Abstract
20 four-person groups engaged in one-day “part-time job” in which each person worked for one and half hours with each of the other three persons. The amount of influence by a colleague was represented by changes in preferred solutions after a subject worked with the colleague. The persistence of involvement in the task for two weeks was measured by the degree to which the subject carried out what was, informally, asked by the supervisor (experimenter) concerning the content of work. Results showed that the amount of “active” influence which a subject had on the others, as well as the amount of “passive” influence a subject received from the others, positively affected the persistence of self-involvement. A variable composed by summing the amount of active and passive influence was found to determine involvement more strongly than did either active or passive influence separately. Implications of the results for a new concept of group were discussed.
