In addition to interviewing and participating, we spent a good deal of time in observing the interaction of the various people who make up the restau… - William Foote Whyte

As I later thought about the bowling contest, I became convinced I had discovered something important: the relationship between individual performance and group structure. I believed then (and still believe now) that this relationship can be observed in all manner of group activities.

One may generalize upon these processes in terms of group equilibrium. The group may be said to be in equilibrium when the interactions of its members fall into the customary pattern through which group activities are and have been organized. The pattern of interactions may undergo certain modifications without upsetting the group equilibrium, but abrupt and drastic changes destroy the equilibrium.

Without this combination of research methods, it is hard to imagine how this theoretical advance could have been achieved. If I had only relied on the anthropological studies, I would not have believed a student's report when professional anthropologists provided conflicting interpretations of the same community. Relying on the survey data alone, it would not have occurred to me to check the correlations between perceptions of conflict and perceptions of cooperation. If I had found a zero correlation, I could not have known how to interpret it.