Team Cohesion and Motivational Needs.

On a recent expedition on Dartmoor with a group of ten tors students, it was interesting to observe how the team worked together to achieve goals and overcome difficulties. Carron (1982) suggested that there are four factors which effect cohesiveness of a team:

-Situational factors e.g. physical factors such as the environment, weather and group size.
- Individual factors such as the characteristics of each individual in the team, what kind of mood each person is in this could be affected by personal issues etc.
-Team factors this includes past experiences the team has had together, team dynamics, communication and collective goals.
-Leadership factors, leadership plays a big part in how cohesive a team is.

Whilst observing the team I noticed how they stopped being cohesive at one moment in particular, at this moment there were several factors playing a part in why they became in-cohesive, but this particular study will concentrate on Individual factors only.

The majority of the group were tired, cold, hungry, and dehydrated. Maslow (1954) created a theory model called the Hierarchy of needs (as seen below), according to this a person will only be motivated to progress to higher levels on the pyramid, once they have sufficiently satisfied the needs of the lower levels such as physiological and safety. So for some of the individuals in the group their basic needs on the bottom physiological levels such as food, sleep and water were not being met therefore their motivations were not concentrated on aspects of the higher levels such as problem solving e.g. map reading to navigate off the moor.

 

Maslow also observed that this theory is backed up by a passage in the bible by Deuteronomy 8:3, He takes the passage and paraphrases it as he interprets it.
“It is quite true that man lives by bread alone — when there is no bread. But what happens to man's desires when there is plenty of bread and when his belly is chronically filled? At once other (and higher) needs emerge and these, rather than physiological hungers, dominate the organism. And when these in turn are satisfied, again new (and still higher) needs emerge, and so on. This is what we mean when we say that the basic human needs are organized into a hierarchy of relative prepotency.^”      (Maslow. 1954: cited in Lowry. 1999)

However Diner (2011) questioned Maslow’s theory and did a study into it to see if it worked practically. After the study he said  "Our findings suggest that Maslow's theory is largely correct. In cultures all over the world the fulfilment of his proposed needs correlates with happiness, However, an important departure from Maslow's theory is that we found that a person can report having good social relationships and self-actualization even if their basic needs and safety needs are not completely fulfilled." (Diener. 2011)

So according to Maslow we would have to satisfy all of the lower level needs to encourage the individuals in the group to become motivated to navigate off the moor, but according to Diener it would be down to the individual as to how many of those needs need to be met before they could progress to higher levels. We met some of the individuals needs by providing some of Maslow’s physiological needs, we provided the team with a hot drink, and a bag of sweets. This not only met some of the basic needs but also boosted morale and energy levels.

So bringing it all back to Carron’s theory about group cohesiveness we had now catered for as many of the groups individual needs as possible using Maslow and Diener’s theories, this allowed us to change the individual, personal factors within the team, so we could then go on to think about the other 3 factors that affect cohesiveness and how we could change those factors to bring the team cohesion up to a level at which they could work effectively.  

Reference

Carron, A.V. (1982). Cohesiveness in sport groups: Interpretations and considerations. Journal of Sport Psychology, 4, 123-138.

Deuteronomy 8:3 cited in Lowry, R. (1999) A.H. Maslow's Vision of Human Nature [Online] Available at: http://www.maslow.org/sub/lowry1.htm[Accessed 14.05.11]

Dina (2007) Social Media Strategies – lets remember Maslow! [Online] Available at: http://dinamehta.com/blog/2007/10/18/social-media-strategies-lets-remember-maslow/ [Accessed 14.05.12]

Maslow 1954 cited in Lowry, R. (1999) A.H. Maslow's Vision of Human Nature [Online] Available at: http://www.maslow.org/sub/lowry1.htm [Accessed 14.05.11]

Needs and subjective well-being around the world.

Tay, Louis; Diener, Ed
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 101(2), Aug 2011, 354-365.