Virtual worlds provide useful platforms for social behavioral research, but impose stringent limitations on the rules of engagement, responsiveness, and data collection, along with other resource restrictions. The major challenge from a computer science standpoint in developing group behavior applications for such environments is accommodating the…

The results of these experiments strongly suggest that the occurrence of behavioral contagion depended on the relative advantage an initiator's action establishes over the other members of the group. (SD)

A classificatory model of collective behavior based upon perceptual dimensions was proposed. The four major dimensions found to underlie a domain of collective phenomena were identified as: (a) Violence, (b) Amorphous-Focused, (c) Anomie, and (d) Ideology. Potentially predictive aspects of the system were examined briefly. (Author)

Summarizes research on small group processes by giving a comprehensive account of the types of variables primarily studied in the laboratory. These include group structure, group composition, group size, and group relations. Considers effects of power, leadership, conformity to social norms, and role relationships. (Author/AV)

Groups exist in a time environment. The group develops, changes, may function for years, and eventually disbands. The theory of groups across time is in a different psychological domain than that of short-term groups. For example, in long-term groups changes in group membership are inevitable whereas in short-term groups these changes are rarely…

The concept of behavior settings--the environments shaping individual behavior--was originated by Roger Barker in 1950 in connection with his community surveys in a small Kansas town, code-named Midwest. This book seeks to provide rural social scientists with an understanding of Barker's eco-behavioral approach and proposed adaptations of it to…

Affirmed that verbal behaviors (time speaking, initiated assertions, referrals received and first-person statements) were related to self-traits as measured by personality measures and a subjective self-report. The results are indicative of a proactive-reactive dimension of social interaction from both self and behavioral perspectives. (Author)