chapter 9 (social friendship groups)

THEORY OF COMMUNICATION - CHAPTER 9

Group 5

SOCIAL FRIENDSHIP GROUPS

Presenter: Minh Sang

Social Friendship Groups

A social friendship group is composed of friends who have a genuine concern about each

other’s welfare and enjoy spending time together. Their interactions are characterized by

“interpersonal ties and positive, amiable preexisting relationships among members”

(Thompson, 2003, p. 239)

Social Friendship Groups

Social Friendship Groups

Most of us belong to more than one social friendship group during our lives.

You may have had a group of friends you were close to in high school, a group of buddies

you were close to when you served in the military, or a group of friends you play golf or

softball with regularly. Sometimes people who work together evolve into a social friendship

group when they begin to get together for social activities outside of work.

Social friendship groups may initially form around a shared interest like a book club or Bible

study, but as members spend time together and find they enjoy one another’s company,

they may evolve into a social friendship group.

SUPPORT GROUPS

Presenter: Minh Sang

Support Groups

Support groups are composed of people who come together to bolster each other by

providing encouragement, honest feedback, and a safe environment for expressing deeply

personal feelings about a problem common to the members.

Support groups must create an environment where members feel safe to disclose highly

personal information. So members need to make sure that their messages follow the

guidelines in Chapter 8 for comforting, which include clarifying supportive intentions,

buffering face threats, using other-centered language, framing, and selectively offering

advice.

INTEREST GROUP

Presenter: Nguyen Ngoc Cam

What is an Interest Group?

An interest group is composed of individuals who come together

because they share a concern, hobby, or activity

What are the types of an Interest Group?

These groups may be:

- formal with defined goals and tasks

- informal

What can be an Interest Group?

They may be part of a larger organization

Some interest groups are externally focused on a common

political or social issue and adopt an agenda to achieve

change.

Other interest groups are internally focused on increasing skills

or knowledge of their members.

How do the Interest Group’s members meet?

Commonly, the group members meet each others offline

But, there are also some interest groups meet online.

What are the aims of an Interest Group?

Because interest group members share some passion, all members

ought to have an opportunity to communicate their expertise by:

- encouraging members to share success stories

- doing so in ways that all members highlight what they

know without demeaning the knowledge or opinions of others

Service Groups

Service groups are composed of individuals who come together to perform hands-on charitable works or to raise money to help organizations that perform such work.

Service groups may be local affiliates of larger secular or religious service organizations like Break Away, Lions Club International, Red Cross, Salvation Army, B’nai B’rith, and Habitat for Humanity.

The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army is a Christian denomination and international movement known for its charity shops and other charity work, operating in 126 countries.

Red Cross

The International Red Cross is an international humanitarian movement which was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure respect for all human beings, and to prevent and alleviate human suffering.

Other service groups are local and function independently. Small soup kitchens, urban gardening groups, and community beautification groups perform charitable work that may include raising funds and interfacing with government agencies.

Because service groups are both voluntary and task-oriented, they need to be dedicated to the task as well as sensitive to the ego and emotional needs of members. So communication should :

(1) be clear about individual tasks, roles, and responsibilities: “Jim, as I remember it, today you agreed to work on patching the roof.”

(2) encourage and praise member accomplishments: “I was really impressed with how sensitive you were when you turned her down for another bag of groceries”

(3) be polite: “Mary, it would be great if you would please work with Mike on stuffing envelopes for that mailing. Thanks so much!”

STEPS TO BUILD AN EFFECTIVE GROUP WORK

• Get to know each other. If you're going to be working in a group with other people for any extended period of time, spend a few minutes talking at the outset of the first meeting. Introduce yourselves if you do not already know one another.

• Assign roles if the project requires working together in a group for an extended period of time to reach a specific goal. For instance you might designate one person the group leader or facilitator and another the scribe or note taker.

• Exchange contact information to enable group members to communicate effectively outside of scheduled meetings if the project is long term.

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• Identify the group's goal. For instance, perhaps a professor asked you to accomplish a specific task within your group, or your company asked you to research specific information and report back. Discuss and document the group's goal to make sure you all agree on the primary goal of the group's work.

• Divide tasks into steps and assign each member a specific task to attack long term projects. Often this will go easier if people volunteer for tasks they like to do.

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• Listen to each other and encourage each other. Make sure everyone in the group is heard and offer encouragement when others contribute a good idea or perform a task effectively.

• Deal immediately with conflict if it arises. Although difficult to deal with, conflict or discord in a group can undermine the group's objectives. As quickly as possible, address any conflicts to keep the group members focused on the ultimate goal.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF AN EFFECTIVE GROUP WORK

Unified Commitment to a Goal

• When the team is presented with a goal, they can come together and work as a single unit to complete the task.

Participation

• In order for a team to act as a team everyone must be participating in the creation of a solution.

• A team does not have extra members. Each member of a team is essential to the team's success, and when the group is given a task, each member knows what their job is and sets out to put in their fair share of the effort.

Open Communication

• Issues within a team are handled by face-to-face communication. Team members do not talk behind each other's back as there is a respect developed among team members that necessitates direct and open communication on all issues.

Decision-Making

• The members of the group are respected for their various areas of expertise, and the leader of the group has developed the ability to obtain the group members' opinions to formulate the group's response.

• This applies to decisions made within the group ranging from resolving internal conflict to a potential change in group leadership.

Efficient Use of Ideas

• Brainstorming is one way that groups come up with the solution to a problem.

• An effective team is able to gather information from each member and formulate that information into a response.

EVALUATING GROUP DYNAMICS

Presenter: Dinh Quoc Minh Dang

Group dynamics

Group dynamics is the way a group interacts to achieve

its goal.

Evaluating group dynamics

Effective groups periodically stop and evaluate how their

interactions are affecting what they are accomplishing

and how members perceive themselves and others

Tuckman’s framework

Evaluating group dynamics

At times you may be asked to provide a formal evaluation

of the group dynamics of a class project group or other

work team

Evaluating group dynamics

One way you might evaluate members is to describe how

each member performed his or her specific tasks and

how well his or her communication contributed to the

cohesiveness, problem solving, and conflict resolution

processes in the group.

Evaluating group dynamics

Like the evaluations business managers make of employees, these

evaluations serve to document the efforts of group members. They

can be submitted to the instructor, just as they would be submitted

to a supervisor.

In business, these documents provide a basis for determining

promotion, merit pay, and salary adjustments. In the classroom, they

can provide a basis for determining one portion of each member’s

grade.

Sum up

Sometimes you might be asked to evaluate how you and

other members participate in a group.

Doing so might help your instructor grade group

dynamics or help your employer determine merit pay or

bonuses.