Physiological Changes - Emotions

Emotions ● ● ● ● Emotional intelligence: ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions and to be sensitive to others’ feelings Success depends on EQ (emotional intelligence quota) How well do you understand and manage your emotions? Daneil Goleman coined the term emotional intelligence to describe a person’s ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions, while also paying attention to the feelings of others. The extent to which one possesses emotional intelligence influences one’s success in emotional communication What are Emotions? Physiological Changes ● ● ● Bodily changes ○ Increased heartbeat ○ Rise in blood pressure ○ Increase in adrenaline ○ Elevated blood sugar level ○ Slowing of digestion Anger, fear, disgust, happiness, sadness, surprise When we experience strong emotions, many bodily changes occur. Such changes can occur in the mind and throughout the body, offering a clue to your emotions. Nonverbal Behavior ● ● ● ● ● Observable changes Hard to determine the exact emotion Nonverbal behavior can cause emotions, rather than reverse Connection between verbalizing emotions and nonverbal reactions Emotions are often apparent from observable physiological changes, but it can be hard to pinpoint what emotion is being felt. Though can be reactions to emotions, they can also cause emotions and are connected to our verbal messages. Cognitive Interpretations ● ● The mind impacts how we feel Bodily components of most emotions are similar so experience of emotions come from labels and interpretations ● Reappraisal: rethinking meaning of events to alter emotional impact ● The mind plays an important role in determining how we feel, and the labels that accompany our cognitive interpretations help us to understand our physical symptoms. Rethinking the meaning of emotionally charged events can change their emotional impact. Verbal Expression ● ● ● Sometimes words necessary to express emotions We use specific emotion words to represent degrees of intensity Words are sometimes necessary for expressing feelings, and since we experience different emotions with different degrees of intensity we use different words to describe them. Influences of Emotional Expression Personality ● ● ● Powerful force, but doesn’t have to govern communication satisfaction Shy people can communicate comfortably and effectively online Science has established an increasingly clear relationship between personality and the way people experience and communicate emotions. Although a powerful force, personality does not necessarily determine communication satisfaction as people who are shy can actually feel comfortable communicating in online spaces. Culture ● ● ● ● ● Same events generate different feelings in different culture Ethnicity impacts how others express emotional states and appropriate rules for expressing emotions Individualistic-collectivistic dynamics impact behavior within in-groups and towards outgroups Although people around the world experience the same emotions, the same events can generate very different feelings depending on how culture influences the expression of emotion and individualistic versus collectivistic dynamics. Gender ● ● ● ● ● Gender roles shape way men and women experience and express emotions Some truth to cultural stereotype of inexpressive male and demonstrative female Men and women experience same emotions, but differ how they are read and expressed Gender roles are influenced by societal expectations. Men and women are often stereotyped and, though they experience the same emotions, often differ in how they are able to express those emotions and how others react to them. Social Conventions & Roles ● US: ○ ○ ○ ○ Unwritten rules of communication discourage direct expressions of most emotions Reluctance to threaten “face” of others Emotion labor: situations in which managing and suppressing emotions is appropriate and necessary Capacity to recognize and act on certain emotions decreases without practice ● The United States has its own unwritten rules about communicating that involve how to appropriately express emotion, how to save face with other people, and the amount of effort used to manage and suppress emotions. When communicators fail to practice emotional labor, their ability to recognize and act on emotions in certain ways becomes less effective. Social Media ● ● ● ● ● Express more emotions online than in person Can encourage outbursts and tirades Can feed emotional responses Both senders and receivers experience emotions more intensely online Communicators generally express more emotion online than they do in person, but online communication can actually encourage emotional responses because more intense emotions are often experienced online. Emotional Contagion ● ● ● ● Process by which emotions are transferred from one person to another Can occur quickly with little or no verbal communication Can you recall a time when you “caught” someone’s emotions? Emotional contagion explains how emotions can actually spread quickly because it can move from person to person with as little as zero verbal communication. Expressing Emotions Effectively ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● People who know how to share feelings are healthier People who overexpress can also suffer Key is to learn to express emotions constructively Sharing emotions improves relationships Research supports the value in expressing emotions, suggesting that sharing of feelings can be healthy to a certain extent. Communicators that learn how to constructively express their emotions can then improve their relationships and avoid suffering from overexpression. Recognize your feelings ○ Be aware of your feelings and able to identify emotions ○ Monitor physiological changes and nonverbal behaviors ○ Recognize thoughts and verbal messages sent to others Communicators found that some people are much more aware of their own emotional states, and they can use that awareness to make important decisions and monitor changes in the thoughts they are having and in how they feel. Choose the best language ○ Many suffer from impoverished emotional vocabularies Share multiple feelings ○ Common to experience several emotions at the same time Most people struggle to effectively describe how they are feeling, but it is important to consider the emotional content of one’s messages because making clear how one is ● ● ● ● feeling can improve emotional expression. In addition, it is useful to consider that more than one emotion can be felt at a time and thus should be appropriately shared. Recognize the difference between feeling and acting ○ Don’t fear that getting in touch with emotions will cause a disastrous course of action Accept responsibility for your feelings ○ Use “I” language Choose the best time and place to express your emotions Getting in touch with certain emotions will help to decide now best to act, because acting on every emotion is not always useful. Communicators should also acknowledge that they are responsible for how they are feeling, and carefully choosing when and where to express emotion is also important to effectively dealing with emotion. Managing Emotions Facilitative and Debilitative Emotions ● Facilitative ○ Contributes to effective functioning ○ Certain amount of anger/irritation can be constructive when improving unsatisfying conditions ○ A little bit of nervousness can boost performance ● Debilitative ○ Hinder or prevent effective performance ○ More intensity ○ Extended duration ○ Rumination: recurrent thoughts ○ not demanded by the immediate environment ● Not all emotions are beneficial. While some emotions do help by doing things such as boost job performance, they often prevent people from being effective in those types of situations and can actually extend the amount of time that someone feels the emotion. Thoughts Cause Feelings ● ● ● ● ● Rational-emotive approach: change feelings by changing unproductive interpretations It’s not events that cause emotions, but beliefs held about events Interpretations of events determine feelings Activating event (being called names), thought or belief (“I’ve done something wrong”), consequences (hurt, upset) Using the rational-emotive approach emphasizes changing unproductive interpretations of emotion, which changes how one feels. This is useful because the beliefs we have about things are what cause and determine feelings. Irrational Thinking and Debilitative Emotions ● ● ● Fallacy of perfection Fallacy of approval Fallacy of should ● ● ● ● ● Fallacy of overgeneralization Fallacy of causation Fallacy of helplessness Fallacy of catastrophic expectations Many irrational thoughts (called fallacies) lead to illogical conclusions, which turn into debilitating feelings that we are not always aware of. Minimizing Debilitative Emotions ● ● ● ● ● ● Monitor your emotional reactions Note the activating event ○ Specific people ○ Types of individuals ○ Setting ○ Topics of conversation Record your self-talk Dispute your irrational beliefs Change your self-talk Putting the rational-emotive and self-talk processes into action help to cut down on selfdefeating thinking, so conscientiously practicing these tips helps to shift emotional behaviors. Maximizing Facilitative Emotions ● ● ● ● ● Enjoy and savor positive emotional experiences Regard challenging situations as opportunities for growth Focus on what you gained, not on what you lost Choose compassion over contempt Fostering positive emotions is just as important as minimizing negative ones, as positive thoughts can cause positive feelings. Following these steps will help a communicator to develop and express more pleasurable emotions.