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Theoretical Commitments Presupposed by Functional Approaches to Group Discussion

University of Delaware

Functional theory is theory in which the central core includes a description of attributes that lead to good consequencesfor, and/or that satisfy agoal of, a system or the system's designer or user. The application of functional theory to small group discussion requires the theorist to make two types of theoretical commitments. First, functional theories should include scientific functional explanations. Second, finctional theories should include a description of necessary discussionfunctions on one and only one level of abstraction. Three well-known functional approaches to group discussion, those of Benne and Sheats, Bales, and Hirokawa, are described, and the two commitment requirements are applied to these approaches. All three approaches are shown to contain incomplete explanations and to describe functions on different levels of abstraction.

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