Online IOP for College Students and Emerging Adults in MA

CE/CME Courses

The Psychology of Online Groups and Communities

1 CE/CME Credit
Instructor: Anita L. Blanchard, PhD
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Researchers have studied online groups and communities since the 1990s. However, it was the start of the COVID-19 global pandemic that caused many organizations and their employees to widely adopt virtual communication for the typical employee. Many organizations, like hospitals and nursing centers, cannot work remotely, but still may be more widely adopting video interactions to support virtual teams.
This presentation addresses some of the well-known research about face-to-face groups, teams, and community to apply them to online groups and communities. We will discuss entitativity a person’s feelings of “groupyness” as the foundation of all successful groups; the role of belongingness, norms, conflict, and trust in successful groups; and the emerging importance of copresence and physical distance in our understanding of the members of our virtual groups, teams, and communities.