ASSUME GROUP INTERRACTIONS ON THE POSITIVE
1. How did your involvement with this group differ from other groups you have been involved with before? Did you consider this a team or a group? Why? What specific roles were assigned to members and how did this affect interaction and performance?
2. What roles did individuals play? What roles did you assume? Did interaction change as certain people were asked to be the observer? Did you notice any of the individual roles emerge? If so, how did the group deal with this person?
3. What norms emerged in the group? Which of these were formal norms and which were informal? Did you notice any change in group members' attendance during the group project? Did members come early or stay late? Was attendance during the group project better than or about the same as before the project? How did meetings start? What happened the day the group leader was the observer? Relate your ideas to the kind of leadership that emerged in your group. Which of the leadership styles did your group incorporate? Was it successful?
4. How were status and power distributed within the group? What members of the group had status? What members had power? Identify individual members within the group and describe what power bases they were able to use. Were these effective? Did you notice any power plays among group members? What power base(s) were you able to employ?
5. How did interaction patterns change throughout the group process? Did you maintain the same pattern from beginning to end? Were cliques identified? Do you feel the group had adequate interaction, or do you feel other patterns would have benefited the group more? Explain. Do you feel you were a cohesive group? If so, what did members do to reinforce the cohesiveness? If not cohesive, what could the group have done differently? Could you identify any clear rituals performed by your group?
6. What stages of group interaction did your group move through? Were you able to clearly identify all the stages? Did your group get "stuck" in one of the stages?
7. What kind of agenda did the group follow? Was it closer to the reflective thinking process, or did you create a different kind of agenda? Describe. Was it successful or do you feel there needed to be a different format?
8. Evaluate the overall success of your group. Do you feel you were an effective or ineffective group? What elements of the process were you most pleased with? What elements do you feel need the most improvement? Identify two things that you would like to change if you were to follow through with this assignment again and explain why you feel these changes would be necessary.
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Sample Solution
citizens to actively seat candidates they believe will benefit their regional constituency. Furthermore, PR systems give political access to minority parties even if they do not receive a majority of the vote, meaning that to some extent everyone is being represented. Additionally, these weaker political parties can form coalitions with larger, more prominent parties to form coalitions that sway chamber voting. Coalitions aid smaller, weaker parties to combat social dominance theory as “the dominators in order to continue domination, and the disadvantaged group to try to change the status quo,” (Aguilar/Barone/Cunow/Desposato, 180). In this way, power sharing between parties, and even interest groups become more apparent to citizens so they know who is responsible for the policies being enacted, which influences the next election cycle. Overall, open-list PR produces a number of advantages permitting a level of transparency between the governing bodies and the populace at large.
On the other side of the aisle, there are a handful of disadvantages associated with the relationship of open-list PR. In traditional PR, party leaders would have the power to allocate seats to their parties candidates as they deem appropriate, taking away political influence from citizens. Candidates in both systems have incentives to garner political party support as it allocates more party power within the upper and lower chambers of the legislature. However, since candidates have more personal power in making a name for themselves without necessarily following party principles, this can lead to a weakening of political parties. Lack of faith in political parties leads to what is known as floor crossing, political figures would change party affiliation, “in an attempt to jockey for the best positions for future elections,” (Dickovick/Eastwood, 409). Only causing faith in open-list PR to further disintegrate, political leaders would offer bribes to legislators to maintain a majority vote on specific pieces of legislation. Also, due to legislators loyalty to their federal states, they do not always have Brazil’s interests in mind when enacting legislation, as only the members of their respective state ensure re-election. What’s more, Brazil contains a multi-party, fragmented party, system where “voters may face as many as one thousand candidates in a single district… [caused by] high-magnitude legislative districts, low costs for candidates’ entry, and high thresholds for the number of candidates per party list,” (Aguilar/Barone/Cunow/Desposato, 181). Withal, the disadvantages of open-list PR in Brazil have led citizens to lose trust in their government, such as the impeachment of Brazilian president Dilm