4. How do knowledge and skills interrelate? Can you be a competent communicator if
you possess one without the other or do you need both? Defend your answer. How do
effectiveness and appropriateness interrelate? Can you have one without the other?
Explain. Define sensitivity. How does it relate to communication competence? What
are the five ethical standards for communication in groups? Can your communication
be ethical without both effectiveness and appropriateness?
5. Explain Tannen’s model of gender differences in communication. Provide examples to
gender differences in communication?
6. What is the definition of a group? How is a group different from interpersonal
communication and public speaking? What are some qualitative differences between a
dyad and a group?
7. Explain what a system is and how it relates to small groups. What is input, output, and
throughput? What is entropy? What is the ripple effect? What is group synergy and
how is it created in groups? Deep diversity? Negative synergy? Dynamic equilibrium?
Equifinality? Boundary control? Structuration theory?
8. How does size affect small groups? Provide examples. What is the rule of seven?
8
What is the optimum size for a group to function effectively? What are the differences
between organizations and small groups?
9. Can groups be too open? Explain. Can groups be too closed? Explain your answer
and provide examples.
How do the two dimensions interrelate? What is the output of each dimension? Can
you be too task oriented? Socially oriented? Explain. How do you build group
cohesiveness?
reasons for joining a group matter?
12. Explain the difference between primary and secondary tension. What should be done
to reduce primary tension? Should you attempt to eliminate secondary tension from
groups? Does humor help or hinder addressing secondary tension effectively?
13. What are the best ways to deal with difficult group members (“bad apples”)? What are
the least effective ways to deal with difficult group members?
14. What is a norm? Explain the two types of norms. What are the primary sources of
norms? What are the primary conditions that produce conformity to group norms? How
do groups usually respond to members’ nonconformity to group norms? Why do group
members conform to norms? Is there greater conformity typically in individualist or
9
collectivist cultures? Is conformity a negative phenomenon in groups? Do cliques have
any benefits?
15. What is member diversity? What are the pros and cons of diverse group membership?
What is deep diversity? When is it important?
16. How does gender and ethnicity affect group development? What is the Twenty Percent
Rule?
17. Under what conditions is group performance likely to be superior to individual
performance? When is it the reverse?
18. What is social loafing? How can groups combat social loafing? Are individualist or
collectivist cultures more likely to experience social loafing? Why? What is social
compensation? Why does it occur in groups?
STUDY GUIDE: EXAM #2 (Chapters 4-7)
1. What is a group climate? What are the primary differences between positive and
negative group climates?
2. Define competition, hypercompetitiveness, cooperation, and individual achievement.
How are they different from each other? Who benefits from competition? Who
experiences negative effects from competition? Why? What conditions are necessary
for constructive competition to occur?
3. Explain in what ways competition affects performance and achievement and group
cohesiveness. Be familiar with the research in all of these areas, especially when
comparing intergroup and intragroup competition. What is the norm of group interest?
4. What role does culture play in producing competitive or cooperative behavior in
groups? Explain and provide examples.
5. How should groups deal with difficult group members? Explain the steps groups need
to take.
10
6. Explain the 6 defensive and supportive communication patterns. Provide examples for
each. How does defensive and supportive communication relate to competition and
cooperation? What is self-justification? What is a hidden agenda? What is a shift
response? What is a support response? What is competitive interrupting and how is it
different from a shift response? What is ambushing? What is probing? What is
paraphrasing and when should it be used?
7. What is the Stanford Prison Study? In what ways do the results of this study mirror
behavior of guards and prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq? What did it show about
the power of roles?
8. What are role status, role conflict, role reversal, role flexibility, role fixation, and role
specialization? Explain the differences between formal and informal roles. Be familiar
with the task, maintenance, and disruptive informal roles. What is the devil’s advocate
role? Explain how roles emerge. What is group endorsement and what is its
significance?
9. What challenges do newcomers face when first joining a group? How can newcomers
in a group gain acceptance from the group? Why do groups use hazing rituals? What
should be done about hazing rituals in groups?
10. What is group socialization? What strategies can be used to make group socialization
occur more smoothly?
11. Define leadership. Identify the key differences between leaders and managers.
Distinguish between a transformational leader and a transactional leader. How does
charisma relate to either type of leader? What is the relationship between leaders and
followers? What qualities or behaviors qualify a leader as psychopathic? How does
leadership typically emerge? Explain how not to become a leader. What steps should
you take if you want to become group leader? What should you do to retain the leader
role once you have become the leader?
12. Explain gender and ethnic bias in leadership. What is the glass ceiling? What is the
twenty percent rule? Explain the different perspectives on leadership: traits, styles,
situations, functions, and servant perspectives. Be familiar with the Hersey and
Blanchard situational leadership model. How does readiness influence leadership
styles? Are leadership theories culture bound or can they be applied to any culture?
13. What is the definition of a team? What are the chief distinctions between standard small
groups and teams? What is a pseudo-team? What is collaborative interdependence?
Why is it important? What skills, attitudes, and characteristics do the best team
members exhibit? What characteristics and attitudes do the worst team members
exhibit? When should a member be removed from the team? What are the guidelines
for managing culturally diverse team membership?
11
14. What are the 4 C’s of team goal development? What is a superordinate goal? How do
you establish appropriate goals for a team? What is most important? Can a team have
too many goals? How is a team identity established? What is symbolic convergence
theory? What are fantasy themes and fantasy chains and how do they relate to
teambuilding? What are solidarity symbols? What is team talk? What is the difference
between individual and team accountability?
15. Should team roles be designated or should members choose their own roles? Explain.
What is team empowerment? What are the four dimensions of team empowerment?
How does organizational hierarchy affect team empowerment? Why? What is the
difference between quality circles and self-managing work teams? Which is most
effective? Why? What are the chief impediments to team empowerment? What are the
main communication strategies that produce competent team leadership? What
produces ineffective team leadership?
STUDY GUIDE: EXAM #3 (Chapters 8-12)
1. How does information overload affect group decision making? How can you cope with
information overload? Which is the most effective coping method? When does
information underload occur in groups?
2. Define and explain confirmation bias. What is rationalization of disconfirmation? How
do you combat confirmation bias? What is false dichotomy? How do you combat false
dichotomies? What is collective inferential error. Is it incompetent communication to
make inferences? What is the vividness effect. What is a correlation and how does it
relate to inferential error? How do you combat collective inferential error?
3. What is group polarization? How is it different from the risky shift phenomenon? Why
does group polarization occur? What is groupthink? What are its symptoms? What
causes groupthink? How should you prevent groupthink?
4. What are the phases of group decision making and problem solving? Explain the six
steps of the Standard Agenda. What are questions of fact, value, and policy? What is
force field analysis?
5. How do you overcome resistance to change in groups? What is the PERT decision-
making process that assists implementation of group proposals? What is Murphy’s
Law?
12
6. What are the pros and cons of majority rule, minority rule, and consensus decision
making? What are the specific rules of consensus decision making that make it work?
What is a true consensus? Can all groups achieve consensus?
7. What are the criteria (standards) for evaluating information used to solve problems and
make decisions in groups? Explain each one and provide an example. What are
common problems found when seeking information on the Internet? How can you
combat these problems?
8. What are the pros and cons of participation in group discussion? Why is participation
from all members not always beneficial to the group? How are cultural diversity and
group participation related? How do you encourage participation in group discussion
from all members? What are the primary complaints about group meetings? How
should you conduct group meetings to achieve the best results?
9. Explain the brainstorming technique. How is it different from nominal group
technique? Which method is better? What steps need to be taken to use brainstorming
effectively? What is reframing? How does it produce creative problem solving? What
is integrative problem solving? How does it work?
10. Define power. What are the three types of power? How do they differ from each
other? Why is no one entirely without power? What does “power is group–centered”
mean? What are the primary power resources? Explain how each can produce power
for group members. What do the Milgram studies show? Why are they important?
What is the difference between conformity and obedience?
11. Explain the common general, verbal, and nonverbal indicators of power. What is verbal
dominance? What differentiates information and expertise as a power resource? When
power is imbalanced, what are the likely results? Explain! What is an alliance? A
coalition? What are extrinsic and intrinsic rewards? There are two forms of prevention
power: defiance and resistance. Explain how they differ. What are the resistance
strategies (passive aggression)? How should the group respond to resistance strategies?
What is power distance? How does culture and power interrelate?
12. Define assertiveness. How does assertiveness differ from passivity and aggression?
What is the DESC scripting method of assertiveness? Is assertiveness always
appropriate?
13. What is the definition of conflict? What are the chief differences between constructive
and destructive conflict? What is the difference between conflict resolution and conflict
management? Why is the distinction important?
14. What are the five communication styles of conflict management? When should you use
each and when should you choose another option? Which styles are most likely to be
effective and which are least likely? What is the low-context style of communicating
13
and what is the high-context style? Which is used most in a collectivist culture and an
individualist culture?
15. What are the primary situational variables that influence conflict transactions? What is
negative reciprocation? Tit-for-tat negotiating strategy? Reformed sinner (GRIT)
strategy? Positional bargaining? Principled negotiation? What are the distinctions
between constructive and destructive anger? What steps can be taken to manage
effectively your own anger and the anger of other group members?
16. What is a virtual group? How does it differ from a virtual team? What is a technology?
What are the differences between text-messaging, audioconferencing, and
videoconferencing virtual groups? What are the primary benefits and challenges
presented by working in virtual groups?
17. How does social anxiety and social loafing relate to virtual groups? Do virtual groups
make these problems more difficult or less difficult to addressed? How can virtual
groups be made more effective? What is media richness theory? Media synchronicity
theory? What are primary suggestions for conducting effective virtual group meetings.
STUDY GUIDE: “TWELVE ANGRY MEN”
1. Apply the communication competence model to the jury in the movie. Concentrate on
the We-versus-Me orientation, skills and knowledge, appropriateness and effectiveness,
sensitivity, commitment, and ethics.
2. Analyze the jury in the movie as a system. Discuss synergy, negative synergy, ripple
effect, boundary control, group size, and openness versus closedness.
3. Consider this jury from the standpoint of competition and cooperation. Were jurors
competitive? Which ones? Cooperative? Which ones? What were the results?
Discuss each jury member in terms of defensive versus supportive communication.
What resulted from the defensive or supportive communication patterns? Was there an
interdependence in goals and division of labor and resources? Equality? Meaningful
participation? Individual accountability? Did jury members use shift responses?
Support responses? Competitive interrupting? Ambushing? Probing? Paraphrasing?
4. What are some explicit and implicit norms that emerged during jury deliberations?
Was there conformity among jury members?
5. There were difficult group members on the jury. Which ones were difficult? How did
the other jurors handle them? Could they have handled them better (apply text
suggestions)? Explain.
6. Discuss roles and leadership depicted in the movie. Which informal roles were
exhibited? By whom? With what results? Did leadership emerge according to the
14
normal pattern in small groups? Explain. Was leadership effective? Which leadership
styles were used? Which were effective and why?
7. Did the jury ever act as a team? Explain your answer. Apply the four dimensions of
empowerment to the jury (group potency, meaningfulness, autonomy, and impact).
8. Did the jury arrive at a true consensus? Explain what is required to have a true
consensus. Did this jury meet these requirements? Explain.
9. Identify significant inferences made by the jury members. Were the inferences faulty?
Explain. Did the jury engage in collective inferential error?
10. Was there groupthink during jury deliberations? Explain. Any dialectical inquiry?
Devil’s advocacy?
11. Apply the Standard Agenda method of decision making to this jury deliberation. Apply
all 6 steps. Did the jury use all six steps? With what result? Could the jury have
improved its use of this decision making method? Explain.
12. There are several instances of defiance depicted in the movie. Identify which jury
members were defiant and in what ways they were defiant. Discuss each of these
instances of defiance in terms of the 4 strategies groups typically employ to extinguish
defiance (nonconformity).
13. Analyze jury deliberations in terms of the primary power resources. Which resources
did each jury member have? Explain the influence of each key member on the final
outcome of the deliberations by focusing on each member’s power resources (e.g.,
information, expertise, etc.). Which forms of power were used—dominance,
prevention, empowerment? Explain.
14. There is much conflict depicted in this movie. Did the jurors handle the secondary
tension effectively? (Apply text suggestions for handling secondary tension.) Discuss
the conflict by applying the 5 communication styles of conflict management (e.g.,
collaborating, competing, etc.). Identify jurors and the conflict styles they used. What
were the results of using the styles?
15. Which negotiation strategies (i.e., tit-for-tat, hard bargaining, principled negotiation)
did each juror use? What resulted from the negotiation strategies used?
16. In what ways would the jury deliberations have likely changed if the deliberations had
been conducted electronically as a virtual group? In what ways would the deliberations
have been the same?
9
collectivist cultures? Is conformity a negative phenomenon in groups? Do cliques have
any benefits?
15. What is member diversity? What are the pros and cons of diverse group membership?
What is deep diversity? When is it important?
16. How does gender and ethnicity affect group development? What is the Twenty Percent
Rule?
17. Under what conditions is group performance likely to be superior to individual
performance? When is it the reverse?
18. What is social loafing? How can groups combat social loafing? Are individualist or
collectivist cultures more likely to experience social loafing? Why? What is social
compensation? Why does it occur in groups?
STUDY GUIDE: EXAM #2 (Chapters 4-7)
1. What is a group climate? What are the primary differences between positive and
negative group climates?
2. Define competition, hypercompetitiveness, cooperation, and individual achievement.
How are they different from each other? Who benefits from competition? Who
experiences negative effects from competition? Why? What conditions are necessary
for constructive competition to occur?
3. Explain in what ways competition affects performance and achievement and group
cohesiveness. Be familiar with the research in all of these areas, especially when
comparing intergroup and intragroup competition. What is the norm of group interest?
4. What role does culture play in producing competitive or cooperative behavior in
groups? Explain and provide examples.
5. How should groups deal with difficult group members? Explain the steps groups need
to take.
10
6. Explain the 6 defensive and supportive communication patterns. Provide examples for
each. How does defensive and supportive communication relate to competition and
cooperation? What is self-justification? What is a hidden agenda? What is a shift
response? What is a support response? What is competitive interrupting and how is it
different from a shift response? What is ambushing? What is probing? What is
paraphrasing and when should it be used?
7. What is the Stanford Prison Study? In what ways do the results of this study mirror
behavior of guards and prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq? What did it show about
the power of roles?
8. What are role status, role conflict, role reversal, role flexibility, role fixation, and role
specialization? Explain the differences between formal and informal roles. Be familiar
with the task, maintenance, and disruptive informal roles. What is the devil’s advocate
role? Explain how roles emerge. What is group endorsement and what is its
significance?
9. What challenges do newcomers face when first joining a group? How can newcomers
in a group gain acceptance from the group? Why do groups use hazing rituals? What
should be done about hazing rituals in groups?
10. What is group socialization? What strategies can be used to make group socialization
occur more smoothly?
11. Define leadership. Identify the key differences between leaders and managers.
Distinguish between a transformational leader and a transactional leader. How does
charisma relate to either type of leader? What is the relationship between leaders and
followers? What qualities or behaviors qualify a leader as psychopathic? How does
leadership typically emerge? Explain how not to become a leader. What steps should
you take if you want to become group leader? What should you do to retain the leader
role once you have become the leader?
12. Explain gender and ethnic bias in leadership. What is the glass ceiling? What is the
twenty percent rule? Explain the different perspectives on leadership: traits, styles,
situations, functions, and servant perspectives. Be familiar with the Hersey and
Blanchard situational leadership model. How does readiness influence leadership
styles? Are leadership theories culture bound or can they be applied to any culture?
13. What is the definition of a team? What are the chief distinctions between standard small
groups and teams? What is a pseudo-team? What is collaborative interdependence?
Why is it important? What skills, attitudes, and characteristics do the best team
members exhibit? What characteristics and attitudes do the worst team members
exhibit? When should a member be removed from the team? What are the guidelines
for managing culturally diverse team membership?
11
14. What are the 4 C’s of team goal development? What is a superordinate goal? How do
you establish appropriate goals for a team? What is most important? Can a team have
too many goals? How is a team identity established? What is symbolic convergence
theory? What are fantasy themes and fantasy chains and how do they relate to
teambuilding? What are solidarity symbols? What is team talk? What is the difference
between individual and team accountability?
15. Should team roles be designated or should members choose their own roles? Explain.
What is team empowerment? What are the four dimensions of team empowerment?
How does organizational hierarchy affect team empowerment? Why? What is the
difference between quality circles and self-managing work teams? Which is most
effective? Why? What are the chief impediments to team empowerment? What are the
main communication strategies that produce competent team leadership? What
produces ineffective team leadership?
STUDY GUIDE: EXAM #3 (Chapters 8-12)
1. How does information overload affect group decision making? How can you cope with
information overload? Which is the most effective coping method? When does
information underload occur in groups?
2. Define and explain confirmation bias. What is rationalization of disconfirmation? How
do you combat confirmation bias? What is false dichotomy? How do you combat false
dichotomies? What is collective inferential error. Is it incompetent communication to
make inferences? What is the vividness effect. What is a correlation and how does it
relate to inferential error? How do you combat collective inferential error?
3. What is group polarization? How is it different from the risky shift phenomenon? Why
does group polarization occur? What is groupthink? What are its symptoms? What
causes groupthink? How should you prevent groupthink?
4. What are the phases of group decision making and problem solving? Explain the six
steps of the Standard Agenda. What are questions of fact, value, and policy? What is
force field analysis?
5. How do you overcome resistance to change in groups? What is the PERT decision-
making process that assists implementation of group proposals? What is Murphy’s
Law?
12
6. What are the pros and cons of majority rule, minority rule, and consensus decision
making? What are the specific rules of consensus decision making that make it work?
What is a true consensus? Can all groups achieve consensus?
7. What are the criteria (standards) for evaluating information used to solve problems and
make decisions in groups? Explain each one and provide an example. What are
common problems found when seeking information on the Internet? How can you
combat these problems?
8. What are the pros and cons of participation in group discussion? Why is participation
from all members not always beneficial to the group? How are cultural diversity and
group participation related? How do you encourage participation in group discussion
from all members? What are the primary complaints about group meetings? How
should you conduct group meetings to achieve the best results?
9. Explain the brainstorming technique. How is it different from nominal group
technique? Which method is better? What steps need to be taken to use brainstorming
effectively? What is reframing? How does it produce creative problem solving? What
is integrative problem solving? How does it work?
10. Define power. What are the three types of power? How do they differ from each
other? Why is no one entirely without power? What does “power is group–centered”
mean? What are the primary power resources? Explain how each can produce power
for group members. What do the Milgram studies show? Why are they important?
What is the difference between conformity and obedience?
11. Explain the common general, verbal, and nonverbal indicators of power. What is verbal
dominance? What differentiates information and expertise as a power resource? When
power is imbalanced, what are the likely results? Explain! What is an alliance? A
coalition? What are extrinsic and intrinsic rewards? There are two forms of prevention
power: defiance and resistance. Explain how they differ. What are the resistance
strategies (passive aggression)? How should the group respond to resistance strategies?
What is power distance? How does culture and power interrelate?
12. Define assertiveness. How does assertiveness differ from passivity and aggression?
What is the DESC scripting method of assertiveness? Is assertiveness always
appropriate?
13. What is the definition of conflict? What are the chief differences between constructive
and destructive conflict? What is the difference between conflict resolution and conflict
management? Why is the distinction important?
14. What are the five communication styles of conflict management? When should you use
each and when should you choose another option? Which styles are most likely to be
effective and which are least likely? What is the low-context style of communicating
13
and what is the high-context style? Which is used most in a collectivist culture and an
individualist culture?
15. What are the primary situational variables that influence conflict transactions? What is
negative reciprocation? Tit-for-tat negotiating strategy? Reformed sinner (GRIT)
strategy? Positional bargaining? Principled negotiation? What are the distinctions
between constructive and destructive anger? What steps can be taken to manage
effectively your own anger and the anger of other group members?
16. What is a virtual group? How does it differ from a virtual team? What is a technology?
What are the differences between text-messaging, audioconferencing, and
videoconferencing virtual groups? What are the primary benefits and challenges
presented by working in virtual groups?
17. How does social anxiety and social loafing relate to virtual groups? Do virtual groups
make these problems more difficult or less difficult to addressed? How can virtual
groups be made more effective? What is media richness theory? Media synchronicity
theory? What are primary suggestions for conducting effective virtual group meetings.
STUDY GUIDE: “TWELVE ANGRY MEN”
1. Apply the communication competence model to the jury in the movie. Concentrate on
the We-versus-Me orientation, skills and knowledge, appropriateness and effectiveness,
sensitivity, commitment, and ethics.
2. Analyze the jury in the movie as a system. Discuss synergy, negative synergy, ripple
effect, boundary control, group size, and openness versus closedness.
3. Consider this jury from the standpoint of competition and cooperation. Were jurors
competitive? Which ones? Cooperative? Which ones? What were the results?
Discuss each jury member in terms of defensive versus supportive communication.
What resulted from the defensive or supportive communication patterns? Was there an
interdependence in goals and division of labor and resources? Equality? Meaningful
participation? Individual accountability? Did jury members use shift responses?
Support responses? Competitive interrupting? Ambushing? Probing? Paraphrasing?
4. What are some explicit and implicit norms that emerged during jury deliberations?
Was there conformity among jury members?
5. There were difficult group members on the jury. Which ones were difficult? How did
the other jurors handle them? Could they have handled them better (apply text
suggestions)? Explain.
6. Discuss roles and leadership depicted in the movie. Which informal roles were
exhibited? By whom? With what results? Did leadership emerge according to the
14
normal pattern in small groups? Explain. Was leadership effective? Which leadership
styles were used? Which were effective and why?
7. Did the jury ever act as a team? Explain your answer. Apply the four dimensions of
empowerment to the jury (group potency, meaningfulness, autonomy, and impact).
8. Did the jury arrive at a true consensus? Explain what is required to have a true
consensus. Did this jury meet these requirements? Explain.
9. Identify significant inferences made by the jury members. Were the inferences faulty?
Explain. Did the jury engage in collective inferential error?
10. Was there groupthink during jury deliberations? Explain. Any dialectical inquiry?
Devil’s advocacy?
11. Apply the Standard Agenda method of decision making to this jury deliberation. Apply
all 6 steps. Did the jury use all six steps? With what result? Could the jury have
improved its use of this decision making method? Explain.
12. There are several instances of defiance depicted in the movie. Identify which jury
members were defiant and in what ways they were defiant. Discuss each of these
instances of defiance in terms of the 4 strategies groups typically employ to extinguish
defiance (nonconformity).
13. Analyze jury deliberations in terms of the primary power resources. Which resources
did each jury member have? Explain the influence of each key member on the final
outcome of the deliberations by focusing on each member’s power resources (e.g.,
information, expertise, etc.). Which forms of power were used—dominance,
prevention, empowerment? Explain.
14. There is much conflict depicted in this movie. Did the jurors handle the secondary
tension effectively? (Apply text suggestions for handling secondary tension.) Discuss
the conflict by applying the 5 communication styles of conflict management (e.g.,
collaborating, competing, etc.). Identify jurors and the conflict styles they used. What
were the results of using the styles?
15. Which negotiation strategies (i.e., tit-for-tat, hard bargaining, principled negotiation)
did each juror use? What resulted from the negotiation strategies used?
16. In what ways would the jury deliberations have likely changed if the deliberations had
been conducted electronically as a virtual group? In what ways would the deliberations
have been the same?