Key characteristics include strong communication, mutual trust and respect, shared goals and values, a collaborative spirit, and effective conflict resolution abilities. These traits ensure that team members work harmoniously towards common objectives.

Definitions and associated conceptual frameworks usually summarise social cohesion as collective attributes and behaviours characterised by positive social relations, a sense of identification or belonging, and an orientation towards the common good.

Team cohesion is a multi-faceted process that can be broken down into four main aspects: multidimensionality, instrumental basis, dynamic, and emotional nature. Multidimensionality is related to all the different factors that make the group members function as one. The dynamic nature means that the team goals and objectives change over time.

This definition implies several characteristics of cohesion that include an ability to change over the span of group development (i.e., dynamic), a focus on both task (i.e., instrumental objectives) and social aspects of the group (i.e., member affective needs), and, relatedly, an assumption that it is multidimensional.