Influencing Group Dynamics

In this report I am going to be explaining the influences on group

dynamics going over the four main aspects which are: Group formation,
social loafing, leadership styles and cohesion. I will then also be relating
back to the film miracle to back up my points as evidence to prove the
theories that will be mentioned.

1. Group formation
There are four main stages of group formation. Forming, storming,
norming and performing. Each stage has different characteristics
that can be seen and expressed easily.
Forming- at this stage players are brought together under a team
coach or manager. They join for one or two identified purposes: to
socialise with people and have fun or to achieve a task and get
enjoyment from winning. Players will start to train together and
discover roles within a group.
Storming- Players begin to take their roles in the group and egos
begin to clash. Some may not get on well together and others may
connect well as the team starts to gel together. If personalities clash
then one person or a group may leave and be replaced, either
improving cohesion or making it worse. After players have left and
joined the team begin to train properly and work on tactics,
positions and roles within the team.
Norming- Once the team have formed together they begin to enter
the normality of playing games and improving their team cohesion.
Any more arguments begin to settle down and players start getting
along
Performing- Players begin to perform at optimum level and start to
obtain good results in their games and competitions.
We can see each of these stages presented in the film miracle
where an ice hockey coach, Herb Brooks, begins to bring a team
together to play in the 1980 Winter Olympic games to try and
obtain a gold medal against the heavily favoured hockey team from
the soviet union. We can see the formation stage where he
assembles players to the team trials to see what they are capable
off. Young players from collages and universitys come to train and
make the team for the Olympic games. The forming stage comes to
play when they are first sat in a pub filling out questionaaires. A
group of players are sat donw when another group enters, one
player from the each group has a rivalled history with each other
and it becomes apparent they do not like eachother . in a later
scene the two players are pitted against each other and one takes a
cheap shot at the other and they end up fighting and coach Brooks

lets it continue until they are stoppped and pulled apart. The coach
then explains that everything is now behind them and they can now
move on as a team. The norming stage appears when they start
playing friendlies against other teams in the months leading up the
Winter Olympics. They begin to put together their plays and start to
get results and see improvements in their cohesion. This is
demonstrated when the coach decides to rbing in another player to
the team as the group are not happy this and they complain that it
is unfair to kick one of them out for the newbie to come in and take
their place as they are a family. This is when the coach realises they
are at their optimum level of cohesion and he can get the best out
of them. The performing stage is present in the Olympic games,
where they start to play against other teams at the games and it
shows how far they have finally come when they beat Russia in the
knockout stages and go on to win the gold medal.
2.Social Loafing
Social loafing is the phenomenon of people exerting less effort to
achieve a goal when they work in a group then when they work
alone. One theorist, Ringlemann, sugguested that the more people
in a group means less effort will be made by each individual. This
graph shows that as numbers increase, effort decreases.

Diffusion in responsibility: As the number of people in the group

or team increase people tend to feel less deinvidulisation. This term
defines both the dissociation from individual achievement and the
decrease of personal accountability, resulting in lower extended
effort for individuals in collaborative environments. This van
therefor decrease overall group effectiveness because it is
contagious and hard to correct. Once identified by the team leader it
is there responsibility to reassess and put into motion new rules for
everyone
Dispensability of effort: When a group member does not feel that
their effort is justified in the context of the overall group, the
individual will be less willing to put in any effort. If the group size is
large members can feel that their effort will not be much worth to
the overall group because so many other contributions will occur.

This leads to people not contributing much or at all in larger groups

as they might have in smaller groups.
The sucker effect- People feel that others in the group will leave
them to do all the work while they take the credit, because people
do not want to feel like the sucker they wait to see how much effort
others will out into the group before they put any in. If all the
members try to avoid being the sucker then everyones effort will be
significantly less then it would be if everyone was working as hard
as they should.
Matching effort and attribution: Jackson and Harkins(1985)
proposed that if someone feels others are slacking or will slack that
they will lower there efforts to match that of the others. This can
occur whether it is apparent that the others are slacking or that
someone simply believe others may slack.
We can see these social loafing theories demonstrated in miracle
where the team are playing Sweden in the warm up match before
the Olympics. While the team on the ice are playing the others on
the sideline are supposed to be ready and waiting ti jump on the ice
and paying attention to the game but instead they are laughing,
joking and staring at girls instead of doing what they came here to
do. They continue to do this on the ice while they are playing the
game which is leaving the responsibility to perform and win the
game to the other players.
3. Leadership styles
There are three main leadership styles that are utilised by coaches
and team managers to maintain control over their performers.
These are Autocratic, Democratic, and Laissez-faire.
Autocratic: task orientated and dictator style, they make all the
decisions and are very direct in their approach
Democratic: person ordinated and takes into account the team
members ideas and feelings, and they show interest in others.
Laissez-faire: provides little support or input and let's team
members do as they wish.
Good leaders will use all four of the following behaviours, as and
when they are required by the situation; reward, social support,
autocratic behaviour, and democratic behaviour.
These leadership styles are demonstrated in the film Miracle, for
example when Coach Brookes first takes control of the Olympic
Hockey team, he displays an autocratic approach and style of
coaching. This style of coaching meant that his team mates couldn't
get too close or friendly with him, they were purely to show him how

well they can perform and try to impress him. When Brookes is close
to having his final team, he adopts a Lassez- faire style of leader
ship. This was to give the players time to socialise and gel together
so that they could be more cohesive on the ice, but he still had a
good level of control over them. As they reach the final game of the
olympics, the coach then adopts the final leadership strategy which
is demographic. He lets the players have their time and space to
prepare themselves for games and he doesn't command them about
as he did when using the autocratic style.
4. Cohesion
There are two models for group cohesion, task and social.
Task cohesion- relates to the way in which team Members work with
each other to successfully complete a task.
Social cohesion- involves personal relationship within the group and
relies on individuals enjoying social interaction.
Task cohesion: the group is given an overall team goal which is
accepted and moderately valued by all team members. For
example, a football team might set out to win the league by
continuing to play attractive passing football and not express their
own style of play by doing their own footballing techniques. Task
cohesion is most important within attractive team games.
Social cohesion: the group leader would create opportunities for
social development. An environment would be created where
players could interact positively by relaxing and making friends. For
example, a touring team often develops strong social bonds. Social
cohesion in co-active sports like track or field and tennis.
Steiner (1972) proposed the following model which is helpful when
looking at the relationship between the individuals and group
performance.
Actual productivity = potential productivity - losses due to fault
processes
Potential productivity refers to the best possible performance of the
group, taking into account resources available and the ability of the
players.
Theorists suggest that the idea of being part of one team and
coming together within a group can improve cohesion over time.
Performers like the idea off wearing the same shirt and team name
as others, it's almost as if it's a bond between them. The idea of
putting time in to train and perform with a select group of people
entices performers to improve their performance between other
players in the team. Teams that have this present in their team will
perform together closely as if their a family and will not struggle to

perform well together and should achieve maximum potential

productivity.
You can see this shown in the film Miracle, where the coach begins
to ask each player what team they play for. Each player replied with
their college or university team name, each player being from a
different team and not saying they play for the American National
Team, which is what the coach was looking for. After they put in a
poor performance, due to lack of fitness, the coach puts them
through a strenuous work of after the game as a punishment.
Eventually one player shouts his name and calls out that he plays
for the American National team. The coach then realised the players
know who they now play for and let's them rest. This cohesion can
also be seen when the coach is about to introduce a new player into
the team, which could mean one player could be removed. This
stresses the players so they contest Brookes' decision. He questions
them on why he shouldn't remove a player and they reply 'we are a
family'. The coach then realised he's reached the maximum
potential level for cohesion in the group and withdraws his decision
to introduce a new player.