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Your Team as a Reference Group
What psychology tells us to focus on, instead of Trust.
When you read about creating great teams, a lot of stress is put on building trust between team members. Psychological research into Reference Groups, however, tells us otherwise. Find out where to start instead.
When we perceive other people’s views of us, we handle different views differently. We actively value one view over another and even try to manipulate other people’s views of us to try and influence our self-perception. Comparing ourselves to others is called social comparison and the group of people we compare ourselves against is called the reference group.
Our reference groups can differ a lot, depending on the social environment we find ourselves in. Thus, we feel different at work than at the sports club. Research has shown that we tend to focus on traits that set us apart from the rest of the group. When thinking about ourselves at work we might focus on being the only woman on the team or being the youngest team member, while at the sports club we might focus on being the slowest or the strongest. If you play sports in a women-only team, it doesn’t cross your mind that you’re a woman because the entire reference group is also female. Likewise, at work, it won’t cross your mind that you can type pretty fast since all your colleagues…
