24.7: Successful Groups

Although groups, like people, can be biased, there are several factors that promote good group reasoning. The points here apply to many groups, but since you are probably doing group work in some of your classes, we will focus on that.

Groups in the Classroom

More and more classes include group projects. There is little evidence that this improves learning, although it probably does help students learn to reason in a social context. Some students dislike group work because they feel they end up doing more than their share while others, the social loafers, get a good grade despite doing little work. But even if some students do more of the work, they do gain something from it. In the chapter on memory, we distinguished between recognition and recall. With the former we can recognize something when we see it again, but we couldn’t have said much about it if we hadn’t. If we can recall something, we have a better grip on it. And, continuing down this path, if we can explain something to others, we have still a better grip. Being in a situation where we must explain things promotes the depth of our own learning and understanding.

If a group project involves a newly formed group that will only be together for one class meeting, the prospects for useful discussion and learning are not great. The group is not likely to be cohesive, and in this setting, people tend to avoid disagreement. Hence, even if someone proposes an idea or solution that many of the group members think is flawed; they are unlikely to say so. Moreover, others may be reluctant to advance their own ideas, because they are worried about the reception they will get. This lack of open discussion makes it much harder to critically evaluate the ideas that are proposed, and it may prevent some good ideas from being proposed at all.

If a group is to make headway with a difficult or controversial issue, an open expression of alternative points of view followed by a frank discussion of them is needed. If the group has met several times before and its members have gotten to know one another, there is likely to be a higher level of trust, and this will make it easier for each member to express their own ideas and to candidly evaluate the ideas of others. Things also work much better when the group has very specific goals. In the absence of highly specific tasks, discussion often becomes somewhat aimless or drifts off into small talk.

Groups also work better when they are given quick feedback. This isn’t surprising, because feedback is always important in learning; if you don’t know how you are doing, it’s difficult to make progress. But it may not be so obvious that groups do better when this feedback includes a comparison of their work with the work of other groups. Such comparisons foster group cohesiveness and effort, because group members then see themselves in competition with other groups. They are then less likely to compete against one another and more likely to work together to compete against other groups.

Finally, groups do better if there are rewards for success. We all are most likely to put our time and energy into projects that have a definite payoff. All these points demonstrate once again the power of the situation. How well people do in groups depends on:

1. Whether it is a cohesive group in which members trust each other.
2. Whether they are given a definite task with a clearly defined goal.
3. Whether they get quick feedback, including feedback on how their work compares with that of other groups.
4. Whether they are rewarded for good work.

Although we have been discussing groups in the classroom, most of these points are quite general. Some groups (e.g., juries) meet only once; others (e.g., a city council) meet repeatedly over time. Some (e.g., juries) have a clearly defined task; others (e.g., a task force to solve some social problem) have a more nebulous task.