ABSTRACT
The positive socio-emotional categories increased from category 1 to 3. The most extreme expression of positive socio-emotional interaction, category 1, has the lowest percentage. This observation occurs in all M&D meetings observed. Such behaviour is also typical of all of the adult groups observed by Bales (1950, 1970). In comparison with other studies the amount of positive socio-emotional interaction observed is considerably less (apart from Gameson’s research and other studies that involve professionals). The amount of negative socio-emotional communication is also lower. A combination of the members’ temporal relationships and the commercial context in which they take place appears to restrain interaction, thus restricting socio-emotional development, as achieved in more stable groups. The high levels of conflict reported in construction literature were not evident in the data; indeed, if the levels of conflict reduced much further, the groups may be subject to the occurrence of groupthink. As Loosemore et al. (2000) suggest, there may be too much emphasis on conflict avoidance and that the current indiscriminate policy towards conflict reduction could result in positive process losses. When actors blindly agree without attempting to disagree or challenge others, while secretly being mindful of potential problems, then groupthink is manifest.
A number of peculiarities were found in the task-based interaction categories. Giving suggestions, giving information and requesting suggestions have higher interaction levels than any of the Bales’ studies. Category 6 was lower than Gameson’s study. Although the requests for task-based interaction are not considerably different from the previous studies, all of the three giving task-based interaction categories are high and the amount of giving compared with requesting task-based interaction is greater than all of Bales (1950) studies. The high level of task-based interaction resulted from the low level of socio-emotional interaction, due to the groups’ restricted development. This is supported by Gameson’s (1992) results, which have even higher amounts of task-based interaction than the M&D meeting.
