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The Small Group as a System 53

upon an analysis of living entities—including groups and organizations—as they attempt
to remain in dynamic balance with the environment by making constant adjustments.
The systems framework helps you keep track of all the individual components of
a small group as they interact to create a complex whole. The “group as system” met-
aphor has long been dominant among small group communication scholars because,
in part, its key premise is that communication links the relevant parts of a system
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together. We like the approach because it brings the role of communication to the
forefront of what we study and helps students manage the complexity of small group
communication. Even when we focus on a small part of the puzzle (e.g., leadership or
problem solving), the systems framework reminds us that each piece of the puzzle
interacts with every other piece.
However, the systems perspective has been criticized by some scholars. For
instance, some have questioned how useful the perspective is because it appears to be
a philosophical framework rather than a useful explanatory framework. Others have
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said that the systems approach focuses too much on a group’s dynamic balance, or
homeostasis. In other words, systems theorists assume that a system’s goal is to main-
tain stability; thus, the systems framework calls more attention to how groups stay the
same rather than how they change. Our point here is not to elaborate on or refute
these specific concerns but to let you know that this is one of several theories used to
understand small group communication. In the previous chapter we explained the
fundamentals of communication. We now begin the process of examining how
communication helps shape the small group system.

Principles of a System
The following principles of any system are important to understanding how a small
group of individuals can be understood as a system. These principles explain the
nature of the interrelatedness between the members’ behaviors and why an effective
group must be able to monitor itself consistently and make appropriate adaptations to
sustain its balance between dynamic forces acting at once upon the whole.
1. A group is a synergistic whole more than a simple collection of individuals. The
central system principle, interdependence, states that the parts of a system do Interdependence
not operate in isolation; they continuously affect each other as well as the The property of a
system as a whole. The usually cheerful chair of a committee comes to a group system such that all
meeting in a grouchy mood, and the other members may feel uneasy, and the parts are interrelated
group’s normally effective decision-making processes may be impaired. In and affect each other
small task groups, this has actually been found to be the case. There is a as well as the whole
complicated interplay between the emotional experience of group members system.
and what they perceive as the emotional norms of the group shaping the
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group’s emotional climate. A leader’s disapproval of another member’s
emotion, for example, can be interpreted as the group norm for that emotion,
influencing whether that emotion is enacted in the future. Members mutually
influence the emergence of both anger and gratitude as emotion norms and
expression over time.

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