Intragroup conflict
In: sociology, group dynamics, intragroup conflict refers to conflict, confrontation, disagreement between two or more members of the same group or team the consequence or result of which could be either positive or negative. The term infighting has a similar usage of inner-group disagreement but with the combatative connotation, fighting, the dynamics of which are termed agonistic behaviour. Usage of the term internecine fighting as intragroup includes war.
Subject development
Ancient
Eristic
The term eristic, which is thought to originate with Plato, describes a dispute or quarrel.
Stasis
The Politics of Aristotle uses the Attic Greek term stasis, a political conflict, translated by some modern authors as civil war occuring within city-states of ancient Greece.
Modern
In the years leading up to 2008, intragroup conflict has received a large amount of attention in conflict and group dynamics literature. This increase in interest in studying intragroup conflict may be a natural corollary of the ubiquitous use of work groups and work teams across all levels of organizations, including decision-making task forces, project groups, or production teams.
Antecedents
There are a number of antecedents of intragroup conflict. While not an exhaustive list, researchers have identified a number of antecedents of intragroup conflict, including low task or goal uncertainty, increased group size, increased diversity, lack of information sharing, and high task interdependence.
Types
The American Psychological Association determines the existence of three such intra-conflictual problems in team organisations: process, relationship, task.
Measuring
Jehn developed the Intragroup Conflict Scale to measure two types of intragroup conflicts. The ICS consists of eight 7-point Likert scale items which assess intragroup conflict. This scale has been applied in a number of contexts including decision making groups and groups in the moving industry. Furthermore, this scale has high construct and predictive validity.
Group outcomes
Effects of intragroup conflict on group performance or outcome is moderated by a number of factors including the context under which it is examined and the type of outcome. According to one study, task conflict has a less negative relationship with group performance and outcomes than believed previously. The results of the study also showed that intragroup conflict is not always negative or detrimental to group performance; for example, task conflict has been related positively to group performance and outcomes when such conflict occurs in management groups.