Group Dynamics

Last week, I was talking to a friend of mine about a movie. He told me that the movie sucked big time and told me to never ever watch that movie. Once he said that I should never ever watch that movie, it induced a great curiosity in me to watch that movie. How bad a movie can be? Am I so time bound that spending couple of hours in a movie is going to be a waste of time? Well, if you are wondering which movie I am talking about or who the friend is, sorry...I just made it up... The real question is how do we shape ourselves up in a society? Assume the same scenario as before. Instead of you being alone, assume that you have a whole bunch of your friends with you and they all buy into your friend's comments and they all decide to not watch the movie. Will you still watch it?

I was with a group of friends the other day and someone started talking about a new movie. I dont know about others. I am usually hesitant before giving a opinion out loud irrespective of whether it is a good one or a bad one, especially if I have an extreme opinion. I usually sense the vibe of the group and then adapt my answers in such a way that it doesnt create a major conflict of opinions. I think we all probably do that at some degree or other. I think we've acquired a characteristic to mold ourselves to get along with the surroundings. Ofcourse, there are exceptions like this friend of mine who always tries to come up with an anti-argument for any argument placed. Once again, if you are wondering who the friend is or what the movie is, I made that one up too...

We had an exercise in my class yesterday. It is a role play and everyone was supposed to play their part. Everyone had a hidden agenda that they were not supposed to reveal explicitly, but try to achieve it. It is just amazing how a simple role play exercise would transform our thought process into doing things that we dont normally do. Anyway, I played the VP of chamber of commerce and the discussion was to determine what kind of voting mechanism was needed to bring a new board member to the council and what should be the term of the board member. My role was to not really care about the board meeting. I had to accept what others had to say, especially Carol. I had to specifically impress one board member, Carol Stone so that I can go out on a date with her at the end of the meeting. It was an interesting role. My professor was quite impressed with the way I conducted myself...Carol was impressed too...Now, this is not something that I made up..;)