Archive for year: 2014

In episode six of Survivor there were some interesting dynamics Dale of the Cayopa tribe is upset because his daughter was voted off. The hunapu tribe is stressed out over their lack of food and tries to barter for food. They had to trade all of their comfort items and some excavation tools as well as tarps to protect them from the weather.  The Verbal and Nonverbal communication begins. For cayopa, Dale expresses anger and distrust it is written all over his face.  For hunapu. As they give up all their items for rice they begin much nonverbal behavior and expression. There are many sighs, frowns and hand gestures expressing their concern and frustration with the situation they found themselves in. What stood out to me the most was Defensive and supportive behavior. Dale is planning a strategy to manipulate the tribe with his fake idol. Natalie expresses empathy in volunteering to go to Exile Island even though she didn’t have to go. But then they receive a idol tip and begin to devise a strategy to use the idol to manipulate the game.  Jeremy exhibits evaluation he is questioning everyone and wants control; he was all upset that they gave away their things for rice when they did.  But over all there was allot of team talk. The tribes act as teams either to win challenges or keep from being voted off. . They listen to one another for information regarding banding together or deciding in whom to vote off. During their individual interviews all they reference to is I but in the tribe at camp it’s another story. They speak more supportively Jeremy telling his team mate Natalie that he needs her and she can do it, to hang in there. During the challenge the team Hunapu is successful in communicating well as a team during the puzzle portion and it encourages the team in a supportive way leading to their win.

After reading Chapter 6, the concepts of verbal and nonverbal communication seemed to jump out at me in this episode. The dimensions of team talk were evident in a variety of situations but, more often than not, the dimension of identification was readily identifiable. In both tribes, members were heard using plural pronouns when talking about their tribes. Alec expressed concern about “our tribe” and wondered aloud about “what we’re going to do” about food in the Hunahpu tribe. Jeremy, also, identified with his team as he stated his belief that “we can win a reward tomorrow.”

On the other hand, singular pronouns were also used frequently, but in a different context. When tribe members were talking about their own personal agendas in the game, they began saying things like “I won’t be going home” and “this goes in my favor”. It should be noted, however, that this kind  of speech was only used when tribe members were talking one-on-one with the camera. If anyone used this kind of language in front of the tribe, they would appear self-centered and untrustworthy.

That being said, not all of the communication that occurred in front of the tribe was appropriate. It seems that the tribes are still working their way through the storming stage because abusive language was abundant. Alec was really upset about the mismanagement of food in his tribe and, it was indicative in his verbal expression as he exclaimed, “what the hell guys?” It didn’t stop there, though. After Julie had a rough night in the rain, Alec used some offensive language to communicate how he felt about the matter.  Saying things like, “Bitch, this is Survivor!” is demeaning and not an effective way to use team talk.

It follows, however, that Alec wasn’t the only tribe member to use abusive language. Jeremy was clearly irritated with the way his tribe handled the lack of food situation and, he complained that those “braniacs gave [the tarp] away”…”they’re so dumb!” While this language is highly offensive, no words were necessary to interpret how Jeremy felt about his tribe’s decision. Jeremy’s nonverbal behavior left no doubt  that was he clearly unhappy with losing the tribe’s comfort items.

However, despite the offensive language and disagreements, the Hunahpu tribe continues to dominate. Coyopa does a better job of managing their resources at camp, but they can’t get it together for the challenges. Hunahpu is the stronger tribe but, maybe the tide will turn…

For episode six of survivor can connect a lot with chapter 7 about listening from the text. The episode began with an interesting situation on the blue tribe with their food situation. There definitely seemed to be a divide on what should be done about moving forward with bartering for food. Members of the group that wanted to barter for the bag of rice appeared to outnumber the number of members that felt the barter was a bad idea. While the communication was not shown it would appear the non verbal cues were not picked up by the other tribe members and members like Julie and Jeremy both felt that the trade was a bad decision. Especially for Julie during the rain. Listening also played a key role in the elimination challenge and what followed. The listening to respond and understand didn’t take place for the yellow group, so they lost yet another challenge, and it is the continual loss of the yellow tribe that is really making the show depressing to watch. No one wants to watch a team get completely dominated in a competition and i for one am tired of watch Coupa lose.

Listening was also interesting in the situation with Dale. Dale played a good game using the bluff immunity idol to his interest, and even though it didn’t work out for him in the end, it was still a good play on his part. Ultimately the What’s In It For Me just wasn’t large enough to get John to listen to Dale and switch sides at tribal council.  I think that what Dale was missing was mainly personality differences within his tribe. We didn’t really see the day to day operations of the tribe, and what i think ultimately happened was Dale made him self an outsider do to his differences in personality with his tribe, which ended up painting a target on his back.

The previous episode ends with Kelly, Dale’s daughter getting kicked out at tribal council. With his daughter gone, he fears that he will be going home because of the fact he has not proved himself to his team members. The first challenge deals with being blindfolded. When being blindfolded, they had to untie bags of puzzle pieces and then go to the second part where they have to recreate the mask. They have to pick the strongest competitor to compete. Reed competes for Hunahpu and Baylor plays for Coyopa. Reed wins for his team, but she still ends up crying just like Baylor. You could tell that they were very stressed out. Natalie goes to Exile Island with Baylor. At the Hunaphu tribe, they end up having a huge barbeque all thanks to Reed’s win. Next comes the immunity challenge, which involves racing up over a tall wall. Hunaphu wins the challenge like they always do, which leaves Coyopa to tribal council. Dale ends up getting kicked off because they feel like they cannot trust him.
In this episode, I noticed that both teams showed defensive behaviors that we read about in our book.

In the episode “Million Dollar Decision” the Coyopa and Hanahpu tribe was joined together to make one group. The tribe members named their group Hoyopa. The group used nonverbal communication when Josh said that he wanted to vote out Jeremy by getting closer to everyone and letting them know why he wants to vote out Josh. As the group members work together they team talk about what they think will happen now that everyone is joined together to play the game. As the show continues abstract words are used when Julie starts telling Missy that she doesn’t have a support system anymore. Offensive language was used in the group when John was really upset that Julie stole the trail mix from the group. Julie was guilty that she had trail mix and didn’t share with anyone but at the same time she said that she would only share with those that she likes.  In my opinion I thought that Julie was being somewhat selfish but at the same time she is their by herself to win the competition.

With Jeremy and Missy their isn’t personal distance but their should be. With Josh and Baylor social distance still remains because they are acquaintances. This episode didn’t end with  much intensity and I hope the next episode is better.