PSY7530 introduces the scientific study of group behavior — one of the most practically important areas in psychology, given that virtually all consequential human activities occur in groups. Drawing on social psychology, organizational psychology, and small group research, students develop a comprehensive understanding of how groups form and develop norms, how power and influence operate within groups, how groups make decisions (and why they often make poor ones), and what distinguishes effective from ineffective group leadership. This knowledge applies directly to clinical group therapy, organizational consulting, team leadership, and community psychology.
Group formation, dynamics, and effectiveness
Core topics
- Group formation and development: How collections of individuals become cohesive groups — Tuckman's stages (forming, storming, norming, performing), social identity theory (Tajfel and Turner) on in-group identification and out-group differentiation, the minimal group paradigm, and how the process of categorization into groups produces both group cohesion and intergroup bias
- Group structure and norms: How groups develop roles, status hierarchies, and behavioral norms — the social pressure to conform (Asch's conformity research), minority influence (Moscovici), pluralistic ignorance, and how group norms both facilitate coordination and can produce dysfunctional conformity
- Power and influence in groups: Social power bases (French and Raven's six bases: coercive, reward, legitimate, referent, expert, informational) and how power is acquired, maintained, and exercised in groups — obedience to authority (Milgram), compliance techniques (foot-in-the-door, door-in-the-face), and the psychological mechanisms of social influence
- Group performance and decision-making: When groups outperform individuals and when they do not — social facilitation and social loafing, process losses and process gains, groupthink (Janis), group polarization, brainstorming limitations, and evidence-based approaches to improving group decision quality (nominal group technique, devil's advocacy, structured decision processes)
- Leadership and followership: Major leadership theories — trait approaches, behavioral styles, situational/contingency models (Fiedler, Hersey and Blanchard), transformational vs. transactional leadership, authentic leadership — and the emerging emphasis on followership: how follower characteristics, motivations, and behaviors shape group outcomes as much as leadership does
- Conflict in groups: The nature and sources of intragroup conflict — task conflict, process conflict, and relationship conflict — and their differential effects on group performance; conflict management strategies, negotiation, mediation, and the constructive role that well-managed conflict can play in group learning and innovation
PSY7530 assignments include group dynamics analyses, leadership case studies, and group effectiveness intervention plans
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Frequently asked questions
Clinical psychologists practice group therapy, which is one of the most widely used and cost-effective treatment modalities in mental health settings. Group therapy is not just individual therapy delivered to multiple people simultaneously — it is a fundamentally different treatment in which the group itself is the therapeutic medium. Therapeutic factors identified by Irvin Yalom (universality, altruism, cohesiveness, interpersonal learning, imitative behavior, catharsis, hope, and others) are essentially group dynamics phenomena. A clinician who understands why groups form cohesion, how norms develop, how the scapegoating that sometimes emerges in groups can be prevented and addressed, and how leadership style affects group process is far better equipped to facilitate therapeutic groups effectively. Beyond clinical group work, psychologists consult with teams, lead interdisciplinary treatment teams, and work within organizational systems — all contexts in which group dynamics knowledge is directly applicable. PSY7530 provides the theoretical and empirical foundation for all of these applications.