Page 160 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

summarize, if membership in the group is above the comparison level for alternatives and above

the comparison level, the membership within the group will be satisfying and an individual will

be more likely to join the group. If membership in the group is above the comparison level for

alternatives but below the comparison level, membership will be not be satisfactory; however, the

individual will likely join the group since no other desirable options are available. When group

membership is below the comparison level for alternatives but above the comparison level,

membership is satisfying but an individual will be unlikely to join. If group membership is below

both the comparison and alternative comparison levels, membership will be dissatisfying and the

individual will be less likely to join the group.

Types of groups

Groups can vary drastically from one another. For example, three best friends who interact

every day as well as a collection of people watching a movie in a theater both constitute a group.

Past research has identified four basic types of groups which include, but are not limited to:

primary groups, social groups, collective groups, and categories (Forsyth, 2006). It is important to

define these four types of groups because they are intuitive to most lay people.

For example, in an experiment (Lickel, et al., 2000), participants were asked to sort a

number of groups into categories based on their own criteria. Examples of groups to be sorted were

a sports team, a family, women, and people at a bus stop. It was found that participants consistently

sorted groups into four categories: intimacy groups, task groups, loose associations, and social

categories. These categories are conceptually similar to the four basic types to be discussed.

Therefore, it seems that individuals intuitively define aggregations of individuals in this way.

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