IMPACT OF FAILURE ON GROUP COHESIVENESS.

This paper tested experimentally the relationship between group cohesiveness, defined as the willingness of individuals to stay in their group, and power, and acceptance. Power was defined as the ability to satisfy needs and acceptance as to the willingness to do so. A division of groups into three categories was suggested. In an instrumental group people seek to receive power and acceptance; in a mutual acceptance group people join having in mind to give and to take power and acceptance; in a vectorial group the aim of the people is to give power and acceptance either to some individuals or to an ideal. It was found that cohesiveness is better correlated to power than to acceptance in the instrumental and vectorial groups, and better correlated to acceptance in the mutual acceptance group. When all three groups were exposed to stress, cohesiveness has suffered most in the instrumental group and least in the vectorial group. All these findings are tentative and more experiments are forthcoming in order to corroborate the data obtained in this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]