"Can we talk tommorow?”
Depending on who says it, how they say it and most importantly how we are feeling when we hear it, these four words can create very different reactions.
We usually think of effective communication as the ability to express ourselves clearly and listen carefully in order to make sure we underst and and are being understood. Taking this as a basis: Where do our emotions fit in? Could they encumber this process or perhaps contribute to it?
Whatever the answer is, stripping emotions out of communication is impossible even if we intended to. They are a vital part of this process and acknowledging that could help us use it to our advantage.
This becomes particularly interesting when we consider that both negative and positive emotions can influence communication which might seem counter intuitive at first. The important point is that they give us information and it is in our hands to determine what exactly we do with it.
So how can we “play our cards right” when it comes to emotions in communication?
Most often, people might think of how negative emotions impact their relationships and overall communication. Being angry, sad or fearful could lead to misunderstandings, over exaggeration and sometimes even conflict which frequently arises because of poor communication amid these emotions.
But what about happiness, excitement, pride? Are they safe?
Drawing on one of the most famous theories on emotions, namely Paul Ekman’s theory of the six basic emotions – happiness, sadness, fear, anger, surprise and disgust (Ekman, 1992) let's look at some examples together.
Imagine that one of your colleagues finds out they are getting a promotion. They are so thrilled and filled with happiness that they start talking rapidly, constantly interrupting the manager and their expressions and non-verbal language become extremely uplifted - a contrast with everyone at the office who is focused on their work or tired from the day itself. This is an oversimplified example of how even our positive feelings can impact the way we communicate, especially when they become intense.
Although positive emotions are more “acceptable” and comfortable for others to witness, they can still influence the way we interact and communicate.
A big part of what people call “professionalism” suggests freeing yourself from emotions when it comes to work or at least being able to control them very well. Nowadays rationality feels way safer and more predictable than emotionality which is “more personal”. This boundary is important yet sometimes unrealistic.
Instead of trying to completely separate ourselves from our emotions, maybe a more useful approach is to understand what they are trying to tell us.
Emotions can act as signals, giving us information about our needs, boundaries, expectations and the situations we find ourselves in.
Sadness can signal a need for support or connection.
Fear, on the other hand, can draw our attention to something that requires preparation or caution.
Disgust helps us identify l that a physical boundary of ours has been crossed.
Surprise can encourage us to pause and become curiousabout something that does not fit our expectations.
Negative emotions could be strong motivators if we find a way to channel their energy and the force they give us.
In additionto the above-mentioned emotions anger, for example, could give us information that someone or something has crossed our boundary. That often pushes us into taking some kind of action. At the same time, anger could be a tough emotion to manage because this urge to act can sometimes lead us to react in ways that damage our relationships.
Imagine you are at a meeting and someone keeps interrupting you.
Anger makes you want to do something, to react in a way. Most often this anger-motivated action could affect the communication process in a non-productive way. We've all witnessed examples of such situations. What's key is that in this moment, the need to communicate arises, but in the mix there is an emotional filter – the anger. Therefore, what are our options?
A. Afterwards you write a passive-aggressive email, make a provoking remark or just try to ignore this person every time you see them?
B. Find a way to communicate this to the person. For example, by saying: “I have noticed I am being interrupted during this meeting. I would like to finish my point before we move on to the next person.”
Certainly, these options heavily depend on the specific situation, but finding such alternatives in which to direct the action and at the same time preserve our integrity and promote effective communication skills is important.
While emotions can give us information about our own needs and boundaries, they also help us understand the people around us. Long before we put our feelings into words, we often rely on emotional expressions and other non-verbal cues to understand how someone might be feeling and how we should respond to them.
According to scientists from the University of British Columbia, most emotional expressions, especially non-verbal ones, giveus basic information about whether we should approach or avoid someone even from an evolutionary standpoint (Tracy et al., 2015). They have gradually become a vital part of our communication, and they serve an adaptive goal.
If emotions are an important source of information in our interactions, what happens when some of the signs that help us read those emotions are missing?
In face-to-face communication we rely on a lot more cues than simply words – facial expression, tone, gestures, overall behaviour, emotion and so on. That allows us to have a more comprehensive understanding of what the other person wants to say and leave less room form is interpretation. If some or most parts of communication are missing, there must be something to fill up the space. Typically this is our personal viewpoint and imagination.
This is particularly relevant in today’s technological world where much of our interactions happens through written channels like email, text messages and social media, or even pictorial ones such as emoticons or GIFs. In these cases, most people try to compensate for the lack of non-verbal communication through which we gather information about emotions, intentions and characteristics of the other person.
A great deal of miscommunication could happen because of these “unnatural” ways of interacting.
Part of this could be attributed to our specific emotional state or attitude which influence the interpretation of ambiguous information. This also causes us to put extra hidden meaning behind certain written messages.
In a very interesting study by Aldunate et al. (2018) participants had to assess the mood of a sender by reading messages with either positive (e.g. “They gave me a new car”) or negative (e.g. “They crushed my car”) situations. These messages were followed by a negative or positive emoticon. The aim of the study was to find out whether emoticons were going to change the way the reader perceived the message especially in situations where they were incongruent. One of the findings of the study was that readers tended to perceive the sender as being in a bad mood, particularly when a negative message was paired with a positive emoticon.
This is a perfect example of how complex communication could be and how many factors can contribute to potential obstacles in it. Thus, keeping an open mind could be vital. So next time your boss is in a bad mood and after that sends you an email that he wants to talk to you with a smiley face or three exclamation marks, there is a big chance that it is not because he necessarily wants to fire you.
In a similar way interpreting information could also be affected by the way we personally feel. For example, if we are having a great day and feel acomplished after completing a difficult task, then receive the “I want to talk to you” email from our boss, we may think: “Maybe he wants to give me positive feedback”.
That raises the necessity to be aware of these types of ambiguous interpretations.
How can we do that?
A good idea is to pause before immediately guessing something and ask ourselves: “What do I actually know, and what am I assuming?”
This small step can help us recognize when our emotions might be filling in the gaps and give us time to assess before reacting.
To sum up, whether face-to-face or through online channels, communication does NOT happen in isolation from how we feel.
Our emotions could influence different aspects of it – what and how we say something, how we interpret what others mean or how they feel and so on.This raises the matter of recognizing when our emotions could affect the way we interact with others and finding adaptive alternatives to deal with them.
Sometimes taking a moment to understand what we are feeling can make the difference between reacting to a situation and actually communicating through it.
After all, the same words can tell a very different story depending on the emotions we bring into the conversation.
How about you? Do you consider the "need to pause" as a cliche that doesn't need to be practiced and applied or on the contrary - you have your own methods of remaining aware of the impact emotions have?
Share with us what's your go to?
References:
Tracy, J. L., Randles, D., & Steckler, C. M. (2015). Thenonverbal communication of emotions. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences,3, 25–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2015.01.001
Ekman, P. (1992). An argument for basic emotions. Cognition& Emotion, 6(3–4), 169–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699939208411068
Aldunate, N., Villena-González, M., Rojas-Thomas, F., López,V., & Bosman, C. A. (2018). Mood detection in ambiguous messages: theinteraction between text and emoticons. Frontiers in Psychology, 9,423. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00423
