Suchergebnisse

The "Steinzor effect" has been studied for 30 years, but the effect of visibility on interaction has escaped precise theoretical and empirical analysis. The purpose of this article is to present more precise measures of visibility, and to test some hypotheses about its effect on participation in small groups. The role of visibility in small group interaction is discussed, and then some operational definitions of various dimensions of visibility are made. Several hypotheses are tested, and data from an earlier study reanalyzed. In all cases, behavioral data on interaction were obtained by systematic observation of the groups. The results give clear support for the basic hypothesis that visibility has a direct impact on participation: overall, correlations were above .40 in the settings studied.

Newcomb's (1961) study of various individual and social factors influencing the development of friendship in a group of 17 male university students living in a fraternity house was reanalyzed (Newcomb, 1979) to test the hypothesis that individuals would gradually develop mutuality in their friendships. This reasonable hypothesis was, however, not supported by Newcomb's data. This article describes factors affecting the development of mutuality of attraction in natural small groups, and tests the hypothesis of the acquaintance process, Newcomb, (1961) with some new data. Female residents of three floors of a university dormitory were studied over the course of a year. Two floors showed definite increases in dyadic mutuality over time. Anomalous results for the third floor may have been due to a statistical ceiling effect. Some implications for applied small group research are discussed.