Group Development and Interpersonal Feedback

Abstract

Theories of group development stages have seldom been tested empiri cally and systematically, unlike communication processes in groups that have had considerable attention. The relationship between these two has been virtually unexplored either theoretically or empirically. From group development theory (Bennis and Shepard) this study first extracts hypotheses about expected variations in feedback characteris tics through different group development stages and then tests these in four ongoing small groups. The pattern of changing feedback charac teristics during the 15 training sessions, particularly receiver agree ment with negative feedback, confirms a six-stage model of group development, and thereby suggests revisions to existing models. Addi tionally, an earlier, much reported, and very stable phenomenon of the feedback "credibility gap" (positive feedback consistently rated higher in credibility than negative feedback) is shown to vary through different development stages. This has implications for experimental studies on the credibility gap.