Week 3 Question 3

1. The concept I found very interesting in chapter 5 is communication contexts. A high communication context means, “that less of the meaning needs to be explicitly stated” (90). On the other hand, a low communication context means, “meanings need to be explicitly communicated” (91). Basically, in a high context situation, the real meaning of the message is hidden somewhere in the actual message, and the receiver has to acknowledge that on their own. In a low context situation, the real meaning of the message is transparent. In the Western culture, communication is leaning towards low context and people like to be directly informed without any hidden messages. In the other hand, in the Eastern culture, communication pattern is definitely more high context. The reason is that, being too direct is consider rude in the Eastern culture, therefore, people communicate in a much more indirect way to avoid rudeness and embarrassment.

Week 3 Question 2

1. The concept of white men of privilege was discussed in the text as “organizational behaviors and expectations have been defined within the context of that privileged upper-middle-class, middle-aged, able-bodied, white make experience” (p. 96). Basically, people like the typical white men come from upper-middle class and well educated usually more privileged from others because they usually the first candidates for jobs or anything else. I don’t agree with this concept because I’ve known too many talented people are not able to get the position they wanted because they don’t fit the typical profile. And sadly, they lost their job to those “white men of privilege”. I don’t agree with this concept, because I believe the world is changing and people are gradually abolishing this ridiculous concept. In terms of getting jobs, we should choose the best candidates based on their abilities and their work ethic and disregard how they look like, their cultural or financial background.

Week 3 Question 1

1. I have been a member of a group that has been stereotyped against. Stereotype, as it explains in the text, “as a form of categorization is part of the human condition…helps us make immediate and potentially critical decisions, saving us from having to sort through each individual circumstance and from overloading our mental circuits” (p.89). When I was a freshman in high school, I had a math tutor to preview materials that were coming up in the class; therefore, I usually didn’t have any problems when I was doing worksheet in class. One day, a guy in my class always copy off of my worksheets asked me if I know all the math problems in the world because I am Asian. Well, I basically kept my silence and moved on. I felt it was ridiculous and ignorance of him to asked me that question. The funny thing is, I hate math, and very bad at it too. The guy just put me in a category “Asians good at math” because of this perpetuate myth that he has about Asians. My example definitely reflects the concept in the text of how stereotyping is over generalizing human condition and not allowing people to differentiate individuals.

Week 2 Question 3

1. The concept I find interesting is role. The textbook described it as “role is associated with the position and status of a member in a group and implies the rights and duties of that member toward one or more other group members”(49). Three types of roles were talked about in the text, task roles, social-emotional roles and self-centered roles. I am usually a task roles when it comes to group project or team work in school. I am very much focus on the goal of the group and make a plan to get the job done. I become the social-emotional role among my group of friends. We talk about feelings and we try to be expressive among ourselves. I tried to avoid being the self-centered roles that only care about my own needs; however, I sometimes become that role among my family members. I become selfish and not contributing in a positive way.

Week 2 Question 2

The basic function of the norms in groups is letting group members know what is acceptable. “Norms are prescribed by an organization’s culture or by the prevailing understanding about how groups operate in a given situation. Norms are the set of assumptions or expectations by members of a group or organization concerning what kind of behavior is right or wrong, good or bad, appropriate or inappropriate allowed or not allowed”(47). Group norms is like a unspoken messages that spreading among the group and the group members would catch on how to behavior among this group and become integrated to the group he/she wants to associate with. For example, in my group of friends, we always put friends before guys. And when one of my friends would ditch us for her boyfriend, we would think she violated our group norms. When she has done this for more than a couple of times, she becomes distance with the group.

Week 2 Question 1

1. I I don’t usually spend my time on campus. I go to my classes on time but I don’t ever hang out or involve in any kind of clubs at SJSU. However, I am still part of SJSU and notice the group norms. Since a lot of students at SJSU work a part time job or a full time job, they are very particular about professor letting them out of class on time. If the class ends at 1:15 p.m, we can see people packing up and getting ready to leave at 1:10 p.m. The professor would notice this nonverbal cue and start wrapping up for the class. These actions are not something we say, it just happened naturally because this is the nature of the group and acceptable by the group.

In my group, we are also aware of the group norms. When we talk on the phone we always “Okay, let me call u later”, by that means “I want to hang up now”. And we never really call each other back. We never mention this because as a group we think this is an acceptable behavior.

Week 1 Question 3

1. The concept I find very interesting in chapter 2 is feedback. I used to think getting feedback is a way to know how people think about your work, but the textbook explain feedback in a small group in a intriguing way; “A group must pay attention both to the feedback that it receives from its larger environment in the form of its initial charge and directions, as well as to the response to its presentations”(p.32). We should not only pay attention to the content of the feedback and also how it was delivered, so this way we can fully take that feedback into account and improves the group. I also think both positive feedback and negative feedback are equally important because we want creativity but at the same time we need to also maintain certain balance. I actually like getting feedbacks because this is how I improve myself and also know how the rest of the group is doing.

Week 1 Question 2

1. I believe everyone experienced entropy in school or at work. Entropy affects small groups because it is the reason to prevent small group to move forward and accomplish the common goal. When there aren’t enough input in the group, energy of the group deflated and the group might lose its direction. When there are too much input in the group, the members of the group would get overwhelm and steer away from their purpose. Therefore, balance is very important and members of the group should always be monitoring their progress and always communicate with each other. Equifinality is also important in the group, because every group has different dynamic. We all need to be flexible and bring our special skill or talent into full play in the group, and then we can achieve our common goal. Since every group is different, there isn’t a right way to do things in small group therefore, understand the concept of equifinality is essential in small group communication.

Week 1 Question 1

1. When parts of the system do not function well, the group might end up with a chaotic situation and undesirable result. Example 1: When I was in a quantitative class, we were doing a group research presentation. One of the members kept switching writing section with other members of the group because when she encountered problems in her parts, she didn’t try to figure out herself, she just simply gave up. It was very troublesome for the rest of the group because we all depended on each other’s writing section to create a group paper but we couldn’t depend on her. Example 2: When I was in a group communication class, we have to create a product to sell as a group. I really liked the group dynamic because we always keep a close contact of each other through out the course. But there was one person who was always busy with his job and didn’t check his email frequently. The day before the presentation, each of us had to bring something for the group so I sent a remainder email to everybody. Not surprising, the busy working person didn’t see the email and show up empty handed. We spent so much time and energy on the presentation but still, it couldn’t be perfect.