The Hoboken Cafe 

I am training staff at my job on group contingencies [action of one affects group or actions of part of group affect group, or actions of all of group affect all of group]

Though I focus on interventions for students with autism [I work at a school], I like to provide examples of applications with other populations and settings

I would like a variety of examples from your own job or reacreational activity, or ones you have heard in which a group contingency was used - I know that there are army and sports applications of this, anyone have some specific scenarios for me? can be of helpful or problematic applications of this

Also - if you can think of any examples of segments from movies and comic strips that I could show briefly to make it a little more fun, that would be great, too

It's this coming Tuesday, the sooner I get this stuff, the better

Well if I understand the request you are looking for live examples of how to illustrate the ripple effect that a singular pebble makes in still water and how those waves encircle all that is in the water...

In engineering terms this would be "tolerance stack up"...best way to describe this term is by giving the following example:

A brand new deck of cards fits nicely in the box it came in..with one missing the cars rattle around just a little..with one extra card it is a much tighter fit..both of these situations are still for the most part acceptable..
but
.if a group took one card each and was told to hold onto it for a while...knowing that it had to go back in the box you would see the following happen:

some would lose the card
some would keep the card safe
some would bend or damage the card

odds are that when all the cards came back they would either rattle loosly in the box
or
would not fit becuase of the damage and distortion

neither of which is acceptable..

they best way to illustrate group importantace is by playing "assembly line"

Make the group make paper cutout people..each one makes a differnt part of the person...start off by giving eveyone the same kind of paper and scissors and stapler and the same amount of time for each task but with a total production goal of paper people that are assembled in a specific format (this format you can check with an outline or template)..

make them leave the room and
then start to change things...give someone those plastic kid safe scissors...give someone odd ball sized paper..take someone's stapler with and make a lot of breaks in the cartridge of staples..and finally change the amount of time that somepeople have to do specific tasks (i.e. cutting out the head)

you will see that you can change a couple of things and see the outcome different..but still acceptable..change a number of things and you will see the product become unacceptable....shorly there after you will see people blame each other... all of this will show the importance of singluar actions effecting a whole...

interesting, though different from what I was thinking of - was thinking of systematic applications of consequences, but I want to think some more about what you came up with