Well,

Confirmation is over and I have some observations on the cohesion of the the group.

As, I was mentioning before, the lack of consistent meetings seems to have eroded the vertical cohesion with the teachers to an all time low. It seem initially to contribute to the fracture of the group into clicks.

The organization consisted of four adults( the leaders). And six confirmands ( teens 17 year of age) Form the church and one confirmand form an other local church.

We went on retreat last week. I theorized that the unfamiliar environment would force the group of seven into a tight knit team but, they immediately broke into three smaller groups. Making it even worse there was an additional member from another church that was there making up a retreat that had missed. The new student knew some of the others and fit into one of the clicks from the start. One additional student did not show up, deeming the retreat as unimportant, opting to work as a bat-boy for the local professional baseball team.

Anyhow, the problem with the stability of the group caused the member to be bored an somewhat uninterested in the activities. They did group together against the staff of adults to crawl up on the roof to party.

The short analyses of the group performance is that there was not enough time to form trust relationships amongst the members or the adult staff. The result shows me that the stability aspect of cohesion is very real. hopefully there can be a more cohesive group an a future date that could explore the other two aspect of the cohesion equation.

Until next time. . i hope i can get writing more often.

Greetings all!

I have some interesting reports on cohesion for this entry.

I have noticed that the confirmation class is beginning to show a total lack of cohesion. We have begun to put pressure on the group in the form of various assignments. Each student needed to select, plan and carry out a community service project, as well as select and write about a saint that exemplified the virtues they admired.

This is becoming a real chore to get them to do this. I have surmised that the problem is that they really are not a cohesive group. Since not all the members of the group go to the same school, or are even friends, there is no real need for them to care if they cooperate together. Also the 16 meeting they have had with us has not formed enough bonds of trust for them to work as a group. Some do have enough trust to actually speak their minds and other are still tyring to prove that know more than the teachers and the other students.

I guess more time together is needed. We shall see what happen when we go on retreat and they are pulled out of their element.

rgs

William

OK! I have been confronted with a conundrum. Last week I played the prisoner's dilemma in the confirmation class. I had each student pair up with another and tried to make sure I did not put close friends together. I asked what choice the would make and what they thought their partner would make. Every single one chose the option to remain silent, take a lesser sentence and not betray their partner so that they would be able to go free. That result contradicts the classical expected results for the prisoner's dilemma. All the text books say that given the choice people would betray their partners for the chance to be set free. Are the text books wrong?

By the way if you are not familiar with the prisoner's dilemma here is a link to an explanation of the game

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

So my conundrum is . . . why would these young adults all choose to remain silent and got to jail on a lesser charge instead of trying to go free at the expense of their friend? Maybe they are becoming cohesive? But is it trust or just peer pressure? Anyone have any thoughts?


I'm still pondering it

Later!!

I found an interesting word that might be a good concept to study cohesion. Especially when modeling cohesion of a Chinese combat units. The word is "Guainxi"

Guanxi is a Chinese term, generally translated as "networks" or "connections," that is increasing discussed in Western business circles and among academics studying such aspects of community as affective networks and social capital. Although guanxi is often characterized as uniquely Chinese, similar relationships occur in other nations, especially in East Asia.

here is a link to an explanation of the word

http://guanxi.pbwiki.com/


regs


WEW

On my website "On Cohesion Simulation" I have placed a symbol. This symbol I decided should be the representative symbol of cohesion simulations. Why?
Well because, every conceptual idea should have a symbol to represent the nuances of the concept. The symbol starts with a hexagon. This is to represent the connection to traditional war games, where simulations were born. Inside the hexagon is a connected graph. This is the basis of a graphical depiction of the relationships among the members of a group. The numbered circles represent the individuals and the lines connecting them represent the trust ties among them.

So what do you think?


By the way the latest on the confirmation class is that we let them convince us(the instructors) why we should cancel the class held on Superbowl night. They seemed to come together and presented some well though out and compelling reasons. The ideas, of course ( sorry to sound cynical, but. . .), were written by only one student and were passed out , but at least the all agreed that they would present the ideas as a group. We will see if there is any vestige of that unity on the upcoming class.

until the next one!!

Hello all,

It's mid January and my studies and research are proceeding very slow. I have to get motivated but, there seems to be little interest. I have been slowly adding stuff to my website and have had one visitor.

The new about the confirmation class is positive. Three meetings into the new year we had one student drop out, but that one seemed to the trouble maker. That student was intimidating the other and there was very little trust and cohesion. Since the student left, the others are openings up and beginning to discuss subject in deeper and relaxed manner.

Cohesion seems to be building.

regs

William

Well I finaly did it I created a web page. Hopefully to complement this blog. The address is http:/warner2000.tripod.com/ It is still under contruction so be patient. I also have my disserstion avaliable for down load.

By the way an update on the confirmation class group. Well we have had 12 classes and the still have not enough trust in each other or the teachers to discuss more than superficial subjects. I guess it takes more than 12 hour to build cohesive trust.

The next year will be taking them out of the classroom environment and get them to work at a soup kitchen or a ropes course at the local college. we'll see.

for now

happy new year