464 



MORALE AND LEADERSHIP 



members, the relatively stable informal in- 

 terrelationships which they develop within 

 the context of formal structure, such as pat- 

 terns of leader-follower interaction and infor- 

 mal work groups, and so on. These informal 

 characteristics are not always sharply dis- 

 tinguishable from the formal ones, but to 

 make the distinction is useful for certain 

 purposes. 



Definition of the Problem 



Broadly speaking, we may conceive the 

 effectiveness of group performance with ref- 

 erence to group goals to be a function of 

 group characteristics and factors external to 

 the group. In this connection, formal char- 

 acteristics are doubtless quite as important 

 as the others, and the overall study of group 

 effectiveness would have to treat these as 

 unknowns in raising the general question: 

 given certain goals to be attained, what is the 

 best social group for the job? Doubtless 

 this question will one day be tackled scien- 

 tifically, but at present it involves too many 

 unknowns. In the present discussion, the 

 emphasis will be upon the role of "informal" 

 characteristics in group functioning, and for- 

 mal characteristics will for the most part be 

 accepted as given. It is, however, necessary 

 to consider the very real possibility that the 

 influence of particular factors upon group 

 effectiveness may vary depending on the 

 formal characteristics of the group. 



It seems necessary to limit the problem 

 also Avith reference to certain other factors. 

 Effectiveness in the attainment of a group 

 goal, measured in objective terms such as the 

 amount of tonnage sunk by a submarine, 

 depends not only upon the characteristics of 

 the group but also upon many relatively un- 

 predictable external factors, such as weather, 

 availability of targets, and so on. We are 

 interested in the relative effectiveness of 

 groups of a given type when these extraneous 

 factors are held constant, or in what under 

 non-laboratory conditions might better be 

 called potential effectiveness. At the same 

 time, these factors may influence subsequent 



potential effectiveness, and must therefore 

 be considered as potential sources of varia- 

 tion in group performance. Similar consid- 

 erations hold in the case of differences among 

 groups of a particular type with respect to 

 special material facilities or special technical 

 skills possessed by members. 



The general problem might then be stated 

 as follows : given groups of a particular type 

 with comparable material facilities and fac- 

 ing comparable external obstacles, how can 

 their effectiveness be evaluated, what factors 

 are related to effectiveness, and how can 

 these factors be manipulated to advantage? 



Some Fundamental Assumptions Concerning 

 Group Behavior 



To orient the subsequent discussion it may 

 be well to review briefly some basic assump- 

 tions concerning group behavior which seem 

 to be at least implicit in much of current 

 thinking among social psychologists.^ These 

 by no means qualify as systematic theory, 

 but they do point to general factors of prob- 

 able importance for the problem. 



First of all, it may be assumed that indi- 

 viduals belong to a group and work effec- 

 tively in it because they perceive doing so as 

 a means to satisfaction of their needs. The 

 dominant needs may be complex in a given 

 individual and may vary from one individual 

 to another, involving perhaps, needs for 

 status, companionship, money, satisfaction 

 of ideals, domination of others, fear of pun- 

 ishment for not taking part, etc. Each in- 

 dividual, moreover, will have certain addi- 

 tional needs which group activity must not 

 threaten if he is to participate without inter- 

 nal conflict. Or, conversely, the greater the 

 extent to which group activity satisfies or 

 promises to satisfy needs of any sort, the 

 more effective, presumably, the individual's 

 participation. For effective group perform- 

 ance, too, it is necessary not simply that im- 

 portant needs be satisfied in the group, but 

 that individuals perceive their own partici- 



1 A good general discussion along these lines is 

 presented by Krech and Crutchfield (61). 



