We have gone through several chapters and learned many concepts this semester. I decided to go back and look at what we learned near the beginning of the semester, in which we studied chapter 3. I decided to go this far back because I needed a refresher of the things we learned earlier on. This chapter is entitled: Norms, Roles, Cohesiveness, and Groupthink. The concept that I am going to discuss is cohesiveness. Cohesiveness is “the extent to which members are loyal and committed to the group.” (Harris, 2008. p. 54) As this semester is drawing to a close I thought I would talk about a concept that we may have to use in some class group assignments we may have.
Cohesiveness, like chemistry, is a “force that binds group members together” (Keyton & Springston, 1990, p. 234) Building or creating that force is important because a group typically performs better when members are tight. To do so, members need to have reasons and purposes for the tasks at hand, and have to all be willing and motivated to commit to the group as well as the tasks. This is a concept that we should try to implement in our lives because working together positively is always overall more affective than anti-cohesiveness.
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Hi Pocahontas,
ReplyDeleteI fully agree with your ideas in cohesiveness. In Harris and Sherblom’s text, they say, “cohesiveness develops in groups through greater communication among group members and with increased pressure for conformity to group norms” (p.56). The authors demonstrate that in small group, the cohesiveness is a kind of force and pressure to let the group come together. Clearly, the cohesiveness plays an important role when we want to have a conclusion in our discussion or accomplish the task.
Few years ago, I sent my daughter to UC, Irvine that was my first time to drive to southern California. At that time, we could not have a GPS to show the routes to Irvine. Before we started our trip, my children tried every effort to download the routes from the internet. Besides, we also jotted down the important exits for gas station and dining. When we were on the highway 5, I focused to drive. My daughter looked at the routes and map, and my son looked at the exits for gas station and food court. If I had any questions to the routes, they would let me know the exit immediately. We understood that the cohesiveness among three of us were very important because we should arrive Irvine as early as possible. After seven hours, we arrived at UC, Irvine safety. In this trip, I learn that the cohesiveness and cooperation with the family members can definitely accomplish the task quickly.
Thank you,
Kam
Pocahontas,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post. I agree that it was good to pick any concept that we have learned because it gives up the opportunity to go back and refresh some of the concepts we learned in the beginning of the course. I was going to choose this concept as well to go over but I liked reading your post and being able to refresh my memory on the topic and get another perspective. I fell that cohesiveness is an important concept to remember considering you can accomplish much more in a group if you work together and consider other loyalty and commitment. These two things are very important to consider in a group if you want to run smoothly. If you cannot be committed to your group and cannot be trusted then what is the point of being a member to the group. You do not really play a role in the group if you cannot be cooperative.
I really agree with your post about cohesiveness because working together will positively is a win-win situation for everyone. I think that this has helped me gain further experience with my group that I've been working with the whole semester in my Comm 147P class. I believe that this has been a great experience working in this class and learning these concepts (even though its online) This was surprising for me to see that online classes could be this effective and that I could actually learn something on my computer. Thanks professor for being helpful and giving us this experience to learn about small group communication and conflicts.
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