Individuals who possess special abilities, skills, and knowledge relative to the group task have the potential to make important contributions to group performance. The degree to which this potential is realized depends on the behaviors of those persons. These behaviors are determined, in part, by the individual characteristics of group members (Mann, 1959;Bouchard, 1969) and in part by the particular assembly of persons (Rosenberg et al., 1955). The important question, however, is what kinds of behaviors influence performance in groups. In an earlier study (Shaw et al., 1979), an attempt was made to identify some of the behaviors of group members that are related to their own performance and to the performance of other group members. The results supported the hypothesis that giving information, ideas, and opinions to the group is positively correlated with the perception by others in the group that the member is facilitating group performance, whereas asking for information and opinions is positively related to objective measures of facilitation of group performance. AUTHORS' NOTE: We wish to express our deep appreciation to the University of Florida Medical and Dental Classes of 1981 and 1982. Without their approval and cooperation these studies would have been impossible. The project was partially supported under Contract SP20/77A by the National Fund for Medical Education.
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