MORALE AND GROUP EFFECTIVENESS 



465 



pation in collective action toward group 

 goals as essential to satisfaction. Thus, an 

 effective group should include individuals 

 who have adequately strong needs, not nec- 

 essarily the same in nature but alike in that 

 their satisfaction demands the attainment 

 of group goals without threatening the satis- 

 faction of other needs, either their own or 

 those of others. Conditions within the 

 group or external to it which affect the pros- 

 pects of need satisfaction may be expected to 

 affect group performance. 



Secondly, what is perceived as a means or 

 as a threat to need satisfaction depends upon 

 a number of factors. These include not only 

 the "objective" situation as independent ob- 

 servers might describe it, but also various 

 factors pertaining to the individuals in- 

 volved: their needs; their levels of aspiration 

 and the way they structure their goals in 

 time; their beliefs and attitudes concerning 

 human relationships, authority, proper ways 

 of doing things, and so on. In general, 

 probably, the more similar the characteris- 

 tics of group members in these respects, the 

 more effectively the group functions. And 

 events within or without the group which 

 influence these bases of perception may be 

 expected to influence group functioning. 



Thirdly, effective individual participation 

 in group activity demands appropriate skills. 

 Members of a group must be able to com- 

 municate effectively, which means that they 

 must have in common not only a knowledge 

 of the same language but probably certain 

 other characteristics as well. In addition, 

 many group activities require essentially 

 similar skills of other sorts on the part of 

 most or all members. At the same time, all 

 groups involve a division of labor, partially 

 recognized in the formal structure, partially 

 developing informally through the interac- 

 tion of particular individuals. A satisfac- 

 tory distribution of skills appropriate to the 

 varying functional roles within a group is 

 thus important also for group performance. 

 And again, situational factors affecting rele- 



vant individual skills must be taken into 

 account. 



Group functioning is a matter of individ- 

 uals functioning in relationship to one an- 

 other. Such concepts as need, belief, and 

 skill, refer to the behavior potentialities of 

 individuals. These may be conceived as un- 

 derlying the system of interpersonal relation- 

 ships which comprises the group. In some 

 respects, as implied in the preceding para- 

 graphs, it is feasible to describe a group 

 using aggregate statements in terms of such 

 concepts, e.g., that the members want or 

 believe certain things. But to take account 

 of all of the important and complex patterns 

 of relationships within a group would seem 

 to require descriptive schemes which go be- 

 yond mere aggregate statements, and which, 

 for purposes of economy, involve concepts of 

 a more inclusive order than those discussed 

 above. At present well established concepts 

 of this sort are lacking, though efforts are 

 being made in various quarters to develop 

 them (43, 61, 65). 



It is perhaps unnecessary to add that 

 group characteristics may change in conse- 

 quence of group experiences, and that indi- 

 vidual potentialities may change in the proc- 

 ess. The full story of group functioning and 

 of the role of individual behavior in it must 

 give such changes a prominent place. 



Morale and Group Effectiveness 



The Concept of Morale 



The abundant literature on morale con- 

 tains many and varied definitions of the 

 term, but in those definitions which imply 

 any operations for observing morale (and the 

 number of such definitions is considerably 

 less than the total) there seems to be tacit 

 agreement that the term denotes aspects of 

 group behavior indicative of group effective- 

 ness. This at any rate is the general con- 

 ception that will be entertained here. Thus, 

 if a group of a given type achieves its goals 

 more efficiently than another equipped with 

 similar technical facilities and facing equiva- 



