Holly Claus
Kirstyn Davies
Andrew Papadopoulos
John Pizzedaz
Mariah Strong
Roles will develop as a situation occurs.
They will not stay consistent throughout a
situation but will be likely to change based
on communication. Roles can develop
more strongly or can become weaker based
on the other members and roles that they
play.
Throughout life people wear
different “hats” based on the
situation that they are put into.
Will a person only wear one hat in a
given situation?
• Social system that has specific goals of making a decision
or solving a problem.
• In order to reach goals one must perform the functions
• Demonstrated by the communication behavior during
group meetings.
A repeatable pattern of communicative behaviors that group
members come to expect from each other.
• Statements that group
members make and then
send messages to other
group members about who
they are and what function
they serve.
Kenneth Benne
& Paul Sheats (1948)
• When group members
engage in communication
to reduce uncertainty
about the work the group
is doing, they also
evaluate the behaviors of
other members.
Steven Beebe & John
Masterson (2003)
1) Roles are learned
behaviors
• Assigned
• Emerged
2) Self- Concept affects
role behavior
• Each member helps to
establish an identity
3) Multiple roles are
played simultaneously
Group requires members to assume a new role
but they feel reluctant to do so.
Information Seeking
• How it is said
• Who they say it to
• Content of the
information
• How to gain the
information
Feedback
• Response given by the
speaker
• Individual roles
• Evaluate role
performance
• Motivation
• Negative
• Positive
• Ambiguous
• Little information is given
• Neither positive nor negative
• Not enough clarification
• Specific positions
• Assigned
• Appointed
• Elected
• Keeping the group on task and moving
toward the ultimate goal
• Move group towards goals
• Convince the audience that
group has achieved goal
• External and internal influences
• Most complex role
• Take the minutes
• Record actions of the
group
• Group Meetings
• Important dates
• Challenges member’s ideas
• Constructive criticism
• Think through all the steps
• Positive and negative
solutions
• Emerges through member interaction
• More than 1 member can perform each role
• There are 5 types of informal roles
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Task Leader
Social- Emotional Leader
Information Provider
Central Negative
Tension Releaser
Follower
• Take charge attitude
• Technical skills
• Problem- solving abilities
• Puts group members at ease
• Mutual respect for all members
• Support ideas
• Building relationships
• Maintaining member quality
• Synthesize information
• Facts
• Stats
• Examples
Central Negative
• Challenges group decisions
• Strong criticism
• Unhappy with group work
Tension Releaser
• Light humor
• Smiles
• Eases tensions of the group
• Goes along with the group
• Doesn’t complain
• Physically following the group
• Destroy groups productivity and success because the
communication focuses on the individual member rather
than the group.
• Aggressor- attacks members verbally and group tasks
• Dominator- shows superiority
Benne & Sheats (1948)
• The skills and abilities need to be processed to engage in a
variety of group member roles.
• Resist role rigidity
• Group goals come before individual goals
• Contribute to group task roles
Our journey
from day 1!
• Dr. Webber assigned each group a Leader (Holly)
• Based on our self-evaluations we were placed into groups
• Our first meeting day we created a group contract
• Everyone read what they viewed themselves as
• Everyone read what they wanted their experience to
be like
• Decided to make group decisions by voting
• Kirstyn volunteered to take the minutes at our
meetings
• Brainstorming Day
• Everyone brought ideas of what we wanted to do
our project on
• We voted to make a video for our presentation
• Everyone’s decisions were heard and evaluated
throughout the group
• We voted on the top three ideas to do our video on
• Planning was put into action
• Holly wrote the script based on personalities she saw
in the group and the evaluations that each group
member had read.
• Mariah had role strain when she saw that she was
going to have to get into an argument with Andrew.
• John was the member in the group that was very
task oriented and Holly portrayed that in his
character in the film
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Leader- Holly & Andrew
Recorder- Kirstyn
Critical Advisor- Andrew & John
Task Leader- Andrew
Social- Emotional Leader- Mariah & Kirstyn
Information Provider- John
Tension releaser- Mariah & Kirstyn
Dominator- Andrew
Aggressor- Kirstyn
Follower- Mariah
References
Myers, S.A., & Anderson, C.M. (2008). The fundamentals of small group
communication. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage