Emotions Tamara Arrington COM 252

Emotional Intelligence Daniel Goleman (1995) The ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions and be sensitive to others’ feelings Important in interpersonal relationships of all kinds: friendships, romantic relationships, marriage & family, and in the workplace - keeping your job could depend on it!

4 Components of Emotions Physiological changes Nonverbal reactions Cognitive interpretations Verbal expression

Types of Emotion First-order: triggered automatically in response to environmental stimuli (fear, surprise) Second-order: triggered by “emotional scripts” or “emotional knowledge” we have learned as a part of socialization (guilt) Second-order knowledge differs across cultures (shame – Chinese culture, love – Western)

Types of Emotion (cont’d.) Primary and Mixed (Plutchik, 1984) 8 primary: joy, acceptance, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation Infinite number of mixed – feelings that need more than one term to fully describe Intense and Mild Annoyed  Angry  RAGE

Influences on Emotional Expression Personality Culture Biological sex and gender Sex of the individual Whether the other is same or opposite sex Who the person is we are communicating with The differences in power between the individuals

Influences on Emotional Expression (cont’d.) Social Conventions – we are discouraged from the expression of most emotions Social Roles Fear of Self-Disclosure Emotional Contagion

Guidelines for Expressing Emotion Recognize your feelings Choose the best language Share multiple feelings Recognize the difference between feeling and acting Act responsibly for your feelings Choose the best time and place to express your feelings

Managing Difficult Emotions Facilitative and debilitative emotions Thoughts cause feelings (self-talk) Irrational thinking and debilitative emotions (fallacy of perfection)

Fallacies Fallacy of perfection Fallacy of approval Fallacy of should Fallacy of overgeneralization Fallacy of causation Fallacy of helplessness Fallacy of catastrophic expectations

Minimizing Debilitative Emotions Monitor your emotional reactions Note the activating event Record your self-talk Dispute your irrational beliefs