India Whitfield

Individual Response Paper 1

Article: When Good Teammates are bad: Physiological threat on recently formed teams, by Christina Cleveland, Jim Blascivich, Cynthia Gangi, and Lucie Finez. Part 1: Summary In this article, the authors talk about how superior teammates threaten or feel threaten to individuals in newly form groups or teams. The article states that people assume in new teams individuals prefer to be with someone of higher status or superior because of their knowledge and skills. In this study it provides evidence that there are negative consequences to people in a team with a superior teammate; that can be connected to social comparison and psychological closeness. The goal of this study was to create two team anagrams that copy competitive situations of critical factors and social identity salience in new teams. There were 53 participants at an undergrad university of 32 women and 21 men. The participants was asked to do 3 conditions during a decision making task. First was individual condition, which had them competing against each other. The second was minimal condition, which had them competing as a team. The third was team condition to see the interaction and decision making process against teams that have been together for the entire school year. The study showed individuals that worked in new teams with superior members, felt threaten after a brief interaction, than the team members of new teams without interaction. Part 2: Questions 1. Do you agree that when a team/ group is recently formed that there are negative consequences when a superior teammate is involved? If so please give an example of personal experience? 2. Do you agree that group members feel less threaten in a group when they have less interaction, then in groups that have a lot of interaction with each other? If so please give a reason why? Part 3: Position/Argument In the article it states that superior group members are threatened when they fear that they will lose their status, and low status group members are threatened when they fear that they cannot increase their status. I agree with this statement and article because of personal experience during high school. For example, during a class in high school on the first day we were asked to get into groups of three for a class exercise. During the discussion, there was one male that was superior to the both of us because he gave a lot of ideas, very outgoing and always thought he was right. The both of us in the group felt threaten because we didnt know much about the topic, giving us very little to say and contribute. Once another person was added to our group and started sharing her ideas and questioning the other superior male questions and answers, he began to feel threaten by her. Once threaten, he didnt have much to say, because he didnt want to lose his image of being the superior teammate.