Constructive Criticism

A concept I found hard for myself this week is responding to others’ criticism constructively. I participate in many things that provide opportunity for me to get better at. However, whenever someone who I consider my equal criticizes me, I take it very badly. If the person is obviously superior, such as an instructor or coach, I definitely learn from and thank the person for the constructive criticism. Yet, if the person is my age or same skill level and they criticize me, even constructively, I get upset because I don’t think they have any right to be judging me. By reading this section this week, I’ve learned how to better take criticism from peers. I can begin by asking for more information when I’m criticized in order to better understand where I went wrong. After I ask questions and have more information is when I can actually decide if the criticism is valid. Then I can decide on how I want to act on the criticism. Finally, I can thank the person, regardless of if I thought the criticism was valid or not, in order to maintain a good relationship with the other person.

Disconfirmed and Defensive

There was a time a while back where I had to learn a routine for a dance class and the choreographers were a few of my peers. They hadn’t completely figured out the steps, and were asking us participants for help. However, whenever I gave an idea to one of the choreographers, I always felt disconfirmed and defensive because that person obviously didn’t want my opinion. Other participants also felt the same way as I did with that one choreographer, and we all were upset together about it. The other choreographers who were nicer, however, didn’t notice our problem, and just kept going on with teaching. That one choreographer was using three of Gibb’s defensiveness-producing communication behaviors. They were evaluating, or judging, us whenever we did a run of the routine. While the other choreographers were constructively criticizing or focusing on what we did well and using description, that one choreographer would judge every little thing we did wrong. They were also controlling the communication. Rather than trying to finish the routine as a group and problem solving, that one choreographer consistently tried to push her own opinion and moves and ideas. Lastly, that choreographer was acting superior, when really we were all the exact same age, gender, and skill level.

Confirming Others

I find it relatively easy to confirm others, but when I disagree with them it is a little more difficult to. Reading this chapter has taught me the three different ways to confirm others. Recognizing is this simplest, because it just requires acknowledging that a person exists. With someone I don’t agree with, I still at least will speak to them or look at them and recognize their existence as a person. Acknowledging is a second way to confirm, and involves acknowledging the feelings, thoughts, and words of another person. If I don’t agree with someone, I still find it easy to at least understand where a person is coming from and to agree that they can have their own different feelings and thoughts. The last way to confirm is endorsing, or accepting someone’s thoughts and feelings as valid. This one is tough when I disagree with the person, because in order to be honest with the person sometimes I need to let them know I don’t endorse them. Confirming others as people and endorsing particular ideas is easy to distinguish between, because while I may acknowledge and recognize a friend and their thoughts and feelings, I can also not endorse their choices or ideas on particular things.

Counterfeit Emotional Language

Counterfeit emotional language is a concept this week that really interested me. This is defined as communication that appears to express one’s feelings but in reality does not describe how the person is feeling. The book used the example of someone shouting “Why can’t you leave me alone!” While it is clear that the person shouting this is feeling something, it is unclear as to if they’re angry at someone, frustrated with a situation, stressed over something, etc. Instead, the person needs to describe how they’re feeling, whether it be angry, frustrated, or stressed, and the reason for that feeling. Another type of counterfeit emotional language that I found applicable to my communication was the phrase “That’s just how I feel”. I find myself saying this a lot when asked why I’m upset or angry. After reading about counterfeit emotional language, I now know that it’s not an acceptable phrase. I use it because I really don’t know why I’m feeling upset or angry but I want to justify the feeling to the other person. Instead, I need to learn how to begin by acknowledging that I’m not sure why I’m feeling upset or angry. Then, I need to slow down so I can understand why I’m feeling the way I am and better communicate that reason.

Fallacies in Intrapersonal Communication

Some of the fallacies discussed in this chapter include perfectionism, obsession with shoulds, overgeneralization, taking responsibility for others, helplessness, and fear of catastrophic failure. The fallacies that show up in my intrapersonal communication the most would be helplessness and perfectionism. A lot of the time, I hold myself to unrealistically high standards, and when I fail to meet them, I become stressed and dissatisfied with myself, which then leads to me feeling helpless to change how I’m feeling. After reading about the fallacies and ways to challenge them, I definitely see how I can monitor and revise my intrapersonal communication. I can begin by adapting a rational-emotive approach to feelings. That way, I can identify when I’m reacting too extremely to something that I do not need to be perfect at, and then I can work to dispute the perfectionism. I can also monitor my self-talk to work for me instead of against me. If I have positive self-talk after a negative situation, I can keep myself from feeling helpless.

Perspectives on Emotions

A few different perspectives on emotions are discussed in the book, including the organismic view, perceptual view, cognitive view, and interactive view. The perspective that makes the most sense to me would be the interactive view of emotions. I feel like this perspective takes into account more outside factors that affect us compared to the other perspectives. There are three key concepts in the interactive view of emotions. Framing rules are guidelines determined by one’s culture that help define the emotional meanings of events and situations. Feeling rules are also culturally based, and tell us how we should feel in certain situations. Emotion work is the effort that we put in to convince ourselves to feel the way our culture deems appropriate and to not feel how our culture deems inappropriate. These three concepts that make up this perspective make the most sense to me because I feel like the culture we live in is the basis of what influences our feelings. Our culture has a strong impact on how we live our day to day lives, and as a result it influences our thoughts and feelings. The other perspectives only consider stimuli or events, whereas this perspective takes it even deeper to the root of where we learn to interpret the stimuli or events.