group dynamics

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Original Research

Group-as-a-whole as a context for studying individual behaviour: A group diagnostic intervention
Author:
Dirk J. Geldenhuys1
Affiliation:
1
Department of Industrial and Organisational
Psychology, University of
South Africa, South Africa

Orientation: Traditionalists view group interventions from three perspectives: singletons, dyads and whole groups. The focus of this research was on interventions from the third perspective, that of the whole group, using a systems psychodynamic stance.
Research purpose: The purpose of the research was to use group-as-a-whole to study individual behaviour in organisations.

Email: [e-mail] Motivation for the study: Team research and practice is not on a par with the complexities that teams actually experience. Traditional group interventions use humanistic and functionalistic paradigms that do not consider the unconscious functioning of groups. Interventions that use the system psychodynamic paradigm could address these dynamics because they study behaviour of individual group members in the context of the group-as-a-whole.

Postal address:
PO Box 392, UNISA 0003,
South Africa

Research design, approach and method: The researcher conducted action research in a publishing company. He used purposive sampling and analysed the data using qualitative content analysis.

Dates:
Received: 22 Aug. 2011
Accepted: 30 Mar. 2012
Published: 13 June 2012

Main findings: The researcher found that the group-as-a-whole partly explains the behaviour of team members and that intervening from this perspective could improve negative relationships. Correspondence to:
Dirk Geldenhuys

How to cite this article:
Geldenhuys, D. (2012).
Group-as-a-whole as a context for studying individual behaviour: A group diagnostic intervention.
SA Journal of Industrial
Psychology/SA Tydskrif vir
Bedryfsielkunde, 38(2), Art.
#1011, 12 pages. http://

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