The study of group dynamics is a search for the social influences that affect the way people behave in groups. "Dynamics" is a term used to refer to the factors that often lie just outside one's awareness but that have an effect on how people behave. Social influence in small groups includes factors such as power, developmental phases, conformity, deviance, networks, and norms.

Importance of Understanding Dynamics

In one of the earliest known social science experiments, a researcher named M. Ringlemann tested whether individuals were more productive in groups. He had people pull a rope and measured the force each person exerted while pulling compared with how much the whole group pulled. He discovered that the group exerted more total force with each person added to the group. Yet, even though the group exerted more total force as members were added, each...