Investment in Relationships

Something I found interesting from this week's reading is investment into relationships. According to the text, investments are "what we put into relationships that we could not retrieve if the relationship were to end." So in a relationship we invest time, money, and effort. It takes time to commit to people, money for gifts and activities with them, and effort to maintain that relationship. When a relationship ends, we lose that investment. The only way to keep the investment is to keep that relationship going. I think this is why when relationships come to an end, it is difficult for people. I've noted within my past relationships that ended, I thought a lot about the time and money I invested into that relationship. It made me feel like I lost a big chunk of time I could have been investing elsewhere. However, investing in relationships in necessary and imperative.

Defensive Climates

Defensive climates were researched by Jack Gibb. He noted that some people who are guarded because they feel disconfirmed. This means that people from supportive and confirming environments are more likely to share and be open with you. Although I live in a supportive and confirming environment now, it was not always that way. Whenever I am new to a group, I find myself being guarded. From reading the text, I realize this is because I was in a dominantly disconfirming environment at the time. When I moved to San Jose from Southern California, I felt like no one acknowledged me. I felt like I was just there, but no one really cared what I felt. When people did try to get to know me, our conversations just scratched the surface and did not get very deep. These people concluded that I was closed off and did not want to get to know them. I felt people were too judgmental, which Gibb also noted as defensiveness-producing communication behaviors. The text labels this as evaluation versus description. Gibb noted that people do not feel "psychologically safe" when we feel we are the subject of judgement. This is what causes us to become closed off.

Confirming and Disconfirming

I have found it difficult to confirm someone when we are speaking about a subject which we disagree upon. This chapter has definitely helped me with recognition, acknowledgement, and endorsement. It taught me that I can still confirm someone about a disagreeable topic without endorsing their idea. For example, the text talked about a 15-year-old boy who had tried acid and had wanted to experiment more with it. Although the author of the text did not endorse his behavior, she educated him on the dangers and long-term effects of acid. This confirmed the boy as a person by acknowledging his existence, without endorsing using acid. To confirm a person entails recognizing that the other person exists and also acknowledging what they feel and how they are thinking. Endorsing would entail accepting that person's feelings and thoughts. The text makes a key point to mention that endorsement is not always possible if we are trying to be honest with a person.

Vulnerability

One of the concepts I found interesting this week, was the subject of vulnerability as an obstacle to the effective communication of emotions. It is one of the four common reasons people don't communicate their emotions. Vulnerability keeps us from communicating certain emotions to others because we don't want to be perceived differently after conveying those emotions. This is because we fear rejection. A "chilling effect" was also discussed. The "chilling effect" occurs when we perceive the other person as more powerful than ourselves. That is why we suppress complaints of upsetting nature because we don't want to displease the other, more powerful person. If we did, we may become rejected. I believe vulnerability is something that keeps a lot of people from expressing their emotions, therefore affecting their communication.

Speaking in Generalities

Some of the fallacies discussed later in the chapter occur in my life. For instance, I tend to speak in generalities. My roommates may notice that I'm not looking so well that day and ask me what's wrong. I'll say something like "I'm just mad." and never expand on it. I'll tell people the basics of what's going in on in my life, but I won't want to discuss in great detail. This can be an ineffective way to communicate because for one, it's short-sided conversation. And secondly, the person can't get to know you very well. The way the book discussed to combat speaking in generalities, was to choose how to express your emotions. It says to first identify the actual feelings your are feeling. Then, you need to decide who you want to express your feelings to. Then, you must evaluate the perfect time and setting to discuss your feelings to get them across in a effective manner.

Physiological Influences on Emotion

The physiological perception of emotions made the most sense to me. This section described emotions as "reflexes", or a response to an external stimuli. In these situations the stimuli would be events that occur and make you feel those emotions. An example would be receiving bad news about the health of a family member and feeling knots in your stomach. Receiving the bad news would be the stimuli, and feeling knots in your stomach would be the response. Our bodies experience actual physical changes in response to events that happen. I've had this happen on several different occasions recently. Last week, I noticed a suspicious man fleeing from my house when I got home from work late at night. As a result, knots formed in my stomach and I felt a rush of adrenaline through my body. If I had not experienced that stimuli, the rush of adrenaline would have never occured. I believe physiological influences are the easiest to understand because we've all had those types of experiences.

Work at Listening

Recently, I visited the International Listening Association and reviewed "Listening as a 10 Part Skill." One part I focused on and found interesting was the section titled "Work at Listening." This section was particularly interesting because it described college students attending classes to merely pretend to pay attention by nodding and following along with good posture, but in reality their minds are elsewhere. I completely identify with this. I often find myself attending lecture and mindlessly writing down what professors are writing on the board, but my mind is always focused on my job. I may be physically present in class, but I'm always mentally present at work thinking about how it went the day before, and how it will go that night and all the things I need to do. The book suggests that we give our conscious attention completely to the speaker to combat this mindless listening, which I plan on utilizing this week in my lectures.