Enhancing Human Performance Issues, Theories, and Techniques (1988) / Chapter Skim
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8 Social Processes
8 Social Processes
Pages 133-166
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From page 133... ...
Our concern with performance in large organizations like the Army makes it imperative that we examine these topics in some detail. Social processes are treated at both the interpersonal and intergroup levels of analysis: the first section focuses on influence strategies, with an emphasis on a particular technique referred to as neurolinguistic programming (NLP)
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From page 134... ...
In this section, we briefly examine the general nature of interpersonal influence and discuss techniques that might be applied to training. Organizational development is a widely used procedure in organizational and industrial settings; we examine its potential as a training procedure for influencing groups.
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From page 135... ...
ATTITUDE CHANGE THROUGH PERSUASIVE COMMUNICATIONS Attitude formation, maintenance, and change have been widely studied in contemporary social psychology. A major reason for this interest was the series of research efforts conducted during World War II and collectively published as a four-volume work, The American Soldier (Stouffer, 19494.
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From page 136... ...
ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS One of the developments of the social psychological group that coalesced around Kurt Lewin was the application of the principles of group dynamics to organizational and industrial contexts. The applications that came from this effort were based on a belief in the effectiveness of induced motivation and an effort to bring the group's or the organization's goals into correspondence with those of the individual.
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From page 137... ...
These consist of a mixture of techniques and elements from the other forms of organizational development. T-groups, or sensitivity training groups, were the most common of the programs until the late 1970s, and they were the least effective.
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From page 138... ...
Because these programs are proprietary, complete descriptions may not be available, and assessment studies, if conducted, are not published in a form amenable to scientific scrutiny. One type of program that has achieved a measure of success is called neurolinguistic programming.
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From page 139... ...
The basic NLP assumption is that a person will be most influenced by messages involving whatever representational system he or she is employing at the moment. NLP postulates six representational systems: constructing of visual images, remembering of visual images, constructing of auditory images, remembering of auditory images, attending to kinesthetic sensations, and holding internal dialogues.
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From page 140... ...
somatotype-personality hypotheses and with habitual EEG patterns. These volumes also expand or the identification of a person's currently active representational system by stating that patterns of posture, voice tone, and breathing accompany the use of each system The basis .` or the relation of eye movements to representational systems rests on asset motions about laterality of brain function and use of language, in particular, the postulate that the speech center for right-handed people is located in the left cerebral hemisphere.
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From page 141... ...
Even a controlled experiment that showed consistent EEG patterns related to specific eye movements or instructions to visualize would reveal nothing about representational patterns or the structure of subjective experiences. It would merely demonstrate that certain instructions or volitional patterns of action produce consistent brain waves.
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From page 142... ...
Studies have failed to find significant correlations between eye movements, choice of predicates, and selfreports, all of which are postulated to be keyed to the representational systems (e.g., Gumm, Walker, and Day, 1982~. Some studies have used
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From page 143... ...
One can find a counselor very empathetic but nonetheless ineffective in modifying behaviors or feelings. There are no studies comparing the effectiveness of NLP as an influence technique with other interpersonal influence techniques.
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From page 144... ...
We have received subjective, informal reports from people who have received NLP training. Some reports are negative with respect to the efficacy and usefulness of NLP, but the majority are from satisfied trainees who believe that NLP has improved their communication skills and made them more effective in exercising interpersonal influence.
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From page 145... ...
The NLP practitioner is maintaining eye contact and is giving complete attention to the other person; is coding the verbal output of the other person in an overt, analytic manner; is monitoring his or her own verbal output (censoring it and recoding it as a prelude to an attempted predicate, or representational system, match) ; and is letting the other person's choice of topics and metaphors structure the conver
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From page 146... ...
A proper study of this issue would require at least three groups: a group with NLP training, a group with training in its effective components (listening, attending, self-monitoring) , and a control group without either the NLP regimen or its components.
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From page 147... ...
The encoding of this information in NLP terms and symbols could provide the protocol for instructing fledgling pilots in the simulator, providing directions on when to visualize the target, when to concentrate on muscular feel, when to listen for engine sound changes, and so on. There are, however, several obstacles to this process.
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From page 148... ...
The major question is one of priorities: What is the best area in which to invest scarce research funds The committee suggests that research funds are better spent on testing the effectiveness of combinations of known components and the issues of technology transfer in social science than on evaluation of techniques not substantiated by research. CONCLUSIONS We have examined some of the issues regarding the potential for using influence techniques as training procedures and as adjuncts to training, including the nature of formal attitude change programs in social psychology, and we have noted their relative lack of direct applicability to training.
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From page 149... ...
We noted that some nonacademic systems that have been privately developed and commercially marketed claim to use aspects of interpersonal influence as training procedures. One widely known technique, neurolinguistic programming, was examined in some detail.
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From page 150... ...
researchers accept this definition, but in the absence [as of 19791 of a reliable method for measuring cohesiveness in a natural setting, or a reliable procedure for creating it in the laboratory, one cannot be sure to what phenomena investigators are attending when they examine its origins or effects. This is an extremely important and pertinent observation for us.
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From page 151... ...
While it is a close relative, so to speak, of cohesion, it is not identical, because it has been used to refer explicitly to a member's relation to the encompassing social unit, namely, the organization. The relations among the three terms-group cohesion, organizational commitment, and cohesion (bonding)
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From page 152... ...
conflict does increase internal cohesion under certain conditions." We have italicized these three words to emphasize the fact that such conditions for example, the ability of the group to cope effectively with the threat, consensus about the importance of the threat-may be crucial in many real-world situa
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From page 153... ...
needs to be qualified by the consideration of various conditions has led a major researcher in this field to state: These are perennial questions Regarding the possible effects of modifying conditions] and it is not surprising that recent social psychological research [has]
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From page 154... ...
of any association between the two variables. Cohesion in Organizations For our purposes, the literature based on studies carried out within organizational contexts can be categorized into three areas: organizational development, organizational commitment, and organizational culture.
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From page 155... ...
Furthermore, partly because most studies in this area have been of a correlational nature, there is little or no solid scientific evidence that attempts to increase organizational commitment have resulted in increased performance (Mowday, Porter, and Steers, 1982~. Organizational Culture Studies.
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From page 156... ...
Therefore, organizations that believe that efforts to increase cohesion will ultimately be found to be effective must proceed largely on faith. In doing so, they should be aware of both the potential negative consequences as well as the hoped-for positive consequences.
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From page 157... ...
Effectiveness. The other critical issue for evaluating the potential usefulness of guidelines suggested by social psychological research on
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From page 158... ...
At the least, these research findings argue for modest expectations on the part of anyone attempting to develop more cohesion with either of these methods. To this point we have been discussing the utility of several guidelines emerging from small group social psychological research.
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From page 159... ...
of the Harvard and MIT graduate programs: the former program's cohort structure produces strong horizontal cohesion among students but weak vertical bonding between students and professors; the latter program emphasizes individual training and leads to strong vertical bonding but weak friendships among peers. Further implications can be drawn for promotion.
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From page 160... ...
Perhaps the strongest recent statement of Army belief in the positive consequences of cohesion is contained in Technical Report No. 3 on ''The New Manning System Field Evaluation', by the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research (1986~.
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From page 161... ...
One important source of such factual evidence is the previously mentioned study of the Army's project COHORT being conducted by the Walter Reed Army Institute for Research. At the time this chapter was drafted, three technical reports on the COHORT project had been issued; these present the results of soldier surveys conducted as part of the New Manning System (EMS)
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From page 162... ...
; however, such research evidence as there is tends to conclude that if a group is cohesive and if it has such norms, then its performance will be even lower than that of less cohesive groups with similar negative norms. In other words, there is a greater probability of a reverberation effect that could work counter to the interests of the larger organization if the cohesive group is headed in the wrong (so to speak)
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From page 163... ...
Research evidence on the latter is mixed in terms of the directions of the findings; it is also not substantial in terms of the number of well-controlled studies carried out in organizational settings. The available evidence concerning how to apply cohesion in organi
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From page 164... ...
Thus, there is very little in the way of a knowledge base to guide organizations in how to go about creating cohesion that will have positive consequences. Feasibility and Costs A second major, indeed crucial, application issue concerns the feasibility and costs of attempting to build cohesion within organizations.
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From page 165... ...
Potential Gains and Losses To summarize our discussion, many people believe that developing cohesion in organizations will produce favorable results, but evidence supporting this contention is weak at present. Persons advocating more cohesion in organizations believe it is intrinsically good.
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