This naturalistic case study investigates the problem posing patterns that emerge as four small groups of 12 year old students in Western Canada work collectively on a structured mathematics task. A method of data analysis is introduced that blurs the data to create transcript "tapestries" providing visual evidence of collective patterns…

Interest in the ways in which conflict can be de-escalated led to this study, in which 86 college students served as subjects, to compare the effectiveness of tit for tat strategies with Osgood's (1962) proposal of graduated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction. The first requirement of Osgood's proposal is to communicate the need for…

In this study, 120 introductory psychology students participated in an experimental game designed to be manipulated by the use of cooperative cues. These are variables introduced into a social situation that function to guide the group toward collaboration. Prior research has focused on the effect of single cues and has produced mixed results,…

In the history of small group studies (in the field of communication theory and research), two factors contributed to the changes that led to Ernest Bormann publishing in 1970 his work questioning the value of the knowledge being reported and the appropriateness of the methods by which it was being generated. First, prior to 1965, a limited amount…

Frustration has been primarily investigated in relation to aggressive behaviors, but may elicit other behaviors depending on the responses available to the individual. To test the effects of task frustration and task success on subsequent group behavior, college women (N=80) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: task success, task…

Intended to aid media and other technical specialists who lack training in ethnographic research to understand what ethnography is, what ethnographers do, and how they, the media specialists, can be of most assistance when working on a team conducting such research, this paper discusses the nature of ethnographic research and issues involved in…

Research on gender differences in group performance suggests that males excel at brainstorming while females excel at human relations and integration. To investigate the relations among gender, interaction style, and task performance, 264 college students (130 female, 134 male) worked in three person same sex groups on a production task which…

An examination of the impact that process instructions have on jury deliberations was conducted using ten juries of six members each. Five of the juries were given standard jury instructions, while the remaining five were given step-by-step instructions in the deliberation process designed especially for that trial. The results indicated that…

A study investigated ways that adult educators might introduce educational activity into a community problem-solving situation and attempted to determine the influence of this activity on growth of the community-problem-solving group. Adult educators by definition included cooperative extension agents, social workers, community mental health…

Using a brief experiential group activity called "Choosing a Color Exercise" as an introductory measure, this paper explains the basics of group dynamics and reviews the major theoretical relationships between the group's structure, the dynamics of maintenance and task behaviors, and effective individual performances. The types of functional and…

This paper reports a study designed to examine the types of behaviors students exhibit while conducting laboratory activities and assess the effectiveness of strategies students employ. The sample was 42 students enrolled in a physics lab section at a single university. Three types of data were collected: (1) observational data during the lab…

To investigate the influence of group settings on the receiver's perception of an inducement to rhetorical transactions, 45 undergraduates in a basic speech communication course were asked to rank from most important to least important a group of items that might help survivors of an arctic plane crash. After completing individual rankings,…

"Pacification" as a technique of social control has a negative effect because of its destructive or disintegrative impact on behaviors of individuals in social or problem-solving situations. "Pacification" uses communication techniques which discount some aspect of the problem-solving process: the problem itself, its…

The purpose of the Commons Game is to teach students how social traps work; that is, that short-term individual gain tends to dominate long-term collective gain. Simulations of Commons Dilemma have grown considerably in the last decade; however, the research has used small face-to-face groups to study behavior in the Commons. To compare the…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of cognitive abstractness levels, interpersonal perception abilities, and task type (factual or social problem solving) on group performance as measured by time consumed and adequacy of solutions. Eighteen college classes from Kearney State College participated in testing of perceptual…