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The psychological investigation of group dynamic is a young discipline. Especially after World War II, critical social problems were studied increasingly. A great need had developed for a systematic summary of these varied investigations and the first edition of this book was published in 1953 to help met it. Now, seven years later, the accelerated pace of research calls for a revision in order to bring finding up to date. The authors state that more empirical studies have been carried out since 1953 than in all preceding years.
In their effort to take this a contemporary compilation of relevant research data, the authors have omitted eighteen articles from the first edition and included eighteen new contributions. “In adding new articles we have chosen ones which in our opinion, serve best as an introduction to a significant theoretical point of view or to an important line of empirical research.” The authors recommend that a consecutive reading of chapters 1, 2, 3, 9, 19, 25, and 34 will give a brief overview of the field.
The first two chapters deal with group dynamics in historical and theoretical perspectives. Chapter Three discusses the determinants and consequences of group cohesiveness, the nature of group pressures and the operation of group standards. Chapter Four concerns itself with individual motives and the formation of group goals. Interrelated topics of leadership and group performance and discussions of group structure in terms of communication, power, status and interpersonal attractions and repulsions comprise Chapters Five and Six.
This is not a book on group psychotherapy, nor does it stress specific psychoanalytic concepts. Its orientation is heavily influenced by the work of Kurt Lewin. Nevertheless, the psychoanalyst, although he deals primarily with individuals, has to be mindful of the fact that the individual is also a member of groups—the groups formed in communities, schools, places of religious worship, business concerns, unions, or in var