Goals and Social Interdependence

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Goals and Social Interdependence
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What is a Goal?

• A goal is an ideal state or outcome.
• A goal provides motivation
• Group Goal A future state of affairs desired by
  enough members of a group to motivate the group
  to work toward its achievement.

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Effective Goals and START

• Specific operational goals.
• Facilitate communication
• Help to plan
• Help to evaluate
• Reduces conflict
• Symptoms of unclear goals include high level of
  group tension, joking or horseplay, distraction
  into side issues, failure to use or build upon
  good ideas.

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START

• Trackable and measurable helps to avoid social
  loafing.
• Achievable, yet challenging.
• Relevant meaningful goals lead to commitment.
• Transfer can skills be projected into future
  situations.

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Social Interdependence Theory

• Created by Morton Deutsch
• Organizes working relationships into socially
  independent and interdependent.
• Socially Independent
• Individualistic work for personal benefit with
  no concern for the outcome of others.

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Social Interdependence

• Social Interdependent when individuals share
  common goals and each individuals outcomes are
  affected by the actions of others.
• Competitive belief that only 1 person can
  achieve goal. Members work against each other.
• Cooperative belief that group can achieve goal.
  Members work with each other.

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Comparing Competition, Individualistic, and
Cooperative

• Cooperation leads to
• Higher achievement and retention
• Willingness to take on difficult tasks and to
  persist
• Higher level reasoning and process gain
• Group to individual transfer
• Increased time on task

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Cooperative Interaction

• Promotive interaction Individuals encourage and
  facilitate each others work efforts.
• Offer help
• Share resources and information
• Give and receive feedback
• Challenge each others reasoning
• High effort to achieve
• Positive relationships, group cohesion, and
  social support.

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How to create cooperation

• Foster positive interdependence
• Do not allow one members efforts to make other
  members unnecessary.
• Individual contributions should be unique
• Individual accountability
• Make members identifiable and aware that they
  will meet again.
• Reward appropriate social skills
• Group processing

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Allocation of Rewards

• Equity of merit approach
• Intrinsic motivation tends to be replaced by
  extrinsic motivation
• Competition arises
• Self-worth is measured in terms of rewards
  achieved.
• Equality system
• Distribution of rewards according to need.