The Experimental Study on the Interrelation between Group Atmosphere and Personality (I) (In Commemoration of the 20th Anniversary)

The interrelation between group atmosphere and personality was investigated on the view of cognitive discrepancy of atmosphere and psychodynamic approach (TAT and Rorschach test). The results were as follows (Ss: 112 freshmen in a company). (1) Cognitive discrepancy of atmosphere represents the degree of adjustment. The less the discrepancy is, the significantly stronger achievement motive is. The more serious the discrepancy is, the significantly stronger both defence motive and affiliation motive are. (2) Cognitive patterns of atmosphere related significantly to the above motives were as follows: (1) achievement motive-support, frankness in talking (2) affiliation motive-reward (3) defence motive-responsibility, risk-taking, warmth, identification (4) achievement motive and defence motive-identification (5) defence motive and affiliation motive-identification (6) affiliation motive and achievement motive-goal standards. (3) The above findings suggest that these motives are organically related to each other about 'identification'. Affiliation motive represents the distortion of interpersonal relation, that is, 'ambivalent identification', and the more serious the distortion becomes, the more strongly affiliation motive may tend to take up defence motive into symptoms. On the other hand, a situation in which affiliation motive has been just solved may be equivalent to the base which triggers achievement motive, 'mutual identification'. Therefore, it would be considered that affiliation motive catalizes the interrelation between defence motive and achievement motive. This idea is the hypothetical principle of changing behavior presented in this paper. Based on this principle, a program of human relation training or of organization development can be suggested.