Papers

1. Diversity and Group Cohesion (FindArticles.com - Administrative Science Quarterly)
   "Research inspired by self-categorization theory, then, suggests that inducing group members to replace cross-cutting demographic or functional categories with the inclusive workgroup boundary as the basis for social categorization will reduce the detrimental effects of intergroup biases (Kramer and Brewer, 1984; Gaertner et al., 1989; Polzer, Stewart, and Simmons, 1999). Such a recategorization should cause workgroup members to replace their personalized self-conception with a cognitive representation of themselves (and other group members) as embodiments of a workgroup prototype (Hogg and Terry, 2000). Such depersonalization heightens group members' perceived similarities and attenuates their perceived differences (Turner, 1985), reducing the detrimental effects of categorical diversity." 11-04
   
   
2. Essay - Violence, Religion, and the Nation-State (Marvin and Ingle)
   "Americans live in a culture that is as religious as any that exists. In this article we contend that nationalism is the most powerful religion in the United States, and perhaps in many other countries."
   
   "Perhaps nationalism and sectarianism recognize something about each other that they hesitate to recognize about themselves. Each fears that members of the other community are willing to kill and die for truth as they understand it. For what is really true in any community is what its members can agree is worth killing for, or what they can be compelled to sacrifice their lives for." 11-04
   
   
3. Fantasy Theme Theory (Ohio University - Rose)
   "Bormann and many other communication scholars who subscribe to his theory use fantasy theme analysis to show a link between the fantasies people use when they talk to each other and the level of cohesion there is among them."
   
   "Within a group context we are talking about references to the group's past or speculation about their future as well as comments about anything in the world outside of the group. What is excluded here is what is going on in the present within the group, because present events aren't really imaginative; they are what is happening. Fantasies are found in jokes, stories, analogies, metaphors; they are our interpretation of and how we feel about familiar events. What happens when we are all talking, using these fantasies is that we are all brought to the same page because of them. When group energy increases and there is a common emotional response to the imagery used this is a fantasy chain reaction. When a fantasy 'chains out' a fantasy theme runs through the group. Now we are all laughing together, or getting worried together. We are becoming a cohesive group!! Bormann calls this process Symbolic Convergence . It is through this symbolic convergence that a bunch of people are transformed into a group, a community, a family!" 11-04
   
   
4. Metaphors We Live By (TheLiteraryLink.com - Lakoff and Johnson)
   "Research inspired by self-categorization theory, then, suggests that inducing group members to replace cross-cutting demographic or functional categories with the inclusive workgroup boundary as the basis for social categorization will reduce the detrimental effects of intergroup biases (Kramer and Brewer, 1984; Gaertner et al., 1989; Polzer, Stewart, and Simmons, 1999). Such a recategorization should cause workgroup members to replace their personalized self-conception with a cognitive representation of themselves (and other group members) as embodiments of a workgroup prototype (Hogg and Terry, 2000). Such depersonalization heightens group members' perceived similarities and attenuates their perceived differences (Turner, 1985), reducing the detrimental effects of categorical diversity." 11-04
   
   
5. Sociometric Analysis (AnalyticTech.com)
   "Moreno's chief innovation was to devise the 'sociogram' as a way of representing the formal properties of social configurations. The latter could be represented in diagrams analogous to those of spatial geometry, with individuals represented by 'points' and their social relationships to one another by 'lines'." 11-04
   
   
6. Symbolic Convergence Theory (University of Colorado - Young)
   "The symbolic convergence theory is based on the idea that members in a group must exchange fantasies in order to form a cohesive group."
   
   "Once the fantasy chain reaction begins, common ground is established between group members and a cohesion, no matter how slight, has formed."
   
   "According to Griffin (1991), 'Through symbolic convergence, individuals build a sense of community or a group consciousness (p. 34). As symbolic convergence ties a group together with cohesive bonds, a sense of togetherness is formed. Individual members begin using the words 'we' instead of 'I,' and 'us' instead of 'me.' "
   
   "Groupthink occurs in a very cohesive group when members strive so much for unanimity, that they are basically incapable of thinking for themselves. Groupthink is a surprisingly common process and can result in fatal incidents, such as The Challenger disaster." 11-04
   
   

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