Archive for month: December, 2014

This chapter is perfectly suited and relative to Survivor as it entails the aspects that create the alliances that decide the fate of the tribal council decisions. Through the different aspects of group motivation, tribe members learn what and how they are motivated and how these concepts will dictate their alliance position and how they will vote.

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is also a very visible part of the experience on Survivor. Obviously shelter and food are a vital and pivotal part of life on Survivor. Although these needs are necessary for life and they seem very important, success on the show may more importantly come from motivators. Because the goal of the game is essentially to survive tribal council, motivators play an essential role in dictating how tribe members will find their motivation to side with which alliance they choose and ultimately how they will vote at tribal council. Feeling a sense of belonging and having trust in your alliance is absolutely vital in motivating how members will ally and play the game.

Critical decisions are made when members, such as John, decide that having a sense of meaningfulness promotes him to vote off the strongest competition like Jeremy, rather than simply voting safely and taking the easy route at tribal council. The dynamics of the alliance and their strategy also implicates a groups sense of choice. When contradictions about which way the alliance vote, some tribe members will feel that their sense of choice is inhibited. John and Jaquelyn have forced their alliance to question their sense of choice, as they have switched thier vote at the last minute the last two tribal councils, going against their alliances original plan.

A sense of competence has also been vital in the challenge aspect of the game. When picking a team leaves one member unpicked and out of the game, usually Missy or Keith, it reveals that the tribe members do not feel a very strong sense of physical competence in them. This likely also reflects on the Missy and Keith’s own feelings about their place in the game and their group roles and how they are motivated.

This episode directly tied back into chapter six from the fifth edition of the text in regards to rewards. Natalie and Jeremy gave both Jon and Jacquelyn their reward from winning a challenge as a thank you for sticking to their alliance and helping them vote out Josh at the last tribal council. This gave both Jon and Jacquelyn a sense of personal recognition from their alliance because in front of everyone in the whole game, Natalie and Jeremy singled them out to say a special thank you. But, the material compensation that was highly valued by the rest of the players in the game was the icing on the cake.

One issue that came up at the tribal council meeting was that Keith was withholding information, especially from the women. By not being open with the women that are also vital, strong players in the game Keith is not fulfilling the intrinsic need that they have to be accepted by the group. This came back to bite him after Reed found out that he had an idol, and spread the news like wildfire across the camp. Reed now desperate once again became an important player in the game, making himself a fountain of information.

I am really bummed Jeremy got voted off. He was my favorite player and I really wanted to see him go all the way to the end and win the prize. He was smart, creative and very determined and overall not a nasty player. He stuck to his guns and tried to use his intelligence and cool demeanor to win over people to his alliance, and as we can see it worked quite well. That is, until now. My money is now on Jon as the main power player as the game continues. I’m hoping that he can stay in the game while longer with Jacquelyn.

Everyone is betrayed! After last week we are really beginning to see what happens when there is a lack of leadership and genuine communication. Like a bad relationship, Survivor is beginning to become a terrible thing.

When Jeremy got voted off it changes the entire dynamic of the island. There is a lack of trust between basically everyone, and no one should feel too comfortable about their situation. In fact, everyone should be trepidatious.  I feel that the characters at this point all feel as though they are deserving of winning. They have all made it quite far in the show and have gone through some pretty difficult obstacles. Furthermore we see that this has created a huge issue  of entitlement toward winning the prize. This has led to a very vicious type of gameplay. I would not want to be on that island right now.

THe hidden agendas are also starting to surface as we see that John may be removed from the island if Natalie and Baylor are able to execute their plans.

I also noticed in this episode that Wes was actually short handed due to the immunities. He has played a fair game and wasn’t as terrible a air as some of the other players. It is unfortunate that the game has come to this, but we will see how it all pans out in the end.

During this episode of survivor it was their 24th day on the island, and the Huyopa Tribal council voting were running off of many people’s attitudes. Natalie was still extremely shocked and blind sighted that Jeremy was voted out and was out for revenge and bonding with other people. During this episode, Natalie and Reed exhibited a signs of wanting to take leadership of the groups that they were in and wanted to take over. Natalie went forth with trying to formulate different solutions to solving her problem of being left out of an alliance and Jeremy. During this episode the challenges came with many big inciting rewards. The yellow team won the first challenge send Alec, Jon, Jaclyn and Missy in the place or Reed to be Survivor goodwill ambassadors towards delivering baseball gear to children. The immunity challenge was won by Reed and he then hatched a plan to get out Jon as well.
Reed and Natalie executed the Single Question format in trying to solve their problem of being left out of alliances and to get Jon voted out. They went through the five steps of interpersonal and procedural problem solving. First, they went through and identified their problem as Jon and his power over the Huyopa tribe and voting other out. Second, they both carried forth their group collaboration setting by discussion norms with others. Reed identified assumptions and biases and discussed norms with Alec and swayed him to be on his side. Natalie sett a collaborative environment by letting Baylor in on the secret that there was another immunity idol somewhere in their camp and they found it. Third, they identified and analyzed the issues by identifying that they need to all be on the same page when they vote Jon out and they both have immunity idols to protect themselves. Fourth, they identified the possible solutions they would have from changing up the vote and the alliances. The decided that voting Jon out would benefit both of them towards winning. The last is they tried to answer the single question of how to get Jon out of them game even if he was equipped with an idol. Little did they know, entering tribal council Jon was ready with his immunity idol therefore rendering him no votes against him. Leaving Wes to be the ninth person voted off survivor islands.

I was pretty disappointed that Jon stayed on. Although it looked like there was bad communication, I thought that because most of the votes were for Jon, that Reed and the others communicated well  by convincing Jon and Jaclyn that they were voting for Keith or Wes but actually following through with the Jon vote. Natalie said she wanted Jon off but then voted for kwith so that confused me but either way there seems to be a lack of trust and that is one of the biggest downfalls in group communication.