Roles and cohesiveness

Roles and Cohesiveness
There are two different kinds of members: formal and informal.

Formal: a specified title or position

Informal: related to the tasks the person does but is not specified with a title or position.

There are two different kinds of roles: Instrumental and expressive.

Instrumental: Helps group achieve its tasks

Expressive: provide emotional support and maintain morale

Often these roles are assumed by different individuals though one person can fulfill both.

The better a team does in assigning roles that match an individual’s characteristics, the better the individual will function in the group (Kassin, et al. 2013)

One method to avoid this problem: assign the roles! Role ambiguity can lead to conflicts with other roles the person has and this lowers productivity and can cause stress.

Norms
Norms are rules of conduct for members that often go unsaid but are expectations of behavior regardless. Breaking a group norm can be traumatic and end up causing the person to be disliked by other members, even if the norm was immoral.Breaking norms are harder the more cohesive a group is.

Cohesiveness
When a group is cohesive it comes with both good and bad things. The bad is most often related to Groupthink, and the good is an increase in performance of the group.

Cohesiveness is formed by:
 * Group pride
 * Attraction to members
 * Number of intensity of interactions
 * Commitment to the task