Effects of Seating Arrangement on Group Participation

Summary The relationship between position in a seating arrangement and group participation was examined in a field setting with use of 198 men and women (college students and adults in the community). A simple central-position hypothesis was compared to one that included both centrality and high visible accessibility by observing groups of three members interact in two different seating arrangements (i.e., either in a booth or around a table). The results indicated that centrality was associated with initiating communications, while high visibility appeared related to receiving communications. Thus, the central-position hypothesis predicted accurately who initiated most communications. The central-position-plus-high-visibility hypothesis, however, appeared superior in predicting who was likely to dominate the overall group interaction.