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Introduction
Cognitive biases often prevent people and the entire team from efficiently resolving their problems, and when team members have physical issues they intend to solve, the situation is even worse. There are various sources: other members perception of each team member and specific group biases, such as group polarization. Each person with psychical issues should be assessed individually, and then collective impacts between them should be evaluated. Based on that information, one can figure out suggestions about how that issue may be solved.
Team Members Affective Cognitive Functioning
At first, one needs to evaluate the cognitive functioning of the team members: their behavioral peculiarities, cognitive loads, visions of the world, and how other team members perceive them. It will enable to reveal of the problem present in each case: then, various psychological theories and experimental results may be applied to analyze the problem. Analysis should be applied to all five team members, and all other evaluations and decisions will be based on it.
John
He is a 75-year-old Caucasian white man who describes himself as hip, street, and tech-savvy, despite everybody around his claims that this is false. He is the oldest group member and, according to the team members, is forgetful. This means that he has a lot of false memories, probably due to imagination inflation and post-event information effects (Puddifoot & Bortolotti, 2018). Both mechanisms describe cases when real memories mix with false ones: either due to the imagination or twisting the details of the events. Therefore, John has mixed false and true memory in his perception, making it harder for him to live and express himself.
Jill
Jill is a 22-year-old African American who has a shy and closed personality, and such personality traits lead to large problems with self-esteem and motivation. Self-esteem may be defined as ones ability to perceive oneself right, to know oneself, and feel their worth (Szanto & Landweer, 2020). Motivation, on the other hand, is a positive emotion caused by self-knowledge, when one knows what to do and, thus, the number of their working memory increases (Plass & Kalyuga, 2019). Applied to Jill, it means that she probably does not have enough knowledge about herself, does not know what she wants from her life, and cannot apply her knowledge to improve her life quality. She is not motivated to change the situation and chooses to be silent and do nothing.
Joe
Joe is a 35-year-old immigrant who knows English poorly, which creates misunderstandings with others, including his team members. They even tease him, which is a highly inefficient approach and may demotivate him from future language study. According to the cognitive load theory, to learn a language, one uses their working memory with limited capacity (Sweller, 2019). When undergoing stress, the capacity becomes lower; it is why Joe cannot learn a language successfully, as the stress often demotivates him.
Mary
Mary is a 30-year-old, often preoccupied woman who claims that she had been abused in her childhood by her parents. They, on the contrary, say that no such cases were present and, thus, are accusing Mary of lying. It means that the conflict between her and her parents is long-lasting, deep, and probably not easy to solve. Meanwhile, according to the studies, somatic preoccupation and childhood trauma are highly correlating, and this may point out that Marys parents are lying (Sansone et al., 2009). Thus, Mary indeed has childhood trauma, and careful psychotherapy may help her to overcome it.
Ahsan
A 50-year-old woman who is very committed to her native Indian culture, and this connection creates barriers to communication with other cultures. While such a commitment is a good thing by itself, as the United States is a multicultural country, it creates difficulties for socialization. Team members report that Ahsan feels alien to the American culture and has difficulty communicating with others. Cultural heredity consists of a set of beliefs taken from the family, traditions, and religion: all experience connected with those beliefs becomes a part of the cultural background (Jun, 2019). If two sets of beliefs of two people are drastically different, they cannot communicate clearly, and this is the problem of Ahsan in her communication with people in the U.S.
Summarizing the Team
All team members have various psychological problems, despite their severity level. John has severe problems with memory and self-perception that are getting more complicated due to his old age. Jill has problems with self-esteem and motivation that make her very closed, passive, and weak. Joes issues are connected with low language proficiency and a lack of motivation to change it due to often teases and misunderstandings with the world. Marys childhood trauma makes her closed, preoccupied, and distrustful, decreasing life quality. While having no explicit issues, Ahsan feels strong cultural barriers that prevent her from communicating fully with other people.
Affective Functioning and Team Interactions
John: False Memories
One may see that the main problem of John is false memories: his perception of himself is sharply different from the others. They are the results of his perception mix of true memories and imagination (Puddifoot & Bortolotti, 2018). Such false perception creates barriers to Johns communication with others, and teammates often do not take him seriously. By carefully analyzing those mixes, he may separate true memories from the false ones and change his self-perception; in other cases, the problem is probably worse, and John would better visit the doctor.
Jill: A Lack of Social Skills
While Jill does not seem to have large mental issues, a lack of self-esteem highly decreases her quality of life. She is shy, closed, has clear hardships in communicating with others, and has low knowledge about herself (Szanto & Landweer, 2020). In that way, her communication with the team is limited, and she feels that she cannot help her teammates with anything. She needs to know and understand herself better to raise her self-esteem and realize her worthiness for herself and the world.
Joe: Problems with Language
Joe, similarly to Jill, has no specific mental issues, but his lack of English proficiency and problems in communication created by it decreases his motivation, self-esteem, and life quality. Other people, including teammates, often tease him, decreasing his self-esteem even further and demotivating him from learning the language. To help him recover and learn the language successfully, one should motivate and be open to listening to his speeches instead of teasing or ignoring him.
Mary: Preoccupation due to a Trauma
Mary has problems with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and ADA provided her the accommodation due to this. While she can normally communicate with other team members and the consultant, she is often lost in her thought and cannot quickly understand what others say to her. Those are clear signs that the actual trauma is present and should be addressed (Sansone et al., 2009). The main obstacles are her lack of trust in others, while a possible way to help her recover is the talk about traumatic memories, accept them, and move forward without the burden created by her parents.
Ahsan: Cultural Barriers
Ahsan is very committed to her Indian culture, and while it is good, she feels that American culture alienates her. Due to that, she experiences hardships when communicating with all people, including teammates, which is hard for her to fully realize in the world. To understand others better, she would better analyze her beliefs, background, cultural values, and how they may be expressed in the best way (Jun, 2019). In that way, Ahsan will be able to save her cultural commitment while being able to communicate with other people from different backgrounds.
Influences on the Teammates
Each team members cognitive functioning and mental issues may be influenced by teammates, which creates additional effects on them. Each team member is to be quickly analyzed for which positive and negative influences they may undergo while in the team.
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John, as his self-perception does not always match reality, may become criticized. On the other hand, argumentative discussions about his memories may help him to return to his true memory.
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Jill, being a shy and sensitive personality, is vulnerable to anything that she would consider rude for her. However, by helping other team members solve their problems and discussing her mental state, she may raise her self-esteem and eliminate the feeling of worthlessness.
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Joe, with his language issues and misunderstanding, may be influenced negatively as team members sometimes tease him, which is painful and demotivating. On the other hand, the communication experience with the team would provide a necessary practice for him, increasing his language proficiency, in case it will be healthy and efficient communication.
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Mary, having hard traumatic memories, is probably unwilling to speak about them and has problems with trust to other people. Nevertheless, the team may help her to analyze traumatic memories and reduce their negative influence.
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Ahsan, feeling alien in the United States, may be inconvenient to the team; in addition, she may be hard to understand, similarly to Joe, or have difficulty understanding others. Still, the team is a good place for socialization, self-exploring, and learning cross-cultural communication, which will help her in the future.
How Team Members Perceive Teammates
Before one can guide how team members may better communicate, each members perception should be discussed: how other members perceive them. This will enable them to understand which decisions may be made to improve their condition and make the communication between them more productive (Kirschner et al., 2018). John is an old man with twisted self-perception who is often not taken seriously. Jill is a closed girl, and teammates usually do not seek contact with her. Joe is seen as a funny man with low language skills, which often becomes a reason to tease him. Mary is perceived with compassion, but her closeness and lack of trust create large communication barriers. Ahsan feels alien, and team members usually find it hard to communicate with her as they cannot find appropriate themes due to cultural barriers.
In addition, there are cognitive biases that influence teammate perception. An example is group polarization when most of the team members choose some opinions only because other members use them. This is a particularly dangerous bias in this case, as it may lead to wrong and even offensive perceptions of teammates (Jones & Roelofsma, 2000). For example, if one teammate would start to tease Joe for his language or John for his forgetfulness, most of the team would join them in this wrong behavior. In that way, there is a risk of offending team members even if there is no intentional desire to do this, only due to the specific group biases.
Suggestions about Guidance and Communication between Team Members
Language Usage
All team members have various problems, and while they may solve them better together, healthy and efficient communication should be established between them. The first point about communication is language, which should be used during it and should be considered from various perspectives. First, the language should not be offensive to anyone: for example, Joe is teased sometimes due to his heavy accent, while this is his main source of inconvenience. This increases his cognitive load due to negative emotions, preventing him from improving his language and proper communication with the team (Plass & Kalyuga, 2019; Sweller, 2019). Other team members may be offended unintentionally, too: for example, Mary probably has psychological triggers connected with her traumatic memories, Jill with her feeling of worthlessness, and Ahsan with her cultural barriers.
Thus, it would be better to organize the next exercise: each team member should write down, at first, the list of words that they heard from teammates and considered offensive. Then, they write a list of words and phrases they think may be offensive to them. After that, each team member, reads aloud those lists, making sure that teammates become familiar with them. If some of them want to tell something offensive, for example, in response to the behavior they do not like, they write down those words and why they want to tell them. Then, team members communicate about each of those situations, figuring out why they become irritated and how to prevent it in the future. Such communication will create a good collaborative context for the team (Kirschner et al., 2018). It means that teammates will understand each other better and, thus, quickly learn how to cope with their mental issues.
Communication about the Culture and Background
As people in the team came from various cultural and ethnic backgrounds, communication about their culture will help them to adjust their communication. Reflections about their cultural background help people understand themselves better and connect with each other more easily due to the increased trust (Garcia et al., 2003; Jun, 2019). Ahsan is an Indian, which is particularly important for her: she probably will be happy to share their cultural values with teammates, making her less alien to them. Joe, who is from another country, may share his experience, too: this will be a necessary language practice for him and probably will reduce his anxiety due to his low language proficiency. Being African American, Jill may communicate about her family and background, which will help her to open up and feel worthier. For other team members, John and Mary, such communication will help to solve their problems, connected with wrong self-perception and traumatic memories, respectively, by analyzing and exploring them.
In addition, background sharing will help to close the generation gap caused by various ages of the team members: from 22 to 75. It will help to understand the language usage by various people, depending on their home country and culture, historical context, and other conditions (Suad, 2019). In that way, sharing the background will improve mutual understanding, similar to the exercises with language usage.
Memory Checking
Problems with false or traumatic memories are the actual problem for at least two members of the group: John and Mary. The former has twisted self-perception, which is different than his actual appearance and behavior, as noted by teammates (Puddifoot & Bortolotti, 2018). Mary, on the contrary, has hard childhood memories, on which she is probably fixed, thinking about them repeatedly (Sansone et al., 2009). Writing down all memories would help both of them: John can see which memories seem to be true and which not, while Mary will see more clearly how she may get rid of intrusive memories about trauma. Jill, for example, will be able to increase her self-knowledge, and Ahsan to become more conscious about how to express her cultural beliefs. In that way, this method will be helpful for all team members in various ways: from checking their memory to increasing their self-knowledge.
Discussion of the Emotions
Emotions are an important element of the human personality, and discussions about them would help all team members better understand themselves and other teammates. They affect cognitive load in various ways, either positively or negatively, enhancing or suppressing cognitive abilities (Plass & Kalyuga, 2019). Team members may explore emotions in various ways, one of which is writing down emotions when they experience them and then writing the most often experienced emotions. Then, each member may present those emotions to teammates, and the discussion would help them to understand their own emotions, as well as the emotions of others, increasing mutual trust and self-knowledge.
Ethical Decisions
To ensure that everybody will be happy when those suggestions are applied, one should apply them ethically, without harming each other. In general, it means careful analysis of all team members answers, considering their triggers and words which they find offensive and their cultural backgrounds (Garcia et al., 2003). For example, no teasing toward Joes low language proficiency or Johns loss of his memory should be present. When one feels irritated about such behavior, they will better write about it in their notebook, and after the session, all notes should be analyzed thoroughly. No discrimination based on skin color, nationality, age, or gender should be present, and all its manifestations should be prevented (Jun, 2019). In that way, basic ethical principles used for the suggestion are the thorough analysis of all information provided by team members and the ban on any discrimination.
Conclusion
To help teammates communicate efficiently about their problems and solve them, first, they should be analyzed and explored. Then, the effective functioning of each person should be elucidated based on the problem analysis. They will show how each of them tends to behave and react to teammates and the potential ways to solve the issues. Then, the interactions between teammates are analyzed: how team members influence their teammates and how their teammates perceive them. Based on all of that information, suggestions about guidance are present. There are four of them: conscious language usage, communications about the cultural backgrounds, memory checking to analyze teammates past, and discussion of their emotions. Then, ethical principles used during the formulation of recommendations are shortly described: their basis is the careful analysis of all information provided by team members and forbidding any discrimination.
References
Garcia, J. G., Cartwright, B., Winston, S. M., & Borzuchowska, B. (2003). A transcultural integrative model for ethical decision making in counseling. Journal of Counseling & Development, 81(3), 268277. Web.
Jones, P. E., & Roelofsma, P. H. M. P. (2000). The potential for social contextual and group biases in team decision-making: Biases, conditions and psychological mechanisms. Ergonomics, 43(8), 11291152. Web.
Jun, H. (2019). Social justice, multicultural counseling, and practice: Beyond a conventional approach. Springer.
Kirschner, P. A., Sweller, J., Kirschner, F., & Zambrano R., J. (2018). From cognitive load theory to collaborative cognitive load theory. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 13(2), 213233. Web.
Plass, J. L., & Kalyuga, S. (2019). Four ways of considering emotion in cognitive load theory. Educational Psychology Review, 31(2), 339359. Web.
Puddifoot, K., & Bortolotti, L. (2018). Epistemic innocence and the production of false memory beliefs. Philosophical Studies, 176(3), 755780. Web.
Sansone, R. A., Wiederman, M. W., Tahir, N. A., & Buckner, V. R. (2009). A re-examination of childhood trauma and somatic preoccupation. International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice, 13(3), 233237. Web.
Suad, M. A. S. A.-L. (2019). Understanding the psychology of youths: Generation gap. International Journal of Psychology and Counselling, 11(6), 4658. Web.
Sweller, J. (2019). Cognitive load theory and educational technology. Educational Technology Research and Development, 68(1). Web.
Szanto, T., & Landweer, H. (2020). The Routledge handbook of phenomenology of emotion. Routledge.
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