COM 203: Ch. 5 Study Guide

Physiological Factors of Emotions

• When a person has strong emotions, many bodily changes occur

• Ex: Fear leads to increased heart rate

• Some physiological changes are recognizable to the person having them

• Ex: Tense jaw, churning stomach

• These cues can offer a significant cue to your emotions after you become aware of them

Nonverbal Reactions

• Not all physical changes that accompany emotions are internal

• Feelings are often apparent by observable changes

• Nonverbal expressions of emotions become more pronounced under the influence of alcohol

• Nonverbal behavior is usually ambiguous Ex: A sign could mean sadness or fatigue

Changes in a person’s appearance vs person’s behavior

• Person’s appearance: blushing, sweating

• Behavior: Facial expressions, posture, gestures, change in tone

Connections within non verbal behavior

• Sometimes, rather than a nonverbal behavior being the reaction of an emotional state, nonverbal behavior can actually cause the emotional state Ex: Smiling and then feeling better because you smiled

• Verbal and nonverbal expressions of emotion are often interconnected

• Emotions are embodied, meaning they are felt and seen as a tangible part of the human body

Cognitive Interpretations

• The mind plays an important role in determining emotional states

• In other words, oftentimes the changing interpretation of an event affects the way we feel about the event

Reappraisal

• Reappraisal is the process of rethinking the meaning of an emotional charged event in ways that alter their emotional impact

• Reappraisal is superior to suppressing your feelings and it often leads to lower stress, higher self-esteem, and increased productivity

• It has relational benefits as well

• Note: reappraisal is not about denying your feelings

Verbal Expression

• Putting emotions into words can help you manage them more effectively

• Many scholars acknowledge that anger, joy, fear, and sadness are common and typical human emotions, but in different cultures the central emotions can change

• We experience most emotions with different degrees of intensity and it is important that our language represents these differences

Problems that arise from not sharing about emotions constructively

• Leaving them unspoken can result in negative mental and even physiological effects

• Problems such as social isolation, unsatisfied relationships, anxiety, depression, and aggression can occur if emotions are not talked about constructively

Verbal Expression from Parents to Children

• The way parents talk to their children about emotions has a powerful effect on the children’s development

• Two different parenting styles

• 1. Emotion coaching- encourages children to think and express how they feel. Leads to more satisfying relationships and better communication

• Emotion Dismissing- The act of ignoring or minimizing one’s emotional experience. Children are more at risk for behavior problems and unsatisfied relationships

Influences on Emotional Expression

• Personality

• Culture

• Gender

• Social Conventions

• Social Media

• Emotional Contagion

Personality

• There is a clear relationship between personality and the way we experience and communicate emotions

• Ex: Extraverted people report more positive emotions in everyday life

• Personality can be a powerful force, but it doesn’t have to govern your communication satisfaction

Culture

• People around the world generally experience the same emotions, but the same events can generate quite different feelings in different cultures

• Culture also has an effect on how emotions are valued Ex: America is known as a “culture of cheerfulness”

• There are also differences in the degree to which people in various cultures display their feelings

Individualistic vs Collectivistic cultures

• Individualistic cultures (such as the U.S and Canada) feel comfortable revealing their emotions with people whom they are close to

• In Collectivistic cultures (such as Japan or India) people prize harmony among members of their in-group and discourage expression of negative emotions that might upset relationships among people

• Even the phrase “I love you” offers different reactions among different cultures

Gender

• Co-culture differences such as gender often shape the ways people experience and express their emotions

• Gender is the best predictor of the ability to detect and interpret emotional expressions

• Gender nonconforming individuals often have difficulty expressing their emotions and cultural expectations about what is considered masculine or feminine

Social Conventions

• In mainstream U.S society, the unwritten rules of communication discourage the direct expression of emotions

• The emotions that people do share directly are usually positive Ex: “I’m happy to say…” or “I really enjoyed…”

• Communicators are reluctant to send messages that embarrass or threaten the “face” of others- especially in the early stages of a relationship

• Expression of emotions is also shaped by the requirements of many social roles

Emotion Labor

• Emotion labor is used to describe situations in which managing and even suppressing emotions is both appropriate and necessary

• Studies show that emotion labor is an important component of many occupations

Social Media

• Communicators generally express more emotion and feel them more intensely online than they do in person

• This can be good news if you have trouble sharing feelings face to face

• Online disinhibition can also encourage emotional outbursts and tirades- this kind of venting can be hazardous to interpersonal relationships

• Social media can also feed emotional responses Ex: Checking a partner’s Facebook cite can lead to jealousy

Emotional Contagion

• Are emotions are influenced by the feelings of others around us through the emotional contagion- the process by which emotions are transferred from one person to another

• Ex: Students catch the mood of their teacher, customers are effected by the mood of the employees

• Emotional Contagion can take place online and in person

• This process occurs quickly and doesn’t require much, if any, verbal communication

Physical Effects of Expressing and Not Expressing Emotions

• Inexpressive people who try to control their feelings and deny distress are more likely to get a host of ailments including cancer, asthma, and heart disease

• Communicators who over express their negative feelings also suffer physioloigcally

• When people lash out verbally, their blood pressure jumps an average of twenty points

• The key to health is to learn how to express emotions constructively

Guidelines for Expressing Emotions

• Recognize your feelings

• Recognize the difference between feeling, saying, and acting

• Expand your emotional vocabulary

• Share Multiple Feelings

• Consider when and where to express your feelings

• Accept Responsibility for your feelings

• Be mindful of the Communication Channel

Recognize your feelings

• Ask yourself how you feel

• Beyond being aware of one’s feelings, you must also be able to identify your emotions

• The ability to distinguish and label emotions is a vital component of emotional intelligence

Different ways feelings are recognizable

• Physiological changes can be a clear sign of your feelings

• Monitoring nonverbal behaviors is another excellent way to keep in touch with your emotions

• You can also recognize your feelings by monitoring your thoughts and the verbal messages you send to others

Recognize the Difference between feeling, saying, and acting

• Just because you feel a certain way doesn’t mean you should always talk about it

• Feeling a certain way doesn’t mean you must act on it

• Understanding the difference between having feelings and acting them out can help you express your constructively in tough situations

Expand your Emotional Vocabulary

• Most people suffer from impoverished emotional vocabularies (responding either good, bad, terrible, or great)

• Many communicators think they are expressing feelings when their statements are actually emotionally counterfeit

• You can recognize the absence of an emotion in each case by adding a genuine word or feeling to it Ex: I’m bored and I want to go to a show”

• Adding an explicit emotion changes the nature of the expression

• Relying on a small vocabulary to describe feelings is like relying on a small vocabulary to describe colors

Different ways to express a feeling verbally

1. By using single words- Ex: “I’m angry”

2. By describing what’s happening to you- Ex: I’m on top of the world

3. By describing what you’d like to do- Ex: I’d like to give you a hug

Expand your Emotional Vocabulary Continued

• Sometimes communicators use words to minimize the strength of their feelings Ex: I’m pretty excited”

• Not all feelings are strong ones

• Communicators express feelings in a coded manner- this happens the most when the sender is uncomfortable about revealing the feeling in question

Share Multiple Feelings

• The feeling you express often isn’t the only one you’re experiencing

• Despite the commonness of mixed emotions, we often communicate only one feeling- usually the most negative one

Consider When and Where to Express your Feelings

• Often the first flush of a strong feeling is not the best time to speak out

• Imagined interactions in advance of actual conversations can enhance relationships as the communicators rehearse what they are going to say and determine who others might respond

• Even after you’ve waited for the first wave of strong feeling to subside, it’s still important to choose the time that’s best suited to the message

• It is also important to consider if the other person is ready to hear you out

• It is also nice to ensure a measure of privacy

• There are also cases where you choose to never express your feelings

• In cases where you experience strong emotions but do not want to share them, writing your feeling down has said to have mental, physical, and emotional benefits

Accept Responsibility for your Feelings

• It’s important to make sure that your language reflects the fact that you’re responsible for your feelings

• Ex: “You’re making me angry” vs “I feel angry when you do that”

• People don’t make us do anything. Saying that they do denies the responsibility each of us has for our own emotions

Be Mindful of the Communication Channel

• The channels we choose to communicate make a difference in how others interpret our messages- this is also true when expressing emotions

• People intuitively recognize that the selection of a channel depends in part on the kind of message they’re sending

Facilitative and Debilitative Emotions

Facilitative emotions- contribute to effective functioning

Debilitative emotions- detract from effective functioning

Differences in facilitative and debilitative emotions

• Intensity- Ex: A certain amount of anger or irritation can be constructive because it often provides the stimulus that leads to improvement, but rage typically only makes things worse

• Debilitative emotions can lead to a variety of problems in personal, business, educational, and even medical settings

• Extended duration- Ex: Feeling depressed for a while after a break up is natural, but spending the rest of your life grieving would accomplish nothing

• Rumination- is dwelling persistently on negative thoughts that in turn intensify negative feelings

Sources of Debilitative Emotions

• Physiology

• Emotional Memory

• Self talk

• Identity and Cultural Messages

• Irrational Thinking and Debilitative Emotions

Physiology

• It is important to consider your genetic makeup

• While communication traits are rooted in biology, biology isn’t destiny

• Beyond heredity, the cause of some debilitative feelings lie deep inside the brain in an almond-sized cluster of interconnected structures called the amygdala

• The amygdala acts as a kind of sentinel that scans every experience, looking for threats

• In a split second, it can sound a alarm that triggers a flood of physiological reactions like speeding heart rate, elevated blood pressure, etc.

• This has value when confronted with real physical dangers, but in social situations the amygdala often hijacks the brain and triggers emotions like fear and anger when there is no real threat

Emotional Memory

• Seemingly harmless events can trigger debilitative feelings if they bear even a slight resemblance to a troublesome experience from the past

• Ex: Reacting negatively to screaming because when you were little your dad always yelled

Self-talk

• What we think can have a profound effect on how we feel

• There is even an apparent similarity between physical pain and emotional discomfort Ex: Bee sting → physical pain; Meeting strangers → nervous feelings

• It is not the events that cause people to feel bad, but rather the beliefs they hold about those events

• Rational-emotive therapy is an approach to appraisal that makes it clear that the interpretations that people make of an event during the process of self talk determine their feelings

• Ex: Being called names → Self talk:”I’ve done something wrong” → Now I feel upset

• This same principle occurs in more common situations like job interviews, romantic relationships, etc.

• Our emotions are more of a result of our thoughts than the events we encounter

Identity and Cultural Messages

• The way others talk to us based on who we are impacts how we mange our emotions

• The cultural messages we receive from the media and other sources impacts how we manage our emotions

• Our identities also impact how we are understood in terms of how we express our emotions Ex: Gay men are often read as being sassy

Irrational Thinking and Debilitative Emotions

• Many debilitative emotions comes from accepting a number of irrational thoughts- fallacies- that lead to illogical conclusions and turns to debilitative emotions

• We are usually unaware of the thoughts, which makes them especially powerful

• Thinking rationally can eliminate many debilitative emotions from your life, but not all of them

7 Fallacies

• The Fallacy of Perfection

• The Fallacy of Approval

• The Fallacy of Shoulds

• The Fallacy of Overgeneralization

• The Fallacy of Causation

• The Fallacy of Helplessness

• The Fallacy of Catastrophic Expectations

The Fallacy of Perfection

• People who accept this fallacy believe that a worthwhile communicator should be able to handle every situation with complete confidence and skill

• Flaw: No one is perfect but it is tempting to try and appear that way

• If others find out, they will see you as a phony

• Subscribing to this myth can also act as a force to diminish your own self esteem

The Fallacy of Approval

• It is based on the idea that it’s not just desirable but vital to get the approval of virtually every person

• People who accept this idea seek approval for others even if it means sacrificing their own principles and happiness to do so

• Flaw: This fallacy is irrational because it implies that others will respect and like you more if you go out of your way to please them

• This oftentimes is not true

• Abandoning this fallacy doesn’t mean living a life of selflessness- it is still important to consider the needs of others and meet them when possible

• When you abandon your own needs and principles in order to seek these goals, the price is too high

The Fallacy of Shoulds

• The inability to distinguish between what is and what should be

• Many people torture themselves by engaging in this type or irrational thinking when they confuse preferences with shoulds

• Ex: My friend should be more understanding

• The message in each case states that you would prefer people to behave differently

• Wishing that things were better is legitimate, but it is unreasonable to insist that the world operate just as you want it to

• It is much more effective to tell people what you like rather than to preach at them

Three consequences of the Fallacy of Shoulds

1. It leads to unnecessary unhappiness because people who are constantly dreaming about the ideal are seldom satisfied with what they have and who they are

2. Merely complaining without acting can keep you from doing anything to change unsatisfying conditions

3. This sort of complaining can build a defensive climate with others, who will resent being nagged

The Fallacy of Overgeneralization (Type 1)

• The first type occurs when we base a belief on a limited amount of evidence

• Ex: Some friend I am! I forgot my best friend’s birthday”

• In cases like this, we focus on a limited type of shortcoming as if it represented everything about us

The Fallacy of Overgeneralization (Type 2)

• A second type of overgeneralization occurs when we exaggerate shortcomings

• Ex: “you never listen to me” or “you’re always late”

• Absolute statements like this are almost always false and usually lead to discouragement or anger

• You feel better when you replace overgeneralizations with more accurate messages to yourself and others

• “You’ve been late three times this week”

The Fallacy of Causation (1st way)

• It is based on the irrational belief that emotions are caused by others rather than by your own self-talk

• It is more accurate to say that the they respond to your behavior with feelings on their own

• This fallacy causes troubles in two ways

• First, it plagues people who become overly cautious about communication because they don’t want to “cause” any pain for others

• Ex: Pretending to be attentive to the speaker when you are already late for an appointment

The Fallacy of Causation (2nd Way)

• Second, this fallacy also operates when we believe that others cause our emotions

• Sometimes it seems as though they do, either by raining or lowering our spirits by their actions

• You certainly wouldn’t feel some emotions without other’s behavior, but your reaction, not their actions, determines how you feel

The Fallacy of Helplessness

• Suggests that satisfaction in life is determined by forces beyond your control

• Aka- people who continuously see themselves as victims

• Ex: I was born with a shy personality. I’d like to be more outgoing, but I just can’t

• The mistake in the statement becomes apparent after you realize that you can do many things if you really wanted to

• Most can’t statements can be more correctly rephrased either as “won’t” statements or “Don’t know how” statements

• After rephrasing the statement, it becomes clear that it is a matter of course and that you can take action

The Fallacy of Catastrophic Expectations

• Communicators who assume that if something bad can possibly happen, it will

• Ex: “If I apply for the job I want, I probably won’t get hired”

• After you start expecting catastrophic consequences, a self-fulfilling prophecy can begin to build

• While it is naive to assume that all of your interactions with others will end in success, it is just as naive to assume that you’ll fail

• A way to escape this fallacy is to think about the consequences that would follow even if you don’t communicate successfully

• Recognize that failing in a given circumstance is not as bad as it might seem

How to minimize Debilitative Emotions

• Monitor your Emotional Reactions

• Note the Activating Event

• Record your self-talk

• Reappriase your Irrational Beliefs

Monitor your Emotional Reactions

• The first step is to recognize when you’re feeling debilitative emotions

• A way to do this is by monitoring physiological responses like racing heart, hot flashes, etc.

• You can also recognize certain ways of behaving that suggest your feelings Ex: pacing, being unusually quiet, etc.

• We can often times suffer form debilitative emotions without noticing them, so it is important to look for these emotions

Note the Activating Event

• After you are aware of how you’re feeling, the next step is to figure out what activating event triggered your response

• Sometimes it is obvious, but not always

• Sometimes there isn’t a single activating event but rather a series of small events that finally builds and triggers a debilitative emotion

• The best way to track them down is to notice the circumstances in which you have debilitative emotions

• Maybe it is when you are are around specific people or types of individuals because of either their age, role, or background

• Maybe setting or even the topic of conversation is what sets these emotions off. It could even be the content you consume

Record your Self-Talk

• This is where you analyze the thoughts that are the link between the activating event and your feelings

• If you are serious about getting rid of debilitative emotions, it is important to write down your self talk- putting your thoughts on paper will help you see whether they make any sense

• This may be difficult at first, but if you persevere you’ll find that you will be able to identify the thoughts that lead to your debilitative emotions

Reappraise your Irrational Beliefs

• Reappraising your irrational beliefs is the key to success in the rational-emotive approach

• Use the list of irrational fallacies to determine which of your internal statements are based on mistaken thinking

• Replacing self-defeating self-talk with more constructive thinking is an especially effective tool for improving self-confidence and relational communication

Three Steps for Determining Internal Statements

1. Decide whether each belief you’ve recorded is rational or irrational

2. Explain why the belief is rational or irrational

3. Finally, if the belief is irrational, write down an alternative way of thinking that is more rational

Maximizing Facilitative Emotions

• Reducing debilitative emotions is only part of emotional health equation

• It is just as important to foster positive emotions than it is to minimize negative ones

• Positive thoughts cause positive feelings and ruminating on the good rather than the bad can enhance one’s emotional, relational, and even physical health

• It is unrealistic to think that you’ll have a positive response to every event

• Even though we cannot dictate all the events of life, we have the power to reappraise them

• It is easier to focus on negative emotional experiences and it takes mindful effort to pay attention to and express pleasureable feelings

10 Emotions basic to positivity

• joy, gratitude, serenity, interest, hope

• Pride, amusement, inspiration, awe, love