Archive for month: November, 2014

This episode began with the merging of both tribes and a celebratory meal for all players. Although all were excited to be lasting so far in the game, alliances were becoming apparent – especially between the couples and singles. As they all become one group and compete against each other, people are scrambling to strategize in order to decide who they will vote out for tribal council. The show, in itself, is centered on decision-making focused on voting people out one by one. This is determined through majority rule at tribal council. However, many of the individuals exhibit certain decision-making styles for them to settle on who they personally want to vote out.

It is apparent that the couples – Jon and Jaclyn, Josh and Reed, Wes and Keith, and Missy and Baylor – have some sort of dependence on each other. This, however, is not a negative trait. Because they each have some sort of relationship towards each other, it is obvious that each couple would work together as a team.

There are also examples of intuitive decision-making styles. Missy and Baylor allow their feelings and emotions to get ahead of them and guide how they vote. They initially targeted Dale, as they saw him as a rude and bossy.

Julie is also a mix between the intuitive and spontaneous styles. For example, after she attempts to hide leftover trail mix from everyone, her peers give her the cold shoulder for lying to everyone. She allows her personal feelings to get the best of her as she feels that no one particularly likes her anymore. This, along with her missing her boyfriend who had been voted out, makes her impulsively and voluntarily leave the game.

In my opinion, Jeremy and Josh are the most logical players. They continuously keep in mind that this is a game and they must create alliances with enough people in order to sway the votes. There is a power imbalance between the two of them as they vie for power and control of the majority vote.

Like problem solving realities, the show also has some aspect of politics. Everyone has a hidden agenda to try and stay in the game. People lie and blindside each other to ensure that the outcome they want occurs.

In episode 8 of Survivor, we saw the many different approaches tribe members used to make decisions.  Many of them had different motifs for the underlying reasons of there decisions for example in similarity to episode 7, Josh tries to get Baylor to side with him instead of Jeremy’s alliance with her own mother. He tries to persuade her into voting for Jeremy, he did save her once before, but the language and the way he treats her is unbelievable he treats her absolutely with no respect. Josh tries to find new members for his alliance because he sees Jeremy as the biggest threat to him in the competition and believes that with enough power, back up and control over his fellow tribe members, he could achieve his goal which is ultimately forcing Jeremy off the island.

I feel that in this episode we could make ties  back into our chapter because it is solely based on communication in general.  It reeked of horrible usage of pronouns, not in the sense that only I was used, but Josh for example used we a lot, not being real about it, since in his mid there is no we only an I; but that horrible usage stemmed form an underlying self absorbent usage.  He tried to trick people into believing him by using trigger words.  however it didn’t necessarily work.

I related this episode to the decision making model. I feel like most of the played are rational decision makers when it comes to this game. They carefully look at the issues and apply them to the situation  appropriately. Although in the alliances there was some dependent decision making. For example, when Jaquelyn decided to vote for Josh , John ultimately decided to vote for him too because his girlfriend was doing it. Jacquelyn priced to be a bit of a dependent decision maker as well. Baylor convinced her to boy for josh and because everyone else was doing it she did. Ultimately leading to josh getting voted off.

I wanted to specifically talk about what Jaime covered in class on Monday. Leadership is huge when considering thee success of a group, in my opinion. The two most prominent leaders that stand out most are Josh and Jeremy. In these last couple of episodes, since the merger, these two led the alliances that advocated for one another’s dismissal. Even though it would seem they both wanted the same thing, to get further in the game,  they led their alliances and have traits that might not be so similar.

Jeremy probably designated himself as a leader in the very beginning. Everyone went along with it however I think Jeremy took a few extra steps to make sure he was in a leadership position. He spoke early and often, like our text mentions is a good strategy. Some would think that not giving others a chance to speak could be a major flaw in people like Jeremy. He would also offer his opinion every chance he could, even if it was on a personal issue like in this episode where the boys, Alec, Keith and Wes  were treating the girls in a very rude manner; Jeremy thought that, even though they were on Survivor, a show meant to test your physical and mental capabilities, the men should show the woman respect by not farting or burping in front of them. They women start the fires and the men do the hard work, which Jeremy seemed to agree with. He tried to speak up for the girls, but in my opinion they need to speak up for themselves, maybe about the way the boys were talking to them but also realize that they were doing something that, by “society’s rules” was a masculine activity that took strength and agility, If they wanted people to treat them differently they have to treat themselves differently, meaning if you want a man to treat you the same don’t expect him to hold a door open for you just because your’e a woman. Anyway, I feel that Jeremy specifically help legitimate power, concerning Survivor, he seemed to be one of the few members that majority of others followed and were loyal to. He also has Coercive power to me because he brought values and beliefs over from being a father, husband and firefighter which allowed him to connect to more people in the game.

Josh was, to me, another story than Jeremy. He was an emergent type of leader. It wasn’t necessarily until later in the game did he come out as positively having traits of a leader.  I always thought he showed those qualities in challenges when needed most; but then when there was a power vacuum Josh snagged it. Josh was more of a reward power leader because he was constantly being very nice to others hoping that by accumulating favors he could gain votes in return. To me he had very good communication skills and understood how to listen emphatically to other team members which made them emotionally attached to him, making it easier to follow someone who hasn’t always been a leader.