A man develops this value system in various ways. Regardless of how it develops, it is essentially a mental categorization of ends and means which are evaluated as acceptable or unacceptable in varying degrees.

Members of the same culture and the same groups tend to have similar value systems but the unique experiences of all individuals result in many differences in emphasis which they place on any given end or means. Group action takes place when ends sought are commonly espoused by members and are of relative importance to them. The means used, as well as the ends, must be acceptable to the group as a whole.

Some values held by an individual are instilled in his thought patterns by the culture; they are accepted from the value systems of others. Examples of this are found everywhere. Children receive certain stimuli and in the process of responding, the parent assigns good or bad to alternative response choices. One of the reasons why others have such a disproportionately large influence on the younger child is that the young child is constantly being exposed to completely new stimuli and lacks the experiences from which to make his own interpretations. He is much more susceptible to acceptance of the interpretations of others. In the presence of a parent, each new stimulus is followed immediately by another stimulus, i.e., the suggestion of the parent as to the proper response.

As the individual becomes more experienced and has been exposed to many more stimuli toward which he has responded, he builds up a reservoir of alternatives in his memory. He builds a system of values based upon his own judgments of the relative good and bad of his past experiences. These experiences include the evaluations of others. The degree to which an individual accepts value judgments of others as his own ranges all the way from complete uncritical acceptance of another’s evaluation to complete rejection of outside evaluations. The individual more readily accepts the evaluations of others whom he knows well and respects and with whose values he agrees. When we say that one individual knows another, we’re basically saying that he is relatively aware of the other’s past experiences, his ends and objectives, and accepted techniques for attaining his goals.

It is recognized that because of inherent qualities, individuals have varying abilities to act in given mental and physical ways. This difference in inherited capabilities is only one factor in accounting for differences in human behavior. The experience of the individual is also of great importance in determining how he responds in any situation. The relative importance of these two types of influence in determining individual behavior cannot be stated precisely.

We accumulate experience from the many people with whom we have contact, the groups to which we belong, the reading we do, and from all the stimuli we receive and retain. Each of us has had experiences that are different unique experiences that helped create our individuality.

It has been pointed out that man has values concerning both the goals he wants to attain and the means that are acceptable to him in that goal attainment. Because of our different cultural backgrounds, the different group experiences that we have had, and the unique experiences in which each of us has participated, it is relatively easy to see why there are so many differences among us as individuals. We may have different values – different things are acceptable and important to us. Even if we believe in basically the same things, we may attach varying importance to individual items within our accepted pattern of values. Even if we believe the same basic goals are important, we may not agree on the best, most enjoyable, or even acceptable method or means to attain a given goal.

It is within this broad framework of values with regard to the ends or objectives we want to attain and the acceptable means to attain those ends that we begin to seek answers as to what makes people act – what motivates them – what makes them “tick.” Why does one person seem to drag his feet at every new suggestion? Why does another always seem to have to be the center of group activity? Why is being recognized as a leader so important to another?

Why do people behave the way they do?

To answer this in breadth and depth would obviously carry us beyond the scope of this book. A limited discussion aimed at locating the individual member within the group must suffice.

Man, the Thinking, Organizing Being

Man differs in one great quality from the lower animals.

The elemental drives for food, shelter, and sexual gratification are present in man, as in any animal; but because man can think abstractly his desires go infinitely further. What is this ability to think abstractly?

Fundamentally it is the ability to recall mental images of past experiences, to make value judgments about them, and to project the lessons of such judgments into the future. Using this ability man can benefit by his experience and by the experience of his fellow men, living and dead, through communication systems. Symbols, words, and gestures have been developed to communicate phenomena which are part of the general experience of mankind, not necessarily a part of his personal sensory experience. The following simple illustration may sharpen this aspect of the differences between animal and man.

A mother bear, in order to train her cubs, might take them with her as she tears apart bee trees and eats honey. The cubs observe and do likewise. Thus they are conditioned to smell honey and find it. If the air is suddenly filled with the odors of man, steel, and gunpowder, the mother bear can take off full speed in the opposite direction and the cubs will follow. This conditions them to the fact that man-smell means “run away.”

This is simple imitation. A mother bear cannot sit back in the quiet and safety of the den and communicate to her cubs that certain insects of the order Hymenoptera gather nectar and, through a special digestive process, deposit this product in waxen containers inside hollow trees. She cannot tell them that this honey has a unique odor and that the trees may also be located by following the bees. They must be beside her as she does these things in order to go through the direct sensory experience. She cannot tell them about man and guns; she can only run away and have the cubs do the same.

On the other hand, man – using word symbols derived from the thinking process – can tell his fellow men about these experiences without ever having to take them to the actual situations.

With this ability to think abstractly, man projects himself into the future. He establishes goals toward which he can direct his actions and he anticipates problems which will confront him. Also, because of this ability, he is able to have a mental picture of himself as a social being. He visualizes himself as a person associating with others more or less like himself. He has ideas of how others regard him and what they expect of him. He has ideas about whether or not he is liked by others and whether or not others consider him to be important to them and their lives. He evaluates others and he often acts on the basis of how he thinks others are evaluating him. He can consider these evaluations and expectations of his fellow men in terms of their potentialities for enhancing or impeding the attainment of goals which he desires.

Only man, because of this ability to think about abstractions, can project himself into the future and establish in his mind the things he wants in his future. He can communicate his complex thoughts to others and in turn receive similar communication from them.

A dog can be conditioned to come for food at the sound of a whistle simply by providing him with rations every time his master whistles in a certain way. A bear cub learns to avoid man by associating the odor of man and the mother bear running away. These constitute a simple stimulus-response reflex arc. Given a stimulus – the whistle – the dog responds by coming to the master to receive the food or other rewards. The bear cub is nudged along by the mother bear or cuffed behind the ear. A system of rewards and punishments is built around immediate sensory experience and acceptable response. Non-acceptable response leads to hungry dogs and dead bears.

Man, because he has this ability to deal with abstractions, responds to many stimuli in different ways. Man not only can think in abstractions, but he must think this way. His responses are always based upon his interpretations of the stimuli which he receives. Interpretation of stimuli include: (1) recall of similar stimuli received in the past; (2) responses made to these similar stimuli; (3) comparison of the existing circumstances surrounding the immediate stimulus to which he anticipates responding with the conditions surrounding the response patterns of the past experiences; (4) evaluations of the relative satisfactions received from the ways in which he responded in the past; and (5) an evaluation and comparison of the goals and ends which he desired when he responded to former stimuli with the goals or ends which he hopes to achieve in responding to the present stimulus.

It is only after an individual has gone through these thought processes that he responds to the stimulus. There are great differences in the degree to which various individuals go through these steps.

When an individual receives a stimulus which is familiar to him because of the number or intensity of previous similar experiences, he remembers these past experiences, what responses he made, and how satisfied he was with the results of his subsequent behavior. For the average American, an alarm clock’s ringing demands very little considered thought as to the nature of the response because it is a stimulus which has been received many times before. However, this same average American might respond quite differently to the sound of a lute playing because he probably has not received this stimulus before.

After an individual has recalled similar stimuli and his responses to them, he considers his past responses in the light of his satisfactions with the outcomes. He considers the circumstances under which those past stimuli were received and compares them with the conditions surrounding the immediate stimulus to which he must respond. The conditions surrounding a given stimulus greatly affect the response.

If a young college man and a male companion are seated at a table in a restaurant and a beautiful girl of similar age passes by and smiles invitingly, the direction of the response is easily predictable, as well as the speed with which it will be made. Now consider this same young man in the same restaurant at the same table except that instead of a male companion he has his “best girl” with him. When the same beautiful girl passes by and smiles invitingly the response will undoubtedly be quite different than in the first situation.

The stimulus in both instances was identical. The circumstances under which it was received differed. In both situations the young man’s experiences with similar stimuli in the past would certainly have been reflected upon. He would have considered the circumstances surrounding the immediate stimulus with those surrounding the receipt of past similar stimuli; in both instances he would have evaluated the satisfactions received from responses to similar past experiences and he would in both illustrations have compared his goals or objectives at the time of receipt of the new stimulus with those held in the past.

This simple set of illustrations bypasses other important parts of the framework in which stimuli are received. Two mental phenomena commonly called “frame of reference” and “mood” may be used as examples.

Let us begin with an oversimplification. All forms of life have requirements for existence which they try to satisfy. Man differs in that he is a telic being; he can project his thoughts and desires into the future. He is thus motivated and acts with regard to certain objectives. Through his thinking process he sets up goals toward which he strives, and his actions have meaning only in relation to such objectives.

To state this another way: Since man alone is able to think, he alone selects goals which represent desires as well as needs. Having desired, and having established goals, he proceeds to act in such a way as he thinks will enable him to reach these goals.

The same basic analysis can be applied to groups, since they are made up of individuals. Groups also have desires and act to satisfy them. To attain their goals they must employ certain means.

Here then is the most elementary breakdown of the group process: Groups, like individuals, develop wants and desires, some of which they establish as goals. In their effort to achieve those goals they select certain techniques. These are the three basic elements in the group process: the group, the goals, and the techniques.

Simplified pictures of complicated subjects should never be taken completely literally. The comparison just drawn between individual and group behavior is a case in point. The individual, within his own mental capabilities and background, chooses his goals and adopts his means largely of his own volition, even though this is modified by the social groups in which he moves or would like to move. Group choices, either of goals or of means, are a product of the interaction of many forces within the individual members, between the individual members, and in response to external pressures. Thus the individual choice may represent a fairly simple, straightforward, action and reaction. Any action on the part of a group represents a resolution of numerous forces which must in some way be directed.

The Group

This can be illustrated schematically by a circle, which represents the group. To further simplify the problem, it will be assumed that the group already exists and that certain motivations are at work. The small figures within the circle represent the individual members. The arrows, large and small, represent various forces at work.

The individual member is unique in that he is different from every other member. He brings to the group certain general and specific interests, drives, and motivations. He has certain expectations and aspirations which he mayor may not have translated into goals. He brings with him definite values, attitudes, habits, feelings, and beliefs. These things, which have applied largely to himself, he now also applies to the group members and to the group as a whole.

These basic individual drives are indicated by the small arrows beside each figure.

While all the above-listed individual traits might be referred to as positive forces, it must be remembered that the individual also brings to the group certain negative forces. He is a human being with premonitions, frustrations, inhibitions, and fears. He has developed certain adjustment patterns to his past failures. He introduces these patterns into the group, as illustrated by the small dotted arrows about the individual figure. There are other negative traits. Perhaps the member is not really interested in the group or its goals but brings an ulterior motive, a “hidden agenda” such as personal gains. He may have a self image of the role he would like to play in the group. This may be a totally different role than that for which he is fitted.

In the process of interaction within the group, certain new forces arise – forces which originate in the individual, it is true, but occurs only because of his interaction with the other members.

These lines of force which arise out of group relationships are illustrated by the arrows with long, broken shafts. Notice that they join each member with every other member, and also each member to the group as a whole. An individual reacts not only to other individuals in the group but also to the fact that he is a member of the group.

It is difficult to express these forces in familiar terms.

Authors speak of the atmosphere or climate of a group, of communication patterns, of “we-feelings,” of general role definition, of group standards, and of human relation skills, to name only a few. For present purposes it will probably suffice to speak of lines of force generated within the individual, and lines of force generated as a result of individuals reacting with each other and with the group as a whole. Together, they are commonly called the internal dynamics of group behavior.

Further energies exert themselves on the group. No group operates in a vacuum and the norms of the culture of which the group is a part exercise a constant pressure from without. This is illustrated by the solid arrows, and their summation makes up the external dynamics of the group. Every group feels the force of the community or societal value system of which it is a part; it will probably take up and carry out certain actions which are “acceptable” and reject others which are not acceptable.

As one example of external forces which impinge upon the group, every group has other groups to which it “refers” to determine what its actions should be, or how acceptable its past actions have been. These may be called “reference groups” and may be subdivided into two types, normative and comparative.

Normative reference groups have expectation patterns (norms) together with some ability to enforce these norms on others. A typical normative reference group is the “community” which expects each group to perform certain functions for certain purposes and for certain people. Through social pressure, the giving of recognition and “status,” the community has the power to more or less enforce these expectations. The “parent” organization of any local group (for example the state organization of the P.T.A.) is also a normative reference group and demands certain performance from its affiliated local groups.

Comparative reference groups are groups with which other groups compare themselves. Possibly they are groups which it seems desirable to imitate, or groups whose errors it would seem desirable to avoid. These reference groups influence the membership, objectives, and activities of other groups and help to set the prestige rating of the group in the community. These are only some of the external forces which prod, impede, or maintain status quo in groups and which will be discussed in more detail.