenon of psychological reactance. When we
believe that someone is trying to intentionally influence
us to take some particular action, we often react by
doing the opposite.

Straw manan opponent who does not actually exist

but to whom negative statements about the group can
be attributed.
 Group Size
Groups are most cohesive and perform best when group size is
small. Studies have shown that large groups have lower
productivity, less coordination, and lower moral and are less
active, less cohesive, and more critical than smaller groups. In
fact, research suggests that groups perform best and have
greatest member satisfaction when they consist of
approximately five members. Thus, a large organization probably
works best when it is divided into smaller groups and
committees and when work groups contain approximately five
people.

This does not mean, however, that small groups are always best.
Although small groups usually increase cohesiveness, high
performance is seen with only certain types of tasks.
 Additive tasks are those for which the groups
performance is equal to the sum of the performances
by each group member.

Conjunctive tasks are those for which the groups

performance depends on the least effective group
member (a chain is only as strong as its weakest link).

Disjunctive tasks are those for which the groups

performance is based on the most talented group
member.
 Group Status
The higher the groups status, the
greater its cohesiveness. This is an
important point: A group can be made
more cohesive by increasing group
status. The group does not actually
have to have high status, but it is
important that its members believe
they have high status.