Psychology of management

Topic 8.Relationsbetween thepersonality and the group in management systems 
1
. The forms of group structures’ psychological impact on personality. 
2.
Social-and psychological phenomena of a personality’s behavior in a group. 
3.
Psychological compatibility in management structures. 
 
References 
1. Manfred K. de Wry. The Leadership Mystique: A User's Manual for the Human Enterprise. — 
М.: “Alpina Publisher”, 2011. – p. 276. 
2. J.F. Quinn The Importance of Compassion and Vision in Physician Leadership – College of 
Business, University of South Florida, Polytechnic. – 2012. – 189 р. 
3. Linda M. Pittenger Engaging IT professionals: Does Vision matter? - Embry Riddle. – 2011 – 
205 р. 
1. The forms of group structures’ psychological impact on personality 
Relations between the personality and the group seem to be quite complicated. For 
understanding and evaluating these relations one should take into account both personality traits, 
and the activity composition and character, as well as the group’s organizational level, and other, 
broader social entities. 
There are possible such situations when the interaction takes place in randomly 
appearing, spontaneously formed groups not united by substantial common activity. And these 
are usually not micro-groups, the dyads and the triads, but more numerous entities with unstable 
relations which appear for a short term often on an accidental pretext. In similar situations there 
appear such ways of people’s communication, as contagion, imitation, suggestion, and 
conviction. They are also called mass-states typical for entities like “mass”, “crowd”, etc. The 
appearance of such states is influenced by the media, the mass-culture (pop-music, for instance), 
mass forms of leisure pass-time (for example, football fans), advertising, fashion, forms of 
religious propaganda, and others. So what are these ways of influence? 

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Contagion is a kind of influence which integrates the members of a single group or large 
masses of people on emotional basis. Successful fulfillment of a task causes enthusiasm of all 
group-members. History recorded many cases of emotional contagion of masses: religious 
ecstasies (the crusades, auto-da-fes); mass psychoses on the grounds of rumors of fires or 
epidemics; sport excitements; young audiences’ ecstasies at rock- and pop-music concerts, and 
others. Contagion appears on the basis of unconscious, involuntary susceptibility of a person to 
certain emotional states: anger, aggression, rejoicing, excitement, panic, and so on. What takes 
place here is not conscious analysis of a situation or behavior patterns, but transmission of 
mental states. Because this phenomenon appears among the multitude of individuals, here acts 
the mechanism of mutual amplification of communicating people’s emotional influences. 
A special situation where the impact through contagion amplifies is 
panic
(from Greek 
Pan
– the god of woods, the patron of flocks and herdsmen causing terror in people with his ugly 
appearance). A pretext for panic can be any news causing emotional shock. In the absence of 
organizing force (for example, a strong-willed executive) panic gains strength triggering the 
mechanism of mutual multiple contagion. In modern time there was observed many times panic 
caused by expectation od “the end of the world”, “alien invasion”, etc. In such emotional state 
people often experience visual and aural hallucinations, as a result of which hundreds of people 
“testify” of “saints’ appearance” or “Martians’ landing”. For any person who finds oneself in the 
situation of panic it is difficult to realize its reasons, for they appear to be personally involved in 
this state to a greater or lesser extent. The knowledge of panic’s causes and cycles is important 
for preventing it. Persons capable of controlling the mass, especially law-enforcement officers 
should possess will-power traits and be able to introduce the element of rational analysis into the 
panic situation, to seize leadership n this situation, and to demonstrate an example of 
corresponding reasonable behavior which people will follow and return to a normal emotional 
state. 
Among the reasons causing emotional contagion should be noted the following: 
1. Development of a certain community of appraisals, attitudes intrinsic to a mass of 
people. For example, in mass performances the stimulus preceding emotional contagion of the 
audience is the applause at pop-musician. Specially developed methods of mass influence 
(processions, music, singing, slogans, colours, etc.) serve in combination to involve people into a 
state of emotional enthusiasm. Emotional contagion can serve as an additional uniting factor 
until it exceeds some optimal intensity. Nevertheless, going out of control, mutual contagion 

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may lead to disintegration of normal and informal-and-role structures and to the turning of an 
organizingly interacting group into a crowd. 
2. The general level of intellectual and moral development level of personalities 
comprising the given community. The higher the development level of a society, the more 
critical is people’s attitude to the forces trying to entice them on the way of certain experiences 
and the weaker is the manifestation of contagion mechanism. 
The phenomenon of contagion is viewed mostly in conditions of spontaneous antisocial 
behavior (catastrophes, natural disasters). But this mechanism acts also in conditions of mass 
socially conscious actions – social movements. The role of contagion is also seen in organized 
socially benign behavior (for instance, the role of personal example in tensed production 
situation, in military sutrroundings). It is possible that in such cases there is manifested 
compensatory function of contagion in conditions of insufficient organizing of human 
communities.