Assigning Group Roles and Functions in The Breakfast Club

Task Functions:

The first task function I will be discussing is information seekers. Information seekers seek information, facts and relevant information to better understand a topic, information seekers may use questions or suggestions to find out more about a topic (Belay, 2018, p.12). A specific example from the breakfast club film that represents Andrew Clark’s task function as information seeker is after Allison dumps her purse on the couch in front of Andrew and Brain and begins to talk about wanting to run away from home but walks away before fully confiding in them, Andrew follows Allison and has a one on one conversation with her and is able to find out why she wants to run away from home by asking her questions to find out more information. Andrew asks Allison “what is it? Is it bad? Real bad? Your parents?” Allison responds, “Yeah”. Andrew asks, “what do they do to you?” Allison replies, “they ignore me”. Andrew was able to ask Allison questions in order to find out why she wanted to run away from home. The second task function I will be discussing is opinion seekers. Opinion seekers ask for group members input about a specific topic or task rather than just doing it their own way (Belay, 2018, p.13). A specific example from the breakfast club film that represents Claire Standish’s task function as an opinion seeker is how before any group decision is ever made Claire always tried to ask the other group members how they felt about it and would listen to their inputs. I believe that Claire Standish’s task function as an opinion seeker came naturally to her character because of her need of acceptance from others. Opinion seekers do not just look for other’s input they also look for others approval on the opinion they presented.

Maintenance Functions:

The first maintenance function I will be disucssing is harmonisers. Harmonziers play a mediator role that senses conflict and stops it by having group discussions until a mutually agreed upon decision is made (Belay, 2018, p.18). In the breakfast club film, the charater Brain Johnson demonstarted the maintenance function as harmonzier throughout the whole film by consistanly attempting to keep the peace between the members of the breakfast club by telling them to all calm down during high tenison moments. Another specific example from the breakfast club film that represents Brain Johnson’s maintenance function as harmonzier is when he expresses his interest to the group on maintaining their friendships when school begins on Monday. When Brian expressed his interest to the group on maintaining their friendships outside of dentention on Monday he was shot down immedailtly which also demonstartes his role as harmonzier because none of the other breakfast club members even considered maintaing these friendships outside of detenion. The second maintenance function I will be discussing is tension relivers. Tension relivers use humor to ease any tension that has risen but also to re-energize the group (Belay, 2018, p19). In the breakfast club film, the charater Allison Renyolds demonstarted the maintenance function as tension reliver by using her quirky personality and odd sense of humor to break up or distract building group tensions from getting out of hand.