A new theory of interaction within small groups posits that group members initiate actions when tension mounts between the affective meanings of their situational identities and impressions produced by recent events. Actors choose partners and behaviors so as to reduce the tensions. A computer model based on this theory, incorporating reciprocal…

How do persons with a stigmatized identity learn potential responses to discrimination and harassment? Drawing on three and a half years of ethnographic data, this paper demonstrates how members of a group of Muslim American youth are socialized in locally dominant stigma management strategies through stigma management rehearsals. Stigma…

This paper investigates the effects that different patterns of similarity among group members have on a group's performance on a problem-solving task. I discuss and test hypotheses on the effects of similarity on group performance derived from two literatures: balance theory and research on homophily. In an experiment I found that the relative…