Group research trends in social and organizational psychology: Whatever Happened to Intragroup Research?

Abstract

We report the results of an archival study of group research published in three organizational psychology journals (Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and Academy of Management Journal) from 1975 through 1994. Moreland, Hogg, and Hains (1994), in a review of three social psychology journals (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin), suggested there is an increasing enthusiasm for the social psychological study of groups. However, their data indicated that enthusiasm for group research in social psychology may be primarily due to the popularity of one category, intergroup relations We tested the proposal that research traditionally viewed as intragroup (e.g., group performance) has been taken up by organizational psychologists. Our data support this contention, as the publication pattern for intragroup research topics in the three organizational journals was an inverse of that reported by Moreland et al. Results are discussed in terms of historical and interdisciplinary trends within psychology.