Personalities, Preferences, and Prior Experiences: How They Influence Group Dynamics

Personalities, Preferences, And Prior Experiences: How They Influence Group Dynamics

All groups must confront problems at times, such as when the members create a dynamic which is not supportive of group dialogue in a constructive manner. "Teams are often conceptualized as complex performance systems," emerging from "coordinated interdependencies" (Forsyth 2014: 358). Team effectiveness means that team members are able to work towards a common goal and function well as a unit. Ideally, the 'sum should be greater than its parts' in terms of the skills of all team members coalescing. However, because groups are unique entities and are affected by the composition of the membership and the physical and environmental circumstances which produced them, even people who work relatively well on teams may struggle to find common ground in a particular social situation.

Group leaders may need to negotiate between different perceptions of acceptable behavior, including different comfort zones in terms of spatial proximity. Depending on gender, personality and culture, members may have different ideas about what is acceptable personal space in different contexts (sitting next to one another, for example, versus participating in an active group activity) (Forsyth 2014: 457). Members may unintentionally 'crowd' group members resulting in discomfort and 'shutting down' or they may intentionally claim more space as a way of exerting dominance.

Conversational dominance is another issue which group leaders must cope with on a frequent basis. The chronic talker is characterized by a behavioral pattern of constant repetition and rambling. The talker may react as he or she does because of nervousness, a lack of self-awareness, or out of a desire to show off (Jacobs 2012: 377). To restrain a chronic talker, a leader can stress that he or she wants everyone to respond to a particular question or specifically ask members of the group to respond who have not yet spoken (Jacobs 2012: 377). Leaders can also provide individualized feedback in a written form so as not to embarrass a 'nervous' chronic talker and to enable him or her to become more self-aware.