COMMUNICATION in SMALL GROUPS

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COMMUNICATION in SMALL GROUPS
Instead of focusing on personal
utility-maximization, small-group communication
experiments emphasize collective decisions /
actions
This tradition seeks to explain small group
dynamics both processes and outcomes. For
example, task-oriented problem-solving group
morale group culture and collective identity
conflicts and conflict resolution co-evolution
of persons groups in cooperative games.
Researchers also conduct field studies of
naturally forming groups and their embeddedness
within larger orgs (e.g., workplace
communication shop-floor and executive-level
teams) and relations to the larger society (e.g.,
mass media and public opinion diffusion of
innovations theories of public goods free
riding problems).
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Small Group Lab
Studies of network effects on communication began
at the MIT Small Group Network Laboratory in
1940-50s with Alex Bavelas and Harold Leavitts
experiments on collective puzzle-solving tasks
where five subjects pass information via four
cubicle-constrained configurations.

• At beginning, every subject possesses some
  unique info (5 of 6 symbols)
• Every S must discover which 5 symbols all the
  Ss have in common
• To solve, they pass written info through
  available slots in cubicle walls
• Experimenters measure whether the group solved
  the puzzle how fast

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Reinventing the Wheel
Both obvious counter-intuitive findings emerged
from experiments
Time Wheel and Y were both much faster at
correctly solving puzzles than chain and
circle Messages Wheel and Y passed fewest
messages then chain then circle Leadership
Increasing belief that group had a leader
circle, chain, Y, wheel (100) Satisfaction
Circle members enjoyed the task most followed by
chain Y wheel least of all
Theoretically, a circle needs 4 transmissions to
send one message to all, but wheel needs at least
6. (Can you explain?) Why was wheel faster than
circle? Bavelas Leavitt concluded that more
centralized structures are more efficient. Wheel
and Y have an obvious leader, so no time is
wasted in searching for a strategy or vying for
leadership. Everyone just funnels all info to the
integrator. But why are centralized group members
less satisfied with their experience?

• However, later experiments uncovered contingent
  relations
• For simple tasks, wheel and Y have faster
  puzzle-solution times.
• For complex, ambiguous tasks, decentralized
  circle (also all-channel) network structure is
  quicker at processing and integrating info.

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Small Group Dynamics
After Kurt Lewins death, his MIT Center for
Group Dynamics moved in 1948 to University of
Michigans Institute of Social Research. Although
a multidisciplinary unit, social psychologists
dominated.

• Several projects had a distinctly
  applied-research focus
• Acceptance of minority groups in the Dodge UAW
  union
• Effects of discrimination on group morale
  actions that could overcome discrimination
• Changes to improve worker morale, productivity,
  and job satisfaction at the Michigan Bell
  Telephone Company

Outside academe, many real-world training
consultancy orgs perpetuate the tradition of
applying small group research findings to
businesses, clubs, government agencies,
nongovernmental organizations, even sports team
rock bands. But the contributions of network
analysis to those efforts are unclear
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2-Step Flow of Communication
A bridge between micro- macro-level
communications began with Paul Lazarsfelds
studies of mass media influence on voting choices.
The Peoples Choice (1944) found that opinion
leaders were important interpersonal mediators of
broadcast content. Lazarsfeld Elihu Katz (1955)
formalized a model of the two-step flow of
communication mass media messages are filtered
through interpreted by more-exposed central
members of freely-forming local groups.
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Finding Opinion Leaders
Opinion leaders occur in many domains, from
politics to sports, culture to fads-and-fashions.
Marketers advertisers frequently target them.
New Hampshire Iowa lead off presidential
nomination contests where retail politics
depends on small-group influence, in contrast to
later primary contests where mass-media campaigns
dominate.
Opinion leaders can be self-identified using
network items in surveys

1. During the past six months have you talked with
   anyone about the iPhone?
2. Compared with your circle of friends are you (a)
   more or (b) less likely to be asked for advice
   about the iPhone?
3. Thinking back to your last discussion about
   iPhone, (a) were you asked for your opinion of
   the iPhone or (b) did you ask someone else?
4. When you and your friends discuss new ideas about
   communication technology, what part do you play?
   (a) Mainly listen or (b) try to convince them of
   your ideas.
5. Which of these happens more often? (a) You tell
   your friends and neighbors about some new
   communication technology, or (b) they tell you
   about a new technology.
6. Do you have the feeling that you are generally
   regarded by your friend and neighbors as a good
   source of advice about new communication
   technologies?

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Kibitzing in a Kibbutz
Gabriel Weimann (1982, 1983) extended the
two-step model, adding network concepts to
communication research in an Israeli kibbutz.
He examined the bridging function played by
marginally positioned people in mediating the
flow of information between groups. Results
supported balance theory and intransitivity
hypotheses about the structural advantages of
marginals in the communication flow.
He found that weak ties served as inter-group
bridges, confirming Granovetters Strength of
Weak Ties argument. Weak ties tendency towards
intransitivity low multiplexity explain those
actors activation as intergroup bridges.
The findings highlight the potential of social
network analysis as a bridge between micro-level
interaction and macro-level patterns including
diffusion of innovation, formation of public
opinion social solidarity. Weak ties serve as
the crucial paths between groups, ... by which
individual behavior and ideas, originating in
small face-to-face groups, are routinized
agglomerated into large-scale patterns.
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Diffusion of Innovation among Physicians
Small networks are one mechanism through which
information, knowledge innovations diffuse
among members of communities
James S. Coleman, Elihu Katz, and Herbert Menzel
(1957, 1966) studied the diffusion of
tetracycline among 125 doctors in Decatur, IL.
Altho Pfizer ran adverts in medical journals, a
network survey and pharmacy records revealed
adoption patterns depended more on social
networks than on mass communication. Physicians
were asked to whom they turned for advice info?
Discussed cases? Friends?
The more contacts, the more rapid the adoption of
the new drug (next Figure). networks of
doctor-to-doctor contacts operated most
powerfully in the first 5 months after the
release of the new drug. The discussion network
and the advisor network showed most
pair-simultaneity at the very beginning and then
progressively declined. The friendship network
appears to reach maximum effectiveness later. No
networks showed later-period effects beyond
chance.
However, a reanalysis disputed this conclusion
after controlling for Pfizers aggressive
advertising of tetracycline, the alleged network
contagion effect vanished (van den Bulte Lilien
2001)
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Taking a Free Ride
Social trap occurs when individual choices that
maximize utility produce suboptimal collective
outcome e.g., tragedy of the commons Mancur
Olsons (1965) Logic of Collective Action
identified free rider constraint on the creation
of groups, resource contributions, pursuit of
collective goals.
Rational choice is to give only as much as one
benefits Temptation is to take a free ride on
others efforts by withholding contributions
while someone else does all the work (Let George
do it) But if all behave rationally, little or
nothing gets done Free riding is difficult to
prevent in groups that seek public goods if the
collective goal is achieved, then no one can be
excluded from its benefits
Does Neighborhood Crime Watch create security for
all the residents? When have you shirked
participating, yet enjoyed fruits of others
labor? Hence, many groups must provide selective
incentives private goods that members can
obtain only when they join and participate in the
org
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Group Incentive Systems
Different types of organizations tailor
particular combinations of public goods and
selective incentives that are consistent with
their members personal interests and groups
collective goals

• Three basic types of incentives
• Utilitarian incentives Private goods and direct
  services to members that are consumed on an
  individual basis
• Social incentives Jointly coordinated social
  recreational activities whose enjoyment is
  restricted to the membership
• Normative incentives Primarily public goods
  requiring collective efforts to influence
  governmental policy makers

What are some groups that you belong to? Which
specific kinds of benefits best induce potential
members to join and contribute their resources
towards those groups public goods
objectives? How could network relations help to
persuade people to change their calculations
about value of contributing time, money effort?
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Networks Free Riding
An important Olson proposition is that
free-riding will increase as a group grows larger
shirking is less visible in a larger group.
But, social networks may overcome free riding.
Because an egocentric network is smaller than a
groups size, if the number of group members in
egos network grows, then ego is exposed to
increasing social incentives (peer pressure) to
participate.
Social movements, cults, voluntary associations
often rely on their members ego-nets to recruit
new members. Solidarity with ones alters can be
a potent social force to induce
conformity. Studying 569 members of a Swedish
temperance movement org, 1896-1937, Sandell
Stern (1998) found that additional members in
the group of relevant others increased a persons
propensity to join. But, controlling for ego-net
composition, Olsons free-rider hypothesis was
also supported as the organization grew, the
propensity to join the movement decreased.
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An MTML Framework
Peter Monge Noshir Contractor (2003) proposed
an integrative multitheoretical multilevel (MTML)
framework of core mechanisms to explain the
evolution of complex adaptive communication
networks.
They classified the core theories as
Self-Interest, Mutual Self-Interest and
Collective Action, Cognitive, Contagion, Exchange
Dependency, Homophily and Proximity, and
Network Evolution.
MTML seeks to examine the extent to which the
structural tendencies of organizational networks
are influenced by multitheoretical hypotheses
operating at multiple levels of analysis.
Exogenous attributes of actors
Homophily implies preferred ties to other actors
sharing same attributes H6 The network
demonstrates a structural tendency toward choice,
mutuality, transitivity, and a differential
tendency toward choice of other actors in the
same block.
Structure of the focal network
Exogenous relations in networks
Endogenous mechanisms
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References
Coleman, James S., Elihu Katz, and Herbert
Menzel. 1957. The Diffusion of an Innovation
among. Physicians. Sociometry 20
253-270. Coleman, James S., Elihu Katz, and
Herbert Menzel. 1966. Medical Innovation A
Diffusion Study. Indianapolis Bobbs-Merrill. Burt
, Ronald S. 1987. Social Contagion and
Innovation Cohesion Versus Structural
Equivalence. American Journal of Sociology
921287-1335. Burt, Ronald S. 1980. Innovation
as a Structural Interest Rethinking the Impact
of Network Position on Innovation Adoption.
Social Networks 2327-355. Katz, Elihu, and Paul
F. Lazarsfeld. 1955. Personal Influence The Part
Played by People in the Flow of Mass
Communication. Glencoe, IL Free
Press. Lazarsfeld, Paul F., Bernard Berelson and
Hazel Gaudet. 1944. The Peoples Choice. NY
Columbia University Press. Monge, Peter R. and
Noshir S. Contractor. 2003. Theories of
Communication Networks. NY Oxford University
Press. Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of
Collective Action. Cambridge Harvard University
Press. Sandell, Rickard and Charlotta Stern.
1998. Group Size and the Logic of Collective
Action A Network Analysis of a Swedish
Temperance Movement 1896-1937. Rationality and
Society 10327-345. Van den Bulte, Christophe and
Gary L. Lilien. 2001.Medical Innovation
Revisited Social Contagion versus Marketing
Effort. American Journal of Sociology
1061409-1435. Weimann, Gabriel. 1982. On the
Importance of Marginality One More Step into the
Two-Step Flow of Communication. American
Sociological Review 47764-773. Weimann, Gabriel.
1983. The Strength of Weak Conversational Ties
in the Flow of Information and Influence. Social
Networks 5245-267.