Let
$g\,\mapsto \,{{g}^{*}}$ denote an involution on a group
$G$. For any (commutative, associative) ring
$R$ (with 1),
$*$ extends linearly to an involution of the group ring
$RG$. An element
$\alpha \,\in \,RG$ is symmetric if
${{\alpha }^{*}}\,=\,\alpha $ and skew-symmetric if
${{\alpha }^{*}}\,=\,-\alpha $. The skew-symmetric elements are closed under the Lie bracket,
$[\alpha ,\,\beta ]\,=\,\alpha \beta \,-\,\beta \alpha $. In this paper, we investigate when this set is also closed under the ring product in
$RG$. The symmetric elements are closed under the Jordan product,
$\alpha \,o\,\beta \,=\,\alpha \beta \,+\beta \alpha $. Here, we determine when this product is trivial. These two problems are analogues of problems about the skew-symmetric and symmetric elements in group rings that have received a lot of attention.