"Undiscussables" are topics associated with threat or embarrassment that are avoided by groups, where that avoidance is also not discussed. Their deleterious effect on executive groups has been a point of discussion for several decades. More recently critical action learning (AL) has brought a welcome focus to power relations within AL…

We illustrate the idiographic/nomothetic debate by comparing 3 approaches to using daily self-report data on affect for predicting relationship quality and breakup. The 3 approaches included (a) the first day in the series of daily data; (b) the mean and variability of the daily series; and (c) parameters from dynamic factor analysis, a…

Virtual worlds provide useful platforms for social behavioral research, but impose stringent limitations on the rules of engagement, responsiveness, and data collection, along with other resource restrictions. The major challenge from a computer science standpoint in developing group behavior applications for such environments is accommodating the…

This study examines whether college supervisors who analyze their verbal behavior in supervisory conferences by means of the Blumberg system exhibit a change in proportions of direct and indirect verbal behavior when compared with college supervisors who do not use the Blumberg system to analyze their supervisory conferences. Sixteen volunteer…

Using a three-variable design, this study investigated conformity to male and female group pressures among Chinese and American male college students. Americans showed a greater tendency toward anticonformity than did Chinese. (JB)

The results of these experiments strongly suggest that the occurrence of behavioral contagion depended on the relative advantage an initiator's action establishes over the other members of the group. (SD)

An experiment in behavior technology is described in which the results indicate that token technology can be an effective technique to increase small group participation when a variety of back-up reinforcers is offered. (Author/HB)

Forty members of service and social groups were compared for intervention in a simulated emergency situation during the experimental discussion. Service group members were more likely to intervene than social group members, and intervention was made more probable when group norms were made salient in the discussion. (Author/SD)

In an initial test of a theory of increasing content, forty experimental dyads ranging from compatibility to incompatibility were composed and studied. The three channels are identified as the motivation, delivery, and information channels. A linear relationship between intra-group compatibility and a set of five dependent variables was…

Notes that much human activity is monotonous, arduous, or degrading and that most low-caste groups eventually revolt. Suggests that humans use chimpanzees as a permanent minority group that will serve simultaneously as laborers and scapegoats. (MB)