Listen Blood is Blood

In this episode the dynamics were changed by the swapping of the tribe members. There was a new force to reckon with tribe members were united with their loved ones. This was especially the case for the coyopa tribe which lost the challenge and faced having to vote someone off of the island. The group couple and family members had to listen to one another and also listen to other tribe groups. It seemed that listening became critical as the tribe pairs tried to decide who they were going to vote off next. They asked one another information to understand group dynamics from the previous tribe grouping and to understand how people behaved in the previous tribe prior to the swap.  It seemed that they were using listening to evaluate and to analyze tribe dynamics. The thing that stood out to me the most is the fact that very few conversations between tribe members are filmed throughout the episode. Of course the interesting dynamic interactions that do take place have to be illustrated to give the idea that the tribal members are consulting one another. However, it seems as though the players are constantly listening and observing tribe members. They are listening to the way they behave and interact as well as the things they say. On survivor the cast is constantly listening understand, remember, interpret and evaluate other players. This helps them make decisions on forming a strategy for the winning the prize and staying on the show. All the while we studied group communication in the sense of the show I had not considered what a large role listening played in the show. I was mostly concerned with the things being said by the cast. It is now very apparent that listening plays just as much of a role in what happens in groups as what people say.