Socio-emotional acts such as personal feelings and thoughts led to greater member awareness. For instance, in Team A, Vernon’s sharing that he found “good stuff’ for the task and his assertion for the points, led the other group members to believe that he was enthusiastic about the task and potentially willing to take charge of compiling the proj ect. Subsequently, Don checked with Vernon if he could compile the project which Vernon readily agreed to. Conversely, in Team B, which had very little socio-emotional activity, members in team B felt lost several times during the project discussion process. They were unaware of what other members were doing and frequently had to clarify and ascertain what they should do. Thus, socio-emotional discussion is positively related to member awareness (p5).
In a group discussion, when members realized they were not aware of what was going on, they would turn to discuss about the procedure and order of the subtask. This helped them to become clearer about the ongoing progress ofthe project. Especially in Team B, the lack of member awareness prompted them to discuss about group norms and rules to guide the progress of the discussion. Thus, member awareness is negatively related to norms and rules acts (p6).
Norms and rules are also affected by leader emergence. As a leader emerges in the group, the operation rules and procedures are made explicit by the leader. Typically, the leader informs the group members of how things should be done and asserts his or her authority at the same time. The proposition is leader emergence is positively associated with norms and rules acts (p7). Leader emergence also coincided with task-related acts. From the cases, we see that the leader demonstrated his leadership by arguing for his point (Team A), or showing his capabilities in summarizing and organizing (Team B and C). Therefore, leader emergence is positively associated with task — related acts (p8).
From the case analysis we find that groups that were lower in conformity were more likely to have leader emergence. For instance, members in team B did not follow group norms such as active participation and a leader emerged. Thus we find that conformity is inversely related to leader emergence (p9).