Why Do People Join Groups
People join groups for a multitude of reasons. A major reason is that group membership often results in some form of need satisfaction on the part of the individual. Membership into a group can fulfil numerous needs, some which group members may not realize they are benefiting from:
- Companionship – groups provide members to simply be in the company of other people.
- Survival and security – From a historic or evolutionary perspective our ancestors would partake in group experiences for hunting and defence.
- Affiliation and status – membership into various groups can provide individuals with certain socials status’ or security.
- Power and control– with group membership comes the opportunity for leadership roles; individuals who feel they need to exert their power and opinions over others can have such experiences within group settings.
- Achievement – groups have the capability to achieve more than individuals acting alone.
Organizations typically form groups in order to accomplish work related tasks; however, as a member of a work group you may unintentionally reap the numerous benefits independent of the original group construct.
Read more about this topic: Group Behaviour
Famous quotes containing the words why do, people, join and/or groups:
“Women have had the vote for over forty years and their organizations lobby in Washington for all sorts of causes; why, why, why don’t they take up their own causes and obvious needs?”
—Dorothy Thompson (1894–1961)
“Not German, I beg your majesty. Italian is the proper language for opera. All educated people agree on that.”
—Peter Shaffer (b. 1926)
“When we start deceiving ourselves into thinking not that we want something or need something, not that it is a pragmatic necessity for us to have it, but that it is a moral imperative that we have it, then is when we join the fashionable madmen, and then is when the thin whine of hysteria is heard in the land, and then is when we are in bad trouble.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)
“... until both employers’ and workers’ groups assume responsibility for chastising their own recalcitrant children, they can vainly bay the moon about “ignorant” and “unfair” public criticism. Moreover, their failure to impose voluntarily upon their own groups codes of decency and honor will result in more and more necessity for government control.”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877–?)