Psychosomatic Medicine 25:245-252 (1963)
© 1963 American Psychosomatic Society

Affective Orientation and Physiological Activity (GSR) in Small Peer Groups

¹ Baylor University College of Medicine and Houston State Psychiatric Institute

The relationships that comprise small groups of peers present to the participants a web of interpersonal attractions, repulsions, and indifferences. In the present investigation it was hypothesized that, when a strong affective orientation (positive or negative) exists between members of a group, the affective response of these members to the pattern of interpersonal activity in the group will covary, and this covariation of affective response will be reflected in the covariation of their autonomic (GSR) activity.

The data collected from three 4-man groups, each of which met for five sessions, were analyzed on the basis of the affective tone (positive, negative, neutral) of the groups' component relationships. They indicated that: physiological covariation was more likely to occur among members of sociometrically determined positive and negative pairs than among neutral pair members; subjects' GSR activity was associated with their own social behavior when it was directed to positive or negative social objects to a greater extent than when directed toward neutral social objects; the latter relationship held for socioemotional behavior but not for instrumental activity or total activity.