Group Development and Survivor Season 29, Nicaragua
Get ready, as fireworks are about to fly as we delve into the current season of Survivor. The game of outwitting and outperforming a group of complete strangers uses a vast amount of communication skills that correlate to Chapter 2 and about Group Development.
As we all know, developing a relationship with complete strangers may be a bit difficult with differences in personality traits, but in the game of Survivor it is extremely necessary to step out of your comfort zone and find similarities among your peers.
When beginning the game, the contestants are paired with a loved family member sent onto a deserted beach in the country Nicaragua. The game is thrown a complete curve ball when the host, Jeff Probst, announces that loved ones are going to be paired against each other on opposite tribes for “Survivor: Blood is thicker than Water”.
When the contestants for the show first meet each other is a prime example of the early stages of Tuckman’s Group Development Stages. In the forming of stage of Tuckman’s model, “members are socially cautious and polite”. This is the stage, as stated in Working in Groups: Communication Principles and Strategies, Sixth Edition, where members explore both their personal goals’ as well as their groups’ goals. First impressions are extremely important when creating strong relationships and, if you want someone to like you, and in this sense, not vote you off the island, you want to start off on a good foot. In this case, the contestants briefly chatted and politely introduced themselves when they opened up their bags showing them the tribe they were in.
After the first challenge, a member of the Hunahpu tribe named Jeremy, wins the challenge for his team and is forced to send the loser, his wife, to Exile Island with one of his own teammates. One of the first concepts of Chapter 2 and group development, and second stage of Tuckman’s Model, is the storming stage. This can be defined by Tuckman, as the time when “members compete for status and openly disagree.”
On Exile Island, Jeremy’s wife Val, and her opposing tribe member Keith, are sent to a camp by themselves. Since Group Communication means three or more people forming a group, this initial contact would not count. However, back at the tribe camps of Hunahpu and Coyopa, members of these tribes are forced into close quarters with each other and must form bonds to promote a solid work ethic as well as the goals of trust and comfort. In a physical game, older members are deemed to be the weakest link. For Dale, a 55 year old farmer, he feels the heat of being the easy target. He pairs up with a few of the other tribe members to try and create the number one resource of survival, fire. While the young guys attempt to rub bamboo together to create fire, Dale uses his creativity and the magnifying ability of his glasses, to create enough heat to ignite some branches.
Primary tension as described by Engleberg and Wynn, is “the social unease and stiffness that accompanies the getting-aquainted stage in a new group”. An example of this in episode 1 of Survivor is when Wes approaches John Rocker about John being an ex-professional baseball player for the Atlanta Braves. The awkward tension between the two is completely visible because John doesn’t want to reveal his real identity, and Wes just wants to make a friend/connection/ally. Unfortunately for him, John now regrets telling Wes his real name and now may scheme to vote him out for knowing too much.
During the debate over replacing the lost flint or receiving the fishing equipment in episode 2, we see how group communication works in a time crunch. Forced with the decision to chose between having fire during cold rainy nights, or to have a sufficient way to get much needed food and protein, we see a bit of constructive nonconformity during the decision making. Constructive nonconformity is defined as, “when a member resists a norm while still working to achieve a group goal. Two members of the tribe greatly want the fishing equipment so they can eat more than just beans to be stronger for competition, so they rattle off a series of ideas for what they could do without the fire, keeping the groups main goal of succeeding in mind.
Stay tuned for what seems to be a very interesting season.
