Emmert, Mark A. "Biobehaviorism and Small Group Research." Politics and the Life Sciences 3, 1 (August 1984):3-9.
[Seven commentaries and author response, pp. 10-27]
Introduction. The small group is a major cause of the formation of attitudes, beliefs, and behavior. The group forms the primary reference for the individual in terms of the socialization of norms and values and the establishment of loyalties. This led Golembiewski (1978:28) to write:
In this elemental sense, the group is a medium of control. It is a major context in which people develop their concepts of who they are, or to say almost the same thing, of how they relate to others. If for no other reason, this role of the small group implies its centrality in Political Science. For the quality of civic life basically depends upon the kind and quality of behavioral control.
A small group thus forms one of the basic units for political analysis. Indeed, the situations in which the group is politically significant are legion. Committees, councils, formal and informal party-based groups, and ad hoc gatherings around a table in a bar are all examples of political activities at the level of the group and, in large part, from the core of much political decision making. Clearly, the explication of group behavior and dynamics is central to the study of political behavior writ large.
A substantial body of literature supports this perspective (for example, Madron, 1969; Barber, 1966; Verda 1961). Moreover, the assemblage of research addressing small groups in general is vast. When Hare (1976) updated his plenary literature review, he counted over 6,000 references in the field.
What can be gained by adding one more reference to the list? Past efforts have brought us far in understanding group dynamics, but they are incomplete in one major sense. They fail to consider the biological underpinnings of social behavior. This article presents one way in which biobehavioral theory can be incorporated into small group research, thus pointing scholars into new areas of investigation.
Traditional sociological and social-psychological approaches can be compatible with biobehavioral explanations. In fact, theories based on different levels of explanation must be compatible if we are to develop a truly cumulative science of small groups. This is a point to which I will return.