At school, pupils often cooperate on common projects and must coordinate their different individual actions. However, grades are pervasively used even in cooperative situations, which make the pupils' differences in achievement and their relative rank salient and may reduce their inclination to work constructively with others. Thus, we…

A previous version of expectation theory assumed that the likelihood that evaluations will be accepted and used to assign performance expectations for group members depends upon the perceived ability level of the evaluator. An extension of the theory asserts that, in the absence of knowledge of the evaluator's ability, acceptance of his…

College males were placed into six groups of friends and strangers, with two persons per group. Working alone and with partners, subjects were asked to exert vertical pressure using a six foot pole. No significant differences among potential and actual group performances for groups of friends and strangers were obtained. (Author/RD)

This investigation attempted to develop and test a model for competitive team success which would be capable of prediction regardless of the skill level of the players. (MM)

Varied composition of three-man military teams (N=64) by assigning members according to team composition in all possible combinations of ability and motivation. Found both ability and motivation had an additive effect on crew performance, thus leading to conclusion that when teams perform highly interdependent tasks, performance is apparently…

According to Fiedler's Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness, group performance is a function of the leader-situation interaction. A review of past validations has found several problems associated with the model. Meta-analytic techniques were applied to the Contingency Model in order to assess the validation evidence quantitatively. The…

The controversy about the causal ordering of leader behaviors and unit performance is reviewed. The analysis indicates that neither the behavior-performance nor the performance-behavior proponents have provided convincing evidence. A longitudinal study of the development of these interrelationships from the initial stages is described. The results…

The relative effectiveness of alternative reward structures in strengthening individual task performance was investigated by operationalizing six reward structure treatments--each of which combined one of two levels of differential group rewarding with one of three levels of differential rewarding within groups. Twelve males and twelve females…

Attraction had its strongest impact on dyadic satisfaction, a nonperformance outcome of the experiment. Among the all-female dyads, racial composition of the dyad was significantly related to satisfaction: interracial dyads had higher levels of satisfaction than intraracial dyads. (Author/WI)

Examined whether gender composition and task structure affect communicative behavior in small groups. Groups with different numbers of men and women were given a highly structured assignment and a human relations case study. Interaction process analysis supported the hypothesis only for dominance acts of giving suggestions. (BH)

Research supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research.

Presents a study designed to contrast the effects of task-based and interpersonal cohesiveness on group performance of students. Concludes that high task cohesion helped group performance, while interpersonal attraction had no apparent effect. Finding that increased interpersonal cohesion improved task commitment, the authors suggest that…