From Fault Line to Group Fission: Understanding Membership Changes in Small Groups

Group fissions occur when two or more members leave a parent group to either form a new group or join an existing group. This article investigates the interplay between two factors: the presence of an intragroup conflict and subgroup boundaries on the group fission process. It is hypothesized that subgroup divisions act as potential fault lines along which groups split after they experience conflict. The results of three experiments, one scenario study and two laboratory studies involving small task groups, support the group fault line hypothesis. The authors discuss the implications of these findings for theory and research on membership changes in small groups.

[1]  Bruno Dyck Exploring Organizational Family Trees , 1997 .

[2]  Holly Arrow,et al.  Small Groups as Complex Systems: Formation, Coordination, Development, and Adaptation , 2000 .

[3]  J. Levine,et al.  Socialization in Small Groups: Temporal Changes in Individual-Group Relations1 , 1982 .

[4]  S. Karau,et al.  Social loafing and social compensation: the effects of expectations of co-worker performance. , 1991, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[5]  M. Hogg,et al.  Rediscovering the social group: A self-categorization theory. , 1989 .

[6]  Milica Z. Bookman,et al.  War and Peace: The Divergent Breakups of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia , 1994 .

[7]  D. Cremer,et al.  Choosing between personal comfort and the environment: solutions to the transportation dilemma. , 2000 .

[8]  Matthew J. Hornsey,et al.  Assimilation and Diversity: An Integrative Model of Subgroup Relations , 2000 .

[9]  T. Tyler,et al.  Cooperation in modern society: Promoting the welfare of communities, states, and organizations , 2000 .

[10]  Joseph P. Forgas,et al.  The Social Outcast : Ostracism, Social Exclusion, Rejection, and Bullying , 2005 .

[11]  C. Rusbult,et al.  A Longitudinal Test of the Investment Model: The Impact on Job Satisfaction, Job Commitment, and Turnover of Variations in Rewards, Costs, Alternatives, and Investments , 1983 .

[12]  Donald T. Campbell,et al.  Scientific inquiry and the social sciences , 1981 .

[13]  M. van vugt,et al.  Social identity as social glue: the origins of group loyalty. , 2004, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[14]  N. Kerr,et al.  "Me versus just us versus us all" categorization and cooperation in nested social dilemmas. , 2002, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[15]  C. Insko,et al.  Intergroup discrimination in the minimal group paradigm: categorization, reciprocation, or fear? , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[16]  S. Fiske,et al.  The Handbook of Social Psychology , 1935 .

[17]  R. Sabatelli The Social Psychology of Groups , 2000 .

[18]  N. Kerr Illusions of efficacy: The effects of group size on perceived efficacy in social dilemmas. , 1989 .

[19]  R. Prislin,et al.  From majority to minority and vice versa: the asymmetrical effects of losing and gaining majority position within a group. , 2000, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[20]  Napoleon A. Chagnon,et al.  Yanomamo: The Fierce People , 1968 .

[21]  S. Jackson,et al.  Some differences make a difference: Individual dissimilarity and group heterogeneity as correlates of recruitment, promotions, and turnover. , 1991 .

[22]  David De Cremer,et al.  Autocratic leadership in social dilemmas: A threat to group stability , 2004 .

[23]  F. Sani,et al.  When consensus fails: an analysis of the schism within the Italian Communist Party (1991) , 1998 .

[24]  David De Cremer,et al.  Leadership in social dilemmas: The effects of group identification on collective actions to provide public goods , 1999 .

[25]  H. Rutenberg Group processes. , 1974, Hospital progress.

[26]  Robin R. Vallacher,et al.  The Dynamical Perspective in Personality and Social Psychology , 2002 .

[27]  L. Cosmides,et al.  The Adapted mind : evolutionary psychology and the generation of culture , 1992 .

[28]  D. Byrne The Attraction Paradigm , 1971 .

[29]  N. Kerr,et al.  Dispensability of member effort and group motivation losses: Free-rider effects , 1983 .

[30]  R. Prislin,et al.  The Effects of Social Change Within a Group on Membership Preferences: To Leave or Not to Leave? , 2005, Personality & social psychology bulletin.

[31]  John Todman,et al.  Should We Stay or Should We Go? A Social Psychological Model of Schisms in Groups , 2002 .

[32]  Aaron M. Brower,et al.  What's Social about Social Cognition?: Research on Socially Shared Cognition in Small Groups , 1996 .

[33]  S. Vogel-Scibilia,et al.  Ostracism: The Power of Silence , 2003 .

[34]  Stephen Worchel,et al.  Emphasizing the Social Nature of Groups in a Developmental Framework , 1996 .

[35]  John D. Greenwood,et al.  Role‐playing as an experimental strategy in social psychology , 1983 .

[36]  Douglas T. Kenrick,et al.  Evolution and social psychology. , 2006 .

[37]  G. Holton Sociobiology: the new synthesis? , 1977, Newsletter on science, technology & human values.

[38]  K. Williams,et al.  Identifiability as a deterrant to social loafing: Two cheering experiments. , 1981 .

[39]  Bruno Dyck,et al.  The Formation of Breakaway Organizations: Observations and a Process Model , 1999 .

[40]  H. Tajfel,et al.  The Social Identity Theory of Intergroup Behavior. , 2004 .

[41]  John M. Levine,et al.  Creating the Ideal Group: Composition Effects at Work , 2018, Understanding Group Behavior.

[42]  S. Worchel,et al.  Psychology of intergroup relations , 1986 .

[43]  Deborah B. Balser The Impact of Environmental Factors on Factionalism and Schism in Social Movement Organizations , 1997 .

[44]  F Sani,et al.  Contested identities and schisms in groups: opposing the ordination of women as priests in the Church of England. , 2000, The British journal of social psychology.

[45]  M. Brewer,et al.  Effects of group identity on resource use in a simulated commons dilemma. , 1984, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[46]  B. Tuckman DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCE IN SMALL GROUPS. , 1965, Psychological bulletin.

[47]  R. Trivers The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism , 1971, The Quarterly Review of Biology.

[48]  Dominic Abrams,et al.  The role of categorization and in-group norms in judgments of groups and their members , 1998 .

[49]  R. L. Kelly The Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways , 1997 .

[50]  Charles D. Samuelson A multiattribute evaluation approach to structural change in resource dilemmas , 1993 .

[51]  Rupert Brown,et al.  Explaining intergroup differentiation in an industrial organization , 1986 .

[52]  J. K. Murnighan,et al.  Demographic Diversity and Faultlines: The Compositional DYnamics of Organizational Groups , 1998 .

[53]  J. Gillon,et al.  Group dynamics , 1996 .