Editing Communication in small groups (section)

===Idea development===
Another milestone in the study of group discussion content was early 1960s work by communication researchers Thomas Scheidel and Laura Crowell regarding the process by which groups examine individual proposed solutions to their problem.<ref>Scheidel, T. M., & Crowell, L. (1964). Idea development in small discussion groups. ''Quarterly Journal of Speech, 50,'' 140-145.</ref> They concluded that after a proposal is made, groups discuss it in an implied attempt to determine their "comfort level" with it and then drop it in lieu of a different proposal. In a procedure akin to the survival of the fittest, proposals viewed favorably would emerge later in discussion, whereas those viewed unfavorably would not; the authors referred to this process as "spiraling."  Although there are serious methodological problems with this work, other studies have led to similar conclusions. For example, in the 1970s, social psychologist L. Richard Hoffman noted that odds of a proposal's acceptance is strongly associated with the arithmetical difference between the number of utterances supporting versus rejecting that proposal. More recent work has shown that groups differ substantially in the extent to which they spiral.<ref>Hoffman, L. R. (1979). ''The group problem-solving process''. New York: Praeger.</ref> Additional developments have taken place within group communication theory as researchers move away from conducting research on zero-history groups, and toward a "bona fide" groups perspective. The bona fide group, as described by Linda L. Putnam and Cynthia Stohl in 1990, fosters a sense of interdependence among the members of the group, along with specific boundaries that have been agreed upon by members over time.<ref>Putnam, L. L., & Stohl, C. (1990). Bona fide groups: A reconceptualization of groups in context. ''Communication Studies, 41, 3,'' 248-265.</ref> This provides researchers with model of group behavior that stays true to the characteristics displayed by most naturally occurring groups, (s).