The Effects of Social Isolation and Group Composition on Performance

Abstract

Abstract : The study examined performance of socially isolated and nonisolated dyads on two group tasks and on an individual task. Dyads were formed according to a Greco-Latin square design with composition differences on dogmatism, need achievement, need affiliation and need dominance. Nine dyads lived in a small room for ten days with no outside contact. Matched controls followed the same schedule but had access to other people and outside facilities. Results on group tasks indicated that isolated dyads outperformed control dyads and that incompatible pairs tended to do better than compatible ones (primarily in control groups). In isolation, hypothetically compatible compositions generally performed as well or better than their matched controls, whereas incompatible dyads performed the same or slightly worse than their control counterparts. By integrating these data with stress and symptomatology findings, the results were accounted for within an inverted U-shaped performance-stress function. Single sources of mild stress (either isolation or composition) were associated with enhanced performance; combined composition and situational stresses led to a lessening of performance effectiveness. (Author)