The following essay examines and reviews the conclusions drawn by five articles that studied the effect of power and power dispersion on group dynamics.
The following five studies were reviewed: Equality versus differentiation: The effects of power dispersion on group interaction (Greer & Van Kleef 2010); Individual expectations for group decision processes: Evidence for overestimation of majority influence (Ladbury & Hinsz 2009); The essential tension between leadership and power: When leaders sacrifice group goals for the sake of self-interest (Maner & Mead 2010); Group leadership climate and individual organizational commitment (Schyns & Van Veldhoven 2010), and Identity fusion: The interplay of personal and social identities in extreme group behavior (Swann, Seyle, Gomez, Morales & Huici 2009).
The goal of this essay is to highlight the main points concluded by each of each article’s particular study, briefly summarize each psychological study, and within those summaries locate and identify common themes that pertain to all of the articles. The essay will conclude with a brief description of the value of this research holds for the field of psychology as well as for the development and enhancement of human interaction within the existing forms of organizational, hierarchical power structure in general.
Each study examined one element of power within the hierarchical organization context and studied how power affected a group that had to resolve conflict amongst its members. All of the studies were particularly interested in measuring the effects of power on interactions within the group environment; of particular interest was how effective members of the group with high levels of power within the hierarchical context were at facilitating and securing conflict resolution.
Other studies also analyzed the role of the leader within the hierarchical structures; the main question governing this research pertained to leadership style and how its effectiveness or lack thereof contributed to or took away from group interaction and group dynamics.
Personal and social realities particular to individual group members also found its way into several of the studies. The most interesting element of these findings as they pertained to personal and social realities was not only their impact on others within the group setting, but also the fact that some of the studies acknowledged that interpersonal dynamics will necessarily affect any group.
Before beginning the review of the studies, it is important to clarify the definition of power used as the basis for the studies. As a general rule the definition of power used for each study was understood as the ability to change the emotional, psychological or social state of another human being through any number of means – coercion, competition, perceived power within a structural paradigm, or through shared meanings and goal oriented approaches that are deemed beneficial to the whole.
In Equality versus differentiation: The effects of power dispersion on group interaction (Greer & Van Kleef 2010) authors Greer & Van Kleef (2010) endeavor to resolve discrepancies in previous studies of power dispersion.
Previous studies referenced in the article, including Keltner, Van Kleef, Chen, & Kraus 2008, Magee & Galinsky 2008, Sondak & Bazerman 1991 and Hiedens & Fragale 2003 suggested that power dispersion helped group interaction, whereas other studies were found to infer the opposite (Greer & Van Kleef 2010).
Greer & Van Kleef (2010) set out to square these inconsistencies through answering the question of “whether or not power dispersion is beneficial to the interaction of groups” (Greer & Van Kleef 2010). Greer & Van Kleef (2010) studied 42 organizational work groups and found that the impact of power dispersion upon conflict resolution depends on the level of participants’ power, “thereby explaining contradictory theory and findings on power dispersion” (Greer & Van Kleef 2010).
In cases where members held low power, power dispersion was “positively related to conflict resolution,” but not when members’ power is high (Greer & Van Kleef 2010). Conclusions drawn then include the fact that “power equality is better” in the sense that problems get solved quicker with less power struggles involved (Greer & Van Kleef 2010).
In the authors’ words, the findings “suggest that the contrasting theories and findings on the effect of power dispersion versus power equality are better understood when the average power level of those interacting is considered” (Greer & Van Kleef 2010). In top management teams as a example, power equality allows conflict resolution to occur (Greer & Van Kleef 2010).
In groups like these, according to Greer & Van Kleef (2010) shared leadership appears to be the most successful form of power. When members exhibit low power, the authors found that power dispersion assists in conflict resolution, such as in the case of “entry-level workers, such as teams of junior factory line workers, [where] clear hierarchical structures within the group allow for the best chance of conflict resolution” (Greer & Van Kleef 2010).
Greer & Van Kleef (2010) concluded that “theories of both power equality and power dispersion may be equally viable; their relative predictive validity depends on the average power level of those interacting” (Greer & Van Kleef 2010).
In The Essential Tension between Leadership and Power: When Leaders Sacrifice Group Goals for the Sake of Self-Interest (Maner & Mead 2010), authors Maner & Mead (2010) conducted five different experiments to determine features of both the individual and the social context that decide whether leaders use their position to encourage the goals of the group as opposed to further their own agendas (Maner & Mead 2010).
While most leaders favored the goals of the group, certain situations, such as “when their power was tenuous due to instability within the hierarchy” saw leaders that scored high on dominance motivation placed their own self interest ahead of the interest of the group (Maner & Mead 2010). Examples of this include cases where leaders “withheld valuable information from the group, excluded a highly skilled group member, and prevented a proficient group member from having any influence over a group task” (Maner & Mead 2010).
The authors found these behaviors disappeared once competition with a rival group occurred, which lead them to conclude that “the decisions of leaders depended upon the presence of intergroup competition” (Maner & Mead 2010). In this study, “dominance-oriented leaders assigned a highly skilled group member to a role in which he or she would have little influence in the group, even though that person had previously demonstrated a strong ability to perform the task.
Although this served to protect the participant’s power, the decision was rendered with the knowledge that the person would not be well placed to help the group perform well” (Maner & Mead 2010). Under competition situations however, these dominance oriented leaders tended to “place the skilled group member into the director role—a role in which that person would have greater influence” and thereby making the leader look good (Maner & Mead 2010).
The consensus them was that “although dominance-oriented leaders otherwise were inclined to protect their power, the presence of a rival outgroup caused those participants to be less concerned with protecting their power and instead to make decisions consistent with a desire for group success” (Maner & Mead 2010).
In Group leadership climate and individual organizational commitment (Schyns & Van Veldhoven 2010) analyzed data from a group of 16,299 employees within 1,826 sets, and “showed that group leadership climate level and strength are related to individual organizational commitment after controlling for the influence of individual level leadership climate” (Schyns & Van Veldhoven 2010).
The Schyns & Van Veldhoven (2010) study encourages the idea that “climate strength in groups can indeed be seen as a relevant predictor of employee outcomes in addition to climate level and that both climate level and strength add to the effect of individual climate perceptions” (Schyns & Van Veldhoven 2010).
Based on this finding, the study authors concluded that organizations must understand not only “whether or not individuals experience satisfying leadership climate conditions, but need to ensure also that entire groups agree in their positive assessment of leadership” (Schyns & Van Veldhoven 2010). Leadership styles therefore become doubly important in light of this research.
In Individual expectations for group decision processes: Evidence for overestimation of majority influence (Ladbury & Hinsz 2009), the authors created four different decision making scenarios and presented them to different groups to figure out which action to take. In each of the experiments Ladbury & Hinsz (2009) found that individuals within the group “overestimated the effect of the majority opinion on the final decisions” (Ladbury & Hinsz 2009).
Power in this context was wrongly assumed to be independent of context and rather assumed to be “what everyone wants” (Ladbury & Hinsz 2009). The importance of this study lies in its ability to prove that while individuals are generally aware of the function of the group mind in group decision making scenarios, they are nonetheless far “less sensitive to the subtleties involved in the process” (Ladbury & Hinsz 2009).
The research presented in this study by Ladbury & Hinsz (2009) illustrates the fact that many individuals do not have access to unspoken, complete, “fully functioning models of group decision making” available to them at their disposal, therefore their concept of power dispersion within the group context remains limited (Ladbury & Hinsz 2009).
Rather, the authors learned, individuals within a group decision making scenario will tend to rely on a “limited number of simple decision strategies, such as the majority rule” (Ladbury & Hinsz 2009). Significantly, these oversimplified and superficial means of decision making in the group context are too heavily focused on and too often applied to other situations in which they have ineffectual bearing (Ladbury & Hinsz 2009).
Lastly, in Identity fusion: The interplay of personal and social identities in extreme group behavior (Swann, Seyle, Gomez, Morales & Huici 2009) the authors conducted five preliminary studies and three experiments and learned that in situations where a person’s personal and social identity became fused, these individuals were far more likely to engage in extreme group or mob behavior, including being “willing to fight or die for the group” (Swann, Seyle, Gomez, Morales & Huici 2009).
This was in marked contrast to persons who personal and social identity remained separate, which led the authors to conclude “among fused persons, both the personal and social self may energize and direct group related behavior” (Swann, Seyle, Gomez, Morales & Huici 2009).
References
Greer, L. L., & Van Kleef, G. A. (2010). Equality versus differentiation: The effects of power dispersion on group interaction. Journal of Applied Psychology. 1-13.
Ladbury, Jared L. & Hinsz, Verlin B. (2009). Individual expectations for group decision processes: Evidence for overestimation of majority influence. Group Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice. (13) 4: 235–254.
Maner, J. K., & Mead, N. L. (2010). The essential tension between leadership and power: When leaders sacrifice group goals for the sake of self-interest. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.Advance. 1-16.
Schyns, Brigit & Van Veldhoven, Marc J. P. M.(2010). Group leadership climate
and individual organizational commitment. Journal of Personnel Psychology. Vol. 9(2):57–68.
Swann, W.B., Seyle, D.C., Gomez, A., Morales, J. F., Huici, C. (2009). Identity fusion: The interplay of personal and social identities in extreme group behavior.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (96)5, 995–1011.