Group communication

What is a group? 

to form a group the following must apply: 

• individuals must exist in some sort of relationship

Burton&Dimbleby(1995)

"if there is no interaction between the individuals, then a group can't be formed"

Judy Gohagan  

"a group should be conceived of as a system whose parts interrelate"

• Share common goals,purposes or interests and recognise these

Burton&Dimbleby(1995) 

"a collection of individuals who interact in some way, and share some common goals/interests"

• Accept common values or norms of behaviour 

O'sullivan et al(1994) 
"those sets of social rules,standards and expectations that both generate and regulate social interactions&communication" 

• Develop set roles of behaviour 

O'sullivan et al(1994) 
"socially defined position&patterns of behaviour which are characterised by specific sets of rules,norms&expectations" 

• Group members have an identity

Turner(1991) 
"as group exists when two or more people define themselves as members of it and when existence is recognised by at least one other"


The groups i am in 
-Family
-student(st-brendans)
-friendship group
-AS Comms
-AS Film studies
-AS Philosophy
-Tutor Group
-Spiritual Journey
-gender
-age
-ethnicity
-Social class
-Religion

Comparing to groups with theory:
Friends- Hartley- Informal group, Primary group, Douglas(1979)- seven reasons(they are invited to do so and its part of doing something else) exclusivity, Solidarity, capacity to change.

AS Film studies- Primary group, Formal group, Dimbleby(1998)- to achieve a shared goal or oppose a common threat, ascribed(Set for you)

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Maslow's hierarchy of needs was suggested by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper 'A theory of human motivation' this theory has been made into a triangle even though, he himself did not make it that way, this was to show the more basic needs at the bottom of the triangle and this shows that he suggested to make it to the 'self actualization' part you have to go through the other blocks below, that in order to have the higher block needs met you first have to have the lower needs met. 

physiological needs: physiological needs are the requirements for human survival, if these needs aren't met the human body would fail to survive and so these are seen as the most important and that they have to be looked after first. 

safety need:  if the physiological needs are met and are stable, humans then have to feel a certain degree of safety, within several areas of their lives including person security, financial security, health and well being, and safety against accidents/illness, when there is not safety within a humans life, it can cause a number of problems such as post-traumatic disorder, this level is normally found in the child stage of life as they generally have a greater need to feel safe. 

Love and belonging- after the physiological and safety needs are met, the next level of human needs is  interpersonal and it involves feelings of belongingness. this need is especially strong in the child phase of life and it can also over-ride the need for safety,this is shown in cases where a child clings to an abusive parent. if this need isn't met it can cause an individual to find it hard to form and keep emotionally significant relationships in general for example, friendships, intimate relationships and family relationships. 

According to Maslow people need to feel a sense of love and belonging, and acceptance within their social groups, humans need to love and be loved both sexually and non-sexually by others, if there is an absence of love and belonging in a persons life they may produce social anxiety, become susceptible to loneliness and clinical depression. 

Esteem- Next in the hierarchy of needs is Esteem, all people have the need to feel respected. including self esteem and self-respect. Esteem shows the human typical desire to be accepted and valued by others, people often engage themselves in a profession or a hobby to reach recognition. these activities can give a person a feeling of contribution and/or value, low self-esteem can come from imbalances during this stage of the hierarchy. 

Self actualization- lastly in the hierarchy of needs is self actualization, this is the stage refers to what someones full potential is and this is when a person realizes that full potential, Maslow describes this stage as the desire to accomplish everything that they can to become the most they can. this need cant be reached, a person must first not only accomplish the previous needs, they must first master them. 

All i learnt at school

Entering education parents have an idea of what their child would be learning such as reading,writing,maths, other subjects etc. but what parents and also children don't realise that as they are learning all of these things and more, they also in fact learn something called the 'hidden curriculum'. The hidden curriculum is in a way a side effect of the lessons, it isn't intended to be learnt by children. It includes things such as the social structure of a classroom, the authority of teachers, labels,roles,social higher archery,beliefs and much more. in this essay i am going to write about some of the things i learnt during my four years in secondary school. As i went to an all girls' school my experience would differ from others as an all girls school was a very different atmosphere to a mixed school. 


One of the things i learnt through the hidden curriculum during my time at school was that image was everything, the way you looked was very important to the status of your popularity, if you weren't what was seen as pretty and skinny, or you didn't have a certain look you weren't 'popular', it didn't even matter what your personality was like and in most cases you were bullied by the 'popular' girls . in my experience i was one of the girls who was classed as 'unpopular' and bullied for a few years at my time at secondary school because of the reasons I've stated above,even by friends only because they wanted to be popular. even though this was not pleasant time for me, I am thankful for it now because it's made me the person i am now. 

Another thing i learnt from the hidden curriculum would be the labels that were put on people or the 'cliques' within school for example;chavs,goths,emos,geeks,popular girls etc. who all rebelled against the uniforms in some way to show these 'cliques' for example the girls who were classed as chavs would have bleach blonde hair,more jewelry than allowed,rolled up skirts as short as possible and also a lot of make-up. this would relate to one of Argyles's 10 codes of NVC more specifically the appearance one as he talks about how the way some looks can give an impression to other people what that person is like e.g.unapproachable/approachable. the changing up of the uniform, wearing make-up didn't happen at Hayesfield until about year eight. The 'cliques' themselves though were established rather quickly, during year seven. in my experience of this lesson i went through a few of the labels,hanging around with several groups of people. my first 'clique' was the popular girls, this was because my best friend was chosen as one of the popular girls but she didn't want to leave me behind so she tried to get them to accept me but as i said before i was not particularly popular so this didn't work out,i didn't  fit in at all and just felt awkward and out of place. The next 'clique' i found myself entering was the chav one. this was a clique i stayed with for years 7-9 but i wasn't what people would call a stereotypical chav and even in this clique i didn't fit in, even though i tried hard too. the final 'clique' i got into was the 'emo' meaning emotionally unstable group this clique was the most interesting, it wasn't as if they were actually depressed they were just normal girls who wore a lot of black and listened to heavy music. the 'emo' group was by far the best as they were very accepting and as long as you were a nice person they liked you and i am still friends with the girls from that 'clique' today. I didn't really fit in with any of these cliques and that taught me that you shouldn't try and change yourself to be friends with people, you should see if they accept you for you. and this also allowed me to build my own sense of identity and realising how i wanted to dress and do my make-up my individual way and also to stop caring about what people thought of me.  

Lastly another lesson i learnt from the hidden curriculum would have been the higher archery in the school, and i started to realise that this also applied to the teachers also, this chain went from the top beginning with the head teacher,heads of subjects,the teachers, the students and then cleaning staff and dinner ladies. as the years went on this 'higher archery' system became more and more obvious and you could see tension between each section of the chain for example i witnessed disputes between heads of subjects and the teachers that in some cases like arguments that seemed childish . this lesson taught me that you will always have people above and below you, that also it was extremely difficult to make your way up the chain and also that even when you're an adult, you'll still have childish factors about you. 

In conclusion i learnt a lot more in my time at secondary school than i thought i did and even though the lessons i learnt weren't particularly pleasant i am thankful because they made me into the person i am today. 

Movie maker

The hidden curriculum

Hidden curriculum refers to the unwritten, unofficial, ans often unintended lessons, values, and perspectives that students learn in school. While the 'formal' curriculum consists of knowledge and skill educators intentionally teach to students, the hidden curriculum consists of unspoken academic,social and cultural messages that are communicated to students while they are in school


http://edglossary.org/hidden-curriculum/  

how ethnicity, culture and wealth can affect verbal and non verbal communication

Ethnicity- 

verbal- 

• may have different words for things
• different slang 
• different language 

non-verbal- 

• different greetings 
• different acceptable haptics e.g when its appropriate to touch someone. 

Culture

verbal- 

• different language 
• words meaning different things 
• different ways of expressing emotion through speech 

non-verbal 

• have different rules about proper  behaviour e.g if you are allowed to look someone in the eyes. 
• different ways of showing emotion 

Culture can have different ways of perceiving the world/ seeing, hearing and interpreting the world. 

Wealth

Verbal-

• words can mean different things 
• way of speaking is more formal 
• different register 

Non-verbal- 

• normally look down on people not in their social class (act superior) 
• different greetings 
• different attitudes to things 

Class notes

In class we had a discussion about the differences between men and women in the sense of their verbal and non-verbal communication.


men-                                                                                    
more upfront(direct)                                                           
hesitant                                                                                
swear more                                                                         
siting- more relaxed e.g. spread legs, slouched                     
less haptics(hand gestures)                                                 
less emotion                                                                      
not good at noticing non verbal cues             

women- 
more considerate of what they are saying to others 
fluent 
RP 
siting- more upright e.g. legs together or crossed 
more haptics (hand gestures)
more emotion 
good at noticing non verbal cues 
                     

Female and Male Language

Women's language-

Crawford (1997) stated that the three main objectives of female speech as:

1. To create and maintain relationships of closeness and equality.
2. To criticize others in acceptable (indirect) way.
3. To interpret accurately and sensitively the speech of other females.  

Mulac et al (2001) said that women use language that is more cautious and concerned not to offend or put the woman in an embarrassing situation.


Women will have a greater usage of intensive adverbs, qualifying clauses, emotional references, longer sentences,initial adverbials, uncertainty, hedging, negation, simultaneous opposites and questioning.

Poynton (1989) noted that women

• Are generally more polite in their speech (though are no different in sincerity) 
• Use politeness markers such as please and thank you 
• Use super-polite 'multiple modalities' eg/ "i was wondering if you could possibly just do me a small favour, if you wouldn't mind" 
• Tend to use more tag questions 
• Use more intensifiers 
• Use more adjectives 
• Use euphemisms rather than swearing 

Males language-

Crawford (1997) notes the three main objectives of a male's speech as:

1. To assert one's position of dominance 
2. To attract and maintain an audience 
3. To assert one's self when someone else has the floor

Mulac et al (2001) say that men tend to use language that reflects a more dominant and certain position.

men will have a greater usage of quantitative references, judgmental adjectives, commands, location words, brief sentences and self- references

Poynton (1989) note that men, in comparison with women:

• use more slang 
• swear more often 
• use fewer intensifiers 
• use few adjectives 

Tony Robbins- "To effectively communicate, we must realise that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others."

I am who i am because of everyone

I am my friends who gave me confidence 

i am my parents who said i have to try 

i am my piano got me through grade one 

i am my brother who told me i was good enough

i am the first piano i played and

 my farther who gave me my passion for music

i am the people who told me i was a failure 

and would never achieve anything 

i am the GCSE results that cause me to retake English, 

but also the result that allowed me to 

finally do my A-Levels. 

i am my family who told me to never give up 

i am who i am because of everyone.

Gender Key Vocab

• Innate - something your born with
• Conform - to follow or go along with
• To challenge/rebel - opposite to conforming 
• Stereotype - characteristics that belong to a certain group of people
• Nature - your born with it
• Nurture - you have developed it through your environment or the way you've been brought up.
• Gender equality- women and men being equal 

AS Key Concepts

Communication
culture
context
code
value
identity
representation 
power