What is Group Cohesion?
Group cohesion is a phenomenon which determines how well a group holds together. When group cohesion is strong, a group will remain strong and stable. When it is weak, the group may fall apart. The study of group cohesion is a topic of interest among social psychologists and many others, including people who are concerned with making large organizations work effectively. Understanding group cohesion can be key to pulling together a team, a workplace, or a similar group of people.
Some of the factors in group cohesion are social; there are a number of things which can occur within a group and its members which encourage people to stay in the group and to stay focused on group goals. Others are environmental, caused by external factors which make staying together as a group more or less appealing.
The smaller a group is, the better the group cohesion. The more stable a group is in terms of member demographics, the better the cohesion as well. People who share characteristics like gender, race, sex, religion, and so forth will forge stronger connections in a group, while a group of diverse individuals may have difficulty staying together. Another factor is group success, with people having an incentive to stay in a group which is doing well, with elitism also playing a role.
The famous quote attributed to numerous different people goes “I would not join any club that would have someone like me as a member.” This holds true for group cohesion as well; the harder it is to get in to a group, the more incentive people have to stay. In a simple example, students at an elite university experience a form of group cohesion because they share many characteristics, including admission into an elite educational institution. Task cohesion is another factor. If a group has a task to focus on which requires collective effort, they will have an easier time staying together. A famous example of task cohesion is a military mission.
There may also be rewards and punishments involved. People could be rewarded for being in a group with benefits which make the group attractive to be in, or they could face punishment for leaving the group, which encourages them to stay in the group. The key external factor, on the other hand, is competition from other groups. A swim team may fall apart if it never has any meets, but as soon as a rival team appears, group cohesion will increase radically, because group members have an incentive to stay in the group and to work together to achieve a common goal, defeat of the rival.
Written by S.E. Smith
