Team Composition Revisited: A Team Member Attribute Alignment Approach

Research methods for studying team composition tend to employ either a variable-centered or person-centered approach. The variable-centered approach allows scholars to consider how patterns of attributes between team members influence teams, while the person-centered approach allows scholars to consider how variation in multiple attributes within team members influences subgroup formation and its effects. Team composition theory, however, is becoming increasingly sophisticated, assuming variation on multiple attributes both within and between team members—for example, in predicting how a team functions differently when its most assertive members are also optimistic rather than pessimistic. To support this new theory, we propose an attribute alignment approach, which complements the variable-centered and person-centered approaches by modeling teams as matrices of their members and their members’ attributes. We first demonstrate how to calculate attribute alignment by determining the vector norm and vector angle between team members’ attributes. Then, we demonstrate how the alignment of team member personality attributes (neuroticism and agreeableness) affects team relationship conflict. Finally, we discuss the potential of using the attribute alignment approach to enrich broader team research.

Mapping 50 Years of Small Group Research Through Small Group Research

At its 50-year milestone, we assess the Small Group Research ( SGR) corpus to reflect on the development of group research over the past half century. To do this, we examine the evolution of the corpus’s context and content. We examine its context by assessing its impact, which journals it communicates with, and the internationality of its authors. We examine its content—the topics discussed in its articles—using keyword clustering and co-occurrence network analysis. We identify 10 research communities and track their relationships over the four editorial periods associated with the SGR corpus (lagged 2 years for influence): 1970–1981, 1982–1991, 1992–2010, and 2011–2019. Our analyses indicate that the global and local study of group dynamics has fluctuated over time and that phenomenologically based topics connect theoretical topics and stimulate theoretical development. We also provide three criteria to identify communities and topics of group research most likely to benefit from future integration.

I think you can: transpersonal efficacy in teams

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to expand the nomological network of a relational efficacy construct, transpersonal efficacy, and examine its effect on attitudes and behaviors important for team performance. The authors identify several antecedents to transpersonal efficacy, including task interdependence, agreeableness and conscientiousness. The authors also find that transpersonal efficacy is related to relational attitudes and behaviors in teams.

Design/methodology/approach

This study consists of an online cross-sectional survey completed by participants representing a wide range of occupations, team types, contexts and industries. Participants reported on their working relationships with team members and various behavioral outcomes. Participants used the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) to describe their teammates’ job requirements and to evaluate each teammate’s ability to complete required tasks. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used to test hypotheses.

Findings

Findings suggest that people in highly interdependent teams have more confidence in their teammates. Further, transpersonal efficacy predicts relationship, task and process conflict when controlling for team task interdependence and virtualness, along with individual differences including agreeableness and conscientiousness. Transpersonal efficacy also contributes to the prediction of relationship conflict beyond the explained variance of collective efficacy.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to our understanding of individuals in teams by using social cognitive theory, expectancy theory and uncertainty reduction theory as a base for predicting the value of transpersonal efficacy in driving relational team behaviors. The authors uniquely consider efficacy as an interpersonal construct that is related to individual behaviors and attitudes that target specific teammates, rather than the team as a whole.

Evaluating the Interdisciplinary Mission of Small Group Research Using Computational Analytics

Richard Kettner-Polley and Charles Gavin founded Small Group Research ( SGR) to present research, build theory, and generally advance the study of small groups by combining insights from multiple disciplines. Currently, we evaluate the extent to which this interdisciplinary mission has been upheld over time. To do this, we apply the perspective and tools of big data analytics to the nearly 3 million words that span the 829 articles that comprise the SGR corpus from February 1990 to June 2017. Keyword analysis, ontological ordering, and interdisciplinary content analyses identify intriguing patterns and detect latent trends. Our results speak to the consistent interdisciplinarity of SGR while identifying opportunities for further development and more complex disciplinary integration in research on small groups.

But consider the alternative: the influence of positive affect on overconfidence

Three studies find evidence that positive affect reduces comparative overconfidence (overplacement). This occurs because positive affect attenuates focalism via decreasing people's tendency to overweight information regarding themselves in the light of information concerning others. Specifically, Study 1 provides evidence that positive affect leads to more realistic estimates of comparative ability and that other-focus partially mediates this effect. Then, Study 2 provides causal evidence that positive affect independently influences other-focus and that other-focus, in turn, influences overplacement. Additionally, Study 2 uses an indirect measure of focalism to better capture this attentional process. Finally, Study 3 explores the influence of negative affect on overplacement. In addition, each study finds that positive affect does not influence overconfidence regarding participant's raw performances (overestimation) as this type of overconfidence is not dependent on self-other comparisons.

The Experience of Failed Humor: Implications for Interpersonal Affect Regulation

PURPOSE

The purpose of this study was to investigate failed interpersonal affect regulation through the lens of humor. We investigated individual differences that influenced people's affective and cognitive responses to failed humor and their willingness to persist in the interpersonal regulation of positive affect after a failed attempt.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

Using well-established autobiographical narrative methods and surveys, we collected data at two time points. All participants (n = 127) received identical surveys at time 1. At time 2, they were randomly assigned to complete a narrative about either successful or failed humor as well as a second survey.

FINDINGS

Using moderated regression analyses and SEM, we found significant differences between our failed and successful humor conditions. Specifically, individual differences, including gender, affective perspective taking, and humor self-efficacy, were associated with negative reactions to failed humor and the willingness of individuals to persist in the interpersonal regulation of positive affect. Moreover, affective perspective taking moderated the effect of gender in both the failed and successful humor conditions.

IMPLICATIONS

Our results suggest that failed humor is no laughing matter. Understanding individuals' willingness to continue in attempts to regulate the affect of others contributes to the comprehension of an understudied phenomenon that has implications for interpersonal behavior in organizations such as helping, group decision making, and intragroup conflict.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

Studies of interpersonal affect regulation often focus on people's ability to successfully regulate others' emotions. In contrast, this is the first quantitative study to explore factors that influence individual's willingness to persist in interpersonal affect regulation after failure, and to investigate how individual differences influence the personal outcomes associated with failed attempts.

Stretching the moral gray zone: positive affect, moral disengagement, and dishonesty

We propose that positive affect promotes dishonest behavior by providing the cognitive flexibility necessary to reframe and to rationalize dishonest acts. This hypothesis was tested in two studies. The results of Study 1 showed that individuals experiencing positive affect morally disengage to a greater extent than do individuals experiencing neutral affect. Study 2 built on this finding by demonstrating that the ability to morally disengage can lead individuals who experience positive affect to behave dishonestly. Specifically, the results of Study 2 showed that people experiencing positive affect are more likely to steal than individuals experiencing neutral affect, particularly when self-awareness is low. Furthermore, moral disengagement fully mediated this effect. Taken together, the results suggest that positive affect paves the way for the commission of dishonest acts by altering how individuals evaluate the moral implications of their own behavior.

How Expectancy Motivation Influences Information Exchange in Small Groups

Groups rarely use the unique knowledge of their members when making decisions, focusing instead on knowledge that members have in common. This tendency to neglect the expertise of group members severely limits the effectiveness of group decision making. Previously, this problem has been addressed by showing that groups will pool task-relevant information and make effective decisions if members have knowledge of each other’s expertise. However, these studies are generally limited because they disregard why people use each other’s expertise once they are aware of it. The current study uses expectancy theory to investigate this issue and to link motivation to information exchange in groups. Results of a hidden profile study involving 40 groups indicated that expectancy motivation drives groups to use expertise awareness, exchange more unique information, and thus solve a hidden profile problem correctly.

Decisions for others are more creative than decisions for the self

Four studies investigate whether decisions for others produce more creative solutions than do decisions for the self and if construal level explains this relation. In Study 1, participants carried out a structured imagination task by drawing an alien for a story that they would write, or alternatively for a story that someone else would write. As expected, drawing an alien for someone else produced a more creative alien. In Studies 2a and 2b, construal level (i.e., psychological distance) was independently manipulated. Participants generated more creative ideas on behalf of distant others than on behalf of either close others or themselves. Finally, in Study 3, a classic insight problem was investigated. Participants deciding for others were more likely to solve the problem; furthermore, this result was mediated by psychological distance. These findings demonstrate that people are more creative for others than for themselves and shed light on differences in self-other decision making.