Psychosocial Helping Processes in a Heterogeneous Sample of Self-Help Groups

To adequately conceptualize the potential that self-help groups hold for delivering human services it is important to know about the helping ex-changes between members. Only a few quantified comparative studies of this issue have been completed, and the extent of their generalizability is not known. This paper reports a replication of one of these studies. Rating patterns on a group process questionnaire for the thirteen groups participating in this replication study were robustly correlated with those for the eight groups in the original study. The results also suggested that patterns of helping activities are affected by such organizational factors as meeting format and level of professional involvement. To clarify the nature of these mediating factors and their impact on group functioning it will be useful to explicate the dimensions of heterogeneity between groups in the future and to further refine existing techniques for the measurement of helping exchanges.