Chapter 9: Communicating in Groups

Size and Complexity of Groups

As you’ll recall from Chapter 1, dyadic communication refers to interactions between just two people (a dyad). When a third person joins the interaction, the dyad becomes a small group. Scholars generally agree that small group communication involves at least three members (Bormann, 1990), with a maximum of fifteen to twenty-five members (Sosha, 1997). Some communication scholars argue that in order to effectively perform tasks within classrooms or work projects, five to seven members may be optimum (Cragan, Wright, & Kasch, 2008). The basic logistics of communication—the need to take turns speaking and listening, for example—grow more complex the larger a group gets, creating the need for more structured exchanges among members. Specifically, the bigger the group, the more its communication takes on the following characteristics:

WHEN YOU’RE chatting with a professor during office hours, you are the focus of your professor’s attention. However, in the classroom, you have to respect that other students want to speak as well! (left) © Bob Mahoney/The Image Works; (right) AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes

Interaction is more formal. Group communication simply cannot work in the same kind of informal way that dyadic communication occurs, due to the need to include more communicators in the discourse. Individuals participating in a group may feel the need to obtain permission to speak, and they may also be reluctant to interrupt a speaker.
Each member has limited opportunities to contribute. Participants may want or be required by a leader to share “floor time” with other group members. Such time constraints can inhibit the quality and quantity of their contributions. Even without a formal leader, in larger groups a few members tend to dominate much of the talk, while the less assertive members tend to remain quiet.
The communication becomes less intimate. The greater the number of participants is, the less comfortable participants feel self-disclosing or voicing controversial opinions.
The interaction consumes more time. As more participants are invited to contribute or debate, and there are more opinions possible, the interaction takes longer to complete.
Relationships become more complex. As more participants are added, the relationships become more complex. In the dyad, of course, there is only one relationship—that between person 1 and person 2. But as shown in Figure 9.1, add another person, and you now have four potential relationships—between persons 1 and 2, 1 and 3, 2 and 3, and all three together. The number of relationships multiplies further with each additional participant!

Figure 9.1: FIGURE 9.1 COMPLEXITY OF GROUP RELATIONSHIPS

Figure 9.1: Each time a person is added to a group, the number of relationships increases substantially.