Two Investigations of the Relationships among Group Goals,Goal Commitment,Cohesion, and Performance

This paper presents two studies exploring the operation of group cohesion and goal processes (difficulty and commitment) on group performance. The results from the first study, using a sample of college students in naturally occurring groups, revealed significant relationships among these variables and suggested that goals are the more immediate determinants of performance, mediating the effects of cohesion on performance. The second study employed a different design and task to address some limitations of the first study and to replicate those findings. The results from the second study were highly consistent with the first. The implications of these findings are discussed.