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Communication and Emotion
Chapter 7
Emotional Contagion
• When our interpersonal
communications are influenced
by the emotions of those around
us
– The emotions of others are
sometimes said to “infect” those
around them
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Defining Emotion:
More Than Just a Feeling
• The critical internal structure
that orients us to, and engages
us with, what matters in our
lives: our feelings about
ourselves and others
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Defining Emotion:
More Than Just a Feeling
– Internal feelings of one person and
feelings that can be experienced
only in a relationship
– Mixed emotions or emotional blends
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Two Category Systems
for Emotions
• Valence – reflects a positive or
negative emotion
• Intensity – how strongly the
individual feels the emotion
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Emotion, Reason, and The Body
• Dualism – is a way of thinking
common in Western thought that
looks at everything in their
extremes or polar opposites
(Kant & Descartes)
– hot or cold
– good or bad
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–moral or immoral
–black or white
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Emotion, Reason, and The Body
• Emotion seems
to effect
physical health
• Reason seems
to also be
dependent on
emotion to
some extent
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Explaining Emotion:
Biology and Social Interaction
• Biological theory of emotion
– Emotion is mainly related to instinct
• Emotions are similar across many
cultures
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Explaining Emotion:
Biology and Social Interaction
• Emotion exists separately from
thought and we need thought to
bring “preexisting” emotion
– Biology effects emotional
expression
• Smiling for example is not taught
to us
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Explaining Emotion:
Biology and Social Interaction
• Social interaction theory of
emotion
– Recognizes that biology effects
emotion
– Focuses on how people interact in a
social context before, during, and
after they experience emotion
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Emotion and Communication
• Emotional experience – feeling
and/or experiencing the emotion
• Emotional communication –
talking about the experience of
emotion with someone else
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Emotion and Communication
• Communicating emotionally –
emotion is not the content of the
message, but a property of it
• Emotional effects – how your
emotional experience affects
your communication behavior
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Metaphors for Emotion
• We often use metaphors to talk
about emotions and to help
distinguish between subtle
differences in emotion
– He’s a pain in the neck.
– Jack was sick with fright.
– I was tickled pink.
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Metaphors for Emotion
• This figurative language may
give the impression that emotion
is independent of the person
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How Emotion is Communicated
• Nonverbal cues
– Facial expressions such as smiling
– Paralanguage or tone of voice
• Verbal cues
– Sarcasms
– Rhetorical questions
• Combinations of cues
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Influences on Emotional
Communication
• Meta-emotion – emotion about
emotion
– Talking about how we feel about
expressing our emotions
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Influences on Emotional
Communication
• Culture – influences emotional
expression
– Cultures and thinking about
emotion
– How emotion is communicated
across cultures
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• Gender and sex – influence the
emotional communication
– Emotion and gender stereotypes of
masculinity and femininity
– Emotional expression and gender
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• Context
– Online communication
– Historical period
• Feeling rules- the norms people
use to shape their emotional
expressions and reactions
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The Dark Side of
Emotional Communication
• Emotions such as:
embarrassment, guilt, hurt,
jealousy, anger, depression and
loneliness
• Some dark side emotions are the
polar opposite of some bright
side emotions
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The Bright Side of
Emotional Communication
• Emotions such as: comfort, social
support, warmth, affection,
forgiveness, or desire
• The mix of bright and dark shows
a complexity of emotional
expressions
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Choices for Developing
Emotional Communication Skills
Competence in expressing emotions
and in listening and responding to
the emotional communications of
others is crucial to your success as
an interpersonal communicator.
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Choices for Developing
Emotional Communication
Skills
• Emotional intelligence or E-IQ is
necessary to be a competent
communicator (Goleman)
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Choices for Developing
Emotional Communication Skills
• Know your feelings
– Recognize your emotion
– Establish that you are stating an
emotion
– Identify why you are feeling the
emotion
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Choices for Developing
Emotional Communication Skills
• Analyze the situation
– Do you wish to share your emotion
with others?
– Is the time appropriate for sharing?
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Choices for Developing
Emotional Communication Skills
• Analyze the situation
– How should you approach the
communication?
– Is there anything you can do to
change the situation if needed?
• Own your feelings
– Owning is the skill of verbally
taking responsibility for your
feelings
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Choices for Developing
Emotional Communication Skills
• Use I-messages to show you
understand that you are responsible
for your feelings
“I feel _______________
when you _____________,
and I would like __________.”
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Choices for Developing
Emotional Communication Skills
• Reframe when needed – put the
situation in a more productive
light
• Empathize – your ability to put
yourself in someone else’s place
so you can understand their
point of view.
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Behavioral Letter Theory
-D&P
• Descriptive
• Prescriptive
-------------------------------P&E
• Pride
• Enthusiasm
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