Chapter 7 - Emotions and communication

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize feelings and judge which feelings are appropriate for a given situation.
You can feel sad and happy at the same time.
When you feel a knot in your stomach after finding out you got a low grade you experience a physiological reaction. We experience motion when external stimuli cause physiological changes. This is the organismic view of emotions.

Perceptual view of emotions is also also called appraisal theory and asserts that subjective perceptions shape what external phenomena mean to us. These events have no meaning and they only gain meaning if we attribute significance to them.

Perceptual view of emotions: External Event (failing an …show more content…

These expressions of emotional state don’t really tell someone who they feel. Does I’m happy mean I’m in love or pleased with a grade or satisfied with a promotion.
Not owning feelings: You make me angry. Placing blame on someone else for your anger.
Counterfeit Emotional Language: This expresses an emotion buy doesn’t describe what a person is feeling. If someone yells at you to leave them alone does that mean they’re mad at you or someone else. Frustrated at being interrupted or stress to meet a deadline. We can’t tell what feeling the person is experiencing by what they said. Swearing marks you as not being in control of your emotions.

Guidelines for communicating emotions effectively
Identify your emotions: Before you can show your emotions effectively you have to be able to identify how you feel. Sometimes you don’t know how you feel because you have multiple emotions at once. So if you think you’re angry that your loved one yelled at you, your anger might not be your primary emotion. Hurt may be the dominant feeling. So instead of getting angry at them, explain how your feelings were hurt and it gives them an understanding of how you really feel.
Choose whether and how to express emotions: Define what you feel. Decide whether you want to communicate your feelings. Who, when and where (setting) are you communicating to? Sometimes it’s wise and compassionate not to tell someone how you feel. This is not the same as not