Welcome to the Small Groups Lab
Current Online Surveys
Current Research
How Groups Adapt to Adversity: This project examines how groups respond to adversity. The study investigates why some groups respond to adversity in adaptive, effective ways while others deteriorate under stress. The current focus is on how leadership styles affect a group’s response to a complex, highly difficult task.
Investigator: Trevor Setvin
Past Projects
Groups and Relational Aggression:This project explores how group members respond to relational aggression (e.g., gossip, ostracism) against a fellow group member. Past research with K-12 students indicates that former victims of relational aggression reduce their risk of being targeted if they have at least one friend. The current study investigates the means by which a college student’s membership in an on- or off-campus group such as a sports team, religious organization, Greek society, or a music group might have a similar buffering effect. We anticipate that the gender composition of the group (all-female, all-male, mixed-sex) will affect how “bystander” members respond to aggression against a fellow group member.
Investigator:Mary Hetrick
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Finding your place: How gender composition affects emergent group influence hierarchies:An existing data set of 43 growing groups was used to test whether influence hierarchies in all-female, majority-female, and majority-male groups stabilized at the same rate and in the same way. Contrary to Martin’s (2009) findings, both the top (alpha) and the bottom (omega) ends of the influence hierarchies stabilized most quickly in the all-female groups. Sex composition and the pattern of group growth also interacted in predicting influence stability. Groups that grew from two to four to five members stabilized more quickly than groups that grew from two to three to five members. This was especially true of majority-male groups, whose only female member arrived last and alone. Findings suggest that membership change is more likely to disrupt the stabilization of group structure when it also changes the group’s gender composition.
Investigator: Constance Locklear Download the Poster Here!