Observing How Groups Shape Individual Behavior: The Importance of Group Social Exchanges of Both Resources and Social Activities

Abstract A social contextual analysis is developed for groups and how they shape a large part of our individual behavior. This is done by following behavior analytic approaches and eschewing internalized causal explanations, and by drawing on social science observations to show more concretely how groups function and how this can be observed. The key point is that groups function by pooling both people´s resources and people´s social relationship activities. Most approaches to groups only focus on one of these and then resort to internal explanations to account for the effects of the other. By observing both simultaneously we can integrate much of the social science differences and provide better ways to do social contextual research on group influence. Suggestions are given as to how groups are managed and what effects they have on individuals when all facets are considered. Social contextual research, however, focuses on becoming sensitized to variations in real-life cases of groups rather than trying to find generalizations that will always predict new cases.