The Role-Playing Group

An even stronger way to involve audience members is through role playing. In role-playing, people are placed in small groups, are given a scenario, and are asked to act out their responses. By experiencing a situation rather than passively discussing it, members can get in touch with their emotions and can practice new behaviors. After a role play is over, the actors discuss what occurred and what they learned from the experience.

Role-playing is often used to help people understand one another’s point of view. In a workshop designed to increase child-parent interacuon, for example, children and parents might be asked to switch roles, each playing the part of the other. This role reversal may help them understand one another’s concerns and motivations. Role-playing is also often used to help people practice new or difficult behaviors. A campaign against drunk driving might ask high school students to practice taking the keys away from a friend who has had too much to drink. By rehearsing this response in a supportive group context, the students learn what to do if they are ever actually confronted with the problem.

Role-playing is not for everyone. If group members are too inhibited to play their roles or do not take them seriously, this technique will not work. If the scenarios revolve around highly sensitive issues, role-plays can become highly emotional and can get out of hand. In such cases, the presence of a moderator with training and experience is a must.

II. DISCUSSION

Task 1. Discuss the following questions.

1. Dwell on the size of a group. What is an ideal size? What characteristics make a collection of individuals become a group? When does a group become an organization?

2. State the main advantages of working in a group.

3. What interpersonal needs can be met in groups?

4. What tasks are better performed by groups rather than by individuals?

5. When is group synergy unlikely to be achieved? What are social loafting and free-riding?

6. What is group socialization and how is this process developed? How do evaluation and commitment affect movement through the stages?

7. Dwell on the most effective ways of an individual’s successful transition into a group.

8. Who’s a mentor? How can a mentor help individuals to adjust to groups?

9. How are group members supposed to behave in order to reach both productivity and cohesion?

10.What is a hidden agenda? Is it disruptive for group goals?

11.Dwell on groupthink and its main symptoms.

12.Provide the comparison of the models dealing with group development. (Analyze Tuckman’s five-stage model, Fisher’s four-phase model. What are Poole’s criticisms of Fisher’s phase model?)

13.Discuss the process of leader emergence.

14.What are the main approaches to leadership? What is required to make a successful leader?

15.What is a defensive climate? What behaviors lead to defensiveness?

16.What is a supportive climate? What behaviors lead to supportiveness?

17.What is an agenda, and when is it most useful? What is reflective thinking and how does it relate to the standard agenda? How does force-field analysis work?

18.What methods can be used to encourage idea generation in groups?

19.What is nominal group technique? What are its advantages?

20.Dwell on the distinctive characteristics of different formats of public discussion: the symposium, the forum, the panel discussion, the buzz group, and the role-playing group.