6 - Innovation and socialisation in small groups

Summary

A number of social psychologists (e. g. Steiner, 1974; McGrath, 1978; Zander, 1979) have commented on the decline of interest in group processes since the 1950s. Rather than studying people as integral parts of a social system, social psychologists have tended to focus on the behaviour and cognition of individuals (Pepitone, 1981). It is heartening to note, however, that recently there has been a renewed interest in group processes. Much of the credit for this renewed interest belongs to our European colleagues. They have forced us to re-examine many of our basic assumptions about the relationship between the group and the individual and have offered provocative analyses of several neglected topics.

As we begin what promises to be a new era of small group research, it is important to keep in mind the factors that caused investigators to lose interest in group research in the past. Some of these factors are extra-disciplinary in origin, reflecting broad political and social forces of the sort described by Steiner (1974). Others, however, are intra-disciplinary, in the sense that they reflect how social psychologists conceptualise group processes and formulate research questions. One important intra-disciplinary factor has been a tendency to overlook the phenomenon of reciprocal influence in small groups. A good deal of research has focused on how groups influence individuals, but the impact of individuals on groups has been largely neglected.