Coping with Young Self-Absorbed Group Members

The previous study by Kearns and Brown used 200 volunteer participants attending a community AA program to determine what variables could distinguish between newcomers to the program, chronic relapsers and endurers. The discriminant analysis produced a factor that accounted for 80% of the variance with the group deviancy score on the GSQ loading at 0.69 and age as -0.84. This factor was termed “young and self-absorbed”. Presented here as a follow-up and guide for group leaders are the behavioral indicators and suggestions for coping with these behaviors to lessen their negative impact on the group, the members, the leader, and to prevent that member from being harmed in the group.