activity 1.2 exploring emotions (character building critical thinking communication)

6.1 Emotions and Communication

Learning Objectives

• Explain interrelationships among emotions and feelings
• Explain functions of emotions
• Describe emotional awareness and its importance to interpersonal communication.
• Differentiate between “I” and “You” statements.
• Explain the concept of emotional intelligence.
• Describe fallacies leading to debilitating emotions.

Emotions and Feelings

Being emotional is an inherent part of being a human. However, the way we communicate about emotion can make emotion seem negative. Have you ever said, “Don’t feel that way” or “I shouldn’t feel this way”? When we negate our own or someone else’s emotions, we are negating ourselves or that person and dismissing the right to emotional responses. At the same time, though, no one else can make you “feel” a specific way. Our emotions are our emotions. They are how we interpret and cope with life. A person may set up a context where you experience an emotion, but you are the one who is still experiencing that emotion and allowing yourself to experience that emotion. If you don’t like “feeling” a specific way, then you can change it. We all have the ability to alter our emotions. Altering our emotional states (in a proactive way) is how we get through life. Maybe you just broke up with someone, and listening to music helps you work through the grief you are experiencing to get to a better place. For others, they need to openly communicate about how they are feeling in an effort to process and work through emotions.

Attempting to deny that the emotion exists is not an effective way to process emotions. Think of this like a balloon. With each breath of air, you blow into the balloon, you are bottling up more and more emotions. Eventually, that balloon will get to a point where it cannot handle any more air in it before it explodes. Humans can be the same way with emotions when we bottle them up inside. The final breath of air in our emotional balloon doesn’t have to be big or intense. However, it can still cause tremendous emotional outpouring that is often very damaging to the person and their interpersonal relationships with others. Other research has demonstrated that handling negative emotions during conflicts within a marriage (especially on the part of the wife) can lead to faster de-escalations of conflicts and faster conflict mediation between spouses (Bloch, Haase, & Levenson, 2014).

Understanding Emotions

Emotion versus feeling.

To start our examination of the idea of emotions and feelings and how they relate to harmony and discord in a relationship, it’s important to differentiate between emotions and feelings. Emotions are our physical reactions to stimuli in the outside environment. They can be objectively measured by blood flow, brain activity, and nonverbal reactions to things because they are activated through neurotransmitters and hormones released by the brain. Feelings are the conscious experience of emotional reactions. They are our responses to thoughts and interpretations given to emotions based on experiences, memory, expectations, and personality. So, there is an inherent relationship between emotions and feelings, but they are different.

Intrapersonal Functions of Emotions

Emotions are rapid information-processing systems that help us act with minimal thinking (Tooby & Cosmides, 2008). Problems associated with birth, battle, death, and seduction have occurred throughout evolutionary history and emotions evolved to aid humans in adapting to those problems rapidly and with minimal conscious cognitive effort. If we did not have emotions, we could not make rapid decisions concerning whether to attack, defend, flee, care for others, reject food, or approach something useful, all of which were functionally adaptive in our evolutionary history and helped us to survive. For instance, drinking spoiled milk or eating rotten eggs has negative consequences for our welfare. The emotion of disgust, however, helps us immediately take action by not ingesting them in the first place or by vomiting them out. This response is adaptive because it aids, ultimately, in our survival and allows us to act immediately without much thinking. In some instances, taking the time to sit and rationally think about what to do, calculating cost-benefit ratios in one’s mind, is a luxury that might cost one’s life. Emotions evolved so that we can act without that depth of thinking.

Emotions Prepare the Body for Immediate Action

Emotions prepare us for behavior. When triggered, emotions orchestrate systems such as perception, attention, inference, learning, memory, goal choice, motivational priorities, physiological reactions, motor behaviors, and behavioral decision-making (Cosmides & Tooby, 2000; Cosmides & Tooby, 2008). Emotions simultaneously activate certain systems and deactivate others in order to prevent the chaos of competing systems operating at the same time, allowing for coordinated responses to environmental stimuli (Levenson, 1999). For instance, when we are afraid, our bodies shut down temporarily unneeded digestive processes, resulting in saliva reduction (a dry mouth); blood flows disproportionately to the lower half of the body; the visual field expands; and air is breathed in, all preparing the body to flee. Emotions initiate a system of components that includes subjective experience, expressive behaviors, physiological reactions, action tendencies, and cognition, all for the purposes of specific actions; the term “emotion” is, in reality, a metaphor for these reactions.

One common misunderstanding many people have when thinking about emotions, however, is the belief that emotions must always directly produce action. This is not true. Emotion certainly  prepares  the body for action; but whether people actually engage in action is dependent on many factors, such as the context within which the emotion has occurred, the target of the emotion, the perceived consequences of one’s actions, previous experiences, and so forth (Baumeister, Vohs, DeWall, & Zang, 2007; Matsumoto & Wilson, 2008). Thus, emotions are just one of many determinants of behavior, albeit an important one.

Emotions Influence Thoughts

Emotions are also connected to thoughts and memories. Memories are not just facts that are encoded in our brains; they are colored with the emotions felt at those times the facts occurred (Wang & Ross, 2007). Thus, emotions serve as the neural glue that connects those disparate facts in our minds. That is why it is easier to remember happy thoughts when happy, and angry times when angry. Emotions serve as the affective basis of many attitudes, values, and beliefs that we have about the world and the people around us; without emotions, those attitudes, values, and beliefs would be just statements without meaning, and emotions give those statements meaning. Emotions influence our thinking processes, sometimes in constructive ways, sometimes not. It is difficult to think critically and clearly when we feel intense emotions, but easier when we are not overwhelmed with emotions (Matsumoto, Hirayama, & LeRoux, 2006).

Emotions Motivate Future Behaviors

Because emotions prepare our bodies for immediate action, influence thoughts, and can be felt, they are important motivators of future behavior. Many of us strive to experience feelings of satisfaction, joy, pride, or triumph in our accomplishments and achievements. At the same time, we also work very hard to avoid strong “negative” feelings; for example, once we have felt the emotion of disgust when drinking the spoiled milk, we generally work very hard to avoid having those feelings again (e.g., checking the expiration date on the label before buying the milk, smelling the milk before drinking it, watching if the milk curdles in one’s coffee before drinking it). Emotions, therefore, not only influence immediate actions but also serve as an important motivational basis for future behaviors.

Interpersonal Functions of Emotions

Emotions are expressed both verbally through words and nonverbally through facial expressions, voices, gestures, body postures, and movements. We are constantly expressing emotions when interacting with others, and others can reliably judge those emotional expressions (Elfenbein & Ambady, 2002; Matsumoto, 2001) thus, emotions have signal value to others and influence others and our social interactions. Emotional expressions communicate information to others about our feelings, intentions, relationship with the target of the emotions, and the environment. Because emotions have this communicative signal value, they can help to solve social problems by evoking responses from others, signaling the nature of interpersonal relationships, and by providing incentives for desired social behavior (Keltner, 2003).

Emotional Expressions Facilitate Specific Behaviors in Perceivers

Because facial expressions of emotion are universal social signals, they contain meaning not only about the psychological state but also about that person’s intent and subsequent behavior. This information affects what the perceiver is likely to do. People observing fearful faces, for instance, are more likely to produce approach-related behaviors, whereas people who observe angry faces are more likely to produce avoidance-related behaviors (Marsh, Ambady, & Kleck, 2005). Even subliminal presentation of smiles produces increases in how much beverage people pour and consume and how much they are willing to pay for it; the presentation of angry faces decreases these behaviors (Winkielman, Berridge, & Wilbarger, 2005). Also, emotional displays evoke specific, complementary emotional responses from observers; for example, anger evokes fear in others (Dimberg & Ohman, 1996; Esteves, Dimberg, & Ohman, 1994), whereas distress evokes sympathy and aid (Eisenberg, Fabes, Miller, Fultz, Shell, Mathy, & Reno, 1989).

Communicating Emotions

Emotional awareness.

Sadly, many people are unaware of their own emotions. Emotional awareness, or an individual’s ability to clearly express, in words, what they are feeling and why is an extremely important factor in effective interpersonal communication. Unfortunately, our emotional vocabulary is often quite limited. One extreme version of not having an emotional vocabulary is called alexithymia, “a general deficit in emotional vocabulary—the ability to identify emotional feelings, differentiate emotional states from physical sensations, communicate feelings to others, and process emotion in a meaningful way” (Friedman, et al., 2003). Furthermore, there are many people who can accurately differentiate emotional states but lack the actual vocabulary for a wide range of different emotions. For some people, their emotional vocabulary may consist of good, bad, angry, and fine.

First, it’s important to distinguish between our emotional states and how we interpret an emotional state. For example, you can feel sad or depressed because those are feelings. However, you cannot feel alienated because this is not a feeling. Your sadness and depression may lead you to perceive yourself as alienated, but alienation is a perception (thought instead of emotion) of one’s self and not an actual emotional state. There are several evaluative terms that people ascribe to themselves (usually in the process of blaming others for their feelings) that they label emotions, but which are in actuality evaluations and not emotions. The table below presents a list of common evaluative words that people confuse for emotional states. Instead, avoiding these evaluative words will result in more effective communication.

Instead, using actual emotional words will communicate your feelings effectively. For most of us, we have a  very  limited emotional vocabulary.  Think about it, how many emotion words can you even list? And more importantly, how many emotional experiences can you appropriately label? One of the best ways to improve your ability to be assertive is to improve your emotional vocabulary.  A great tool for this is a Feelings Wheel.

As you can see, there are a  lot of words to describe our emotional vocabulary.  One of the worlds leading experts in emotions is Susan David (2016) and her research in the book Emotional Agility tells us that we need to have an emotional vocabulary of at least 30 words in order to accurately experience, express, and ultimately work through our emotions.

More from Susan David in this wonderful TedTalk.

“You” Statements

“You are mean.”

“You make me feel unloved.”

“You don’t care about me.”

According to Marshall Rosenberg (2003), the father of nonviolent communication, “You” statements ultimately are moralistic judgments where we imply the wrongness or badness of another person and the way they have behaved. When we make moralistic judgments about others, we tend to deny responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Remember, when it comes to feelings, no one can “make” you feel a specific way. We choose the feelings we inhabit; we do not inhabit the feelings that choose us. When we make moralistic judgments and deny responsibility, we end up in a constant cycle of defensiveness where our individual needs are not going to be met by our relational partners. Behind every negative emotion is a need not being fulfilled, and when we start blaming others, those needs will keep getting unfilled in the process. Often this lack of need fulfillment will result in us demanding someone fulfill our need or face blame or punishment. In highly volatile relationships, this constant blame cycle can become very detrimental, and no one’s needs are getting met.

Instead, when we state observed behaviors and how they make us feel, we are directly and effectively communicating our actual feelings. For instance, “I felt angry when I came home and the dishes were in the sink.” However, just observing behavior and stating how you feel only gets you part of the way there because you’re still not describing your need. Now, when we talk about the idea of “needing” something, we are not talking about this strictly in terms of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, though those are all entirely appropriate needs. At the same time, relational needs are generally not rewards like tangible items or money. Instead, Marshall Rosenberg categorizes basic needs that we all have falling into the categories: autonomy, celebration, play, physical nurturance, integrity, and interdependence (Table 9.5). As you can imagine, any time these needs are not being met, you will want to get them fulfilled. As such, when we communicate about our feelings, tying them to an unmet or fulfilled need can have a positive effect. For example, you could say, “I feel dejected when you yell at me because I need to be respected.” In this sentence, you are identifying your need, observing the behavior, and labeling the need. Notice that there isn’t judgment associated with identifying one’s needs.

I statements

Furthermore, using “I” statements allows us to own our feelings and reactions and acknowledge the ownership of them. Compare this to “you” messages, which negatively evaluate the other person’s behavior and places the blame on them. Consider the difference between “I feel worried when I don’t hear right back from you” vs. “You always ignore me!” Beware of starting off with an “I” statement and switching over to a “you” message, as this negates the purpose of using “I” language in the first place. For example, “I feel like you are neglecting me” is not really an “I” message expressing your own emotional reaction. It is, instead, a negative evaluation of another’s behavior. “You” statements such as “you make me feel…” places the blame for your feelings on the other and are likely to cause defensiveness. Instead, rephrase statements so that they convey your own feelings, as in “I feel lonely when we don’t hang out together” or “I feel anxious because decisions aren’t being made.” Oftentimes, people do not mean to intentionally cause us to experience a negative emotion with their actions, so it is likely to be more effective if we take responsibility for how we are decoding and interpreting the actions of others.

Using the formula below, you can create an effective “I” statement.

Describe the emotion(s), what behavior caused the emotion(s), and the ‘why’ of the emotion(s):

• The emotion(s): Explicitly state the emotion(s) you are experiencing. The more specific we can be, the more likely the other will understand what we are feeling. Here, it is important to have a rich and nuanced emotional vocabulary to better understand and express these emotions to others as emotions can be mild, moderate, or intense. For example, consider the difference between the terms sad, melancholy, and despondent. Use the emotion wheel above to identify feelings.
• The behavior: Just as it is important to be able to describe the specific emotion, it is likewise important to describe the specific behavior(s) that triggered that emotion. For example, if our roommate leaves dirty dishes on the kitchen counter we may feel annoyed. When describing the behavior, we should state only what we’ve observed, objectively and specifically, and not in an evaluative or accusatory manner. “Leaving dirty dishes in the kitchen” is an appropriate way to describe behavior, whereas “acting like a jerk” is an evaluation of that behavior, and not very conducive to productive interactions. Instead, we could say “I feel annoyed when dirty dishes are left in the kitchen” versus “I feel annoyed when you act like a jerk.” The latter statement also contains a “you” statement versus an “I” statement.
• The why:  Finally, it’s useful if we include a why in our “I” statement. Consider expressing a reason for why the behavior bothers us and leads to our particular emotional reaction? The why offers an explanation, interpretation, effect, or consequence of the behavior. One example might be “I feel annoyed when dirty dishes are left around the kitchen because it attracts cockroaches.” When describing the why, attempt to avoid “you” language. For example, saying “I feel sad when our plans are broken because you are neglecting me” still inserts that problematic “you,” which suggests blame and could lead to defensiveness. Instead, consider something like “I feel sad when our plans are broken because I want to spend more time together.”

“You” can easily creep into all three parts of an “I” message, and can be tricky to avoid at first, so you may want to mentally rehearse or even write down what you plan to say. Also, it is a good idea to repeat the statement back to yourself and think about how you might respond if someone said the exact same thing to you in a similar situation. If it would cause you to react negatively or defensively, revise your statement.

You might find that, in some situations, avoiding “you” may not be productive. At times, it might be useful to share the thoughts we attach to another person’s behavior. We can share our perspectives by using a phrase such as “I took it to mean…” In this case, “you” might show up in your interpretation. However, you can reduce the potential for defensiveness by using language that reflects tentativeness and ownership. An example of this is “I’m confused about the dishes being left because it seems out of the norm for you, and I’m wondering if something is going on.” Another example might be “I get frustrated when the dishes are left on the counter because I remember talking about this before and I think I’m not being heard.” We will learn more about language and actions that contribute to and reduce defensiveness in future chapters.

Understanding and asserting our emotions is important and challenging work.  Lisa Feldman Barrett is a Neuroscientist and Psychologist who also studies emotions.  Her research helps us understand that we are in control of our emotions, they aren’t in control of us. Take a look at her TedTalk below.

Emotional Intelligence

• Self-awareness  refers to a person’s ability to understand their feelings from moment to moment. It might seem as if this is something we know, but we often go about our day without thinking or being aware of our emotions that impact how we behave in work or personal situations. Understanding our emotions can help us reduce stress and make better decisions, especially when we are under pressure. In addition, knowing and recognizing our own strengths and weaknesses is part of self-awareness. Assume that Patt is upset about a new process being implemented in the organization. Lack of self-awareness may result in her feeling angry and anxious, without really knowing why. High self-awareness EQ might cause Patt to recognize that her anger and anxiety stem from the last time the organization changed processes and fifteen people got laid off. Part of self-awareness is the idea of positive psychological capital, which can include emotions such as hope; optimism, which results in higher confidence; and resilience, or the ability to bounce back quickly from challenges. [8]  Psychological capital can be gained through self-awareness and self-management, which is our next area of emotional intelligence.
• Self-management  refers to our ability to manage our emotions and is dependent on our self-awareness ability. How do we handle frustration, anger, and sadness? Are we able to control our behaviors and emotions? Self-management also is the ability to follow through with commitments and take initiative at work. Someone who lacks self-awareness may project stress on others. For example, say that project manager Mae is very stressed about an upcoming Monday deadline. Lack of self-management may cause Mae to lash out at people in the office because of the deadline. Higher EQ in this area might result in Mae being calm, cool, and collected—to motivate her team to focus and finish the project on time.
• Social awareness  is our ability to understand social cues that may affect others around us. In other words, understanding how another is feeling, even if we do not feel the same way. Social awareness also includes having empathy for another, recognizing power structure and unwritten workplace dynamics. Most people high on social awareness have charisma and make people feel good with every interaction. For example, consider Erik’s behavior in meetings. He continually talks and does not pick up subtleties, such as body language. Because of this, he can’t understand (or even fathom) that his monologues can be frustrating to others. Erik, with higher EQ in social awareness, may begin talking but also spend a lot of time listening and observing in the meeting, to get a sense of how others feel. He may also directly ask people how they feel. This demonstrates high social awareness.
• Relationship management refers to our ability to communicate clearly, maintain good relationships with others, work well in teams, and manage conflict. Relationship management relies on your ability to use the other three areas of EQ to manage relationships effectively. Take Caroline, for example. Caroline is good at reading people’s emotions and showing empathy for them, even if she doesn’t agree. As a manager, her door is always open and she makes it clear to colleagues and staff that they are welcome to speak with her anytime. If Caroline has low EQ in the area of relationship management, she may belittle people and have a difficult time being positive. She may not be what is considered a good team player, which shows her lack of ability to manage relationships.

Author and Pulitzer Prize nominee Daniel Goleman discusses the importance of emotional intelligence in career success.

To increase our self-awareness skills, we should spend time thinking about our emotions to understand why we experience a specific emotion. We should look at those things that cause a strong reaction, such as anger to help us understand the underlying reasons for that reaction. By doing this, we can begin to see a pattern within ourselves that helps explain how we behave and how we feel in certain situations. This allows us to handle those situations when they arise.

To increase our self-management skills, we can focus on the positive instead of the negative. Taking deep breaths increases blood flow, which helps us handle difficult situations. Although seemingly childish, counting to ten before reacting can help us manage emotions such as anger. This gives us time to calm down and think about how we will handle the situation. Practicing positive   self-talk can help increase our self-management. Self-talk refers to the thoughts we have about ourselves and situations throughout the day. Since we have over 50,000 thoughts per day (Willax, 1999), getting into the habit of managing those thoughts is important. By recognizing the negative thoughts, we can change them for the positive. The following are some examples:

Increasing social awareness means observing others’ actions and watching people to get a good sense of how they are reacting. We can gain social awareness skills by learning people’s names and making sure we watch body language. Living in the moment can help our interactions with others as well. Practicing listening skills and asking follow-up questions can also help improve our social awareness skills.

Strategies for relationship management might include being open, acknowledging another’s feelings, and showing that you care. Being willing to listen to colleagues and employees and understanding them on a personal level can help enhance relationship management skills. Being willing to accept feedback and grow from that feedback can help people be more comfortable talking with you.

Debilitative Emotions and Emotional Expression

Throughout the years there has been a big debate about the true meaning of emotions and how they can be understood. However, emotions can be defined as the state of psychological arousal, by which these feelings arise spontaneously and without any conscious attempt. This state includes thoughts, physiological changes, and actions or behaviors. Moreover, there are approximately 132 common human emotions; such as shy, sorry, mad, frustrated, happy, humiliated, annoyed, peaceful, bored, and many others.

Debilitative Emotions

Debilitative emotions are harmful and difficult emotions that detract from effective functioning. The level, or intensity, of the emotion we’re feeling, determines our response to the emotion. There is a difference between “a little upset” and “irate”. Debilitative emotions can affect the ability to interpret emotions and most involve communication that has led to conflict. Some intensity in emotion can be constructive but too much intensity makes the situation worse. The other part of debilitative emotions is their duration. Again, there is a difference between “momentarily” feeling a certain way and “forever” feeling a certain way. When something happens, sometimes you feel like your whole life has crashed down on you and that there’s no way to pick up the pieces. One unexpected, disappointing situation does not have to completely change the core of your being. A strategy for working through these emotions is if something bad does happen, give yourself a few days to sulk over it. Because it’s still important to recognize your feelings, as well as understand them, instead of completely brushing them off. After those few days are over, you can realize that there’s much more out there, remind yourself about what makes you happy and remind yourself of the goals you want to accomplish. Some debilitative emotions take a long time to recover from but allowing yourself to let go of grudges so that they don’t affect your future communication traits and interpersonal relationships is important for emotional health.

Most emotions are the result of our way of thinking. Debilitative emotions arise from accepting a number of irrational thoughts that are called fallacies. These fallacies lead to illogical and false conclusions that turn to be debilitative emotions. We may not be aware of these thoughts, which makes them very powerful. Here are some fallacies that lead to the arousal of debilitative emotions.

Fallacy of Perfection

The fallacy of perfection is thinking we should be able to handle every situation perfectly with no room for error. We constantly strive for an unrealistic goal of perfection. We may think that others will not appreciate us if we are not “perfect” and therefore have problems admitting our mistakes. It’s like tempting to try to appear perfect, but the costs of such deception are very high. If others ever find you out, they’ll see u as phony. This illusion will lower your self-confidence (because nothing and no one is perfect) and may hinder others from liking you. Like everyone else, you make mistakes from time to time, and there is no reason to hide this.

Fallacy of Helplessness

The fallacy of helplessness is when people are convinced that powers beyond their control can determine their satisfaction or happiness. For example, when people say “I don’t know how” or “I can’t do anything about it”. It’s similar to being helpless or undesirable to change. The many can’ts are really rationalizations to justify not wanting to change. For instance, lonely people tend to attribute their poor interpersonal relationships to uncontrollable causes. This irrational thinking increases debilitative emotions and empowers them.

Fallacy of Catastrophic Expectations

The fallacy of catastrophic expectations is when people work on the assumption that if something bad can possibly happen, it will; by which they imagine the worst possible catastrophic consequences. For example, “If I speak regarding this issue, they will laugh at me”. This in turn creates harmful debilitative emotions and a self-fulfilling prophecy will begin to build. For instance, a study revealed that people who believed that their romantic partners would not change for the better were likely to behave in ways that contributed to the breakup of the relationship.

Fallacy of Overgeneralization

The fallacy of overgeneralization comprises two types. The first occurs when we base a belief on a limited amount of evidence. For instance, when we say: “I’m so stupid, I can’t even figure out how to download music on my iPod.” The second type takes place when we exaggerate shortcomings. For example, when we say: “you never listen to me or you are always late.” These statements are always false and they lead to nothing other than anger and debilitative emotions.

Key Takeaways

• Emotions and feelings work together but are not the same.
• Emotions serve important functions in our relationships and lives.
• Effectively communicating emotions takes awareness and understanding of communication strategies.
• Emotional intelligence can be learned and is important to our emotional well-being.
• Fallacies can lead to debilitating emotions.

Bloch, L., Haase, C. M., & Levenson, R. W. (2014). Emotion regulation predicts marital satisfaction: More than a wives’ tale. Emotion, 14(1), 130–144. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0034272

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6.3 Emotions and Interpersonal Communication

Learning objectives.

• Define emotions.
• Explain the evolutionary and cultural connections to emotions.
• Discuss how we can more effectively manage our own and respond to others’ emotions.

Have you ever been at a movie and let out a bellowing laugh and snort only to realize no one else is laughing? Have you ever gotten uncomfortable when someone cries in class or in a public place? Emotions are clearly personal, as they often project what we’re feeling on the inside to those around us whether we want it to show or not. Emotions are also interpersonal in that another person’s show of emotion usually triggers a reaction from us—perhaps support if the person is a close friend or awkwardness if the person is a stranger. Emotions are central to any interpersonal relationship, and it’s important to know what causes and influences emotions so we can better understand our own emotions and better respond to others when they display emotions.

Emotions are physiological, behavioral, and/or communicative reactions to stimuli that are cognitively processed and experienced as emotional (Planlap, Fitness, & Fehr, 2006). This definition includes several important dimensions of emotions. First, emotions are often internally experienced through physiological changes such as increased heart rate, a tense stomach, or a cold chill. These physiological reactions may not be noticeable by others and are therefore intrapersonal unless we exhibit some change in behavior that clues others into our internal state or we verbally or nonverbally communicate our internal state. Sometimes our behavior is voluntary—we ignore someone, which may indicate we are angry with them—or involuntary—we fidget or avoid eye contact while talking because we are nervous. When we communicate our emotions, we call attention to ourselves and provide information to others that may inform how they should react. For example, when someone we care about displays behaviors associated with sadness, we are likely to know that we need to provide support (Planlap, Fitness, & Fehr, 2006). We learn, through socialization, how to read and display emotions, although some people are undoubtedly better at reading emotions than others. However, as with most aspects of communication, we can all learn to become more competent with increased knowledge and effort.

Primary emotions are innate emotions that are experienced for short periods of time and appear rapidly, usually as a reaction to an outside stimulus, and are experienced similarly across cultures. The primary emotions are joy, distress, anger, fear, surprise, and disgust. Members of a remote tribe in New Guinea, who had never been exposed to Westerners, were able to identify these basic emotions when shown photographs of US Americans making corresponding facial expressions (Evans, 2001).

Secondary emotions are not as innate as primary emotions, and they do not have a corresponding facial expression that makes them universally recognizable. Secondary emotions are processed by a different part of the brain that requires higher order thinking; therefore, they are not reflexive. Secondary emotions are love, guilt, shame, embarrassment, pride, envy, and jealousy (Evans, 2001). These emotions develop over time, take longer to fade away, and are interpersonal because they are most often experienced in relation to real or imagined others. You can be fearful of a the dark but feel guilty about an unkind comment made to your mother or embarrassed at the thought of doing poorly on a presentation in front of an audience. Since these emotions require more processing, they are more easily influenced by thoughts and can be managed, which means we can become more competent communicators by becoming more aware of how we experience and express secondary emotions. Although there is more cultural variation in the meaning and expression of secondary emotions, they are still universal in that they are experienced by all cultures. It’s hard to imagine what our lives would be like without emotions, and in fact many scientists believe we wouldn’t be here without them.

Perspectives on Emotion

How did you learn to express your emotions? Like many aspects of communication and interaction, you likely never received any formal instruction on expressing emotions. Instead, we learn through observation, trial and error, and through occasional explicit guidance (e.g., “boys don’t cry” or “smile when you meet someone”). To better understand how and why we express our emotions, we’ll discuss the evolutionary function of emotions and how they are affected by social and cultural norms.

Evolution and Emotions

Human beings grouping together and creating interpersonal bonds was a key element in the continuation and success of our species, and the ability to express emotions played a role in this success (Planlap, Fitness, & Fehr, 2006). For example, unlike other species, most of us are able to control our anger, and we have the capacity for empathy. Emotional regulation can help manage conflict, and empathy allows us to share the emotional state of someone else, which increases an interpersonal bond. These capacities were important as early human society grew increasingly complex and people needed to deal with living with more people.

A dependable and nurturing caregiver helps establish a secure attachment style that will influence emotions and views of relationships in later life.

Justhiggy – Mom and baby – CC BY-NC 2.0.

Attachment theory ties into the evolutionary perspective, because researchers claim that it is in our nature, as newborns, to create social bonds with our primary caretaker (Planlap, Fitness, & Fehr, 2006). This drive for attachment became innate through the process of evolution as early humans who were more successful at attachment were more likely to survive and reproduce—repeating the cycle. Attachment theory proposes that people develop one of the following three attachment styles as a result of interactions with early caretakers: secure, avoidant, or anxious attachment (Feeney, Noller, & Roverts, 2000). It is worth noting that much of the research on attachment theory has been based on some societal norms that are shifting. For example, although women for much of human history have played the primary caregiver role, men are increasingly taking on more caregiver responsibilities. Additionally, although the following examples presume that a newborn’s primary caregivers are his or her parents, extended family, foster parents, or others may also play that role.

Individuals with a secure attachment style report that their relationship with their parents is warm and that their parents also have a positive and caring relationship with each other. People with this attachment style are generally comfortable with intimacy, feel like they can depend on others when needed, and have few self-doubts. As a result, they are generally more effective at managing their emotions, and they are less likely to experience intense negative emotions in response to a negative stimulus like breaking up with a romantic partner.

People with the avoidant attachment style report discomfort with closeness and a reluctance to depend on others. They quickly develop feelings of love for others, but those feelings lose intensity just as fast. As a result, people with this attachment style do not view love as long lasting or enduring and have a general fear of intimacy because of this. This attachment style might develop due to a lack of bonding with a primary caregiver.

People with the anxious attachment style report a desire for closeness but anxieties about being abandoned. They regularly experience self-doubts and may blame their lack of love on others’ unwillingness to commit rather than their own anxiety about being left. They are emotionally volatile and more likely to experience intense negative emotions such as anxiety and anger. This attachment style might develop because primary caregivers were not dependable or were inconsistent—alternating between caring or nurturing and neglecting or harming.

This process of attachment leads us to experience some of our first intense emotions, such as love, trust, joy, anxiety, or anger, and we learn to associate those emotions with closely bonded relationships (Planlap, Fitness, & Fehr, 2006). For example, the child who develops a secure attachment style and associates feelings of love and trust with forming interpersonal bonds will likely experience similar emotions as an adult entering into a romantic partnership. Conversely, a child who develops an anxious attachment style and associates feelings of anxiety and mistrust with forming interpersonal bonds will likely experience similar emotions in romantic relationships later in life. In short, whether we form loving and secure bonds or unpredictable and insecure bonds influences our emotional tendencies throughout our lives, which inevitably affects our relationships. Of course, later in life, we have more control over and conscious thoughts about this process. Although it seems obvious that developing a secure attachment style is the ideal scenario, it is also inevitable that not every child will have the same opportunity to do so. But while we do not have control over the style we develop as babies, we can exercise more control over our emotions and relationships as adults if we take the time to develop self-awareness and communication competence—both things this book will help you do if you put what you learn into practice.

Culture and Emotions

While our shared evolutionary past dictates some universal similarities in emotions, triggers for emotions and norms for displaying emotions vary widely. Certain emotional scripts that we follow are socially, culturally, and historically situated. Take the example of “falling in love.” Westerners may be tempted to critique the practice of arranged marriages in other cultures and question a relationship that isn’t based on falling in love. However, arranged marriages have been a part of Western history, and the emotional narrative of falling in love has only recently become a part of our culture. Even though we know that compatible values and shared social networks are more likely to predict the success of a long-term romantic relationship than “passion,” Western norms privilege the emotional role of falling in love in our courtship narratives and practices (Crozier, 2006). While this example shows how emotions tie into larger social and cultural narratives, rules and norms for displaying emotions affect our day-to-day interactions.

Display rules are sociocultural norms that influence emotional expression. Display rules influence who can express emotions, which emotions can be expressed, and how intense the expressions can be. In individualistic cultures, where personal experience and self-determination are values built into cultural practices and communication, expressing emotions is viewed as a personal right. In fact, the outward expression of our inner states may be exaggerated, since getting attention from those around you is accepted and even expected in individualistic cultures like the United States (Safdar et al., 2009). In collectivistic cultures, emotions are viewed as more interactional and less individual, which ties them into social context rather than into an individual right to free expression. An expression of emotion reflects on the family and cultural group rather than only on the individual. Therefore, emotional displays are more controlled, because maintaining group harmony and relationships is a primary cultural value, which is very different from the more individualistic notion of having the right to get something off your chest.

There are also cultural norms regarding which types of emotions can be expressed. In individualistic cultures, especially in the United States, there is a cultural expectation that people will exhibit positive emotions. Recent research has documented the culture of cheerfulness in the United States (Kotchemidova, 2010). People seek out happy situations and communicate positive emotions even when they do not necessarily feel positive emotions. Being positive implicitly communicates that you have achieved your personal goals, have a comfortable life, and have a healthy inner self (Mesquita & Albert, 2007). In a culture of cheerfulness, failure to express positive emotions could lead others to view you as a failure or to recommend psychological help or therapy. The cultural predisposition to express positive emotions is not universal. The people who live on the Pacific islands of Ifaluk do not encourage the expression of happiness, because they believe it will lead people to neglect their duties (Mesquita & Albert, 2007). Similarly, collectivistic cultures may view expressions of positive emotion negatively because someone is bringing undue attention to himself or herself, which could upset group harmony and potentially elicit jealous reactions from others.

Emotional expressions of grief also vary among cultures and are often tied to religious or social expectations (Lobar, Youngblut, & Brooten, 2006). Thai and Filipino funeral services often include wailing, a more intense and loud form of crying, which shows respect for the deceased. The intensity of the wailing varies based on the importance of the individual who died and the closeness of the relationship between the mourner and the deceased. Therefore, close relatives like spouses, children, or parents would be expected to wail louder than distant relatives or friends. In Filipino culture, wailers may even be hired by the family to symbolize the importance of the person who died. In some Latino cultures, influenced by the concept of machismo or manliness, men are not expected or allowed to cry. Even in the United States, there are gendered expectations regarding grieving behaviors that lead some men to withhold emotional displays such as crying even at funerals. On the other hand, as you can see in Video Clip 6.1, the 2011 death of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il brought out public mourners who some suspected were told and/or paid to wail in front of television cameras.

Video Clip 6.1

North Koreans Mourn Kim Jong-Il’s Death

(click to see video)

Expressing Emotions

Emotion sharing involves communicating the circumstances, thoughts, and feelings surrounding an emotional event. Emotion sharing usually starts immediately following an emotional episode. The intensity of the emotional event corresponds with the frequency and length of the sharing, with high-intensity events being told more often and over a longer period of time. Research shows that people communicate with others after almost any emotional event, positive or negative, and that emotion sharing offers intrapersonal and interpersonal benefits, as individuals feel inner satisfaction and relief after sharing, and social bonds are strengthened through the interaction (Rime, 2007).

Our social bonds are enhanced through emotion sharing because the support we receive from our relational partners increases our sense of closeness and interdependence. We should also be aware that our expressions of emotion are infectious due to emotional contagion , or the spreading of emotion from one person to another (Hargie, 2011). Think about a time when someone around you got the giggles and you couldn’t help but laugh along with them, even if you didn’t know what was funny. While those experiences can be uplifting, the other side of emotional contagion can be unpleasant. One of my favorite skits from Saturday Night Live , called “Debbie Downer,” clearly illustrates the positive and negative aspects of emotional contagion. In the skit, a group of friends and family have taken a trip to an amusement park. One of the people in the group, Debbie, interjects depressing comments into the happy dialogue of the rest of the group. Within the first two minutes of the skit, Debbie mentions mad cow disease after someone orders steak and eggs for breakfast, a Las Vegas entertainer being mauled by his tiger after someone gets excited about seeing Tigger, and a train explosion in North Korea after someone mentions going to the Epcot center. We’ve probably all worked with someone or had that family member who can’t seem to say anything positive, and Debbie’s friends react, as we would, by getting increasingly frustrated with her. The skit also illustrates the sometimes uncontrollable aspects of emotional contagion. As you know, the show is broadcast live and the characters occasionally “break character” after getting caught up in the comedy. After the comment about North Korea, Rachel Dratch, who plays Debbie, and Jimmy Fallon, another actor in the scene, briefly break character and laugh a little bit. Their character slip leads other actors to break character and over the next few minutes the laughter spreads (which was not scripted and not supposed to happen) until all the actors in the skit are laughing, some of them uncontrollably, and the audience is also roaring with laughter. This multilayered example captures the positive, negative, and interpersonal aspects of emotional contagion.

In order to verbally express our emotions, it is important that we develop an emotional vocabulary. The more specific we can be when we are verbally communicating our emotions, the less ambiguous they will be for the person decoding our message. As we expand our emotional vocabulary, we are able to convey the intensity of the emotion we’re feeling whether it is mild, moderate, or intense. For example, happy is mild, delighted is moderate, and ecstatic is intense, and ignored is mild, rejected is moderate, and abandoned is intense (Hargie, 2011). Aside from conveying the intensity of your emotions, you can also verbally frame your emotions in a way that allows you to have more control over them.

We can communicate ownership of our emotions through the use of “I” language. This may allow us to feel more in control, but it may also facilitate emotion sharing by not making our conversational partner feel at fault or defensive. For example, instead of saying “You’re making me crazy!” you could say, “I’m starting to feel really anxious because we can’t make a decision.” However, there may be times when face-to-face communication isn’t possible or desired, which can complicate how we express emotions.

In a time when so much of our communication is electronically mediated, it is likely that we will communicate emotions through the written word in an e-mail, text, or instant message. We may also still resort to pen and paper when sending someone a thank-you note, a birthday card, or a sympathy card. Communicating emotions through the written (or typed) word can have advantages such as time to compose your thoughts and convey the details of what you’re feeling. There are also disadvantages, in that important context and nonverbal communication can’t be included. Things like facial expressions and tone of voice offer much insight into emotions that may not be expressed verbally. There is also a lack of immediate feedback. Sometimes people respond immediately to a text or e-mail, but think about how frustrating it is when you text someone and they don’t get back to you right away. If you’re in need of emotional support or want validation of an emotional message you just sent, waiting for a response could end up negatively affecting your emotional state and your relationship.

“Getting Critical”

Politicians, Apologies, and Emotions

Politicians publicly apologizing for wrongdoings have been features in the news for years. In June of 2011, Representative Anthony Weiner, a member of the US Congress, apologized to his family, constituents, and friends for posting an explicit photo on Twitter that was intended to go to a woman with whom he had been chatting and then lying about it. He resigned from Congress a little over a week later. Emotions like guilt and shame are often the driving forces behind an apology, and research shows that apologies that communicate these emotions are viewed as more sincere (Hareli & Eisikovits, 2006). However, admitting and expressing guilt doesn’t automatically lead to forgiveness, as such admissions may expose character flaws of an individual. Rep. Weiner communicated these emotions during his speech, which you can view in Video Clip 6.2. He said he was “deeply sorry,” expressed “regret” for the pain he caused, and said, “I am deeply ashamed of my terrible judgment and actions” (CNN, 2001).

• After viewing Rep. Weiner’s apology, do you feel like he was sincere? Why or why not?
• Do you think politicians have a higher ethical responsibility to apologize for wrongdoing than others? Why or why not?

Video Clip 6.2

Rep. Anthony Weiner Apologizes for Twitter Scandal, Racy Photo

Managing and Responding to Emotions

The notion of emotional intelligence emerged in the early 1990s and has received much attention in academic scholarship, business and education, and the popular press. Emotional intelligence “involves the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and action” (Salovey, Woolery, & Mayer, 2001). As was noted earlier, improving our emotional vocabulary and considering how and when to verbally express our emotions can help us better distinguish between and monitor our emotions. However, as the definition of emotional intelligence states, we must then use the results of that cognitive process to guide our thoughts and actions.

Just as we are likely to engage in emotion sharing following an emotional event, we are likely to be on the receiving end of that sharing. Another part of emotional intelligence is being able to appraise others’ expressions of emotions and communicatively adapt. A key aspect in this process is empathy, which is the ability to comprehend the emotions of others and to elicit those feelings in ourselves. Being empathetic has important social and physical implications. By expressing empathy, we will be more likely to attract and maintain supportive social networks, which has positive physiological effects like lower stress and less anxiety and psychological effects such as overall life satisfaction and optimism (Guerrero & Andersen, 2000).

When people share emotions, they may expect a variety of results such as support, validation, or advice. If someone is venting, they may just want your attention. When people share positive emotions, they may want recognition or shared celebration. Remember too that you are likely to coexperience some of the emotion with the person sharing it and that the intensity of their share may dictate your verbal and nonverbal reaction (Rime, 2007). Research has shown that responses to low-intensity episodes are mostly verbal. For example, if someone describes a situation where they were frustrated with their car shopping experience, you may validate their emotion by saying, “Car shopping can be really annoying. What happened?” Conversely, more intense episodes involve nonverbal reactions such as touching, body contact (scooting close together), or embracing. These reactions may or may not accompany verbal communication. You may have been in a situation where someone shared an intense emotion, such as learning of the death of a close family member, and the only thing you could think to do was hug them. Although being on the receiving end of emotional sharing can be challenging, your efforts will likely result in positive gains in your interpersonal communication competence and increased relational bonds.

Key Takeaways

• Emotions result from outside stimuli or physiological changes that influence our behaviors and communication.
• Emotions developed in modern humans to help us manage complex social life including interpersonal relations.
• The expression of emotions is influenced by sociocultural norms and display rules.
• Emotion sharing includes verbal expression, which is made more effective with an enhanced emotional vocabulary, and nonverbal expression, which may or may not be voluntary.
• Emotional intelligence helps us manage our own emotions and effectively respond to the emotions of others.
• In what situations would you be more likely to communicate emotions through electronic means rather than in person? Why?
• Can you think of a display rule for emotions that is not mentioned in the chapter? What is it and why do you think this norm developed?
• When you are trying to determine someone’s emotional state, what nonverbal communication do you look for and why?
• Think of someone in your life who you believe has a high degree of emotional intelligence. What have they done that brought you to this conclusion?

CNN, Transcripts , accessed June 16, 2001 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1106/07/ltm.01.html .

Crozier, W. R., Blushing and the Social Emotions: The Self Unmasked (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

Evans, D., Emotion: The Science of Sentiment (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 5–6.

Feeney, J. A., Patricia Noller, and Nigel Roberts, “Attachment and Close Relationships,” in Close Relationships: A Sourcebook , eds. Clyde Hendrick and Susan S. Hendrick (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000), 188.

Guerrero, L. K. and Peter A. Andersen, “Emotion in Close Relationships,” in Close Relationships: A Sourcebook , eds. Clyde Hendrick and Susan S. Hendrick (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2000), 171–83.

Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 69.

Kotchemidova, C., “Emotion Culture and Cognitive Constructions of Reality,” Communication Quarterly 58, no. 2 (2010): 207–34.

Lobar, S. L., JoAnne M. Youngblut, and Dorothy Brooten, “Cross-Cultural Beliefs, Ceremonies, and Rituals Surrounding Death of a Loved One,” Pediatric Nursing 32, no. 1 (2006): 44–50.

Mesquita, B. and Dustin Albert, “The Cultural Regulation of Emotions,” in Handbook of Emotion Regulation , ed. James J. Gross (New York: Guilford Press, 2007), 486.

Planlap, S., Julie Fitness, and Beverly Fehr, “Emotion in Theories of Close Relationships,” in The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships , eds. Anita L. Vangelisti and Daniel Perlman (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 369–84.

Rime, B., “Interpersonal Emotion Regulation,” in Handbook of Emotion Regulation , ed. James J. Gross (New York: Guilford Press, 2007), 466–68.

Safdar, S., Wolfgang Friedlmeier, David Matsumoto, Seung Hee Yoo, Catherine T. Kwantes, and Hisako Kakai, “Variations of Emotional Display Rules within and across Cultures: A Comparison between Canada, USA, and Japan,” Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science 41, no. 1 (2009): 1–10.

Salovey, P., Alison Woolery, and John D. Mayer, “Emotional Intelligence: Conceptualization and Measurement,” in Blackwell Handbook of Social Psychology: Interpersonal Processes , eds. Garth J. O. Fletcher and Margaret S. Clark (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001), 279–307.

Communication in the Real World Copyright © 2016 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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How Emotions Can Support Critical Thinking

Please try again

Ask “what role should emotions play in critical thinking?” and you get an unsurprising response from almost everywhere: They shouldn’t. This response comes from a wide variety of sources ranging from Internet crowdsourcing favorite Yahoo Answers – “emotion severely HAMPERS the critical thinking process as it clouds our judgment to fact and reason” to the Academic Journal Teaching of Psychology – “critical thinking avoids emotions and emotional reasoning.” Recently, I have questioned this view that feelings have no place in critical thinking.

In the fall, a beginning teacher asked me why emotions didn’t belong in the critical thinking process and I couldn’t come up with an answer I actually stood behind. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn’t see emotions and critical thinking as two planets orbiting different suns. In fact, often critically thinking about an issue leads us to have big feelings about the issue. The reverse is true as well. Big feelings often lead us to think critically about an issue. So, feelings and thinking are very connected. This connection was on display in my classroom throughout a debate and writing assignment on Felon Disenfranchisement. Emotions played a central role in framing the debate and contributing to the students engagement with the issue.

Earlier this year, during a unit on voting, my class looked at this blog post from KQED’s The Lowdown titled States Where Felons Can’t Vote . The students quickly noticed that the rules about felon voting vary significantly from state to state. For example, Maine lets felons vote even while they are in prison while Florida denies the vote to prisoners, parolees, probationers, and ex-felons. My students asked great questions, “Can ex-felons from Arizona just move to Illinois so their right to vote will be restored?” And they gave great responses, “Well, only if you, as an ex-felon, have the money to move across the country and are willing to leave your family and community. Seems like doing too much for a chance to vote.” This discussion led into table debates on the topic “Should there be a national law banning felon disenfranchisement?”

I love this debate lesson and do it almost every year. This year I updated this lesson with my new focus on asset-based thinking strategies that I outlined in a previous post , structuring the lesson with these strategies in mind: A) supporting claims with evidence, B) considering different viewpoints and perspectives, and C) wondering and asking thoughtful questions. Interestingly, as the debate unfolded, I noticed that a completely different thinking strategy came to dominate my students approach – identifying patterns and themes. While they certainly used strategies like asking thoughtful questions and considering different viewpoints, they were most engaged in the process of unearthing key themes such as how it felt to be prohibited from voting, or how it felt to have someone who has broken the social contract vote within your community. And this strategy, this way of thinking, emerged from my students’ emotional engagement with the topic.

It took me a while to catch what they had done. The students framed a very academic debate about voting rights through the lens of teenage emotions and feelings. Specifically, the feeling of being “left out” or excluded and the feeling of being “betrayed.”

The students arguing for a felon’s right to vote articulated that denying them a vote makes the felons feel excluded from the community when they return. They are “half citizens, kept on the sidelines of the community.” They don’t really belong. The students who argued against a felon’s right to vote used “betrayal” as their central theme. The felon “violated the trust of his/her fellow citizens” when he/she broke the law. “You can’t just expect your community to trust you again and let you take part fully in the community relationship.”

And it worked. The evidence for each side wasn’t framed as a set of rational facts to help you win the debate – the more facts you stack up the better. The table discussions emerged from and were framed by emotional arguments – it’s upsetting to feel excluded or it hurts to be betrayed. One set of students focused on felons being “locked out of their own society” and how humans respond when they are “basically invisible” to their community. Another set of students focused on how when people betray and “disrespect their community and people, [they] have to pay. [They} have to pay with something big, like voting.” The students didn’t stop there. They supported these frames, based in emotional reasoning, with evidence and facts based in academic evidence. They made connections to other groups of people such as legal residents who are also treated as “half citizens” as well as made connections to American history, “whatever happened to no taxation without representation” and John Locke’s ideas of a social contract.

Age and maturity come with many benefits including perspective and the ability to manage setbacks and recognize when they are not the end of the world. However, creating this emotional distance can be a loss, too. The energy and passion and BIG FEELINGS of young people are effective and beautiful for framing issues of justice. Emotions and emotional framing can assemble and organize all the evidence in a way that makes someone care. It did for me that day. I stopped counting the facts the students used as they made their points and I pictured the humans who were living these facts.

Months later, on the final exam, I asked the students an essay question about voting in today’s society. Although the question did NOT specifically mention felon disenfranchisement, many of the students referenced this debate, they referenced the emotional frames, and they used these to answer the question thoughtfully.

Now when I teach critical thinking I try to figure out how to communicate that emotions can and do play a role in thinking while balancing that idea with the view that emotions cannot be the sole basis for critical thinking. More recently, my students and I practiced this more nuanced approach as we examined the rights students have on school campuses and talked about managing personal finances. It was refreshing to admit that feelings play a role in deciding how people will spend and budget money. It feels more honest – and more instructive – to not only acknowledge that their feelings are part of their equation as they think about these issues, but to encourage them to reflect critically on how they can engage their own emotional responses and feelings in combination with academic, evidence-based analysis. Doing so can amplify their power as critical thinkers.

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7.2 Critical Thinking

Imagine someone asked you to share the best way to approach a colleague about a behaviour that is bothering them. What would you say? How did you come to your response? If you asked and someone told you their answer, what would you think or feel about their response? How did you come to the reaction you had to their response? Recalling the role of perception from an earlier chapter, we know that our communication is always shaped by a perspective we hold based on our experiences. What happens when you don’t know the answer or you don’t like the option someone else provided? How do you re-approach the question to come up with a response? When searching for information on how to answer a question, how do we select the best information? Communication competence is achieved by the ability to pay critical attention to how information is being perceived, selected, and communicated by ourselves and others. This is especially challenging in increasingly diverse, complex, and information-filled environments.

So, what are our strategies? In reality, there are many different strategies to critically attend to the messages we send and receive. In this section, we will explore a three-strategy approach: critical listening , critical thinking , and critical ignoring .

In the scenario above in which a co-worker asks you to share the best way to approach a colleague about a behaviour that is bothering them, what would your immediate response be? Your immediate response might be an effective solution, but that’s not what we’re trying to figure out. Whatever your immediate response was, we want to learn to employ strategies to actively seek other possible solutions and explore them in depth. Your immediate response to the question may also indicate your own bias, which is what we want to avoid when choosing and communicating a response. Bias is “an outlook … based on a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgement and/or an instance of such prejudice” (Merriam-Webster, 2023a). Perhaps you consciously recall personal experiences of how you’ve approached co-workers in the past, and your immediate response has been shaped by those experiences. Your response is biased because it is based on personal experience. Sometimes we are consciously aware of our bias when we communicate; however, implicit bias can also exist. Implicit bias is “a bias or prejudice that is present but not consciously held or recognized” (Merriam-Webster, 2023b). Shaping our response according to our experiences is natural and helps us make decisions quickly. At the same time, relying only on our own experiences limits us to the options we already know.

If competent communication is our goal, competent communicators can understand, choose from, and perform a wide range of behaviours (Adler et al., 2021, pp. 16–19). Knowing about conscious and implicit bias, we can start to listen to ourselves and others communicate and possibly become consciously aware. Listening to all communication can help us become more reasoned communicators and allow us to connect better with others as we acknowledge diverse perspectives alongside our own. Bias can turn into reason when more information is gathered, other possible solutions are identified, and all the information is analyzed to determine a reasoned response or action.

Ultimately, using strategies to critically attend to information helps us to do the following:

• Challenge our assumptions
• Avoid information overload
• Avoid the communication of biased or irrelevant information
• Develop an understanding of and empathy for different perspectives
• Explore options to make an informed decision
• Connect with diverse audiences.

Strategy 1: Critical Listening

Many different ways of listening are described in literature. Three listening types are commonly discussed:

• Informational listening
• Comprehensive and evaluative listening
• Empathic listening

Each type of listening serves a different purpose, can be used in isolation or simultaneously, and can help us perceive, select and/or evaluate information to use orally or in writing. Each of the listening styles can be used when attending to external information being given to us and can also serve as an introspective approach to listening to ourselves.

Informational listening involves gathering new information and facts, then identifying key points. This is followed by recording the information so that we can access it later by committing it to memory and/or taking physical notes.

Comprehensive and evaluative listening is a combination of listening styles that does not attempt to decide if information is right or wrong. Instead, this listening style determines the main message the information is trying to send and how similar or different the information is to our existing knowledge and beliefs. It is through this listening style that we decide what we have learned. This process is an active approach that uses the following steps;

• Seeks to understand and organize the information gathered; uses paraphrasing and questioning communication skills
• Seeks to align the new information with what we already know or believe

Empathic listening is an active listening style that seeks to identify and understand the feelings and emotions behind the information being presented. You may ask questions, gently requesting that the speaker discuss their feelings and emotions. You will also use paraphrasing, and seek clarification to help understand whether you have truly heard the other person’s perspective. This listening style helps to create connection and trust between the listener and speaker.

Consider the following scenario: Your workplace team is trying to decide whether cellphones should be banned whenever interactions with clients take place. The discussion has been raised several times and there are many different opinions and perspectives on the question.

When you ask yourself the question, listen to your own reaction and internal communication. When you imagine this discussion taking place with your workplace team, imagine the range of opinions and perspectives. When you imagine yourself doing any kind of research to gather information about the topic, imagine the information you might find.

How would you use each of the listening styles above? Imagine the possible information you might gather from each listening style. Imagine the possible emotions and feelings that may need to be managed. What might be the benefits and challenges from using each listening style?

Gathering information is usually the first step in any situation that requires critically attending to information, but it doesn’t end there, and you may revisit the critical listening strategy at any point in your approach. Nonetheless, after gathering information, you’ll need to do something with it, and there may be a lot of information to sort through. This is where the next two strategies come into play.

Strategy 2: Critical Thinking

The concept of critical thinking does not have a single definition; instead, definitions range from simple to complex but capture a common theme of analyzing information to gain a better understanding.

Here are a few definitions to consider:

• Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skillfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action (Foundation for Critical Thinking, 2019).
• For some, critical thinking has a lot to do with understanding one’s own perspective and those of others.
• Critical thinking is the mental process involved in processing information for the purpose of problem solving, decision making, and thinking critically (Drew, 2023).
• Critical thinking is the means of assessing the accuracy, authenticity, plausibility, or sufficiency of all information (Beyer 1995).
• Critical thinking is developing the ability to think in alignment with the original idea or different from the original idea.

Not surprisingly, several critical-thinking models or frameworks are commonly used. Each approaches the process of analyzing and understanding information in a different way and for a different purpose. Some examples of critical-thinking models are listed in the table below.

Table 7.1. Examples of Critical-Thinking Models or Frameworks

Consider the previous scenario where your workplace team is trying to decide whether cellphones should be banned whenever interactions with clients take place. The discussion has been raised several times, and there are many different opinions and perspectives on the question. Choose one or two of the critical-thinking models in the table above to explore and click on the links. Use the steps in each model to answer the question “Should cellphones be banned whenever interactions with clients take place?”

In their own unique way, each model will ask you to gather more information from sources of information such as books, articles, or other people. You will then compare and analyze the information and perspectives you gather, considering possible courses of action and their possible outcomes and impacts. This gathering, sorting, and analyzing of information is essential to making a final decision based on reason instead of personal bias. However, as you may have already felt, the process can be overwhelming if there are a lot of facts, perspectives, and resulting options and consequences. We can understand why personal bias becomes the more attractive and easily accessible option.

Strategy 3: Critical Ignoring

The third and find strategy in moving towards communication competence, critical ignoring , helps us navigate the sea of information and decide what to keep and what to discard. As you consider your own response and that of others to the question “Should cellphones be banned whenever interactions with clients take place?” you may think of some strong opinionated responses that might be communicated or find some compelling evidence for or against the issue when you research the topic. The degree to which you feel overwhelmed by the information indicates your natural capacity for taking in information, and you may have already started to ignore some of the information you have come across.

This means you are already engaging in critical ignoring , which is choosing what to ignore, learning how to resist misleading information, and deciding where to invest your attention (Kozyreva et al., 2023). You may now be asking how critical ignoring is not biased. Critical ignoring is not biased because the choice of what information is ignored is based on assessing the quality of the information and is not based on personal opinions and perspectives. Note that although critical ignoring is designed for online sources of information, it is possible to apply the same approach to human sources of information.

The following three steps are involved in critical ignoring:

• Self-nudging: This is ignoring temptations by removing them. For example, you know that a particular website or social media platform tends to post a lot of information that grabs your attention but isn’t usually helpful because of its lack of objective facts and supporting evidence. You turn off notifications from these sources or remove them. Then you turn your attention to the high-quality sources of information that usually do provide information that stands up to reason. Self-nudging provides a sense of control, enabling you to access the best sources of information in diverse and complex environments.
• Lateral reading: This is determining how trustworthy a source and its information is by investigating the background of the website and author, and by comparing the information across a wide variety of sources. For example, you click on an article with an attention-grabbing title that is connected to a problem you’ve recently been discussing with colleagues. The information sounds excellent and helpful, but how to be sure? Investigating the author of the article reveals that they have credentials and experience related to the topic. A close look at the organization that runs the website reveals that they are selling one of the products mentioned in the article, which casts doubt on the quality of the information. Last but not least, you search for other articles on the same topic, and almost all the articles from different sources agree with the information presented in the original article. You assess the article’s information to be of reasonable quality and forward it to your colleagues to consider. Lateral reading is initially time consuming, but with practice, it can develop into a quick and easy method of investing in the highest-quality information.
• Do not feed the trolls—ignoring malicious actors: This involves learning how to ignore the people who spread misinformation or harass others using multiple platforms, or those who create debate or argument where there is none to be had. Because online statements can be emotionally charged, deliberately personal, or polarizing, we as humans tend to have just as emotional a response, and it is difficult not to react or try to defend the cause or individual being attacked. “Feeding the trolls” by directly engaging with them is tempting but ultimately has the same effect as feeding ourselves a good breakfast—it provides the necessary fuel for growth and regeneration. Instead of feeding the trolls, do not respond directly, block and report them to the platform where they are making statements, and then seek support from your close social group or professionals.

(Kozyreva et al., 2023)

Consider the previous scenario where your workplace team is trying to decide whether cellphones should be banned whenever interactions with clients take place. If you followed the first two steps, critical listening and critical thinking , you now have a lot of information to sort through. There may be many different opinions and perspectives on the question, and perhaps you found a few published articles. Next comes the third and final step, critical ignoring , to narrow down the information that really helps to answer the question.

As you reflect on the information you gather when exploring any topic or question, this three-strategy approach will help you manage the information and come to a reasonable course of action.

Relating Theory to Real Life

• Consider the following questions (Stevenson, 2023) and choose one that you would like to use to work through the three-step critical-thinking strategy you’ve read about on this page:
• Does humanity have the right to colonize other planets?
• Should we aim to rehabilitate prisoners or should we just punish them for their crimes?
• Would public health care be better than private?
• Should more be done to protect children on social media?

2. Use the critical listening, critical thinking, and critical ignoring three-step strategy.

• What response to the original question did you come up with?
• List and describe at least three key points that helped determine your final response as a result of using the three-step strategy.

Attribution

Unless otherwise indicated, material on this page has been copied and adapted from the following resource:

Department of Communication Studies. (n.d.). Communicating to connect: Interpersonal communication for today. Austin Community College. https://sites.google.com/austincc.edu/interpersonaloer/title-page , licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 , except where otherwise noted.

Adler, R. B., Rolls, J. A., & Proctor, R., II. (2021). LOOK: Looking out, looking in (4th ed.). Cengage Canada. (Original work published 2017)

Apedaile, S., & NorQuest College Centre for Intercultural Education. (2015). The Something’s up! cycle . https://www.norquest.ca/NorquestCollege/media/pdf/about/resources/intercultural-resources-for-educators/the-somethings-up-cycle.pdf

Beyer, B. K. (1995).  Critical thinking. Phi Kappa Delta Educational Foundation.

Crockett, L. (2021, September 29). The most useful critical thinking mental models to know about . Future Focused Learning. https://blog.futurefocusedlearning.net/useful-critical-thinking-mental-models

Drew, C. (2023, May 10). The 4 types of critical thinking skills – explained! HelpfulProfessor.com. https://helpfulprofessor.com/thinking-skills/

The Foundation for Critical Thinking. (2019). Defining critical thinking . https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/defining-critical-thinking/766

Hammond, J., Keeney, R., & Raiffa, H. (1999). Smart choices: PROACT technique . Harvard Business School Press. https://www.canada.ca/en/services/jobs/training/initiatives/skills-success/tools/problem-solved-employees-learners.html#h2.04

Kozyreva, A., Wineburg, S., Lewandowsky, S., & Hertwig, R. (2023). Critical ignoring as a core competence for digital citizens. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 32 (1), 81–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214221121570

Merriam-Webster. (2023a). Bias. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary . https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bias

Merriam-Webster. (2023b). Implicit bias. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary . https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/implicit%20bias

Plymouth University. (2010). Critical thinking . Learning Development with Plymouth University. https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/uploads/production/document/path/1/1710/Critical_Thinking.pdf

Stevenson, T. (2023, April 13). 80 ethical questions to ask yourself and others . Questions About Everything. https://questionsabouteverything.com/ethical-questions/#Looking_For_More_Questions

Vanderpool, A., & Robinson, T. A. (2017, November 29). Critical thinking: Multiple models for teaching and learning (abridged) . Teaching With Writing: The WIC Newsletter (Spring 2023). https://blogs.oregonstate.edu/wicnews/2017/11/29/critical-thinking-multiple-models-teaching-learning/#:~:text=Beyer’s%20evaluative%20thinking%20model&text=Thus%2C%20critical%20(or%2C%20to,(Beyer%201995%2C%2010

Introduction to Communications Copyright © 2023 by NorQuest College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• Our Mission

How to Promote Social, Emotional, and Character Development

There’s no need for funding or special training to bring these approaches and strategies into your classroom right away.

As more and more schools adopt social and emotional learning standards and realize that students’ college and career success depends strongly on their social, emotional, and character development (SECD), teachers are looking for guidance as to how to bring SECD into their classrooms every day. Whether or not your class has a systematic curriculum, students benefit when SECD is part of academics and classroom conversations and procedures. 

Members of our Rutgers SECD Lab have the good fortune of visiting many schools in New Jersey, across the nation, and internationally. Culled from our observations of what teachers are doing in many schools, each of the eight areas below includes a list of strategies that you can introduce into classroom and school routines without any funding or in-service training. 

1. Be a positive role model in your words and actions:

• calm yourself down when you’re upset,
• use a problem-solving process to help you make decisions,
• reflect on what you have done and try to learn from it, and
• live a life of social commitment and concern for others.

 2.  Respond to real-life situations by:

• showing measured reactions to students’ behaviors,
• offering students choice and voice,
• providing opportunities for students to give feedback to each other,
• noting the consequences of their choices, and
• providing second chances when appropriate.

3. Read to students and use literature:

• share biographies and autobiographies to highlight character virtues and use of positive SECD skills,
• examine current role models and those from history,
• work with students to examine the advantages and disadvantages of the internet, and
• explore the work of scientists, mathematicians, artists, musicians, first responders, public officials, and those working in other fields, the problems they were trying to solve, and the decisions they made along the way.

4. Encourage writing as a means of expression by:

• teaching students a variety of emotion words to use in their writing,
• encouraging students to think about choices and consequences and effects on self and others,
• identifying students’ goals and aspirations and how these connect to their everyday behaviors, and
• having students use a personal journal with or without feedback to record interests, needs, ambitions, feelings, attitudes, and emotions.

5. Have conversations about character by:

• relating personal and family stories,
• sharing and listening to students’ experiences,
• highlighting examples of kindness and of caring students in and around the school,
• discussing real-life and fictional dilemmas and the choices and values they require, 
• reflecting on what motivates people and why they act the way they do, and
• commenting on and improving the critical thinking skills of students, including time management, goal-setting, questioning, brainstorming, problem-solving, and ethical decision-making.

6. Advocate for participation and service in school and in the community by:

• providing many opportunities for contribution to the everyday classroom community,
• encouraging students to become involved in school activities,
• recognizing when students volunteer and help others,
• encouraging students to engage in cultural events and share what they experienced,
• encouraging involvement in physical activities such as sports or exercise programs or other co-curricular activities, and
• encouraging classroom and school community service projects.

7. Promote mindfulness in students by:

• having mindful moments in your classroom at the start of the day and during transitions,
• giving time for reflection at the end of the school day, or the end of a class or unit, about what was learned, how students’ learning was supported, and what questions students have for the future, and
• teaching a self-calming strategy students can use when they anticipate or find themselves upset in a situation, such as before tests and performance situations or when in a conflict with peers.

8. Help students make better decisions about their health and relationships by:

• having them set goals for something they can do to improve their health (nutrition, personal hygiene, sleep patterns), and
• having them set goals for something they can do to improve their behavior (controlling strong negative emotions, stopping harassment and intimidation of others, acting more kindly and helpfully, and being more honest).

The more frequently you integrate these strategies into the learning and teaching as routines, the more habitual they will become for students. When this happens, you will be building students’ social, emotional and character development in ways that will nourish and create positive habits in their interpersonal and intrapersonal relationships.

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Creativity, critical thinking, communication, and collaboration: assessment, certification, and promotion of 21st century skills for the future of work and education.

1. Introduction

“21st century skills”, “soft skills”, and the “4cs”, 2. the 4cs, assessment, and support for development, 2.1. creativity, 2.1.1. individual assessment of creativity, 2.1.2. institutional and environmental support for development of creativity, 2.2. critical thinking, 2.2.1. individual assessment of critical thinking, 2.2.2. institutional and environmental support for development of critical thinking skills, 2.3. communication, 2.3.1. individual assessment of communication, 2.3.2. institutional and environmental support for development of communication skills, 2.4. collaboration, 2.4.1. individual assessment of collaboration, 2.4.2. institutional and environmental support for development of collaboration and collaborative skills, 3. labelization: valorization of the 4cs and assessing support for their development, 3.1. labeling as a means of trust and differentiation, 3.2. influence on choice and adoption of goods and services, 3.3. process of labelizing products and services, 3.4. labelization of 21st century skills, 4. the international institute for competency development’s 21st century competencies 4cs assessment framework for institutions and programs, 4.1. evaluation grid for creativity, 4.2. evaluation grid for critical thinking, 4.3. evaluation grid for collaboration, 4.4. evaluation grid for communication, 5. assessing the 4cs in informal educational contexts: the example of games, 5.1. the 4cs in informal educational contexts, 5.2. 4cs evaluation framework for games, 6. discussion and conclusions, 6.1. interrelationships between the 4cs and a new model for use in pedagogy and policy promotion, 6.2. limitations and future work, 6.3. conclusion: labelization of the 4cs and the future of education and work, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Thornhill-Miller, B.; Camarda, A.; Mercier, M.; Burkhardt, J.-M.; Morisseau, T.; Bourgeois-Bougrine, S.; Vinchon, F.; El Hayek, S.; Augereau-Landais, M.; Mourey, F.; et al. Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration: Assessment, Certification, and Promotion of 21st Century Skills for the Future of Work and Education. J. Intell. 2023 , 11 , 54. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11030054

Thornhill-Miller B, Camarda A, Mercier M, Burkhardt J-M, Morisseau T, Bourgeois-Bougrine S, Vinchon F, El Hayek S, Augereau-Landais M, Mourey F, et al. Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration: Assessment, Certification, and Promotion of 21st Century Skills for the Future of Work and Education. Journal of Intelligence . 2023; 11(3):54. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11030054

Thornhill-Miller, Branden, Anaëlle Camarda, Maxence Mercier, Jean-Marie Burkhardt, Tiffany Morisseau, Samira Bourgeois-Bougrine, Florent Vinchon, Stephanie El Hayek, Myriam Augereau-Landais, Florence Mourey, and et al. 2023. "Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication, and Collaboration: Assessment, Certification, and Promotion of 21st Century Skills for the Future of Work and Education" Journal of Intelligence 11, no. 3: 54. https://doi.org/10.3390/jintelligence11030054

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A Short Guide to Building Your Team’s Critical Thinking Skills

by Matt Plummer

Summary .   

Most employers lack an effective way to objectively assess critical thinking skills and most managers don’t know how to provide specific instruction to team members in need of becoming better thinkers. Instead, most managers employ a sink-or-swim approach, ultimately creating work-arounds to keep those who can’t figure out how to “swim” from making important decisions. But it doesn’t have to be this way. To demystify what critical thinking is and how it is developed, the author’s team turned to three research-backed models: The Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment, Pearson’s RED Critical Thinking Model, and Bloom’s Taxonomy. Using these models, they developed the Critical Thinking Roadmap, a framework that breaks critical thinking down into four measurable phases: the ability to execute, synthesize, recommend, and generate.

With critical thinking ranking among the most in-demand skills for job candidates , you would think that educational institutions would prepare candidates well to be exceptional thinkers, and employers would be adept at developing such skills in existing employees. Unfortunately, both are largely untrue.

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