The proposition that covert roles within a group are assigned to individual group members based on their propensity to verbally or nonverbally express certain patterns of unwanted, disowned, and projected emotions that are experienced as threatening by other members is examined. The analysis focuses on (a) articulating a model for describing how group members' emotions are collectively projected into a single member, resulting in covert roles; (b) describing a method for analyzing covert roles; and (c) presenting researchable propositions derivable from the model of covert role analysis.
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