Small Group Journey

The Berries experienced the pre-affiliation stage when we first formed our small groups. We were not familiar with each other at first so the activity using the prompt cards given to us in class to get to know each were really helpful. We did not see our relationships as intimate, as most of us had never met, we just happen to be sitting close to each other in class and that was how we picked our group. At first, we did not even want to get together to watch 12 Angry Men and watched it on our own because we did not want to spend time together. We got along well during the card prompt activity but experienced some approach and avoidance because we thought it was just a typical group project that was going to be awful (Bernstein, 1965). We all brought past experiences with groups to the group interactions at first that influenced the way we interacted with the current group.
After working together in our group a couple of times, we started to establish a relational base. According to Schiller’s (1997) Relational Model, the second stage is when women work together to develop affiliations and connections while establishing a sense of safety
In future small group experiences, I might try being more of a leader occasionally. I’m not afraid to be the leader of a group, I just do not like to because it is more work. I should try to push myself to be more of a leader to push groups that I am in to do more and better work in future small groups. After years of having awful group experiences for projects, I have gotten to a point that I do not try hard with task groups anymore. This group was such a great experience for me for group work because I typically hate working with groups, but I thoroughly enjoyed working with my group every week. Working with this group went really well and now I hope to be more willing to work better with small groups in the future, instead of just wanting to do everything by