Chapter 4. Experiencing and Expressing Emotions Theory
I. Defining Emotions
A. Emotions are intense reactions to an event that involves interpreting the meaning of the event, becoming physiologically aroused, labeling the experience as emotional, attempting to manage our reaction, and communicating this reaction in the form of emotional displays and disclosures.
B. John T. Cacioppo: Hence, five key features: (a) emotion is a reaction to events; (b) emotion leads to physiological arousal; (c) emotion must be consciously tagged so; (d) emotions are constrained by historical, cultural, relational and situational norms; (e) choices you make regarding emotion management are reflected outward in your verbal and nonverbal displays, in the form of word choices, exclamations or expletives, facial expressions, body posture, and gestures.
DISCUSSION STARTER 1: Recall an event in a close relationship that caused you to feel an intense emotion. Consider the physical and mental sensations you experienced. If you had to put your emotional experience into words, how would you describe it?
II. Communicating Emotions
A. We communicate emotions by (a) expressing them verbally and nonverbally, (b) sharing our emotions with others; (c) engaging in emotional contagion.
DISCUSSION STARTER 2: With whom do you share your emotional experiences? Does such sharing always have a positive impact on your relationships, or does it cause problems at times? What ethical boundaries govern emotion sharing?
B. Distinguishing Between Emotions, Feelings and Moods: Barbara Cunningham: (a) feelings are short-term emotional reaction to events that generated limited arousal; (b) moods are low-intensity states that are not caused by particular events and typically last longer than feelings or emotions.
C. Moods: (a) influence our perception and interpersonal communication; (b) influence how we talk to people; (c) need to be dealt with, but are mostly dealt with unproductively (drinking, smoking, overeating); (d) other ways include relaxation, stress management, mental focusing and exercise.
III. Types of Emotions
Paul Ekman: Primary Emotions: surprise, joy, disgust, anger, fear and sadness, with distinct patterns of physiological arousal.
According to a different classification there are eight primary emotions (Michael’s Sound Bite 4-1). Robert Plutchik: Eight universal emotions are joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, anger, anticipation.
Primary Emotions differ in degree of intensity. Robert Plutchik illustrates these with his famous model.
Blended Emotions represent mixtures of primary emotions; blended emotions may contradict each other.
Lists of primary and blended emotions can differ from culture to culture.
DISCUSSION STARTER 3: What emotions did you feel when you first heard about the 9/11 attacks? With whom did you share these emotions? How did your gender, personality, and cultural background shape your reaction and your communication of this reaction to others?
IV. Forces Shaping Emotions
Culture: in any culture there exist rules as to where, when and how to manage and communicate emotions. These norms are called display rules. These are different because of socialization, traditions and ideals.
Display rules shape communication in interpersonal relationships; differences in display rules may cause tension. Emotional expression must be adapted to the cultural background of people with whom we interact.
Gender: Across cultures women experience sadness, fear, shame and guilt; men experience anger and other hostile emotions. Women show emotions that support relationships and suppress emotions that assert their interests; Anger, a male emotion, conveys motivation to achieve goals and be successful.
DISCUSSION STARTER 4: What display rules did you learn growing up? How have these rules shaped your communication? Have you ever caused offense by expressing emotion in a way that violates these rules? If so, what lesson did you learn about the relationship between display rules and effective interpersonal communication?
Personality: Three personality traits affect emotional expression: (a) degree of extraversion; (b) degree of agreeableness, (c) degree of neuroticism.
Dealing with negative emotions in 5-step model by Albert Ellis: (a) remember common situations that upset you; (b) identify irrational beliefs about yourself and others; (c) consider emotional, behavioral and relational consequences of these beliefs; (d) Critically challenge those beliefs by asking: Is there really any support for these beliefs? What evidence contradicts them? What is the worst thing that can happen if you abandon these beliefs? The best thing? (e) Identify more accurate and realistic beliefs.