Page 215 - Essentials of Human Communication

194 Chapter 10 Members and Leaders in Small Group Communication

Objectives self-Check
● Can you explain the role of culture in small group communication?
● Can you define and distinguish between individual and collective orientations and between
high-power and low-power distances?

For politeness in the workplace,
see the self-test on this topic at
http://tcbdevito.blogspot.com. Members in small Group Communication
How did you do? What will
you do? Each of us serves many roles, patterns of behaviors that we customarily perform and
that we’re expected by others to perform. Javier, for example, is a part-time college student,
father, bookkeeper, bowling team captain, and sometime poet. That is, he acts as a student—
attends class, reads textbooks, takes exams, and does the things we expect of college students.
He also performs those behaviors associated with fathers, bookkeepers, and so on. In a simi-
lar way, you develop relevant ways of behaving when participating in small groups. Before
reading about these roles, take the accompanying self-test, “What Kind of Group Member
Are You?”

test YourseLf

What Kind of Group Member are You?
For each statement below, respond with T if the statement is often true of your group behavior or F if the state-
ment generally does not apply to your group behavior.
_____ ➊ I present new ideas and suggest new strategies.
_____ ➋ I ask for facts and opinions.
_____ ➌ I stimulate the group.

_____ ➍ I give examples and try to look for positive solutions.
_____ ➎ I positively reinforce group members.
_____ ➏ I try to reconcile differences.
_____ ➐ I go along with the other members.

_____ ➑ I offer compromises as ways of resolving conflict.
_____ ➒ I express negative evaluation of the actions and feelings of the group members.
_____ ➓ I try to run the group.
_____ 11 I express personal perspectives and feelings.

_____ 12 I express confusion or deprecate myself.
HOw dId YOu dO? As you’ll see as you read further, these behaviors are characteristic of the three general
types of group member roles. The first four statements refer to your taking on group task roles, and the next
four refer to your taking on group building and maintenance roles. Both of these types of roles are productive.
The final four refer to your taking an individual rather than a group focus; these are the behaviors that often
work against the group achieving its goals.

wHat wIll YOu dO? As you read the sections in the text on member roles, try to relate these roles to your
own behavior or to group behavior you’ve witnessed. Then ask yourself what worked and what didn’t work.
Which roles were productive, and which ones were unproductive?