  Emergent collective group processes and capabilities have been studied
through analysis of transactive memory, measures of group task performance, and
group intelligence, among others. In their approach to collective behaviors,
these approaches transcend traditional studies of group decision making that
focus on how individual preferences combine through power relationships, social
choice by voting, negotiation and game theory. Understanding more generally how
individuals contribute to group effectiveness is important to a broad set of
social challenges. Here we formalize a dynamic theory of interpersonal
communications that classifies individual acts, sequences of actions, group
behavioral patterns, and individuals engaged in group decision making. Group
decision making occurs through a sequence of communications that convey
personal attitudes and preferences among members of the group. The resulting
formalism is relevant to psychosocial behavior analysis, rules of order,
organizational structures and personality types, as well as formalized systems
such as social choice theory. More centrally, it provides a framework for
quantifying and even anticipating the structure of informal dialog, allowing
specific conversations to be coded and analyzed in relation to a quantitative
model of the participating individuals and the parameters that govern their
interactions.
