The purpose of the descriptive research presented in this article was to investigate the process of these emergence, transmission, and acceptance in a system of interacting groups. Twenty-five sessions of a group relations conference were audiotaped and transcribed, and a content analysis was performed on the final sessions to determine the themes that had gained acceptance during the conference. The identified themes were competition, acceptance-ejection, anger, differences-labels, and seduction. These themes were traced through all 25 sessions to determine when they emerged and how they were transmitted from group to group. Themes did not emerge randomly, nor were they initiated or transmitted by influential members or leaders. There are similar patterns of emergence and transmission within similar group types, across group types, and within the system as a whole. Although some variation does exist, there are discernible patters, and these patterns resemble those describe in the literature on group development.
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