Practice Mentoring

Something interesting I read in "The Essential Guide to Group Communication" was a section on mentoring. A mentor is someone with much more experience in whatever field they are in, and are responsible for taking a protege, or less experienced employee, under their wing and showing them the ropes. Something I didn't know about this mentor-protege relationship is that there are actually stages that they will go through together.

The first stage is initiation, where they both get to know one another. Here is where the mentor must begin to give advice and the protege must be accepting and loyal.

The next stage is cultivation, where a sort of personal relationship begins to form. This is where the mentor will usually give the "I got your back" speech.

The third stage is separation, where the protege advances to the point where they are more independent from the mentor, whether is be a promotion or transfer.

The final stage is redefinition, where both parties share the same views as equals.

Concent Fallacies

The fallacy I chose to do is "Bad appeal to authority: (Almost) any argument that ____ gives about ____ is (probably) true. This means that just based on the fact that someone is in a place of authority, then their arguments would always be true. The problem with this is we are more prone to believe them because of their qualifications that make them authoritative in our eyes. For example, you know nothing about cars, and your car just broke down! So of course you're forced to take it to a mechanic for repairs. Upon checking out the car, the mechanic then piles up a huge list of what is wrong and needs to be fixed. You, not knowing a thing about cars are more likely to just nod your head in agreement. The fact is, this mechanic could be taking advantage of you and piling on extra repairs that aren't needed in order to make more money for himself! This situation is where "bad appeal to authority" really shines!

Structure of Arguments Exercise

Exercise #2:

Argument? Yes this is an argument. "I'm on the way to school. 1 I left five minutes late. 2 Traffic is heavy. 3 Therefore, I'll be late for class. 4 So I might as well stop and get breakfast. 5

Conclusion: I might as well stop and get breakfast.

Additional premises needed? You can definitely add additional premises to this argument if needed. For example after sentence 4 you could say "I can get the notes later from a classmate." This gives another reason for going to breakfast.

Identify any subargument: 1, 2, and 3 are the subarguments.

Good argument? This is not a good argument because it really could have used some extra backing to justify getting breakfast!

This exercise was actually very helpful in helping me breakdown the structure of arguments. It revealed all the seperate components and helped me to understand how to identify each part. It was definitely good practice for any future exercises that may require me to break down an argument!

The Four Types of Leadership

Reading through the Group Communication book brought me across the four types of leadership. I was always aware that different leadership styles existed as I had participated in many group activities over the years, but I didn't know that they were all specifically named. They are authoritarian, consultative, participative, and laissez-faire. Authoritarian and consultative leadership styles both yield member dissatisfaction, which I can agree with! Participating in a group where your input holds little to know value is really discouraging. Unfortunately I have been in groups like this and it is definitely not a fun or reward experience for that matter. The best leadership style I learned was participative, where the leader actually readily accept input and ideas. Any member's idea also has the ability to influence the way the group moves on with what they are doing. Groups like this are a pleasure to work in. It is the type of leadership I like to employ whenever I take charge of a group, and I have always had positive results every time!

Strong vs Valid Arguments

In strong arguments, the premises could all be true, but the conclusion could possibly be false. For example:

BMW prefers to manufacture all their vehicles with rear wheel drive. All BMWs to date have been rear wheel drive. In conclusion, BMW will only make rear wheel drive cars. *Statement disregards the small number of models that were made in all-wheel drive, pretend they never existed :P*

In this example, the premises are both true, and the conclusion is also true. BMW has been in business for decades, and has always boasted about the superiority of rear wheel drive over front wheel drive. It looked like they would never make a front wheel drive car, thus making it a strong argument. Here's what makes the conclusion possibly false. BMW has FINALLY decided to introduce a new front wheel drive car some time in the near future, thus making the conclusion false. No one saw that coming! Highly unlikely move from BMW!

With valid arguments, there is no way the premises can be true while the conclusion is false. For example:

There is 12 inches in a foot. There is 5,280 feet in a mile. Therefore there is 63,360 inches in a mile.

Drawing from this example, you can see that if the premises were always to be true, then you cannot change the outcome of the conclusion to be false, unless you were really bad at math. Either way, the conclusion would be false, making it invalid.

The Tests for an Argument to be Good

We live in a world where arguments and debates are a part of everyday life. Not all arguments are good, or valid for that matter. Luckily for us, we have three simple tests that we can use to rate an arguments potential to be good or bad, and valid or invalid.

Here is an argument I recently heard about in another class:

An infant was recently given a vaccination shot. Soon after, the infant was diagnosed with autism. The vaccination was the cause of autism in the infant.

First, are the premises plausible? Infants are often given vaccination shots, so thats plausible. Infants can also be diagnosed with autism, so thats another plausible.

Second, are the premises more plausible than the conclusion? In this case, the premises are more plausible than the conclusion stemming from the fact that the conclusion is false. The symptoms of autism usually coincide with the time the vaccinations are given, which sadly causes people to establish in their minds that they are related, when in reality they are not.

Third, is the argument valid or strong? This argument is invalid because the premises are true, but the conclusion is false at the same time. It is a weak, and therefore bad argument because many things can contribute to an infant developing autism, often times it involves genetics. It just so happens that vaccination shots and autism symptoms occur at roughly the same time, which leads many people to create a causation effect between the two.

Establishing Norms in Groups

Reading through Chapter 2 in "The Essential Guide to Group Communication", I came upon a section discussing norms in groups. Norms according to the text are "sets of expectations held by group members concerning what kind of behavior is acceptable or unacceptable, good or bad, right or wrong, or appropriate or inappropriate." The text clearly is about improving group communication in an educational enviroment, but I couldn't help but think how it could really apply to any group. Take my group for example. Though it is clearly "bad behavior" to smoke cigarettes to a large majority or people, it is something that is widely accepted as normal in my group. Literally everyone smokes in my group, and no one really gives it a second thought, while another group hanging out nearby could be shaking their heads in disgust, clearly disapproving of our habit. The text also goes into detail about how norms affect the kind of topics that can be expressed, or if negative comments are appropriate. I can definitely say that my group has an established set of norms on the kind of topics we talk about, as they usually only involve either cars, sports, or video games. This concept was really helpful in allowing me to know that I should be careful entering other groups, be it in an educational enviroment or outside of school, to not cause a conflict if my norms happened to differ from theres. In the case that there is a clash of norms, I now know that it would be best to politely conform or bring up ways in which we could re-establish a new norm that is comfortable for everyone in the group.

Vague or Ambiguous Sentences

Recently my professor in my Bio10 class showed us a short video called "Here Be Dragons". It is basically a video introducing the basics to critical thinking, while putting down "psuedo-sciences". One part that really caught my attention was when the host was talking about products that aren't FDA approved. Basically, it is legal to sell any product as long as its not blantently dangerous and doesn't claim to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any diseases. This is where the vague statements come in. Manufacturers of these products use vague statements on purpose in order to get around laws which wouldn't allow them to sell their products in the first place. An example mentioned in the video was about herbal dexocifications. "Herbal detoxification restores vitality." To the average person, this statement has enough merit to pass off as true, when it is in fact quite useless to use for reasoning. What is detoxification and in what way would it restore your vitality? Purposely vague statements like this accounts for billions of dollars spent a year on useless products. Watch out for these in advertisements and commercials people!

Subjective and Objective Claims

Subjective claims, in short are opinions or claims based on one's own feelings or beliefs of whether or not it is true or not. Take religion for example. There are many different religious view in the world, but one can't say that any of them are fact. "When you die, you go to heaven or hell." This claim could absolutely pertain to many people's own personal religious view, but at the same time could clash against other's. Take reincarnation for example, which is a widely accepted belief strongly engrained in Buddhist or Hindu belief, that directly challenges the claim of when you die you go to heaven, thus making the claim subjective.

Objective claims on the other hands are statements that can either be true or false, but not both at the same time. It is generally something everyone agrees on. I overheard my little cousin the other day practicing his addition. "5+17 is 22" "13+7 is 20". Luckily for him, these statements were correct and something everyone would agree on.