Understanding Group Dynamics

Violence in America: Rating System

By: Morgan Carlson, Jeannette Rodriguez, Chassidy Cheree, Blake Honigblum, and Anna McCaffrey

December 14, 2011

COMM 1306.01 Dr. Lori Peterson

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Group projects are always difficult. No matter what the subject is, or if it occurs throughout junior high, high school, or college, they are always a great challenge. Just the fact that this project was based on working as a small group made it a challenging assignment, but not impossible. A small group consists of three to fifteen people who share a common purpose, feel a sense of belonging, and exert influence on one another (Beebe 233). In our small group, we had a goal, to complete and deliver our presentation over our assignment. Although we may not have know much about one another, we felt like we belonged, and we all had a mutual influence upon on another throughout the course of this project. The bigger the group, the greater the challenge, especially since problems arise from schedule conflicts to lack of communication. In our case, our group consisted of five members, although it may seem like a small number, it was still enough for us to have a variety of difficulties, especially with scheduling a time in which we could all meet since everyone had different schedules. Seeing as this is a communication class, one would think that classmates would be more efficient while communicating. However, we are all students and even have trouble keeping track of our own general duties. Our group may not have spent a lot of time together, but we all diligently worked hard by putting time and effort into our parts. In the end, it all came together nicely. To start off, our group was more or less thrown together. We did not know each other, but for strangers we worked well together. At first, we had trouble coordinating our group together. We did not have all of our group members in class at once to meet up and exchange contact information. So we already had a rocky start. When we were finally able to meet up all together, we were

Understanding Group Dynamics 3 able to establish our topic. We had all thought of different ideas and told the group about them, but none of us had enough information to put together a complete presentation on our topics. However, Blake took the reins from here as he suggested a good idea for our project involving violence in the media with a focus on the ratings system and how it has changed over time. Along with our topic, we discussed the idea that Blake suggested of how violence is more acceptable than sex in the rating system of America while in Europe, sex is more acceptable than violence on the movie screens. No one suggested any roles; they just emerged naturally and evolved as time went on. In our group, each member played a significant role and contributed to our goal of completing a good and organized presentation over our topic. Everyone, including the leader attained task roles. Task roles are behaviors that help the group achieve its goal by gathering and sharing research conclusions with the group (Beebe 239). The reason why everyone had a task role was due to the fact that we divided the work equally into sections; therefore, everyone was assigned a specific task for our overall presentation. Yet there are more than just leaders and task roles. Social roles also came into place within the group members. Social roles tend to manage relationships and also affect the group climate (Beebe 239). They also help with resolving conflict and further enhance the flow of communication (Beebe 239). The first role that appeared was that of the leader, in this case it was Blake. Not only did he play the role of the leader, but also the task role of the initiator, information giver, and elaborator. Jeannette and Morgan took on social roles as well as task roles. Jeannette had several task roles such as the opinion giver, coordinator, and last but not least, the evaluator. Jeannettes social role mainly involved being the compromiser.

Understanding Group Dynamics 4 When it came down to the presentation, and information that was going to be presented, Jeannette always reviewed the information first. By doing this, she would give each member her opinion, as she coordinated the information of the presentation. As the compromiser, she usually settled the meeting times by making a compromise that better fitted everyones needs. Morgan had her task roles as procedural technician and the orienter. Her social roles were the harmonizer, encourager, as well as tension reliever. As the procedural technician and orientor, Morgan made sure that everyone was on the same page in regards to the research and presentation and getting everyone to turn in their sections in due time. When time was tight, she always had the calming words needed to settle down tensions regarding our progress. Chassidy and Anna had task roles of information seekers and information givers as they mainly focused on gathering information for the individual section that was assigned to them. Well as it was stated earlier in the paper our group had a really hard time scheduling a meeting time that was conducive to all of our schedules. So with this as a weighing issue we only met as a whole group once. When we met, everyone sat around a table and shared ideas for our project. One person would speak and then there was a pause and another would speak. There was no particular order but non-verbal cues directed the interaction. Everyone was polite in their effort to communicate their ideas. There were no distracting movements or activities; everyone had their full attention on the task at hand. Although we did not meet at a whole group after that, we did have to maintain our communication effort. If Jeanette or Morgan sent out a text message or email requesting information each of the group members made it a priority to respond as soon as possible.

Understanding Group Dynamics 5 Although we had very few norms, they were mostly all informal. We never had to verbally explain how important it was to respond to emails promptly, or allow everyone to have an equal opportunity to share ideas or suggestions. We were able, after a few setbacks, create a wonderful project and communicate effectively as a group. Status and power were both distributed in the group. Blake, who emerged as the leader amongst our group had a high status. He really did a lot of research and made sure that he had evidence to back up claims. He also had good suggestions for all of us, giving us guidance in regards to what we could talk about for each individual section. As a result of his great knowledge, Blake had expert power. People who have expert power are perceived as informed or knowledgeable (Beebe 245).Jeannette followed right after Blake with power. She did not have a high status as a leader, but she also had expert power as well since she was chosen as the most computer knowledgeable person with PowerPoint presentations. Therefore, as the person in charge of the PowerPoint presentation, she would constantly be reminding every group member about deadlines, as well as informing everyone of our progress. At first, power and status was distributed mainly through age, since Blake and Jeannette were the oldest among the group and the most knowledgeable in some areas. But as time went on, Morgan jumped in and helped make sure that everything was getting done. Morgan attained a different type of power than that of Blake and Jeannette. She attained the referent power. Referent power is achieved when people like you, hence having a greater influence upon each member. Since Morgan had better likeable style of communicating that was easy to the ear, she was able to influence others to get their sections turned in, which gave her power over the coordination of our group effort.

Understanding Group Dynamics 6 Overall, power was divided between Blake, Jeannette, and Morgan. Blake got the ball rolling and gave everyone direction as to where to go with his or her parts. Jeannette had the responsibility of the PowerPoint and also had the power to alter or change peoples information based on the relevance and appropriateness to the subject. And Morgan had power because she got all of us to coordinate and send our information to Jeannette. Also, if we had questions about our topic we would knew we could rely on Blake, Morgan, and Jeannette. The communication amongst our group at first relied on a wheel network. Jeannette being the person in charge of the PowerPoint was the central piece to this communication mechanism. Everyone turned in their portions to Jeannette. Jeannette then gave feedback to the members in regards to the progress. Yet this form of communication quickly diminished. As students who tend to procrastinate to the last minute, most team members were unable to get their slides in on the deadline in which our group had assigned. When this happened, there was a lack of communication; group members were not reporting their status to Jeannette. Blake, being the first person to send his portion in a timelier manner than the rest, was the person whom Jeannette consulted with. It was at this point that the wheel network dissolved and a chain network began. Jeannette asked Blakes opinion in regards to the progress of the group project, not only was he the first to turn in his slides, but was also seen as the leader of the group. Blake, understanding that sometimes as students we leave things for the last minute, suggested waiting calmly until 5 PM. Soon afterwards, Morgan gets in contact, and then the chain network continues. Morgan gets a hold of Chassidy. Jeannette seeks Anna, and soon

Understanding Group Dynamics 7 enough, our poor communication improved within a matter of hours. By this time, the PowerPoint was only partially done, as some of the members were still continuing to work on it. The clock was ticking, and our presentation got closer. Due to the limitation of time and schedule conflict, we were unable to have a meeting before the presentation. This caused a sense of lack in cohesiveness. In order to make up for the lack of a full group meeting that we didnt have before the presentation, we met in pairs. Morgan met with Jeannette and discussed her part of the PowerPoint as well as what direction she was going to take with her pro-side. Morgan then met with Chassidy who was in charge of the con-side. Morgan would keep Jeannette posted on the progress that she and Chassidy had. Jeannette then reached out to Anna. Anna was unable to meet with anyone even though efforts were made to schedule a meeting as pairs. Jeannette was left to trust Anna with her work ethic as well as her abilities to present well. Jeannette would then inform Blake of the status of the presentation and the progress that was made. Soon, after failing at having a wheel network, and adapting a chain network in the process, all the portions of the presentation were submitted to Jeannette. Jeannette put all of our slides together to make the PowerPoint, and made sure everything went well. Once the final presentation was made, Jeannette emailed everyone a copy of the PowerPoint. Now all that was left to wait was to present the material we had to the class. Although our interaction pattern was not consistent throughout the process, it was not an utter failure. It was amazing seeing how our wheel network clashed, and how we quickly adapted to another pattern of communication in order to achieve our goal of completing our presentation. Blake stepped it up a notch by having a backup plan in case all else failed. Jeannette, in collaboration with Morgan, got the rest of the group flowing. Our

Understanding Group Dynamics 8 way of communicating towards the end may have seemed as a bit disorganized, but with the efforts of Morgan reaching out to Chassidy, Jeannette reaching out to Anna, and Blake prepared for what may come, we pulled through and managed to bring forth an excellent group presentation. Our journey together as a group can be further analyzed in the four stages of group development: Orientation, conflict, emergence, and reinforcement. Our group started off in the orientation stage. The orientation stage did not last long, and came to an end after everyone started to feel more comfortable around one another. During the orientation stage we voiced a little bit about ourselves to the group, so everyone had an idea of where we came from and the direction we wanted to go for the remainder of college. Once we felt at ease with one another, we transitioned to the conflict stage where we had to collaborate as a group to narrow down our topic of Violence in the Media. Although this was our conflict stage, which normally tends to cause some group dilemmas, our group generally agreed with the topic, and had a mutual understanding as to what and where we wanted to go with this proposal for our presentation. Although it is harder to get everyone to agree upon a topic within a topic, everyone seemed pleased with our final choice. It was astonishing to see how smoothly the conflict stage went. We all decided the topic of the rating system would be the best way to condense our presentation into 20 minutes while still getting the broader point of how we were all affected by violence in the media. Everyone agreed and we moved on. We then transitioned into the emergence stage and started to figure out the strengths of each other and go from there to assigning each person with topics to cover

Understanding Group Dynamics 9 for the class presentation. The emergence stage went really quickly and efficiently because everyone pretty much had an idea of what he or she wanted going into the discussion, and, fortunately enough it worked out wonderfully. From the emergence stage, we move on to the reinforcement stage. During the reinforcement stage we assigned a due date for each of our slides to be completed. We also assigned a person to do the power point. We all decided that two days before our presentation would suffice as the due date without any backlash from team members. We then had to have another discussion to figure out which team member was the most computer literate, and Jeannette happily took the task on and did a fantastic job in putting the PowerPoint together. Everyone ended up completing his or her section with great content. We also discussed how the presentation would be laid out and how long each one of us was going to speak. This went just like the previous, efficiently and without any problem. Each one of our group members did a great job sticking to the plan and presenting his or her topic area clearly and within the time constraints. The most amazing accomplishment during the entire group project was that we never once got stuck or had any problems with one another. We did have a little rough spot towards the end, but we all worked together to make the best that we could out of the situation and bring forth a great presentation. There was never a conflict stage that presented an obstacle that we could not overcome within a short amount of time and never a decision that was not fully supported by the entire group. This group was a joy to work with and the stages transitioned seamlessly. As a group, we managed to pull all of our material together fairly well. Because the group was made up of classmates who would not normally go out of their way to speak to

Understanding Group Dynamics 10 each other, there was a unanimous feeling that everyone could contribute their own part to the group by themselves. This style of thinking brought the group to assign parts to everyone so that equal weight could be pulled by everyone. Each member completed their work on their own time and turned it over to one member so she could put them all together. Once everyone had done their part, the entire project was effectively tied together and we successfully covered all of the points we needed to. Gathering information and forming the PowerPoint proved to be successful for everyone. When it was time to bring forth our presentation to class, everyone was ready to give it their all. Every person in the group was able to fully explain their research and ideas, and in that aspect the group was successful. The only thing that raised some concerns throughout our presentation was Anna. She seemed to be sick, which affected her way of presenting the material. There were also some minor problems that resulted from our group communication method. Since we didnt get to have a full group meeting prior to the presentation, our presentation was lacking in fluidity. This partially resulted since we met in pairs, leaving some people unaware of what would go next. Yet the beauty about it was that we were all ready to jump in to help each other out. Although our presentation in matters of fluidity was a little rough, we were not unsuccessful. In fact, we could have coordinated our information better as a group, but in regards to the message we wanted to send, our group successfully conveyed the information, facts, and new ideas to our audience. Because we were able to get our message across, we were overall successful seeing as our assignment was to communicate as a group. Whether we were truly effective or not depends on what the audience gained from our presentation. Because we made a successful and logical argument, our group should

Understanding Group Dynamics 11 have been effective. Everyone in the room was presented with the thought that ratings for American movies may be too strict in some areas and too lax in others. They were also faced with facts and ideas that backed up our claims. Not only did we bring out facts involving the issue, but also presented a solution for this problem. Because we presented a problem and a solution, our entire presentation can be viewed as effective. Together, as a group we were able to complete our assignment. Group projects are always a challenge. Throughout our process, we came about small issues here and there, yet whatever difficulty it was, we worked together and surpassed it. If we were to be faced with another group project, we know that we will succeed because we were an effective group that found success towards the end. Group projects may be a great challenge, but they are not impossible, and our group along with the work we presented is proof of that.

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Work Cited Beebe, S.A., Beebe, S.I., & Ivy, D.K. (2004). Communication principles for a lifetime. Boston: Allyn & Bacon