Evolutionary Group Dynamics

Tatsuya Kameda - Hokkaido University, Japan
Mark Van Vugt - VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands
R. Scott Tindale - Loyola University Chicago, USA

Abstract

Evolutionary psychology adds many insights to the literatures on group dynamics and small group processes.

First, groups are a fundamental aspect of human evolution, suggesting that humans have evolved a range of adaptations to deal with specific threats and opportunities afforded by living in groups.
Second, an evolutionary perspective integrates knowledge from numerous behavioral science disciplines such as psychology, evolutionary biology, primatology, biological anthropology, social neuroscience, and behavioral economics that are all concerned with group dynamics.
Third, an evolutionary analysis produces many novel hypotheses about different aspects of our group psychology.

We show the generativity of an evolutionary psychological approach through discussing examples of research applying evolutionary thinking to understanding key adaptive group tasks such as - coordination, social exchange, status, group cohesion, collective decision making, and intergroup relations.

Key Words: Adaptation, coordination, evolution, evolutionary psychology, group cohesion, group decision making, group living, human sociality, intergroup relations, psychological processes, social brain, social exchange, social psychology, status1.

1. Introduction

Group dynamics refers to interplays of people's social cognitions and behaviors operating within a group or between groups. The term 'group dynamics' was coined by a social psychologist, Kurt Lewin, who established The Group Dynamics Research Center in 1945 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Yet, its scope has been interdisciplinary from the outset, encompassing psychology, sociology, anthropology, amongst other disciplines. Recently, an increasing amount of research in this area has applied evolutionary principles to understand group dynamics (Kameda & Tindale, 2006; Van Vugt & Kameda, 2012). Applying an evolutionary perspective, group living can be seen as an adaptive strategy that increased the survival and reproductive success of ancestral humans.

One of the impetuses that promoted the shift was the social brain hypothesis (Dunbar 1993). Comparative studies with other primates and mammals have found a positive correlation between the size of the neocortex relative to the rest of the brain, and the average group size of the species. Humans are ranked top, with a large neocortex and associated large average group size, which is extrapolated to be around 150 individuals from the brain data. Given the high metabolic costs of maintaining a large brain, the social brain hypothesis posits that humans have evolved large brains in order to make the most of living in large, complex social groups. In other words, many of our core cognitive and emotional faculties are likely to have been tuned to solve recurrent adaptive problems that ancestral humans have encounteredin group life. The primary aim of an evolutionary approach to group dynamics is thus to identify and analyze specific adaptive group problems and the psychological architectures that have evolved to solve those problems.

2. Key Adaptive Problems in Group Life

Van Vugt and Kameda (2012) have proposed six key adaptive problems that ancestral humans were likely to have encountered recurrently in group life:

1. Coordinating members' activities - (group coordination);
2. Exchanging resources - (social exchange);
3. Negotiating group hierarchies - (status);
4. Keeping groups together - (group cohesion);
5. Making collective decisions - (group decision making), and
6. Interacting with members of outgroups - (intergroup relations).

This list is meant to be neither exhaustive nor mutually exclusive. However, it serves as a reasonable starting point for building an evolutionary framework for analyzing group processes. The list also corresponds closely to the core themes of group dynamics identified in textbooks such as Forsyth's Group Dynamics (2010).

Although none of these adaptive group challenges has been fully analyzed using an evolutionary framework, various research programs have contributed to developing such analyses by providing evidence for evolved psychological mechanisms that address a particular group challenge. The promise of an evolutionary group dynamics lies in the generativity and productivity of this approach in formulating novel hypotheses and providing supportive empirical evidence. This review provides an illustrative set of findings of evolutionary inspired research programs for each of these core group challenges.

2.1 Group Coordination

How to coordinate members' cognitive and physical resources is a key to effective group performance. As a nomadic group living species, early humans would have had to solve problems associated with coordinating their activities with other individuals in their groups.

For instance, when moving they would have had to decide where to move to and when and for how long to stay there. To solve this would have required mechanisms for identifying that situations require coordination, developing rules for how to achieve coordination (e.g., turn-taking, leadership), and then carrying these rules out.

Leadership. There are multiple indications that leadership might be an adaptive solution to coordinate members actions (Van Vugt, 2006). Whenever organisms must do things together to achieve their reproductive goals they face a critical coordination problem, viz., how do they decide what to do when? A simple thought experiment illustrates that leadership - where one individual takes the initiative and others follow - is a powerful solution to such coordination problems. Suppose that two individuals who are thirsty must find a water hole to drink. They must stay together as a form of protection, but how do they decide on which waterhole to go to? In such cases it is adaptive for one individual to take the initiative to go to a particular hole, which leaves the other no option but to follow. Coordinating on the same water hole is the equilibrium solution to this game. An implication would be that leadership-followership interaction emerges spontaneously and it does not require much cognitive computation. Unsurprisingly, then, the emergence of leadership has been documented across many different animal species that face functionally important coordination problems, including teaching in ants, choosing foraging sites in honey bees, movement in stickleback guppies and peace-keeping in nonhuman primates (King et al., 2009).

Among humans, similar kinds of coordination problems also result, predictably, in the emergence of leader-follower relations. This occurs quickly and spontaneously, and does so across many different situations and cultures, suggesting evidence for adaptation (Brown, 1991). Of course, the exact system of leadership varies across different situations, and there is evidence for both highly democratic leadership structures and highly despotic leadership structures in humans. They likely represent different adaptivesolutions to various local group conditions - for instance, dictatorial leadership might have emerged initially in response to an immediate crisis which required quick and decisive action (Van Vugt et al., 2008; Van Vugt, 2009).

Transactive memory. Another coordination device that may have evolved to support group coordination is a transactive memory system Wegner (1987) argued that groups can store and process more information than individuals because they can share the responsibility of knowledge storage. However, in order to retrieve the information efficiently, a shared knowledge system must exist identifying who in the group knows what - a transactive memory system. Once such a system exists, each individual member only needs to store information for which they are responsible, easing the memory load on each member but increasing the total amount of information available to the group. Division of cognitive labor is common in social insects and one famous example is the waggle dance of the honey bee, a group decision-making device for selecting foraging sites (Seeley, 2010). Research on humans also suggests that members working in the same group often specialize in different areas and group members are very quick at recognizing and using each other's expertise (Littlepage et al., 2008). People who are expert in a particular domain not only have more information on a given topic but they are also the ones who are responsible for storing new information in their area of expertise. A set of experiments showed that teams performed better on a group task to the extent that the team members divided their cognitive tasks better. Furthermore, members of teams with better transactive memory systems also trusted each other's expertise more. There is also evidence that such systems begin to form quite quickly through normal group interaction (Moreland et al., 1996).

Structural and social focal points. A game-theoretic concept discussed by Schelling (1960) - focal point - seems - play an important role in group coordination. Early work had shown that certain game solutions, (e.g., equal outcomes - see Soci-Exchange section below) tend to receive greater support than would be expected by rational game playing assumptions (Komorita & Chertkoff, 1973). Schelling argued that such outcome distributions "stood out" and were salient because of their normative or focal nature. It appears humans may have learned to use structural characteristics of their environments to help to coordinate action (e.g., meeting in the center of the village or at the water's edge). More recent research has shown that "social focal points" are also useful in coordinated action (Abele & Stasser, 2008). Thus, normative preferences among the group members or exhibited by high status members (leaders) can be used to guide action in ambiguous situations. Abele & Stasser (2008) showed that people were quite good at coordinating actions around social focal points and successful coordination led to greater liking among group members. More recent research (Abele & Chartier, 2012) has shown thatgroups are substantially better than individuals at locating and using social focal points. Groups' superiority seems to stem from both majority processes as well as the group's ability to recognize appropriate focal points even when proposed by a single group member (see related discussions under group decision making).

Following group norms. Group norms can also be helpful for coordinating behavior. Recent physiological evidence has supported the idea of evolved mechanisms to ensure greater conformity to ingroup norms (Stallen, De Dreu, Shalvi, Smidts, & Sanfey, 2012). Participants in their study were administered either oxytocin or a placebo and were asked to rate stimuli in terms of attractiveness. They were also shown normative ratings of each symbol by both ingroup and outgroup members. When normative ratings differed for the ingroup and outgroup, participants' ratings were more similar to the ingroup ratings but only when administered oxytocin. Thus, this hormone, that has also been related to ingroup trust and cooperation (Kemp & Guestella, 2011), also seems to help coordination by enhancing normative behavior.

2.2 Social Exchange

Social exchange -- cooperation for mutual benefit -- is a pervasive and cross-culturally universal feature of human group life. Exchanging vital resources with others is fundamental for any gregarious species, yet humans are unique in being able to establish large-scale cooperation with genetically-unrelated individuals. Social norms related to cooperation are robust across various cultures ranging from hunter-gatherer, horticultural, tribal, agricultural, to highly industrialized societies (Henrich, Boyd, Bowles, Gintis & Fehr, 2004). Such norms specify how individuals should behave in a group situation where incentives for free-riding exist, including when to cooperate, how to divide group outcomes, and how to punish uncooperative group members.

Cooperation norms. Human collective action is often governed by a norm of "conditional cooperation" (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2004) (see Evolution of Human Cooperation). This norm dictates that an individual should cooperate if other group members cooperate, whereas he or she is allowed to not cooperate if the others defect. Fischbacher, Gachter, and Fehr (2001) examined participants' willingness to contribute in a one-shot public-goods experiment as a function of the average contribution of the other group members. Despite the economic incentives to free-ride (contribute nothing), 50% of the participants matched their contributions with the average contribution of other members. Furthermore, when participants simply observed the interaction of two players in a Prisoner's Dilemma game, they spent their own endowment to punish players who defected unilaterally but not players who defected bilaterally (Fehr & Fischbacher, 2004). This pattern indicates that the norm of conditional cooperation ("unilateral defection is not acceptable") is enforced by neutral observers ("third parties"). Such selective sanctioning includes not only physical punishment but also social exclusion, collectively denying the norm violator access to interpersonal relations in a group.

An evolutionary perspective suggests a novel hypothesis about the psychological mechanisms underlying enforcement of cooperation norms. Given that exchanges of valuable resources occur mainly within in-groups, violation of cooperation norms should be more serious to one's survival if committed by another in-group member than if committed by an out-group member. If so, then non-cooperative behavior by in-group members should be punished more severely than non-cooperative behavior by out-group members. Using the third-party punishment paradigm, Shinada, Yamagishi and Ohmura (2004) confirmed this prediction.

Distribution norms. Distribution norms refer to a set of shared beliefs that prescribes how resources should be distributed among group members. Evidence suggests that motives for egalitarian sharing often operate strongly in resource distribution (Fehr & Schmidt, 1999; Kameda, Takezawa, Ohtsubo & Hastie, 2010). For example, results from numerous one-shot Ultimatum Game experiments indicate that modal offers by a proposer for a responder's share are around 40-50% and that offers in this range are rarely rejected (Camerer, 2003). Although there are some cultural differences, extremely small offers (1-10%) are rarely seen in ultimatum bargainingexperiments conducted in a wide range of societies including non-industrialized as well as industrialized ones (Henrich, Boyd, Bowles, Gintis & Fehr, 2004). Violators of the egalitarian distribution norm are also punished. Henrich et al. (2006) conducted a third-party punishment experiment, where participants could spend their own endowments to punish an unfair proposer in the Ultimatum Game. The experimental results from 15 diverse populations showed that costly punishment by a third party was common, although the magnitude of punishment varied substantially across cultures.

Ethnographic studies show that egalitarian sharing of hunted meat constitutes a core feature of hunter-gatherer life. Compared to collected resources (e.g., cassava), hunted meat is often the target of communal sharing. Kaplan and Hill (1985) argued that the sharing system, once established, functions as a collective risk-reduction device. While acquisition of collected resources is relatively stable and dependable, acquisition of meat is a highly variable, uncertain event. By including many individuals in the sharing group, the variance in meat supply decreases exponentially (Gurven, 2004; but see also Kameda, Takezawa & Hastie, 2003, 2005, for the potential free-rider problem in meat-sharing). This may imply that our minds are built to be highly sensitive to cues of uncertainty in resource acquisition. Kameda, Takezawa, Tindale and Smith (2002) showed that such uncertainty cues promoted people's willingness to share with others beyond their personaldistributive ideologies.

2.3 Status

Competition for status, especially among males, is a robust phenomenon across cultures. Even in modern ad hoc groups such as juries, status competition is often observed, where some jurors "show-off" their toughness for the purpose of establishing their prestige in the group, while sacrificing factual discussions about the case (Hastie, Penrod & Pennington, 1983). Evolutionarily, with an increase in the size and complexity of social groups, competition for scarce resources including food, water, and sexual mates would have intensified, paving the way for the emergence of status hierarchies (Boehm, 1999; Dunbar, 2004). To climb the group hierarchy or maintain one's current status in the group, one would need to closely monitor one's relative standing in the hierarchy and to behave strategically in the group.

Signaling and status emotions. Along with other group-living animals, humans display various cues to signal their relative status to others. For example, non-verbal cues such as a firm handshake, a poised posture, gaze maintenance, or initiatives in conversations are among characteristics of high status individuals when they interact with others. Some of these cues are culture-specific, but other cues are easily recognizable by even outsiders who do not belong to the culture (Ridgeway, Berger & Smith, 1985), whichmay suggest their evolutionary origins.

Besides sensitivities to subtle status signals displayed during interaction, our own emotional experiences are also closely linked to changes in relative status in a group. For example, when people experience a status gain (e.g., winning an award), they tend to feel pride. Recent research has shown that, like the "basic" emotions, pride is associated with a distinct, universally recognized, non-verbal expression, which is spontaneously displayed during pride experiences (Tracy & Robins, 2004). It has also been argued that self-esteem may be an evolved internal gauge ("sociometer") that monitors people's standing in a group and motivates actions when people feel their status is being threatened (Leary, 1999).

Competitive altruism. When individuals can select social exchange partners freely in a group, status competition can arise for establishing a good reputation as a generous person. This phenomenon is called competitive altruism (Roberts, 1998), as people compete to be chosen as exchange or coalition partners through their generosity. The anthropological literature documents various examples of excessive public displays of altruism and generosity. Experimental evidence also shows that generous individuals receive more status than non-generous individuals and are preferred as group leaders (Hardy & Van Vugt, 2006).

Competitive altruism requires psychological mechanisms to monitor and enhance one's relative standing about generosity in a group. People arehighly sensitive to social cues that suggest their reputation is under scrutiny. For example, experimental evidence shows that people behave more generously when they think they are being watched by others (Bateson et al., 2006; Haley & Fessler, 2005). Men also behave more generously to a stranger when they are watched by a potential female partner (Iredale et al., 2008).

2.4 Group Cohesion

Group cohesion has been defined as "the resultant of all forces acting on the members of a group to remain in the group" (Festinger, 1950, p.274). In light of the importance of staying together as a unit in a hostile environment, our ancestors had to evolve mechanisms to preserve social cohesion. Furthermore, as human social networks increased in size over the course of human evolution, we would expect these bonding mechanisms to have become increasingly sophisticated. To maintain group cohesion would require specialized mechanisms to recognize oneself and others as belonging to the same group as well as mechanisms to feel emotionally connected with others in increasingly large groups.

Social identity. Thinking of people who are not necessarily around all the time as belonging to the same group as you requires the capacity for symbolic thought whereby language or rituals become markers of shared membership. A symbolic social identity allowed our ancestors to connect with a large network of individuals who were spread around a particular area,and this may have been quite helpful in sharing resources as well as in competing with other groups. Human social identity is highly group based and people spontaneously make us vs. them categorizations (Tajfel & Turner, 1979). Preserving group cohesion also requires a sense of group loyalty whereby individuals are prepared to forego attractive alternatives in favor of staying with their current group. A sense of loyalty is deeply ingrained in human psychology.

Religion, music, and dance. Humans have many specialized behavioral mechanisms for fostering group cohesion, which may have deep evolutionary roots. Religion, for instance, is an effective method to promote cohesion between strangers and mobilize them for joint action on behalf of a group (Atran, 2002). Similarly, dance and music may have ancient roots. According to some evolutionary anthropologists, dance and music may have evolved as adaptations for connecting large networks of genetically unrelated strangers (Dunbar, 2004).

2.5 Group Decision Making

Along with our highly sophisticated faculty for language, the ubiquity of group decision-making across many societies may seem to suggest that group decisions are uniquely human. However, recent research on animal behavior suggests that this is not the case. Group decision-making seems to be common in the animal kingdom as well, including in social insects (e.g., ants,termites, honeybees), fish, and some mammals (Conradt & List, 2009; Seeley, 2010). Although "animal group decision making" may look more like automated self-organization than deliberate coordination, the social-aggregation processes (e.g., honeybees' waggle dances to recruit more fellow searchers) are in fact highly coordinated, and often lead to efficient group-level outcomes. Evidently, some well-structured social-coordination mechanisms that yield collective wisdom are an outcome of natural selection (Kameda, Wisdom, Toyowaka, & Inukai, 2012).

Despotism vs. democracy. What is the key evolved decisional structure that enables collective wisdom in honey bees and some other animals? Conradt and Roper (2003) compared two contrasting structures, "despotism" and "democracy", in the animal kingdom. Using a stochastic model, they showed that democratic decisions usually yield better fitness outcomes to group members than despotism -- even when the despot is the most experienced group member, it pays other members to accept the despot's decision only when group size is small and the difference between their own and the despot's information is large. These findings may be extendable to human group decision-making as well. Most naturally-occurring environments for humans as well as other animals are characterized by large statistical uncertainties. Given that no single individual (despot) can handle these uncertainties alone even if he/she were highly experienced, the more viable and reliable decisional structure in thelong run is to use groups as an aggregation device. By aggregating members' opinions, random errors in individual perceptions under uncertainty are cancelled collectively, as implied by the law of large numbers in statistics (Surowiecki, 2004).

A recent study compared several decision rules, which differed in computational loads, in terms of their net efficiencies under uncertainty (Hastie & Kameda, 2005). These included the Best Member ("despotism") rule and the Majority ("democracy") rule. Results from both computer simulations and laboratory experiments showed that the majority rule fared quite well, performing at levels comparable to much more computationally-taxing rules. Furthermore, the majority rule outperformed the despotic best member rule, even when members were not forced to cooperate for group endeavor and free-riding was possible (Kameda, Tsukasaki, Hastie and Berg, 2011).

The robust beauty of majority rules. These results indicate that, despite its computational simplicity, the majority rule can achieve surprisingly high levels of performance. Such observations may explain the popularity of the majority rule across the full spectrum of human groups from hunter-gatherer and tribal societies (Boehm, 1999) to modern industrial democracies (Kerr & Tindale, 2004), as well as the animal cases in which democratic decisions are often more beneficial than despotism (Conradt & Roper, 2003). Of course, phylogenetically, humans are quite distantly related to honey-bees and other social insects. Yet, the striking similarities in decision styles between two of the most social species on earth suggest that humans and honey-bees have evolved structurally similar group aggregation mechanisms (e.g., utilizing the law of large numbers) to solve similar adaptive problems (e.g., foraging). Dealing with uncertainty is the key challenge underlying the evolution and use of these mechanisms.

Majority processes can be seen as a major instance of “social sharedness” (Kameda & Tindale, 2006; Kameda, Tindale, & Davis, 2003). Social sharedness is a description of the phenomena associated with shared cognitions and preferences playing an inordinate role in group decision making and problem solving. Majority rules are an instantiation of sharedness at the preference level. However, there is now a large amount of evidence that shared information, motives, and background knowledge can all play important roles in how groups reach consensus. It is often through shared cognitions and information that groups can perform even better than simple majority processes, by a minority faction using such information to “demonstrate” the correctness of their position to a majority that coalesced around a less-than-optimal choice alternative (see Laughlin, 2011; Tindale, Talbot, & Matrinez, 2012).

2.6 Intergroup Relations

A final problem that our ancestors faced was how to deal with members of other groups. As population densities increased in human evolution so did the competition for scarce resources with members of rival groups. On the one hand, relations with outgroups provided opportunities for sharing resources such as food, mates, and information. On the other hand, intergroup relations could be a source of tension and conflict over scarce resources. As a consequence, humans likely possess highly specialized mechanisms that enable them to reap the benefits of intergroup relations while avoiding the costs.

Fear of strangers. As part of this evolved intergroup psychology, humans are relatively suspicious and even fearful of strangers. Fear of strangers is an innate response which is seen among young children. Fear is strongest toward outgroup males presumably because they constituted a considerable physical threat in ancestral times (McDonald et al., 2012).

Outgroups not only posed a significant physical threat in ancestral environments but also a disease threat. A recent study showed that ethnocentrism is strongest among women who are in the early stage of pregnancy presumably because they (and their fetus) are most at risk of catching a disease (Navarrete et al., 2007).

Intergroup aggression and warfare. An adaptive solution to intergroup competition is engaging in organized violence against members of outgroups. Humans and chimpanzees use coalitional aggression to gain access to reproductively relevant resources such as territories and sexual mates (Brosnan et al, 2009). In both species such coalitions usually consist of males, arguably because males have more to gain from participating in intergroup conflict – what has been dubbed the “male warrior hypothesis” (Van Vugt, 2009). Research on the male warrior hypothesis shows that men are more “tribal” than women: They are more aggressive in intergroup encounters and have a stronger inclination to dehumanize outgroup members. Men are also more likely to make sacrifices on behalf of their group during intergroup conflict (Van Vugt et al., 2007). Consistent with the male warrior hypothesis, a recent study suggests that physically formidable men have a stronger preference for intergroup aggression and warfare than do less formidable men (Sell et al., 2009).

Recent game theoretic simulations are consistent with the ideas of ingroup sacrifice and outgroup aggression (Choi & Bowles, 2007). These simulations showed that neither societies made up of mainly pure aggressors or pure altruists survived well over time. However, societies with mainly “parochial altruists” (members who sacrifice for ingroup members but shun or aggress against outgroup members) proved to be evolutionarily stable.
More recent work has begun to isolate the physiological and neurological correlates of these effects and has shown that oxytocin helps to regulate responses to both ingroup and outgroup members (De Dreu, Greer, Handgraaf, Shalvi, et al., 2010). Thus, behaving in ways that favor ingroup welfare appears to be adaptive for both the group and the individuals that depend on it.

3. The Promise of an Evolutionary Science of Group Dynamics

An evolutionary approach to group dynamics can be fruitful in at least four different ways. First, an evolutionary perspective can provide a more complete understanding of particular group processes by asking fundamental questions about the functions, origins and evolution of these phenomena. A more complete account inevitably follows from rigorous attempts to establish conceptual links between evolutionary processes operating on ancestral populations and psychological processes operating within contemporary groups.

Second, an evolutionary perspective can help overcome biases and blind spots in the study of groups. It strikes us as odd that the social psychological literature on group decision-making often focuses on what is wrong with groups, disregarding the fact that the group is the natural environment for humans. Examples include research on groupthink, brainstorming, group polarization, and information sharing. A cursory reading of these literatures all too easily suggests that people are poor collective decision-makers. Any such conclusion, however, is inaccurate (or, at the very least, overly simplistic), and we believe that an evolutionary perspective can produce more sophisticated and accurate conclusions about group decision-making.

Third, an evolutionary approach is useful in yielding novel hypotheses about group behavior. As seen in this review, evolutionary reasoning has led to a number of new hypotheses about traditional group topics such as status, conformity, and social influence, which are unlikely to have been stimulated by other theoretical frameworks (Kenrick, Li & Butner, 2003).

Finally, an evolutionary approach can expand the boundaries of scientific inquiry on group dynamics by suggesting important group phenomena that have previously received little if any attention from group researchers. Laughter, language, gossip, dance, music, sports, culture, and religion are increasingly being understood as group-level adaptations, that is, as manifestations of psychological processes that connect individuals to each other in large and diverse groups, and these insights have benefited from evolutionarily-informed inquiry.
In short, an evolutionary perspective reinforces our awareness that group dynamics are fundamental to the study of human nature.

Furthermore, it provides a set of conceptual and empirical tools that can be used to understand and describe group processes more completely and accurately.

See also: (Evolution of Human Cooperation; Evolutionary Selection, Levels of:
Group versus Individual; Evolutionary Social Psychology; Social Behavior (Emergent), Computer Models of)

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https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304188858_Evolutionary_Group_Dynamics

Evolutionary Approaches to Group Dynamics: An Introduction

Mark Van Vugt - VU University Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Mark Schaller - University of British Columbia

An evolutionary perspective offers many new insights in the study of group dynamics. First, groups are an inevitable aspect of human evolution, suggesting that humans have evolved a range of psychological mechanisms to deal with specific challenges of group living. Second, an evolutionary perspective combines and integrates knowledge from different social science disciplines such as psychology, biology, anthropology, and economics to find evidence for group-related psychological adaptations. Third, an evolutionary analysis produces many unique hypotheses about group psychology, showing the promise and generativity of this approach.

Keywords: special issue, group dynamics, evolutionary psychology,
leadership, intergroup conflict

With those animals which were benefited by living in close association, the individuals which took the greatest pleasure in society would best escape various dangers, while those that cared least for their comrades, and lived solitary, would perish in greater numbers.
—Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man

The father of modern evolutionary theory, Charles Darwin, pointed out long ago that group living is an adaptive strategy for species such as humans. Groups are critical to human survival and reproduction. For ancestral humans, groups provided a buffer against hostile environments and facilitated access to many resources that were essential to reproductive fitness. As a consequence, humans may well have evolved a range of psychological mechanisms that promote an attraction to and capacity for living in groups.

Of course, the benefits of group living would not have accrued equally to every member of an ancestral group. The greatest benefits presumably accrued to those individuals who were most adept at availing themselves of the many unique opportunities that group living provides, while avoiding the unique dangers associated with groups. These opportunities and dangers exist in many different, highly distinct social domains (e.g., navigation of status hierarchies, opportunities for reciprocal exchange, finding mates, communal parental care, disease avoidance). The conceptual implication is that, in response to the many unique prospects and perils of group living, humans may have evolved various unique psychological mechanisms that have profound implications for many different aspects of group dynamics. That conceptual implication yields a practical implication as well: By applying the logical tools provided by evolutionary psychology, we have the potential to strengthen groups and foster beneficial group dynamics.

Consider just one of many potentially useful implications: Among ancestral humans, fitness may have depended crucially upon the sharing of valued resources, such as food; but this created the problem of finding trustworthy partners to share food with. Because it was potentially lethal to share with people unlikely to reciprocate, natural selection processes may have favored psychological mechanisms that facilitate the identification, avoidance, and ostracism of nonreciprocators. There is growing evidence that humans indeed have specialized decision rules for cheater detection and social exclusion (Kerr & Levine, 2007; Kurzban & Leary, 2001). By understanding how and when these mechanisms operate, we may be better equipped to develop interventions that encourage groups— and the people that comprise them—to be more socially inclusive and less prejudiced (Schaller & Neuberg, in press).

Another example is provided by an evolutionary analysis of risk taking among adolescents. It has long been known that young men, in particular, are prone to potentially self-destructive forms of risk taking (e.g., crime, gambling, drug use). Why is this? One evolutionarily informed explanation (buttressed by considerable supportive data; M. Wilson & Daly, 1985) indicates that in ancestral times, risk taking enhanced the social status of young men and made them more attractive sexual partners. A practical implication is that organizations fare better if they acknowledge the greater status sensitivity of young men and try to channel it in socially desirable directions (e.g., competitive altruism; Hardy & Van Vugt, 2006).

Evolutionary Psychology and Group Dynamics

An evolutionary approach to group dynamics begins with the recognition that human psychology (like human physiology) is the product of a long history of biological evolution. It follows, therefore, that conceptual insights of evolutionary biology can, when applied with rigor and care, produce novel discoveries about human psychology. This is demonstrably the case. Evolutionary inquiries not only have provided deeper explanations for the origins of already-recognized psychological phenomena such as phobias and mate preferences but also have produced an impressive array of novel theories, hypotheses, and empirical discoveries about the way the human mind works in contemporary environments.

Within evolutionary psychology, much research has focused on behaviors that have obvious reproductive consequences, such as mating and parenting. As the field grows, the tools of evolutionary inquiry are being applied to a much wider and diverse set of phenomena. Many of these phenomena pertain directly to groups and group dynamics. This is not surprising. As a group-living species, the environment in which our ancestors evolved was primarily social. We therefore expect that many evolved aspects of human psychology are group centered. This is increasingly acknowledged in the literature. For instance, the latest version of the well-known textbook on evolutionary psychology by Buss (2007) devotes considerable space to obviously group-relevant topics such as status, dominance, prejudice, and intergroup relations. Evolutionary approaches are also increasingly prominent in the study of real-world groups in management, business, marketing, law, and health (Barkow, 2006).

Advances in evolutionary psychology, and its applications, may not yet be evident to every researcher interested in groups and group dynamics. Indeed, even enthusiasts of evolutionary psychology may be unfamiliar with many of the new directions that are emerging within this burgeoning field of inquiry. It is for this reason that we have assembled this special issue on evolutionary approaches to group dynamics. The special issue comprises a set of theoretical articles, authored by eminent researchers with joint interests in evolutionary processes and group dynamics. For readers who are new to this method of inquiry, these articles may provide a useful introduction to the field and an illustration of the many useful insights that can emerge by thinking simultaneously about evolution and human groups. For readers who are already familiar with evolutionary psychology, these articles provide a stimulating and diverse sample of the many creative ways in which evolutionary logic is now being applied productively in the study of group processes.

Dunbar discusses the possibility that the human brain evolved in response to a specific set of problems associated with sizes of social groups; he identifies implications of this social brain hypothesis for contemporary social interactions and group dynamics. O’Gorman, Sheldon, and Wilson provide an overview of multilevel selection theory—a theory that articulates a means through which groups play a fundamental role in evolutionary processes— and describe important implications for understanding group behavior and group outcomes. Webster addresses the topic of kinship, which is fundamental to evolutionary theory but is relatively neglected in the study of group dynamics. His analysis suggests that kinship plays a nonobvious but important role in many aspects of interpersonal and intergroup aggression. Kerr and Levine speculate about the evolution of a social exclusion detection mechanism in humans. They suggest different ways in which social exclusion may be signaled, with various implications for the psychology of groups. Buss and Duntley consider the potential for exploitation that exists in any social interaction and suggest that humans have evolved strategies to both exploit and avoid being exploited by other group members. Their analysis produces novel insights about the origins of robbery, rape, and murder and about mechanisms that may help prevent them. Neuberg and Cottrell apply an evolutionary analysis to topics such as person perception, impression formation, and impression management within group settings. The result is a set of novel discoveries pertaining to intragroup trust and cooperation and intergroup prejudice. Finally, Kessler and Cohrs tackle an old topic of considerable importance to the study of groups: authoritarianism. They demonstrate the usefulness of an evolutionary approach to produce novel insights into the underlying psychology of authoritarianism.

Methodological Pluralism and the Benefits of Evolutionary Informed Research

Regardless of whether the reader is an evolutionary novice or an old hand, it is worth bearing in mind that evolutionary psychology represents an enormously diverse set of theories, methods, and analytical perspectives (Gangestad & Simpson, 2007; Scher & Rauscher, 2003). The articles in this special issue reflect this diversity. This conceptual and methodological diversity results, in part, from the fact that evolutionary psychology attracts contributions from scientists with an unusually diverse range of scholarly back-grounds—not only scholars with different kinds of training within psychology but also scholars from biology, anthropology, economics, neuroscience, and other academic disciplines. In addition, this diversity is a functional response to the high evi-dentiary standards that attend theories and hypotheses in evolutionary psychology (Conway & Schaller, 2002). Truly convincing support for an evolutionary psychological hypothesis about group psychology needs to attest not only to the existence of the predicted psychological phenomenon itself but also to the alleged evolutionary origins for that phenomenon. The first part is relatively easy. The second part is hard and requires input from several behavioral science disciplines.

Barring the unlikely invention of a time machine, it is impossible to collect data in ancestral environments or to empirically track the actual evolution of any alleged psychological adaptation. Instead, evolutionary psychologists must rely on a multitude of other, more indirect, sources of evidence (Schmitt & Pilcher, 2004). Some of these methods—such as the methods of experimental psychology—are familiar to most researchers of group dynamics. Many researchers are also familiar with mathematical models and computer simulations of group outcomes, and these methods are an important tool in evolutionary psychological inquiries. Consider, for instance, game models of the evolution of cooperation (Nowak & Sigmund, 1998). A third form of evidence emerges from recent advances in neuroscience. Brain imaging studies, for instance, have the potential to provide data attesting to specific physiological structures associated with specific kinds of group-relevant cognition and behavior (Adolphs, 1999; Duchaine, Cosmides, & Tooby, 2001). One recent breakthrough is the discovery that the brain structure governing physical pain, the anterior cingulate cortex, is also implicated in the experience of the pain of social exclusion (Eisenberger, Lieberman, & Williams, 2003). Anthropological and ethnographic databases provide a fourth important kind of evidence, testing the extent to which specific kinds of group-relevant phenomena are universal across human cultures. This kind of evidence is necessary to differentiate between phenomena that are evolutionary adaptations and those that are more superficial, culture-specific manifestations (Norenzayan, Schaller, & Heine, 2006). Finally, cross-species evidence is instrumental in testing speculations about the evolutionary history of any alleged adaptation. Both chimpanzees and humans, for instance, form coalitions to engage in intergroup violence—a finding that implies that the underlying psychological mechanisms may have already been present in the common ancestor from which both humans and chimps descended some 5–7 million years ago (Van Vugt, De Cremer, & Janssen, 2007).

When considered in conjunction, these and other forms of evidence can produce novel insights into many different kinds of group phenomena and their evolutionary origins. The utility of an evolutionary approach becomes apparent to just about anyone who seriously employs such an approach. We speak from personal experience.

Consider, for example, Van Vugt’s work on leadership within groups (for details, see Van Vugt, 2006). There are multiple indications that leadership might be a group-specific adaptation. Game-theory models show that leadership is the optimal solution in coordination games (Browning & Colman, 2004). Leadership has been documented across many different animal species that face functionally similar coordination problems such as group movement (in birds and social insects) and peacekeeping (in nonhuman primates). Among human beings, these kinds of coordination problems result, predictably, in the emergence of leader–follower relations; this occurs quickly and spontaneously across many different situations and cultures. Moreover, the underlying evolutionary logic yields novel hypotheses about the characteristics of leaders that are appealing under different kinds of circumstances. For instance, support for charismatic leadership increases when people are reminded of their mortality (Cohen, Solomon, Maxfield, Pyszcynski, & Greenberg, 2004); when under threat, people prefer taller, more dominant, masculine, and healthier looking leaders—presumably these are reminiscent of an ancestral past in which leaders led by example (Little, Burriss, Jones, & Roberts, 2007).

Consider work by Schaller and colleagues on prejudice and intergroup conflict. That the roots of intergroup conflict are evolutionarily ancient is indicated not only by the ubiquity of coalitional conflict across human societies but also in other primate species (Schaller & Neuberg, in press). Many contemporary prejudices can be understood as the products of evolutionary selection pressures imposed by the persistent threat of coalitional conflict in ancestral environments. These evolutionary products, in turn, instigate and sustain intergroup conflict in contemporary environments. By pursuing this line of reasoning and its implications, there have emerged many novel hypotheses about specific circumstances under which specific kinds of prejudices are especially likely to be inflamed and specific kinds of interventions that might put out those psychological fires. Many studies have revealed that specific kinds of prejudices are exaggerated by circumstances that, regardless of rational assessments of actual threat, make people feel vulnerable—such as simply being in the dark (e.g., Schaller, Park, & Faulkner, 2003). In an additional study, this evolutionarily informed conceptual approach was applied toward an understanding of ethnic stereotypes and sociopolitical attitudes within the context of the ongoing civil war in Sri Lanka (Schaller & Abeysinghe, 2006). Among other results, this study identified a very simple intervention that influenced support for a peaceful resolution to the conflict. This last point underscores the fact that when group processes are viewed through an evolutionary lens, the insights that emerge are useful not merely at a conceptual level but at a practical level as well.

Final Thoughts

An evolutionary approach to group dynamics can be fruitful in at least four different ways. First, an evolutionary perspective can provide a more complete understanding of any particular group process. A more complete account inevitably follows from rigorous attempts to forge conceptual linkages between evolutionary processes operating on ancestral populations and psychological processes operating within contemporary groups. The study of human altruism provides one instructive example. There are multiple evolutionary processes through which a capacity for altruism appears to have evolved (e.g., McAndrew, 2002; Van Vugt & Van Lange, 2006). These different evolutionary processes are likely to be associated with distinct psychological processes as well, each of which may have different and nonobvious implications for the prediction of contemporary behavior. For instance, many people assume that the evolutionary mechanism of kin selection is irrelevant to our understanding of altruism directed toward nonkin. In fact, however, when kin-selection mechanisms are considered in conjunction with the evolution of kin-recogni-tion mechanisms, it becomes clear that this particular evolutionary process may have implications for interactions with nonkin as well. Among the many insights is the finding that people respond more favorably to any group member who happens to be superficially more similar to themselves—and thus more kin-like—in some way (e.g., DeBruine, 2002; Oates & Wilson, 2002; Park & Schaller, 2005).

Second, an evolutionary perspective can help overcome biases and blind spots in the study of groups. For instance, the literature on group decision making is replete with studies documenting deficiencies in decision making such as research on brainstorming, groupthink, and group polarization. A cursory reading of this literature all too easily impels the conclusion that people are poor collective decision makers, but from an evolutionary viewpoint this makes little sense. D. S. Wilson, Timmel, and Miller (2004) have shown that groups outperform even the most competent individual when cognitive tasks get complicated. An evolutionary perspective can yield more sophisticated, complete, and accurate conclusions about group decision making (Kameda & Tindale, 2006).

Third, an evolutionary approach can be used to deduce many novel hypotheses bearing on traditional group phenomena. For example, working within the domains of social influence and group norm formation, Kenrick and his colleagues have applied evolutionary reasoning toward the deduction of a remarkable number of new hypotheses that are unlikely to have been arrived at through any other means (e.g., Kenrick, Li, & Butner, 2003; Sundie, Cialdini, Griskevicius, & Kenrick, 2006). Among other discoveries, this line of research has revealed that men and women show equally high levels of group conformity under conditions of threat; however, when mating goals are made salient, conformity rates are substantially lower among men than women (Griskevicius, Goldstein, Mortensen, Cialdini, & Kenrick, 2006).

Finally, an evolutionary approach can expand the boundaries of scientific inquiry into group dynamics by opening our eyes to important group phenomena that have previously been relatively ignored or overlooked. Laughter, music, dance, religion, and philanthropy are increasingly being understood as group phenomena (e.g., manifestations of psychological processes that connect individuals to each other in large and diverse groups), and these insights have benefited from evolutionarily informed inquiries (Atran & Norenzayan, 2004; Boyer, 2003; Dunbar, 2004; Hardy & Van Vugt, 2006) In short, an evolutionary perspective reinforces our awareness that group dynamics are fundamental to the study of human nature. It also provides a set of tools that can be used to understand group dynamics—and thus human nature—more completely. The articles in this special issue attest to those two promises.

References

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Received July 27, 2007
Revision received July 27, 2007
Accepted July 30, 2007

https://psych.ubc.ca/
https://www2.psych.ubc.ca/~schaller/VanVugtSchaller2008.pdf

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Evolutionary dynamics of group formation

Abstract

Group formation is a quite ubiquitous phenomenon across different animal species, whose individuals cluster together forming communities of diverse size. Previous investigations suggest that, in general, this phenomenon might have similar underlying reasons across the interested species, despite genetic and behavioral differences. For instance improving the individual safety (e.g. from predators), and increasing the probability to get food resources. Remarkably, the group size might strongly vary from species to species, e.g. shoals of fishes and herds of lions, and sometimes even within the same species, e.g. tribes and families in human societies. Here we build on previous theories stating that the dynamics of group formation may have evolutionary roots, and we explore this fascinating hypothesis from a purely theoretical perspective, with a model using the framework of Evolutionary Game Theory. In our model we hypothesize that homogeneity constitutes a fundamental ingredient in these dynamics. Accordingly, we study a population that tries to form homogeneous groups, i.e. composed of similar agents. The formation of a group can be interpreted as a strategy. Notably, agents can form a group (receiving a ‘group payoff’), or can act individually (receiving an ‘individual payoff’). The phase diagram of the modeled population shows a sharp transition between the ‘group phase’ and the ‘individual phase’, characterized by a critical ‘individual payoff’. Our results then support the hypothesis that the phenomenon of group formation has evolutionary roots.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0187960
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5685569/

Evolutionary dynamics of group fairness

Abstract

The emergence and impact of fairness is commonly studied in the context of 2-person games, notably the Ultimatum Game. Often, however, humans face problems of collective action involving more than two individuals where fairness is known to play a very important role, and whose dynamics cannot be inferred from what is known from 2-person games. Here, we propose a generalization of the Ultimatum Game for an arbitrary number of players – the Multiplayer Ultimatum Game. Proposals are made to a group of responders who must individually reject or accept the proposal. If the total number of individual acceptances stands below a given threshold, the offer will be rejected; otherwise, the offer will be accepted, and equally shared by all responders. We investigate the evolution of fairness in populations of individuals by means of evolutionary game theory, providing both analytical insights and results from numerical simulations. We show how imposing stringent consensuses significantly increases the value of the proposals, leading to fairer outcomes and more tolerant players. Furthermore, we show how stochastic effects – such as imitation errors and/or errors when assessing the fitness of others – may further enhance the overall success in reaching fair collective action.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0022519315002015

Evolutionary dynamics of group formation

M. Javarone, and D. Marinazzo. PLOS ONE 12 (11): 1-10 (November 2017)

https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/a0c35b354eeb82a193b307a76c31282c

The Evolutionary Significance of Affect in Groups: Communication and Group Bonding
Jennifer R. Spoor and Janice R. KellyView all authors and affiliations Volume 7, Issue 4

Abstract

Recent theorizing and research has attempted to explicate the functions of moods and emotions within small groups. In this paper, we examine these areas and suggest that affect in groups, as well as specific mechanisms to regulate and maintain certain affective states in groups, have had important roles in promoting group survival over evolutionary history. Specifically, we suggest that affect in groups serves a coordination function, which can take one of two forms. First, affect in groups quickly provides information about the environment and group structure to other group members, thus coordinating group activity via a communication function. Second, shared affect in groups coordinates group activity through fostering group bonds and group loyalty. These two functions of affect in groups are closely related and mutually reinforcing. Current research and directions for future research within an evolutionary perspective are also discussed.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1368430204046145

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2216186120

https://egtheory.wordpress.com/2013/06/30/how-ethnocentrics-rule/

Feature Article: Evolutionary Dynamics and Social Systems
https://integralleadershipreview.com/5132-feature-article-evolutionary-dynamics-and-social-systems/

Evolutionary Perspectives on Group Dynamics 1 Revision
https://www.professormarkvanvugt.com/images/files/vanvugtkamedachapterrev.pdf

TUCKMAN’S STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT

The forming–storming–norming–performing model of group development was first proposed by Bruce Tuckman in 1965,[1] who said that these phases are all necessary and inevitable in order for the team to grow, face up to challenges, tackle problems, find solutions, plan work, and deliver results.

Group development

Forming

The team meets and learns about the opportunities and challenges, and then agrees on goals and begins to tackle the tasks. Team members tend to behave quite independently. They may be motivated but are usually relatively uninformed of the issues and objectives of the team. Team members are usually on their best behavior but very focused on themselves. Mature team members begin to model appropriate behavior even at this early phase. The meeting environment also plays an important role to model the initial behavior of each individual. The major task functions also concern orientation. Members attempt to become oriented to the tasks as well as to one another. Discussion centers on defining the scope of the task, how to approach it, and similar concerns. To grow from this stage to the next, each member must relinquish the comfort of non-threatening topics and risk the possibility of conflict.

Storming

This is the second stage of team development, where the group starts to sort itself out and gain each other’s trust. This stage often starts when they voice their opinions and, as a result of this, a conflict may arise between team members as power and status are assigned. When the group members start to work with each other they start to learn about individual working styles and what it is like to work with each other as a team, it also identifies different hierarchy of status of positions in the group. At this stage there is a positive and polite atmosphere and people are pleasant to each other and they have different feelings of excitement, eagerness and positiveness and others may have feelings of suspicion, fear and anxiety. The leader of the team will then describe the tasks to the group, describe the different behaviours to the group and how to deal and handle complaints. In this stage “…participants form opinions about the character and integrity of the other participants and feel compelled to voice these opinions if they find someone shirking responsibility or attempting to dominate. Sometimes participants question the actions or decision of the leader as the expedition grows harder…”.[2] Disagreements and personality clashes must be resolved before the team can progress out of this stage, and so some teams may never emerge from “storming”[3] or re-enter that phase if new challenges or disputes arise.[4] In Tuckman’s 1965 paper, only 50% of the studies identified a stage of intragroup conflict, and some of the remaining studies jumped directly from stage 1 to stage 3.[5] Some groups may avoid the phase altogether, but for those who do not, the duration, intensity and destructiveness of the “storms” can be varied. Tolerance of each team member and their differences should be emphasized; without tolerance and patience the team will fail. This phase can become destructive to the team and will lower motivation if allowed to get out of control. Some teams will never develop past this stage; however, disagreements within the team can make members stronger, more versatile, and able to work more effectively as a team. Supervisors of the team during this phase may be more accessible, but tend to remain directive in their guidance of decision-making and professional behaviour. The team members will therefore resolve their differences and members will be able to participate with one another more comfortably. The ideal is that they will not feel that they are being judged, and will therefore share their opinions and views. Normally tension, struggle and sometimes arguments occur. This stage can also be upsetting.

Norming

“Resolved disagreements and personality clashes result in greater intimacy, and a spirit of co-operation emerges.”[2] This happens when the team is aware of competition and they share a common goal. In this stage, all team members take the responsibility and have the ambition to work for the success of the team’s goals. They start tolerating the whims and fancies of the other team members. They accept others as they are and make an effort to move on. The danger here is that members may be so focused on preventing conflict that they are reluctant to share controversial ideas.

Performing

“With group norms and roles established, group members focus on achieving common goals, often reaching an unexpectedly high level of success.”[6] By this time, they are motivated and knowledgeable. The team members are now competent, autonomous and able to handle the decision-making process without supervision. Dissent is expected and allowed as long as it is channelled through means acceptable to the team.

Supervisors of the team during this phase are almost always participating. The team will make most of the necessary decisions. Even the most high-performing teams will revert to earlier stages in certain circumstances. Many long-standing teams go through these cycles many times as they react to changing circumstances. For example, a change in leadership may cause the team to revert to storming as the new people challenge the existing norms and dynamics of the team.

Further developments

Adjourning and transforming and mourning

In 1977, Tuckman, jointly with Mary Ann Jensen, added a fifth stage to the four stages: adjourning,[7] that involves completing the task and breaking up the team (in some texts referred to as Mourning).

Norming and re-norming

Timothy Biggs suggested that an additional stage be added of Norming after Forming and renaming the traditional Norming stage Re-Norming. This addition is designed to reflect that there is a period after Forming where the performance of a team gradually improves and the interference of a leader content with that level of performance will prevent a team progressing through the Storming stage to true performance. This puts the emphasis back on the team and leader as the Storming stage must be actively engaged in order to succeed – too many ‘diplomats’ or ‘peacemakers,’ especially in a leadership role, may prevent the team from reaching their full potential.[citation needed]

Rickards and Moger proposed a similar extension to the Tuckman model when a group breaks out of its norms through a process of creative problem-solving.[8][9]

John Fairhurst TPR model

Alasdair A. K. White together with his colleague, John Fairhurst, examined Tuckman’s development sequence when developing the White-Fairhurst TPR Model. They simplify the sequence and group the Forming-Storming-Norming stages together as the Transforming phase, which they equate with the initial performance level. This is then followed by a Performing phase that leads to a new performance level which they call the Reforming phase. Their work was developed further by White in his essay “From Comfort Zone to Performance Management”[10] in which he demonstrates the linkage between Tuckman’s work with that of Colin Carnall’s “coping cycle” and the Comfort Zone Theory.

Leadership strategies to facilitate successful team development

A healthcare research study “Maximizing Team Performance: The Critical Role of the Nurse Leader”[11] examined the role of nursing leaders in facilitating the development of high performing Change teams using the Tuckman Model of Group Development as a guiding framework. Using qualitative research techniques, these authors linked the team development stages to leadership strategies, as well as identified keys to leader success. Below are some examples from the article:

Team Development Stage	Leadership Strategies	Keys to success
Forming (Setting the stage)[11]	Coordinating Behaviors	- Purposefully picking the team- Facilitate team to identify goals- Ensure the team development of a shared mental model
Storming (Resolving conflict and tension)[11]	Coaching Behaviors	- Act as a resource person to the team- Develop mutual trust- Calm the work environment
Norming & Performing (Successfully implementing and sustaining projects)[11]	Empowering Behaviors	- Get feedback from staff- Allow for the transfer of leadership- Set aside time for planning and engaging the team
Outperforming & Adjourning (Expanding initiative and integrating new members)[11]	Supporting Behaviors	- Allow for flexibility in team roles- Assist in the timing and selection of new member- Create future leadership opportunities

Swarming

In agile software development, high-performance teams will exhibit a swarm behavior as they come together, collaborate, and focus on solving a single problem. Swarming is a sometime behavior, in contrast to mob programming, which can be thought of as swarming all the time.

https://ns4business.com.br/tuckmans-stages-of-group-development/

The Nature of Followership: Evolutionary analysis and review
Nicolas Bastardoz a, Mark Van Vugt

Abstract

From an evolutionary perspective, followership is puzzling because it is not clear why individuals would relinquish their autonomy and set aside their personal goals to follow those of another individual, the leader. This paper analyzes followership from an evolutionary perspective and advances three main conclusions that are not yet part of the leadership literature.

First, followership evolved as a strategy to solve a range of cooperation and coordination problems in groups (e.g., collective movement, peacekeeping).
Second, individuals who lack the physical, psychological, or social capital to be leaders themselves are more likely to emerge as followers.
Third, followership styles, behaviors, and engagement result from;
(a) variations in relative pay-offs to followers vis-à-vis their leader,
(b) the adaptive goals pursued by followers,
(c) the adaptive challenges that select for different followership styles
(d) the prevailing leadership style.

Together, these conclusions have several implications for followership theory, research, and practice.

Introduction

Why should we bother about followers when a single leader can achieve great deeds? It is a truism that there can be no leaders without followers; there are many more followers than there are leaders, and most of the time you and us are followers rather than leaders. History is filled with examples of followers who helped leaders achieve their goals, good or bad. Consider the Nazis: Whereas Hitler's closest followers (e.g., Goebbels, Göring, Röhm) were actively colluding with him and completely dedicated to the cause of the Third Reich, a majority of German individuals stood by and did nothing to prevent the prosecution and mass killings of millions of individuals. Some followers actively stood up against the Nazi leadership by showing incredible courage to defy the regime (such as party member Oskar Schindler who put his life at risk to save the lives of his Jewish employees), while others played opportunistically by the Nazis rules because it granted them power and influence that they would have never achieved under normal circumstances.

This example demonstrates both the impact of followers on the course of human history and the richness and diversity in followership behaviors, styles and engagement levels. In this review, we use an evolutionary perspective to study followership. We analyze why individuals follow leaders, and how they do so, addressing various ultimate and proximate questions regarding the psychology of followership: Why would individuals voluntarily give up their autonomy to defer to a leader? Why would anyone want to follow when leading is associated with greater rewards (e.g., money, status)? Which traits, cognitions, and motivations predict whether someone will emerge as follower in a certain context? How can we explain differences in followership styles, behaviors, and engagement? We believe these questions are currently underexplored in the literature and hope to spark some new ideas for followership researchers.

Based on insights from the evolutionary, biological and psychological sciences, we review studies suggesting that humans have an adaptive followership psychology that enables them to (swiftly) coordinate their actions with other individuals when it is advantageous to do so (cf. evolutionary leadership theory; Van Vugt & Ahuja, 2011). We do not imply that evolution has produced a population of individuals with either fixed leader or follower traits (i.e., genotypes), but rather we suggest that humans have a flexible followership psychology that enables them to select and follow the right kind of leaders under the right conditions, determine an appropriate engagement level, and switch from being a follower to a leader whenever appropriate. Our review also attempts to build bridges with previous writings on followership (e.g., Chaleff, 2009; Kellerman, 2008). Doing so will hopefully open up new theoretical and empirical investigations into solving the puzzle of followership.

Our manuscript intends to make several contributions. First, we shift the focal point away from the analysis of leaders to followers, a much-needed shift for a field that has been heavily taxed with being “leader-centric” (Day, 2014; Hollander, 1992; Yukl, 2002). For all articles published in The Leadership Quarterly at the end of 2017, only 8% used the term “follower” (or a derivative) in their title, compared to 83% that used the term “leader” (if we count just the abstract then 22% of articles referred to followership and 94% to leadership).1 Yet, followership is arguably the default setting in our brain and on any occasion, we are much more likely to be followers than leaders. As followership scholars have suggested (Carsten, Uhl-Bien, West, Patera, & McGregor, 2010; Riggio, Chaleff, & Lipman-Blumen, 2008), followers are not a monolithic group. These are individuals with different motivations, values, and abilities. Therefore we embrace Shamir's (2007) suggestion to “shift the lens” by understanding the deeper roots of followership. Understanding what motivates people to be followers is crucial if we want to understand the very essence of the leadership process.

Our second contribution concerns the use of evolutionary theory that, in our view, provides a compelling integrative theoretical model to analyze followership. Leadership science tends to be a highly fragmented discipline, because there is no unifying theory such as is the case in biology, physics, or chemistry (Antonakis, 2017b). By adhering to an evolutionary perspective, we offer a parsimonious model to study followership through integrating literature and data from various fields including evolutionary biology, animal behavior, anthropology, and applied psychology. This allows us to come up with a set of propositions that can be tested through experiments, simulations, and field case studies (see Schmitt & Pilcher, 2004).

The review proceeds as follow. We first define followership and theorize about its origins. Using game theory as bedrock, we suggest that followership emerged as an evolutionary stable strategy. We then go back to human evolutionary history and argue why humans have evolved an adaptive followership psychology and what the psychological mechanisms underlying followership are. We then review literature on followership across various disciplines and come up with a number of propositions about followers' behaviors, styles and engagement levels. In the discussion we address contemporary questions such as: Is following still always an adaptive choice? Why are there gender differences in leading and following? What makes a bad follower? What are the neural correlates of followership? We conclude by offering ideas for followership research and practice.

Section snippets

Understanding followership

To ensure a common understanding, we first need to clarify what we mean by followership. Following previous evolutionary work, we consider leadership and followership as adaptive solutions to various kinds of organizational challenges associated with group living (King, Johnson, & Van Vugt, 2009; Van Vugt, 2006; Van Vugt, Hogan, & Kaiser, 2008). The vast majority of primate species live in groups, and so do humans, although our groups tend to be larger and socially more complex (Dunbar, 1993).

Psychology of followership

Having made some theoretical progress in explaining why followership could be adaptive (and thus could have emerged across species), we focus now on followership in humans. To understand the nature of our followership psychology, it is necessary to understand the premise of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary psychology argues that our brains, like our bodies (as well as the brains and bodies of other species), are the result of a long process of biological evolution through natural selection

Discussion and implications

Based on an evolutionary approach, our review has shown that followership is not a scientific puzzle. It is a logical, inevitable consequence of the evolutionary need to live in groups and benefit from coordinated actions with other individuals. Followership is a voluntary deference process and it is not the same as being submissive in a dominance hierarchy. Reviewing different streams of literature, we have proposed that emergent followers are relatively more likely to lack the motivation to

References (175) here;
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1048984317308068

Pages

Evolutionary Group Dynamics

TUCKMAN’S STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT

Group development

Forming

Storming

Norming

Performing

Further developments

Adjourning and transforming and mourning

Norming and re-norming

John Fairhurst TPR model

Leadership strategies to facilitate successful team development

Swarming

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