The latest edition of the award winning reality tv gameshow Survivor was aired on friday night after much anticipation. A brief introduction of the show: Survivor is an American Version of the Survivor reality television game show based on the Swedish television series Expedition Robinson. The show is based on stranding a group of strangers as one or more tribes in a remote location, where they must fend for food, water, fire and shelter for themselves, while competing in challenges to earn rewards and immunity from being voted off by the tribe in progessive eliminations; the last challenger remaining at the end of the competition win the US $1 million prize and the title of Sole SurvivorThe above is a general introduction of the game but underlying are aplenty of complex alliances and relationships in order for one to progress in the game other than just winning the challenges and avoid being eliminated every other week. What interests me to tune in to the show is in the later part of the show whereby when the group that faces the decision of who they should vote for to eliminate, it is at this point of the show whereby those who fear being eliminated will try to use their alliance or partnership to their advantage and try to win over the rest of the group not to vote for them. It is a very complex part of the show whereby interpersonal relationships come into play and its quite exciting to see how situations unfold in the show. Similar to what we have covered in lecture many aspects of relational formation also occur in the show. One good example of it is physical appearance, in the show we can see that the good looking people tend to go with each other like the handsome guy and the pretty girl and they tend to develop a more interpersonal or closer relationship with each other. Another example would be similarity like the older folks in the show will tend to bond together closer due to attitudinal similarities in terms of thinkings and values. The most glaring relational formation aspect in this gameshow would be about exchange ( form relationship based on our perceptions of the cost and rewards of the relationship ), most of the time the contestants would look for the fittest or smartest, those who would win challenges and try to form a relationship with them as they would stand to gain more from this relationships and in another view, gain a higher chance of avoiding elimination and winning the game.
Well that was reel life, now we come to the real life. I agree to a large extent that many of the relation formation aspects that we learn play a very important part when i consider forming a relationship with another person. The physical appearance, similarities, dissimilarities, exchange, proximity, reciprocity and competency. I guess of all the aspects i would take into consideration of similarities the most, cause i feel that it is very important wether the person is similar to me so that we can click together well in a friendship. Of course the other aspects of relational formation that i mentioned above do play a part but i guess some are more significant than others, well for those who read this post, you could leave a comment on which aspect you think you consider most when deciding on forming a relationship with someone? but note that forming relationship is not just pertaining the boy-girl relationships but friendships as well as working partners
7 comments:
Personally for me, when forming relationships with another, all the aspects mentioned in your post are important and taken into consideration.. And they differ depending on situations.
Physical appearance matters only to a certain extent, but i guess for most people, as long as the other party looks pleasant it would suffice to form a friendship.
Similarities and dissimilarities would be important when moving forward into a deeper friendship with another. I feel that when there is something in common between 2 friends, it would be easier to communicate and more topics to talk about too.
As for exchange, it is taken into account when I make friends with people of important positions for instance. This is what people call networking i guess, to know more people so as to benefit from the friendship in ways like securing a job in a reknown firm. Or like forming a group with the smarter students in the class so as to get a better grade etc...
It is definitely interesting how people look out for different aspects in different situations.
To each his own! :)
I think the relationships developed on a game show like Survivor are proabably not accurate portrayals of true friendship in real life. Being on the show, the contestants will definitely have one eye on the ultimate prize of one million dollars and this is inevitably reflected in their interactions. But it does provide an interesting place to examine other things like exchange.
Networking is the key to many things in today's society. And, although many people may argue that it is very superficial to judge people based on their looks, it is the most natural and easiest thing for anyone to judge people on, which is why first impression is very important.
Of course people still do look out for similarities in character, personality, interest and many other things in the process of getting to know people and forming a relationship with them. But the things that you look out for when deciding to form a relationship with someone basically depends on what you expect out of the relationship. If it a formal relationship, official and work-oriented you would probably look out for someone who is in a high position, has many contacts, is responsible and can be a mentor to you. If you are looking for friendship you would look for someone who has similar interest, maybe background and possibly similar personality.
If you are stuck in a lecture where you do not know anyone, and you need to do group work, you would probably look out for someone who looks like he is going to be fun to be around and yet smart and responsible enough to do the work.
Then again people look out for different things in different situation and you could think totally differently from me. But what i would like to bring to light is that generally whatever opinions we have of people when we meet them is based on the first impression and hence looks do play an important part in forming a relationship.
relationships are important in any aspect of life in the present world. as such.. perhaps shows like survivor merely provide a window to look at how people develop those relationships when put in a particularly stressful situation.
I agree that similarity helps people to bond more closely together as it would be easier to communicate with one another when one has similar topics to share about. Regarding the point on physical appearnace, I think that physcial appearance does affect one's confidence and it is also a factor which is being looked into by many employers? Having a good physical appearance i guess serves as an advantage as they would give a good first impression to others than those who are not good looking.
Perhaps this may only be true for some but I think that physical appearance still matter to most.
I'd say that similarity would be one of the most important qualities when forming relationships because through that, more conversations can be anticipated.
yes, i do agree with you that in order to 'survive' on Survivor, one must have many interpersonal relationships. these may be formed from proximity, age or even appearance.
however, i am disgusted at how game shows like these bring out the worst in human beings. for example, the good looking couple might survive to the last stage, where they then have to decide how to play the game in order to out wit and out last the opponent.
then we get to see how weeks of relationship forming falls apart because of greed; money.
is this what we want to educate the children on forming and building relationships?
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