Reflection Paper Topic #1

Interpersonal Communication Emotions & Interpersonal Influence

Overview

 Concepts of emotions

 Feelings and communication

 Factors that affects emotions

 Interpersonal influence

Emotions

 Are humans unique in our abilities of communicating emotions?

Types of Emotions

 Basic emotions: primary feelings that are experienced universally

Types of Emotions

 Basic emotions: primary feelings that are experienced universally

Types of Emotions

 Basic emotions: primary feelings that are experienced universally

Vocalizations communicating the basic emotions can be recognized by non English-speaking cultures (Sauter et al., 2010)

Types of Emotions

 Dimensions of emotions

• Valence: unpleasant vs. pleasant

• Intensity: calm vs. aroused

• Emotions can be combined to form different feelings: joy + trust = love, anger + disgust = contempt

Types of Emotions

 Social emotions: feelings strongly related to interpersonal experiences, “as experienced, recalled, anticipated or imagined”

• E.g., embarrassment, guilt, shame, envy, pride, which are as opposite to basic emotions which only require the awareness of one’s own physical state

Components of Emotions

 What were your feelings on your first date?

• The physiological reaction

• Self perceptions of emotion: anticipated or reflective feelings

• Nonverbal markers

• Action tendencies: e.g., fear – fight or flight

Feelings and Communication

 Feelings cause communication

• Talk about how you feel, nonverbal expressions of feelings

• Communication products as a result of sharing emotions

Feelings and Communication

 Communication affects feelings

• We craft messages to make people feel warm, embarrassed, or jealous

• Sharing feelings is good for the psychological well-being

Feelings and Communication

 Feelings shape interpretation of messages

• Our feelings toward someone influence our interpretation of the motivation behind his/her message

Causes of Emotions

 Appraisal Theories: emotions are extracted from our cognitive evaluations of events (as opposed to physiological/neurological theories of emotions)

Perception Appraisal Mediation

Perceptions of a stimulus

Judgment of (1) whether conditions are favorable or

unfavorable and (2) whether you have sufficient resources to cope

Emotional responses as a result of appraisal

Factors Affect Emotions

 Emotional intelligence: people’s ability to understand and manage one’s own feelings, as well as the moods and emotions of others

• Self-awareness: the ability to recognize personal emotions and their effects

• Self-control: the ability to control impulses and to suspend judgment

• Empathy: the ability to understand the emotional makeup of other people

• Communication and social skills

Factors Affect Emotions

 The intimacy of a relationship

• We are likely to express our emotions to someone we feel intimate with, especially for negative emotions

Factors Affect Emotions

 Culture: a major influence on people’s conscious act of emotions

• Display rules (when, where, and how emotions should be expressed) are different across cultures

• Chinese respondents express emotions primarily through eyes while American respondents reveal through eyebrows and mouths

Factors Affect Emotions

 Culture

• Collectivistic cultures: emotions occur between people and relationships, e.g., feeling happy if being accepted and feeling shame if being rejected

• Individualistic cultures: emotions are independent internal state and people experience emotions within themselves, e.g., feeling pride because of self- achievement and feeling anger due to a failure

Factors Affect Emotions

 Biological Sex

• In general, women experience emotions more frequently, and tend to reply more on emotional support than men

• Men tend to express powerful emotions like anger more than women

• Women tend to express sadness, fear, and happiness more than men

• Men experience more sexual jealousy, women more emotional jealousy

• Masculine women and feminine men reported more positive emotions

 Persuasion interview, due by 3/5, 11 am

 Interview people in your life and solicit stories they have never told you (or anybody)

 Use influence skills we discussed in class during the interviews

 The paper should be at least 4 pages (2 pages for the story and 2 pages for your reflection on the influence skills), double- spaced and in APA format

Reflection Paper Topic #1

 Interpersonal influence refers to the use of communication to change another person’s beliefs, attitudes, or actions

Interpersonal Influence

 Primary goals: the goals that motivate the interaction

• Gain assistance, e.g., can I borrow your notes?

• Give advice, e.g., I think you should quit smoking

• Change orientation, e.g., here is why you are wrong about this issue

• Share activity, e.g., let’s hang out together tonight

• Change relationship, e.g., we should agree not to date other people

• Obtain permission, e.g., Dad, can I use the car?

• Enforce rights and obligations, e.g., it is your turn to take out the trash

Influence Goals

 Secondary goals: non-primary goals that arise during interactions and shape communication strategies

• Identity: protect and maintain positive self-image

• Interaction: manage the conversation in a socially appropriate manner

• Relationship: retain/improve the quality of the relationship

• Personal resources: maximize assets and minimize costs

• Arousal: emotion management

Influence Goals

Influence Messages

 Positivity: are you going to make the request in a positive or negative way?

• Pre-giving a reward: I will give you $10 if you clean your mess

• Threat: I am going to be really mad at you if you don’t clean the mess

Influence Messages

 Social comparison: are you going to appeal to him/herself or comparing that person to other people when making the request?

• Self-feeling: you will feel good about yourself if you clean your mess

• Altercasting: respectable people keep their places clean

Influence Messages

 Dominance: to what extent do you want to express your power?

• Expertise: if you clean the house, your friend will want to spend more time with you

Influence Messages

 Explicitness: how explicit is your request?

• Use implicit messages if you know the other person is against your proposition, otherwise your request may backfire

Influence Messages

 The amount of argument: do you want to use a lot of rational arguments when making the request?

• Only use a lot of arguments to appeal to people who are interested in the topic

Dealing with Possible Refusal

 Confirm request resources first, e.g., are you available this Sunday?

 Explain or apologize in advance, e.g., I am so sorry for my absence but ….

 Specify the limits of the request, e.g., the survey is going to be quick

 Offer an inducement or a threat, e.g., you will get $10 if you clean your mess

 Make your relationship salient, e.g., it’s so nice to have someone from my hometown in this class

 Make the request open-ended, e.g., I would appreciate if you can help me with the exam but I understand you have a busy schedule

 Interpersonal influence involve a lot of secondary goals therefore they are high stakes episodes

• Leaving that person some room to say no

• Don't judge yourself harshly if you are turned down

• Attend to your secondary goals and focus on relationship by small talks, exploring common interests, and expressing liking

High Stakes Episodes