Class Questions Round 2

Book report questions, part two!  Forgive me, but this post can also be entitled, Emily rants about group projects.  Oh.  Well.

Also, apparently on the day that I missed class it was decided that we are only supposed to answer one of these questions.  Once again, I will say, oh well.

• How can incentives impact the dynamics of a group or community?

First off, I think that incentives always impact the dynamics of a group or community.  If there is some incentive, people will think about what will be the most beneficial for themselves.  For example, let's say there is a competition, whoever gets the highest grade in this class will earn a full ride scholarship for the next year.  Would you be more willing to help people out?  If there was not a chance that you could obtain that incentive, you might be more willing to help out your friends to help them reach that goal, but if you had the chance to win that incentive yourself, I doubt many of us would be helping out our competition.

The opposite is true though, if we were told that if everyone in class got an A, we would all receive a full ride scholarship, wouldn't you believe that we would all work together?  I would be all over these blog posts correcting grammar and giving ideas so that we were all successful in the end.

• What are some the costs and benefits of group participation (compare that to individual action)?

Oh gosh group projects.  Can I bring up group projects here?  Please forgive me as I get up on a soapbox here.  Groups have the potential to do so much good.  The concept of being able to work together with other people to create things and come up with ideas that one person couldn't come up with on their own sounds wonderful.  That would be the benefit, doing things that one person cannot do on their own either because they haven't come up with the idea or they cannot complete the idea on their own.

Quite often though, I've encountered the major cost of group participation, not being able to finish that idea due to someone in the group who doesn't do their work.  I am not the kind of person who waits until the last minute to put something together, but in college I've come across so many people who believe that there is nothing wrong with putting off projects until the last minute. 

In my Comms 230 class my freshman year, the end of the year was rapidly approaching along with the deadline for our final project.  I asked for everyone to submit their portion of the project by Saturday night so that I could put our entire book together by Tuesday morning.  I received the last piece of that project on Monday night at 1:30 AM.  My group brought me donuts the next day because they felt bad.  All of them slept that night, but the group participation forced me to take a hit for the team.  Honestly, I could have done better on that project but by 5 AM I just didn't care anymore.  That is my main hang up with group work.  People put things off, and then it hurts another person in the group in the end.

Okay, that's it.  End soapbox rant.

• What are the effects of consensus in a group?

Communication!  If there isn't a consensus in a group, I feel that it can dramatically decrease successful communication between group members.  If people are not able to agree on the details of what the group should be doing it will make it more difficult for things to get done and will create tension in the group.  In one class that I took my group decided to not agree on when to meet to complete a group project.  When they finally did decide on a time to meet, they chose to meet while I was at work and would not change the time no matter what I said. We did not do that well on that project due to that poor decision.  Which goes back to my idea that sometimes waiting until the last minute to do a project is not a good idea.

• Is it better to be apart of a large group/community or a small group/community?

Well, it depends on what group you are talking about.  I love having a large group of friends.  I used to have a group of about 20 people that I always would hang out with.  This large community meant that someone was always there for me and I was always there for someone.  I loved that community.  However, if we are still talking about group workings, I think a smaller group is better.  If you are trying to assign tasks for people to accomplish in a group, it is more difficult to work in a larger group or community.  It's easier to keep track of only a few people.

I guess I would summarize that statement by saying that large groups or communities are best for making sure that everyone has a connection to the group while smaller groups provide a tighter group that is better for making sure that things get done.

• How do social pressures effect the dynamics of a group?

This question is so broad that I don't even know how to begin to answer it.  Social pressures influence everything about how groups interact.  It's unlikely that one person will push against the social pressures of the world, it is more likely that a group of people will fight against those established social pressures and establish their own group with new social pressures.

Really though, how am I supposed to summarize that?  Social pressures are EVERYTHING.  They keep groups working smoothly.