TABLE 1
Categories of Behavior Characteristic of Supportive
and
Defensive Climates in Small Groups
|
Defensive Climates |
Supportive Climates |
|
1. Evaluation |
1. Description |
|
2. Control |
2. Problem Orientation |
|
3. Strategy |
3. Spontaneity |
|
4. Neutrality |
4. Empathy |
|
5. Superiority |
5. Equality |
|
6. Certainty |
6. Provisionalism |
J.R. Gibb, "Sociopsyhcological Processes of Group Interaction" in N.B. Henry, (ed.), The Dynamics of Instruction Groups (59th Yearbook of th National Society for the Study of Education, Part II, 1960, pp. 115-135.
Because our attitudes toward other persons are frequently,
and often necessarily, evaluative, expressions which the defensive person will
regard as nonjudgmental are hard to frame. Even the simplest question usually
conveys the answer that the sender wishes or implies the response that would fit
into his or her value system. A mother, for example, immediately following an
earth tremor that shook the house, sought for her small son with the question,
"Bobby, where are you?" The timid and plaintive "Mommy, I didn't
do it" indicated how Bobby's chronic mild defensiveness predisposed him to
react with a projection of his own guilt and in the context of his chronic
assumption that questions are full of accusation.
Anyone who has attempted to train professionals to use
information-seeking speech with neutral affect appreciates how difficult it is
to teach a person to say even the simple "who did that?" without being
seen as accusing. Speech is so frequently judgmental that there is a reality
base for the defensive interpretations which are so common.