Constructing Cooperation in Groups

Urgent please and pious pronouncements will rarely produce cooperation in groups, even if our intentions are noble.  Cooperation must become systemic.  For it to become systemic in a small group, cooperation has to be structured into the framework of the group for the benefit of all members.  There are four main elements necessary to establish a cooperative group structure:  

Leave out any one of these elements and you diminish the potential for cooperation in groups.

Interdependence : 

When we all work together in order to achieve a desirable goal, we exhibit interdependence.  The goal is unattainable without the cooperation of group members, so we depend on each other for success.  Success is not defined individually but in terms of the group.  Cooperative goals can be reinforced by an interdependent division of labor and resources within the group.  

The story of Fred Beasley, a fullback drafted by the San Francisco 49ers in 1998, illustrates interdependence in action. Fred’s father died when he was 12 years old, leaving a wife and nine children to survive on a paltry Social Security income.  The interdependent family goal following the loss of Fred’s dad was to keep the family intact.  This was accomplished by sharing labor and resources interdependently.  Alma Beasley, Fred’s mom, got jobs cleaning houses.  All nine kids found odd jobs.  Whatever income was earned from these jobs was pooled to cover family, not individual, needs.  Four boys slept in the same room.  Dresser drawers were divided among the kids.  Household chores were everybody’s responsibilities.  Alma Beasley explains how the family remained together through difficult times: “It was tough on all of us…I just did the best I could.  I think we all pulled together” (Judge, 1998, p. D8).

Equality:

There are essentially three ways rewards can be distributed in a group: winner-take-all, equitable distribution (proportional), and equal distribution.  When success depends on group members working together, an equal distribution of rewards gives the best results and the competitive winner-take-all system gives the poorest results (Deutsch, 1985).

A merit system of rewards (winner-take-all) is intrinsically competitive.  Only the winners receive the rewards.  This sets up a win-lose dichotomy and sets in motion al the negative consequences associated with competition already discussed.  Merit system may motivate the few who believe they have a reasonable chance of being “number one.”  Everyone else, however, is demoralized or indifferent because the rewards are forever out of reach.  The final report of the Merit Pay Task Force of a California State University Academic Senate (Charnofsky et al., 1998) noted that almost 3,000 studies show either no positive results or serious disadvantages, such as divisiveness and demoralization, from merit pay schemes.  The report also noted that other countries such as Japan believe that merit pay is ridiculous because it embarrasses employees.

Profit-sharing programs based on equitable reward distribution (i.e., the more a member contributes to the team success the higher the bonus) are preferable to winner-take-all schemes.  There are serious drawbacks, however, to equitable reward distribution.  “The goal is to reward the effort of individuals in the group rather than to ensure that the group will survive into the future.  The quest for individual reward often leads to a great deal of tension when benefits are to be distributed.  People disagree if they do not receive as much as expected” (Brislin, 1993, P.53).  A study of 28 firms engaged in some form of financial sharing plan found that the majority showed productivity gains from the plans, but the productivity improvements occurred more frequently in firms with system-wide distribution of bonuses that were equally distributed (Schuster, 1984).

The incentive of system-wide equal distribution plans is to share the rewards of a team effort to excel.  Equal distribution of rewards provides potential motivation for all group members, and it enhances mutual self-esteem and respect, group loyalty, and congenial personal relationships within the group (Deutsch, 1979).  The superiority of equal rewards distribution is supported by the results of hundreds of studies (Deutsch, 1985).

Both independence and equality as means of structuring cooperation in a group were experimentally tested in a school setting by psychologist Elliot Aronson (1999), using what the terms the “jigsaw classroom.”  Students were formed into small learning groups to prepare for an upcoming examination.  Each student was given only a portion of the material, a piece of the overall puzzle, necessary to pass the test.  Everyone needed each other, and test scores were determined on the basis of how well the group did, not on individual performance.  Thus, group members had to teach each other and work together in order to do well.  So the group goal and division of labor were interdependent, and the rewards (grades) were distributed equally (all group members received the same grade). When the jigsaw method was used by Aronson in classrooms that had been recently desegregated, impressive results were obtained.  Jigsaw learning produced significantly more friendships and less prejudice between ethnic groups than occurred at the same school using competitive learning techniques.  Self-esteem, test scores, and liking for the school experience all improved for minority students.  White students also experienced similar positive results.

Participation:

Group members must have a stake in the outcomes for cooperation to occur.  Participative decision making is essential to the institution of cooperation in groups.  Collaborative effort will disintegrate if group members feel that their cooperation merely rubber-stamps decisions already made by others with more power.

Participative decision making occurs at two levels.  First, group members’ participation in decision making is valued, encouraged, and respected.  Members feel they are a part of a team making important decisions.  Second, the decisions of the team are valued, encouraged, and respected by the system as a whole.  Teams are given a great deal of autonomy to determine their own success.  Team decisions are not vetoed by upper management.  Cooperation occurs in a climate of trust.  If the team is not trusted to make careful, deliberative decisions, and if the team’s choices are not respected, then participative decision making will quickly be perceived as a deceptive game that only creates the illusion of choice.

A review of 47 studies revealed that meaningful participation in decision making increased worker productivity and job satisfaction (Miller & Monge, 1986).  When participative decision-making programs fail, they typically fail because participation was minimal, only some individuals were allowed to participate, the program was too short-term, the decisions teams were allowed to make were relatively inconsequential, or the team’s choices were essentially ignored by upper management (Kohn, 1993).  Participative decision making is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 8.  Meaningful participation is essential to the establishment of teamwork in groups.

Individual Accountability:

Interdependence, equality, and participation all sound great, I picture you saying, but what about social loafers who could benefit from the toil of others?  Group effort is not truly cooperative if some members are slackers who let others do all the work.  You must have a mechanism for individual accountability in order to discourage freeloading (Johnson & Johnson, 1987)

Distribution of rewards among all group members should be based on a genuine effort to produce for a group (We-orientation), not merely on equal rewards for all members who still register a pulse.  Individual accountability establishes a minimum standard of performance in order to share the fruits of team labor.  The standards should not be set so high that they assure failures.  Minimum standards agreed to in advance by the group might include the following: no more than two missed meetings, no more than two tardies or early exits from meetings, work turned in to the group on time, and work of satisfactory quality as determined by the group.

 Individual accountability is not the same as rank ordering the group members’ performances or distributing rewards based on merit.  Individual accountability merely establishes a floor below which no one should drop, not a ceiling that only a very few can reach. 

Social loafing can suck the energy from a group.  Social loafing has been observed in group working on a variety of tasks, among both males and females, people of all ages, and in many different cultures (Forsyth, 1999).  Social loafing occurs more often in larger groups because it is less noticeable than in smaller gatherings (Karau & Williams, 1993).  Since other members presumably can pick up the slack resulting from loafers’ listless participation, larger group act as breeding ground for loafers. Social loafing is also more common in an individualist culture such as United States than it is in Collectivist cultures such as Taiwan, Singapore, China, and other Asian countries (Early, 1998; Gabreyna et al., 1985)

So what can you do about social loafers?  Here are several steps that can be taken to address the problem:

1. Establish a group responsibility norm.  Emphasize individual responsibility to the team and the importance of every member contributing a fair share to the successful completion of a task.
   
2. Note the critical importance of each member’s effort.  Impress upon all members that their individual effort is special and essential to the group’s success.  When group members believe that their contribution is indispensable to group success they typically exert great effort (Henningsen et al., 2000).
   
3. Hold members accountable.  Provide each member with specific and easily identifiable tasks and set aside time for the group to assess each member’s contribution to the overall project.  When individual member input on a task is clearly identified and assessed, social loafing decreases significantly (Gammage et al., 2001).  Gerow (1995) claims that social loafing can be “virtually eliminated” by making each member’s effort seem valuable and essential, and by letting members know that their individual tasks will be clearly identified and evaluated.  Despite Gerow’s optimize, however, I know from experience that more is something required.
   
4. Talk to the individual privately.  The first three steps attempt to prevent loafing.  This step calls for either the leader of the group or a designated member to approach the loafer and ask why the lethargic attitude exists.  Encourage stronger participation, reaffirm the importance of the loafer’s contribution to the team effort, and solicit suggestions regarding a contributor.
   
5. Confront the loafer as a group, identify and describe the problem behavior in specific detail.  Ask the loafer directly how the problem can be solved.  Do not name-call or personally attack the recalcitrant member.
   
6. Consult a high power (not to be confused with divine intervention, although that would be impressive).  When all of the above steps fail, consult a superior, teacher, or someone with greater authority than the group members and ask for advice.  The authority figure may need to discuss the problem with the loafer. 
   
7. Boot out the loafer.  This is a last resort.  Do not begin with the step, as many groups would prefer to do.  You may not have this option available, however.
   
8. Sidestep the loafer.  Reconfigure individual responsibilities and tasks so even if the loafer contributes noting to the group effort, the group can still maneuver around the loafer and produce a high-quality result.

 Rothwell, Dan. In Mixed Company. Thomson Wadsworth: California, 2004. 75-76, 
    99-102.