Group Theory Part 2 - Inner Works of a Group

Part two of my theory. This time, the inner workings of a group.

Now I'm not quite sure if this is all correct, this is only one day of thought and contemplation, so please feel free to pitch in if you have any suggestions.

Now these single groups are not perfect circles, they are more like blobs which overlap and mold with other friend groups. I'll explain more on that in a later post.

Also, sorry for the picture quality, my scanner isn't working.

These groups consist really of layers, or different sections. Some larger groups will have more sections, and some groups will have less. The main leaders of the group are in the very center, and since it's smaller, it consists of less people, and is also very hard to get in. As you work towards the outside, there you will fine more and more people who are less associated with that specific group, where finally you reach the outliers. Outliers will have mainly one or two friends that are somewhat associated with that group, but other than that, they are not really involved. This is also the edge where one group ends and another will begin. 

Sometimes, when a larger group is present, a "crescent" effect will appear. This effect is more associated with the outer core/inner edge people. This is when one section of the friend group has a tendency to hang out with 3 or 4 main people of that section, but if a large event occurs, they will all hang out together. For example, say a random person named Keri has two main friends that she hangs out with in this friend group, and Sarah (also in the friend group and in the same section) hangs out with two other friends. These two "crescents" are on opposite sides of the circle. Yet when a gathering is held (say at Valleyscare), all six of these friends will hang out together.

Is any of this making sense?

(Stay tuned for Part 3: Group Connections)

Group Theory Part 1 - Basics of a Single Group

I have a theory.

This theory is going to take awhile to explain, so I am going to spread it across a couple of blog posts.

So of course in high school we have friend groups, right? These friends we hang out with all the time, etc. And we don't only have one friend group, we are usually associated with multiple friend groups. So what if there is a science, some sort of theory, that shows how we interact with outside friend groups, and how we communicate with others?

Let's start with one friend group. As far as I see it, one "group" consists really of a bunch of rings, depending on how "involved" you are in that group. The people who are in the innermost ring, or "inner core" as I like to call it, are the main people of this group; they really are the reasons why this group exists. Everyone in this group knows these people, and perhaps (I'm not quite sure) they are the ringleaders.
Depending on their importance, other friends within this group would be scattered about the rings. If one is less involved in the group, then they would lie on the more outer edge of the rings, and so on. The inner working of a single group is more complex and harder to understand, so stay tuned for my next post on how that works out, and then later, how all the groups fit together.

Q + A

It's funny the different interviewing answers you receive from people merely by age.

When I interviewed the workers at New Horizon for my paper, I started with one lady who worked in the infant room. She was around 40-50 years old. When she answered my questions, she answered in full detail, giving emotions, examples, everything about why she chose to work there and everything.

Yet when I interviewed a 20 year old working there, her answers were very short, brief, and to the point.

I don't know if this is because of the age difference, or perhaps the generation, but it would be something really interesting to research. I can see how maybe younger people are trying to get stuff done faster so they can move on to the next project, and older folk tend to slow down, and give great details.
Or maybe it's the fact that the older workers there are working there simply because they love the job, while younger adults are there simply for the job and money

Either way, it's really interesting to see the difference.

Procrastinate

I was planning on going to the daycare today in order to get 2 of my last four hours in for my ethnography.
Except that I didn't.
At this point in the ethnography, I don't know what to write in my notebook for observations. I just have to write whatever the adults are talking about. The first couple days I am able to write descriptions of the people, the rooms, the objects they use, but after I got all of the descriptions down, I was sitting, waiting for something to happen.
Is this the part of the project where you slowly start to immerse yourself into the culture itself? Interacting with the group, becoming one of them, etc?
Honestly at this moment I am far too tired to really be thinking deep about anything.

Favors

Working on the ethnography is really helping my social skills and communicating with people that are strangers to me. But I am now at the point where I have to interview people for my paper, and I don't know how to ask them.
They are all busy working with the children and taking care of them, and I don't think it would be too much trouble answering questions while changing diapers, playing with them, handing out orange slices, etc. But I always have the problem of the fact that, I don't want to be a burden on anyone else.
I mean, just the other day, while my dad went to go buy groceries, I washed the dishes, cleaned up the kitchen, etc, and at 12:30 in the morning when I couldn't sleep, I unloaded the dishwasher and reloaded it.
Asking anyone to do any favors to me is really hard, and I really hate doing it.
Can I just slip into the background and not need any help from anyone? Because that would be great.

Concrete Ideas

Today after school I went straight to the library in order to work on my paper.
After working on it for 1 and 1/2 hours, I look to see what I have written. I have two main point of views to my topic, and the funny thing was, the point of view that I believed in had a lot more information and a lot less quotes than the one I didn't believe in. I guess when you are writing about something that you believe in, that you've researched and actually absorbed into your own opinion, it is a lot easier to write about.

I remember once for 10th grade English class we had to do a presentation on a book that our group read, and I was assigned to do the psychological lens. Since I love psychology, doing and researching that lens was the most entertaining and interesting thing to look up. And when the time came to present our report, I wasn't nervous like I usually am when it comes to talking in front of the class.

I guess when you are speaking about something you truly believe in, you have more to say and more concrete ideas about it.

You Break it, You Buy it.

The fact that I finally found a group for my ethnography is relieving

My neighbor works at New Horizon in Champlin and she was more than willing to let me observe her colleagues at her job. She told me that I could come in at any time, and that I could just wander around and do anything that I please.
I'm hoping that this isn't straying too far away from my domain. Observing any work place will have stress, especially when you are looking after children and other peoples' kids for hours every day.The fact that they are watching someone else's children while theirs are somewhere else, that they have all this responsibility of a small, breakable child on their hands must have some stress to it.

Right?

Would it work?

Currently for my ethnography I am stuck.

I was planning on observing an adult meditation group, but contacting them has reached a wall. I was also planning on maybe trying to get a hold of some kind of yoga group, but as I research into Lifetime Fitness, I began to think that it may be too diverse, that some people may come sporadically. 

I began to think, since one of my neighbors works at New Horizon, if a daycare could count as stress. Taking care of other people's children, teaching and educating them while trying to juggle the ones who need special attention, would that work? It is starting to become a bit of a stretch, but with time quickly running out, I'm becoming desperate. 

It's kind of like I have become my own domain. 

Isn't there a saying somewhere about  "You become what you study," or something like that? It would make a lot of sense if there was. I guess when you start observing and immersing yourself into a certain subject, it is all you really think about. Like when you travel to a different country. After awhile you become accustomed to the culture and soon start becoming one of the citizens. 

If that's the case, then this project is going to be hell.

It's Just "People Watching"

Observation.
It's strange how even though we claim we have never observed, we "people watch", "examine" groups, and even "see what kind of people they are".
Twice a week in Child Development class, we observe the preschool and write down what we see is happening. What do the kids seem interested in? How are their gross motor skills? How developed are they?
It's funny how even though we're supposed to be observing the children, but instead I begin to observe the other students  who are observing alongside me.
"I'm not getting anything down, these kids are boring!" says the girl in front of me. She then proceeds to continue to scroll on Twitter, posting hash tags.
Weird how humans observe other humans in this sort of manner. The concept is that "Hey, you're different than me. Why is that?" Even though we are of the same species, we know nothing about each other. I think that we as a species are the most diverse. Other animals act so similar to each other, yet humans are so sporadic. Maybe that's why we are so keen to observe each other.

Which begs the question, why are we so different from one another?