[Author’s Institutional Affiliation]
Abstract
This paper explores the roles of groups and group thinking. It includes subject areas such as groups in school as well as groups outside of school that have the ‘mob mentality’ approach to subjects. An example of this kind of mob would be the Occupy Wall Street movement, or sports team fans.
Groups are a commonplace event amongst societies. It is especially apparent in a school setting where people work on projects together. An experience where I encountered a negative group member was a member in one of my school groups who didn’t want to do his part of the assignment. He wouldn’t show up to the meetings we made or come with any of the material (specifically powerpoint slides) that he was supposed to have. He had a bad attitude and we had to tell the teacher about his actions. I also became very well aware of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the whole ‘mob mentality’ while watching it on the news channels. It had negative consequences because it allowed the police to take drastic action against them and they rebelled, breaking into business and destroying them at some points.
One time, while I worked at the school gym at my campus I worked at the front desk and was a manager. In being a manager I had to take a more mature role and I ended up having to fire one of my best friends. This was bad news I had to deliver to him and the most difficult part in reading it was the actually “We are going to have to let you go” part. He was one of my really good friends and having to deliver the news to him was not a fun thing to do nor was it easy. The look on his face was of utter disgust and I felt terrible for it but I had to because he was breaking all kinds of rules in that place. My boss told me to fire him and so I had to deliver the bad news.
