| Course | EDP 814 The Social Psychology of Groups |
|---|---|
| Module | Module 3 |
| Paper type | Doctoral group performance analysis |
| Length | About 1,015 words, 6 pages |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Aspen University |
| Program | Doctor of Education |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for EDP 814 Module 3
More Than the Sum of Its Members? Performance in a Product Team
Student Name
Doctor of Education Program, Aspen University
EDP 814: The Social Psychology of Groups
Instructor Name
Month Day, Year
More Than the Sum of Its Members? Performance in a Product Team
The composite medical device product team followed in earlier modules has developed a shared identity and new norms, but its design reviews still have a problem. Three senior engineers do most of the talking. A junior engineer, Mei, and a regulatory specialist, Tomás, rarely speak, though Hana knows both have relevant ideas. Some members arrive at reviews without having read the materials. Everyone in the team, like the company, is invented. The paper analyzes the team's performance.
Effort in Groups
Karau and Williams (1993) meta-analyzed seventy-eight studies of social loafing, the drop in individual effort that appears when people pool their work instead of working on their own. Loafing was robust across tasks and populations. It was reduced or eliminated when individual contributions could be identified and evaluated, when the task was meaningful or personally involving, when people worked with friends or valued group members, when they expected co-workers to perform poorly on a meaningful task and when the group was small. The authors proposed a collective effort model: people work hard in groups when they expect their effort to matter for outcomes they value.
Cohesion
Mullen and Copper (1994) meta-analyzed studies of the relationship between group cohesiveness and performance. The relationship was positive but small. Of three components of cohesion, interpersonal attraction, group pride and commitment to the task, commitment to the task was the main driver of the relationship. Studies that allowed a test of direction suggested that performance influenced cohesion more strongly than cohesion influenced performance. The findings caution against expecting social activities to raise performance.
Collective Intelligence
Woolley et al. (2010) studied groups working on a range of tasks, from brainstorming to moral judgments to a complex architectural design problem. A single factor, which they called collective intelligence, explained a large share of variation in group performance across tasks and predicted performance on a later complex task. Collective intelligence was not strongly correlated with the average or maximum intelligence of group members. It was correlated with members' average social sensitivity, measured by a test of reading emotions from eyes; with the equality of conversational turn-taking, groups dominated by a few speakers performing worse; and with the proportion of women in the group, largely explained by women's higher scores on social sensitivity.
| Threat | Evidence of it | Research | Response |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unequal participation | Three engineers speak most | Woolley et al. (2010) | Round-robin input on key decisions; written input before reviews |
| Unprepared members | Materials unread | Karau and Williams (1993) | Each member owns and presents one section |
| Unused expertise | Mei and Tomás rarely speak | Woolley et al. (2010) | Leader asks for specific input; pairs present jointly |
| Social events planned to raise cohesion | Proposal from leadership | Mullen and Copper (1994) | Focus on shared task commitment instead |
Applying the Research
The design reviews suffer from both motivation and coordination losses. Members who arrive unprepared show the conditions for loafing: their individual contribution is not identified, since reviews discuss the design as a whole. Assigning each member a section to own and present makes contributions identifiable and, following the collective effort model, links effort to outcomes. Unequal participation is a coordination problem: the group is not drawing on all its members. Woolley and colleagues' findings suggest that groups where turns are distributed more equally perform better, so Hana will collect written input before reviews and use round-robin input on key decisions, ensuring Mei and Tomás are heard.
A Caution About Cohesion
Leadership suggested a team outing to build cohesion. Mullen and Copper's findings suggest this would have little effect on performance; commitment to the task matters more. Hana will instead strengthen task commitment by connecting the team's work to patients, for example by inviting a patient who uses a glucose monitor to a review.
Limits
Woolley and colleagues' groups worked on short tasks in a laboratory, and later attempts to replicate the collective intelligence factor have produced mixed results. Their finding about turn-taking is plausible and consistent with other research, but its size in real teams is uncertain.
Unshared Information
Groups often fail to use information that only one member holds. In meetings, members tend to discuss what everyone already knows, which feels validating, while unique information goes unmentioned. Tomás, the regulatory specialist, knows from a previous product which test data regulators scrutinized most; Mei has run bench tests that contradict an assumption the senior engineers share. Neither has raised these points. The structured practices proposed here, written input before reviews and round-robin input on key decisions, also help bring unique information into the open, since each member must contribute something before discussion begins. Woolley et al. (2010) found that groups dominated by a few speakers performed worse, and unshared information is one plausible reason.
Checking the Changes
The team will judge the changes by its own outputs: the number of design issues found in reviews rather than later in testing, the time from review to resolution and members' ratings of whether reviews used everyone's knowledge. Hana will also record how often each member speaks in reviews for the first two months, a simple measure of turn-taking.
Motivation and Meaning
The collective effort model suggests a further lever. Karau and Williams (1993) found that loafing shrinks when the task is meaningful and the group is valued. The team's work has obvious meaning, a device that helps people manage diabetes, but that meaning is rarely visible in design reviews, which focus on specifications. Hana will open each review with a brief reminder of the patient need behind the decisions on the agenda, and the patient visit will put a face to it. These steps also build commitment to the task, the component of cohesion that Mullen and Copper (1994) found most closely tied to performance.
Conclusion
Karau and Williams show how identifiable contributions reduce loafing, Mullen and Copper show that task commitment, not attraction, links cohesion to performance and Woolley and colleagues link group performance to social sensitivity and equal participation. For Hana's team, owned sections, structured turn-taking and attention to the task offer more than a team outing.
References
Karau, S. J., & Williams, K. D. (1993). Social loafing: A meta-analytic review and theoretical integration. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 65(4), 681-706. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.65.4.681
Mullen, B., & Copper, C. (1994). The relation between group cohesiveness and performance: An integration. Psychological Bulletin, 115(2), 210-227. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.2.210
Woolley, A. W., Chabris, C. F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N., & Malone, T. W. (2010). Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Science, 330(6004), 686-688. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1193147
Reading the EDP 814 Module 3 assignment instructions
Module 3 of EDP 814 typically asks for a paper on group performance. Follow the Module 3 instructions in your Aspen course; Hana's team is invented. Review research on factors that raise or lower group performance, including effort and cohesion. Apply the research to a specific group's performance problems. Propose changes and link each to findings. Explain how you would know whether the changes worked. Write in APA 7 with doctoral rigor, and distinguish losses from poor coordination from losses of motivation, since they call for different remedies. Where some members dominate discussion, consider whether the group is using all of its knowledge, since unequal participation is a coordination problem as well as a fairness one.
How the EDP 814 Module 3 example is put together
Hana, the composite team lead, sees that design reviews are dominated by three senior engineers while a junior engineer and a regulatory specialist rarely speak. Karau and Williams pooled dozens of loafing studies to show when the effect appears and when it vanishes. Mullen and Copper's Psychological Bulletin meta-analysis finds cohesion's link to performance driven by commitment to the task, with performance shaping cohesion as much as the reverse. Woolley and colleagues' Science article reports that groups with more equal conversational turn-taking and higher social sensitivity performed better across varied tasks. A four-row table pairs threats with responses. A section examines how the team shares information that only one member holds, and how results will be checked.
Where the marks sit in the EDP 814 Module 3 rubric
A strong group performance paper distinguishes kinds of performance loss and applies research precisely. This example separates motivation loss from unequal participation and uses each body of research for the problem it explains. The cohesion findings are reported carefully, including the direction of the relationship. The collective intelligence findings are applied to meeting practices with attention to their limits. Because every proposal carries both its source study and its yardstick, the analysis can be tested. It also addresses the risk that knowledge held by one member never reaches the group, a frequent source of poor decisions, and plans how the team's changes will be evaluated against its own review outcomes rather than assumed to work.
Common EDP 814 Module 3 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Group performance papers often recommend team-building to raise cohesion. Mullen and Copper found the link between cohesion and performance small and driven mainly by commitment to the task. Distinguish coordination losses from motivation losses. Use research on social loafing to make contributions identifiable and meaningful. Use research on collective intelligence to change how meetings run. Measure results. Remember information that only one member holds; discussion gravitates toward facts the whole group already shares. Check whether laboratory findings fit your group before applying them. Plan how you will measure whether changes improved performance, using the group's own outputs where possible. Avoid recommending social events as a performance fix without evidence.
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EDP 814 Module 3 questions, answered
What does EDP 814 Module 3 usually ask for?
Aspen's EDP 814 covers group performance in this module, so a paper applying research on effort, cohesion and group intelligence to one group is typical. Read your Module 3 prompt.
What is social loafing?
The tendency to exert less effort when working collectively than alone; Karau and Williams found it reduced when contributions are identifiable, the task is meaningful and the group is valued.
Does team cohesion improve performance?
Mullen and Copper found a small positive relationship, driven mainly by commitment to the task rather than interpersonal attraction, and stronger from performance to cohesion than the reverse.
Where can I find a free EDP 814 Module 3 sample paper?
This page holds the whole paper: research on loafing, cohesion and collective intelligence applied to one team, with a table of responses.
What is collective intelligence?
Woolley and colleagues' term for a general ability of groups to perform across tasks, linked to members' social sensitivity and equal turn-taking more than to individual intelligence.