Some Musings about the Small Group

Have you ever made bread from adding liquid with flour and other ingredients such as salt, shortening and yeast? Small groups go through a similar fermentation period eventually maturing into a full blown and living group culture. Webster’s New World Dictionary describes a small group as “a number of persons gathered closely together and forming a recognizable unit.” The social psychologist would add that the group’s birth is dependent upon at least three members in regular interaction over time. The group’s active life is at stake whenever member attendance begins to decrease.

Is a social group, then, a living organism? Like humans, a group also goes through a life-cycle. Like us, groups have early, middle and late stages of development. Each group’s development undergoes a series of changes. Also, like humans, most groups also have a life expectancy. The group members, when in regular interaction, literally make up the life-blood of the social group. Webster actually defines the word “life” or “living” as “to have a wide variety of social/group experiences.” Life is also defined as “the activities of a given time or in a given setting and the people who take part in them.” Between the beginning of the group and its ending, like a human, there is indeed life in the group.

Some would even argue that groups also have a spirit or soul. The group’s life is carried on in the individual members’ consciousness or subconscious, often long after the active phase of the group as ceased. In this very real sense the spirit of the group endures far beyond its active or living state. One can argue that as long as three or more members continue to consciously hold in their mind the group’s memory, actions and values, the group’s spirit lives on. Robert Merton and other sociologists refer to this phenomenon as a person’s significant reference groups.

One’s group membership in this sense never fully ends and its imprint on the member continues throughout life. Social psychologists would argue that it is the series of group affiliations throughout our lives that truly make us human. Life in a group changes the human being. Members are never quite the same after they have experienced membership in a small group.

This group’s formation process begins when the members convene their very first meeting and ends when the very last meeting is held former group members, long after the last meeting, continue to carry that group’s unique culture and character on throughout their life. When new members first convene there is excitement, often near elation, on the part of its members. Expectations are high. The group’s early phase can also be described like fruit and other growing things as ripening, budding, blooming, flourishing, and later shedding and decaying.

So you have decided to join a small group. Joining a new group is like starting kindergarten all over again. New faces, new rules and new situations. Joining a new small group can sometimes really be a bummer. Suddenly, after being relatively satisfied and comfortable in your existing family and work groups you must begin all over again in a strange land and learn a new small group culture and language. When one joins a new group they first must decide to give up some time with their existing group affiliations at home, work and in the larger community.

Joining a small group induces self-examination, renegotiation and a temporary retreat from other already enduring social relationships. Membership in a group is also about both growth and regression. After all you will now become a new and different person. Many of your group experiences will vicariously be shared with your friends and family members. In fact it may be that your closest family member or friend will see your new membership as ranging from mild annoyance to “a pain in the ass” if you will pardon my expression.

Joining a group is always a seductive new adventure. One imagines new friends, opportunities and experiences. Members agree to commit themselves and especially their time to the group’s purpose and goals. There is a mutual social contract which also requires that the members give their time and energy to the new group over a sustained period. Members often see the new group as an opportunity to explore issues of both deep personal and social concern and interest.

Joining a new group can be as strange and exciting as your first bicycle ride. There is the fear of uncertainty and failure, of possibly proving to be incompetent, and feelings of ambivalence and perhaps initial second thoughts of “who really needs this?”

For many the desire to join and participate in a small group over a period of one or two years is the result of an awareness of a need for radical change in some critical aspects of one’s life. Joining a small group may represent a general dissatisfaction with existing group affiliations or with your present lifestyle.

Small group membership is a perilous journey with many roadblocks and mine fields but also with opportunities and delights along the way. Joining a small group can be compared to an older adult who returns to school after a long absence. After functioning quite well in her many social roles she may suddenly find a strange disequilibrium and confusion.

Have you ever thought about what effect your membership will have on your family and others? New members do not always realize how their commitment and time apart from family and friends will be viewed by others.

Members may need to give up certain evenings and weekends with their loved ones to this strange new group. Both parties can expect to experience stress on the home front as the new member learns to divide her energy between her new group and existing demands.

After all you are suddenly incorporating new “family-like” members into your life. It’s fair to say that in many respects you have just added a dozen or more new siblings to your larger “family.” You now have another small family-like group but with a totally different culture – new house rules, new expectations and values, new affections and repulsions. You have journeyed into a new territory.

Therefore it will be perfectly natural for you to experience levels of stress and anxiety as you pass through these various stages and crises of any new group. For example we can expect at least one or more members will be subject to some form of scape-goating during the life of the group. After all with each new relationship each member can be seen as lying somewhere along a “deviance scale” of one to ten when compared with your existing repertoire of relationships.

All human groups and group members experience natural cycles that affect both group morale and individual member feelings. This is best illustrated by what is known as the “Meninger Morale Curve” which follows a set pattern. It simply states that there will likely be a periodic change in the morale and feeling of group members over time due to three kinds of “crises” inherent in the group’s development. Initially, morale tends to be somewhat elevated due to the hopes, expectations, and dreams of those who have expended their time and energy to join the group.

As the realities of the group’s purpose and goals and competing demands on the member’s time become clear, including the limited resources and so on, this involvement often produces a depressing skid downward. Nothing is quite as good as it initially appears.

Nonetheless, a reasonable well functioning group can manage to pull itself up by accepting and confronting the challenges and mobilizing its energy. The third or final downturn is produced by the approaching end of the group and the inevitable separation. This up and down process often blocks the members’ initial optimistic and rational expectations concerning group development. Small group members must learn to be adventurous and take risks during these downward spirals and be prepared to support or “buck-up” individual members when their spirits naturally begin to sag.

With a new group the new member naturally must change her existing activity pattern. She will expend considerable time and energy trying to redefine herself with both her existing groups and her new group. One’s old lifestyle is now changed and old routines and expectations are now forever altered. You will never be quite the same person!

Especially in the early stages of the group, members begin to critically assess the other members capacities both for their ability to gratify their own personal interests and needs as well as the extent that each can meet the welfare and needs of the larger group. How does each member measure up and what will be expected of me?

The risk of messing things up abounds on the part of every member in this new enterprise. To expect maturity and competence from each member, while allowing a measure of regression for each, is always a challenging and vital balance. Membership is always a delicate balance between support and challenge. In every new group experience each member asks herself to what degree will I risk myself while also encouraging others around me the same opportunities to grow?

If at the close of the group experience members can see that some of their original expectations for the group have been met, then the group has been a success.

I began these remarks by comparing the development of a small group to making bread. I would like to conclude by expanding on this analogy by calling attention to the complexity and diversity of small groups. When members interact they must simultaneously adjust their behavior to each individual in the group as well as to the group as a whole. This often makes for a very lively and exciting experience for all. Just like good bread requires the right blending of liquid, flour, yeast, salt, shortening, and perhaps some special spices, groups too, in order to create a viable and creative group culture, need all the diverse personality traits, talents, and energy that we as members can bring to the table.