This episode has been the most interesting episode of the season so far in my opinion. There were multiple plot twists and game changers that were unexpected. The episode starts with Natalie very upset with her “alliance” because they voted out Jeremy last episode who was basically their leader. She was very upset and wanted Jon to go home for being a traitor and a liar. This encourages her to find the hidden immunity idol with the clues she has. Natalie succeeds in finding the hidden immunity idol which will get her further in this game which she has been playing very well for the last twenty eight days. The reward challenge is won by Jon, Jaqueline, Alec, and Reed. However, Reed gives up his reward for Missy because she has yet to win a challenge and hasn’t eaten well since the merge. This may have been a mix of both good nature and strategy by Reed. Going into the immunity challenge Keith verbally expresses what we have all seen these last few episode which is some people feel so comfortable and safe in their alliances that they no longer feel the need to try. This is evident when Jon steps off the pedestal after only seven minutes into the challenge and from there everyone steps down for tempting food except for Reed. This leads Wes to regret stepping down after he is sent home because he realizing the chicken wings weren’t worth a million dollars.

The groups motivation is very obvious, it is the point of the show, a million dollar reward. What reed did in this episode was amazing and if it weren’t for Natalie motivating Jon to play his hidden immunity idol he would have been sent home. Reed convinced one alliance that everyone was splitting the votes between Wes and Keith and in reality his alliance all agreed to vote out Jon. What he did was so great because he motivated diverse personality types all to do what he wanted. Up until the end of the episode Reed had control of the whole game. As we have seen previously with Jeremy and Josh, Reed i displaying his interpersonal need for control in this group. As much as this chapter does have insightful information I do not feel like it directly relates to the episode or even the show. I believe this because the chapter is very much about what motivates groups how to keep groups motivated and ways that groups can motivate each other. In this show the motivation is ninety nine percent focused on the million dollars and very self motivating. No one else is there to help some one else win. The only part of this chapter I believe relates directly to the text is the information about a sense of choice which states “they engage in critical thinking and engage in agreed upon strategies for acheiving their goal. Every member knows what he or she is expected to do. members communicate frequently in an effort to share information, discuss issues, and make decisions.”. I believe this description sums up survivor. Also because everyone in survivor need to feel a sense of choice in an alliance to know that their opinion matters and to take advantage of the opportunities.

Structured and creative problem solving in groups is the title of chapter nine in our text book working in groups. In episode seven of Survivor there was an exceptional amount of creative problem solving and structure issues in groups. Knowing the difference between decision making and problem solving from chapter seven I can state that the contestants in Survivor use decision making strategies every day before they go to tribal councils. They walk around judging people on their honesty, loyalty, and overall personality. They are constantly having to choose an option on who to align with and who to send home. These decision making strategies contribute to the action of someone being sent home and voted off a survivor usually leaving at least one other person in a bad position and someone else in a good position.

Within their “alliances” the groups engage in group problem solving. They talk to one another, sometimes as a group and sometimes everyone individually, and analyze the possibilities of who can go home and how it will affect the whole game. While problem solving everyone considers every single tiny aspect f the game and comes up with a plan to carry out their mission with the least harmful effects.

As Survivor continued the members were split into two groups to do the first challenge of the episode. In the first challenge Natalie, Keith, Wes, Jeremy, and Reed won the challenge and got the Survivor style taco bar as a reward. John was sent to exile island and during this time the game took a complete turn based on the fact that the men in Josh’s group were very disrespectful and rude to Jaclyn while John was away. That is where the group messed up because they believed that Jaclyn was a dependent decision maker and relied soley on John to vote. They assumed that if they had John’s vote they had her vote as well. This proved to be untrue and caused John and Jaclyn to align with Jeremy instead of Josh, ultimately sending Josh home. It was a close tribal counseling because Baylor ha one less vote than Josh and Jeremy’s name would have been in the instead of Baylor’s but Jeremy had one the immunity challenge which made him safe.

In the game of survivor it is important to be a rational decision maker because every single action has a huge ripple effect on the whole game and one wrong move can end your chance at a million dollars. The worst types of decision making to have on survivor would be spontaneous decision making and avoidant decision making. You can not avoid decsion making in Survivor so you literally wouldn’t last a day with that decision making style.

“What is leadership?” , a question posed on page 101 chapter five of Working in Groups. In this season of Survivor we have definitely seen the process of how one becomes a leader and very strong leadership. I am currently on episode nine of this season of Survivor and twenty two days into the challenge and it is very clear that two strong leaders have emerged in the game. Jeremy and Josh have both displayed strong leadership roles and it proved to be very bad for Josh and Jeremy because they became the main targets and were sent home. It has also put a huge target on Jeremy’s back as well. Although they had leadership roles they were not designated leaders, no one had voted them to be the leader or gave them the position. They were both emergent leaders who obviously possessed leader charachteristics and just naturally emerged as the leader. This is probably because they both spoke often, share their opinions, and had a lot of knowledge.

In this episode Jeremy and Natalie gave up their winning reward to John and Jaclyn to thank them for being in their aliance in the last episode. Jeremy is then sent to exile island which he believed would be a good thing because he can then find the hidden immunity idol which he quickly suspects that John has already found. Natalie and Jeremy’s “aliance” proved to not be an aliance at all when they all voted Jeremy off. baylor was not voted for once because Baylor had won the immunity challenge and just like that the game switched.

In my own opinion it is very interesting to me that both the “alliances” only voted for people in their aliances to go home which is very confusing and makes no sense to me at all. I believe at this point in the game aliances are proving to mean nothing.

Day sixteen and all the members of both tribes that are left are rewarded for making it to the merge with a huge feast at the top of the mountain. The tribes have merged creating the new tribe name Huyopa but there continues to be a distinct split between alliances. As these alliances form and come together we see a lot of team talk, using language such as “we” and “I” between the members of the alliances. On one alliance which seems to be a very strong alliance we have Julie, Jeremy, Natalie, Baylor, Missy, John, and Jaqueline. They use Survivor jargon such as “we have the votes” and “we have the numbers” to explain to their members that together they have enough people to decide on one person to send home and have that happen. Jeremy frequently refers to Julie as “his number”. We also have Reed and Josh who are scrambling around camp trying to gain alliances which is the reason he goes to talk to John and Jaqueline. During this talk we hear more team talk such as “we” can make it to the top together and “we” can have the numbers. Although Julie is part of the alliance with six other people she finds herself in a tough spot due to a lot of nonverbal communication. Julie fails to tell her group about the trail mix she has hidden in her purse and when they find it she can clearly feel the tension by all the nonverbal communication around her such as stares, no one talking to her, and awkward silences.

The first individual immunity challenge is for each player to balance a ball on a plane round board by holding ropes and the challenge is all together forty minutes. It was a very difficult challenge however four people John, Wes, Keith, and Alec made it to the last round. At the last minute it came down to Keith and his son Wes and at the end Keith proved to be the top dog still and won the immunity challenge over his son Wes. Unfortunately for Keith it did not matter that he won immunity because Julie quit the game due to many factors. One of the factors being arrangement of space, she expressed verbally that she needed her own space and this was often seen when she spent hours on the beach away from her team but it was still not enough and she felt it was such an issue it influenced her decision to go home. With Julie quitting their was no tribal counsel and Josh or Jeremy were perhaps spared a chance at a million dollars.

In Episode five the game is changed completely and it works to the advantage of some however it makes others a target. The switch between the tribes leaves the Coyopa tribe unsure of where two couple Missy and Baylor and Dale and Kelley stand. Keith is the odd man out because he is the only person on the tribe who does not have a loved one. On the other tribe, Hanahpu, many are very unsatisfied when they get to the tribe and realize that they are completely out of food with only two scoops of rice left. Everyone in the tribe, besides Jeremy, decides it is a good idea to ask Jeff for more rice. Jeff gives them what they wanted but at a heavy price. He takes all their comfort they got from the challenege on the worst night possible. The same night they lose their tarp it rains all night causing Julie to break down. This a great example to relate directly to the text because if Jeremy would have spoke up about his concern and told his tribe not to trade for food because they may win the next challenge and get more food then his team may have possibly listened and it would have been very beneficial to them. Worried about his alliance Jeremy tries to talk Julie into feeling better and being positive. Julie not only hears what Jeremy has to say but she listens to him and pulls herself together. However she does sit out for the competition.

After the tribes are switched John and Jaqueline find themselves in a position of power where there are three couples on one tribe and two couples have to work together to get the third one out. I thought for sure Baylor and Missy woud be going home but to my surprise Kelley is voted off of survivor leaving her dad Dale alone on a team with two couoples and Keith. Dale tries to persuade John with a fake idol but it did not work. Listening and communicatiing played a key role in the conflicts of both tribes.

In episode four of Survivor things have taken a drastic turn with an unusual chain of events. Hanahpu who has been undefeated all season finally loses during the immunity challenge.  Hanahpu’s loss was all part of Drew’s plan which he did not think all the way through and did not plan very well. His “genius” plan to throw the challenge and his dictator attitude led to him being voted off of survivor.  Hanahpu did win the first challenge sending Jon’s girlfriend Jaclyn to exile island with Drew where he comes up with this mastermind plan. I’m surprised the tribe did not notice that Drew was purposely doing bad on the challenge because in my opinion it was very obvious.

If I had to guess Drew’s Myers-Briggs type I would say with out a doubt he is an extrovert because he definitely speaks before he thinks and he is very expressive. I would say Drew is intuitive because he seemed to only be focusing on the big picture which was throwing the challenge and sending Kelley home rather than focusing on details which could have possibly saved him in the competition. Unsure whether he would be a thinker or a feeler but I have no doubt he would be a perceiver rather than a judger based on his lack of motivation and lack of work he does in the tribe. It is obvious he does not like rules and would rather play now and work later. We also saw this when Alec said when he was younger his dad would call him to help with chores because he knew it wouldn’t be worth it to call Drew because he wouldn’t do it or would do it half fast.

The fact that we live in a low context society played a big role in this episode. As we saw Hanahpu was playing great as team because they had never lost so no one was expressing concerns with one another verbally but the second they lost all of those unspoken problems surfaced quickly. Living in a low context culture this is often a problem if things are not verbally adressed we often don’t know a problem is lingering such as the girls issues with Drew which caused him to be blind sighted when he was sent home.

A big issue I saw in this episode and also in almost every episode so far was stereotyping between genders, It is stated in chapter four of the text that “these stereotypes can also hamper groups working to achieve a common goal” under the section gender dimensions. A prime example for how stereotyping can affect a group was displayed in this episode when Drew expresses that the women are out to get the men voted off the show because they know they have no chance against the men at the end, which is Drew stereotyping the women to be weaker and not as good competitors as the men.

I personally believe Diversity in Groups, chapter four, aligned perfectly with episode three of Survivor. The diversity in both of the two tribes has been very obvious from the beginning and has begun to show and have an affect on both of he two tribes. Diversity is becoming more apparent in the tribes and having a larger affect on them as the season goes on. A wide array of people of different races, sexual orientations, genders, ages, mental abilities, physical abilities and cultures have come together to work towards a common goal. However a balanced approach to group diversity has yet to be acted on or even thought of. The book demonstrates four barriers to working in diverse groups known as ethnocentrism, stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. The main barrier i have seen within the Coyopa tribe is stereotyping directed at John Rocker. He has been catastrophically stereotyped as a hot head bigot ,by both tribes, who is only physically an asset to the tribe. Another barrier I have witnessed being an obstacle to understanding each other in the tribe is discrimination. In my opinion the men have been discriminating against the women since the season has begun. Saying “we will keep knocking them off one by one” as if the women are weak and have no chance against the men in the tribe.

In this episode of Survivor Wes brought home the first victory for the Coyopa tribe, defeating the Hanahpu tribe and breaking their winning streak. Unfortunately for the Coyopa tribe the victory was shortly lived and the Hanahpu tribe reclaimed immunity for the third time in a row during the immunity challenge. Coyopa was forced once again to send one of their tribe members home and end their chance at being the next winner of Survivor and also one million dollars. It seemed to John as if Baylor was going home as the guys had planned which led him to feel safe enough not to play his idol, sadly mistaken John was taken by surprise when he was voted off of this season of Survivor by his tribe.

As we dive into the second episode of survivor and the third chapter of working in groups we quickly see the connection between the two. A heart breaking beginning was the result of Natalie finding out her twin sister Nadiya had been the first person of the season to be voted off of Survivor. Shortly after, we watch the second couple competing against one another yet again for their tribes in the second competition. The intense competition based on good balance leads to girlfriend Julie sending her boyfriend John to exile Island, who is accompanied by firefighter Jeremy and victory for the Hanahpu tribe. As the episode goes on we see the tough competitions continue as the two tribes fight for immunity. The competition intensifies, some battling their loved ones, ultimately leading to victory once again for the Hanahpu tribe. At this point in the games Hanahpu is leading strong undefeated.

Schutz’s Theory of interpersonal needs is a theory that focuses on three needs that most people possess. These three needs are critical to individuals in groups, however I have yet to see the need for inclusion, the need for control , or the need for affection within any of the tribe members in either tribe so far.

One of Benne and Sheats functional group roles i have seen within a member of the Coyopa tribe was the opinion seeker. Previously Baylor was unsure who to vote out of the games and she seeked an opinion from Josh and based her vote off of his vote. A huge aspect I saw directly related between the episode and the text was member confidence. I believe member confidence played a huge role within both of the groups. Hanahpu has been working effectively and confidently together and has been achieving greatness. Coyopa on the other hand has been having a member confidence problem and they see it clearly. There is a lot of tension in the group and it stems from communication apprehension. Val openly lies to her group about having two idols but she does not know how and is scared to talk to her group, including John who wants to help her, about the truth because it can cause her the game. Another problem I believe stemmed from communication apprehension is Baylor telling the girls she is on their team when in reality she chooses to fight on the guys team but does not openly tell the girls this.

Many of the concepts of group development in chapter two align well with the premiere of the show Survivor. Survivor episode one is a prime example of how groups form and evolve as they try to balance the complex and contradictory dialectic tensions inevitable in group work. The first of Tuckman’s group development stages is the forming stage which is the prime stage in episode one. The forming stage is significant to the premiere of Survivor solely because all of the contestants are divided into two groups which is known as the forming stage. Two of the contestants Val and Keith ,unfortunately for them, were sent to exile island in the midst of the forming stage which can potentially be a disadvantage for them because it is an important stage in group development in which members become acquainted with one another and form relationships.

Episode one is primarily about this first stage, contestants are very friendly, smile, and agree with just about everything. In my opinion no critical issues have arose yet to solve which would be known as the storming stage. Group goals amongst the two groups are obvious due to the fact that the show is a competition. There is no point in the episode where the groups sit down and discuss clearly what goals they want to set. However, there is a clear hidden agenda within one of the groups amongst the female contestants. Nadiya, Baylor,Val and Jaclyn. This is a prime example of having a hidden agenda but also a sense of meaningfulness. This group of girls from the Coyopa tribe have made a pact to stand by each other in the quest to show the strength of the female contestants and make this their season. This displays a sense of meaningfulness. A common goal that is set within a group and motivates its members.

At the end of the episode Nadiya ,unfortunately for her, is the first contestant of the season to be voted off of survivor. Chapter two of the text aligned directly with the episode. Touching on very important parts of group development such as goal setting, a sense of meaningfulness, Tucker’s group development stages and balancing group goals and hidden agendas. In a competition for a million dollars every single person is bound to have hidden agendas and possibly even sub groups within a group.