Activities

1. To enrich your understanding of the chapter, check out:

   LearningCurve for adaptive quizzing for the chapter.

   The “Browse Resources for this Unit” tab to view videos illustrating key concepts.

2. Question

   Consider a group to which you belong—your communication class, your family, your religious community, and so on. Draw a chart that depicts members of the group and the patterns of communication among them. What kind of network does the group most closely resemble?

   Consider a group to which you belong—your communication class, your family, your religious community, and so on. Draw a chart that depicts members of the group and the patterns of communication among them. What kind of network does the group most closely resemble?

3. Question

   Read up on the history of some influential but now defunct music group (such as the Beatles, Public Enemy, or Nirvana). Did the group go through all the stages of group development outlined in this chapter? How did the group determine roles and establish norms? How did members deal with conflict? How did the eventual disbanding of the group play out?

4. Question

   Consider the adjourning phase of group development for a group you were part of that disbanded—Scouts, a sports team, the school newspaper staff—and think about what aspects of the group made for the hardest good-bye from the group. Are high-performing groups hardest to leave? Groups with the clearest established norms? What sorts of closing rituals have you experienced?

   Consider the adjourning phase of group development for a group you were part of that disbanded—Scouts, a sports team, the school newspaper staff—and think about what aspects of the group made for the hardest good-bye from the group. Are high-performing groups hardest to leave? Groups with the clearest established norms? What sorts of closing rituals have you experienced?

5. Question

   The telephone game, passing a message from person to person, is fun simply because of the inevitable message distortion that gets revealed at the end. Can you think of a time when a message was passed to you from an indirect source that you discovered to be blatantly wrong? Maybe it was bungled homework instructions or a wrong meeting time or place. Given these sorts of problems, what type of workplace might function best with a chain network?

6. Question

   Analyze the group dynamics from five of your favorite television shows. See if you can identify the various social and antigroup role types in each of the groups.

7. Question

   Next time you work in a group, pay attention to how the group works. Does the activity follow a linear model, or is the activity punctuated by periods of inertia and periods of intense activity? How does the group activity pattern differ from your own behaviors when you work alone?