Investments-An interesting concept

Wood (2010) describes investments as "what we put into relationships that we could not retrieve if the relationships were to end". I found this to be an interesting part of the chapter because I had never thought about this aspect of a relationship before reading this. I have been in a relationship for five years now and I can admit that it does require the time, money, and thoughts and feelings that were discussed in this part of the chapter. If my relationship ended tomorrow there would be no way to recover these aspects of the relationship. A friend of mine recently went through a break up with someone who she had invested all her emotional and physical energy into. She moved in with him because she thought that they were going to be together for a long time. Before she moved in with him she sold all her belongings because she thought that his stuff was much nicer than hers. After living together for 6 months, he told her that he had lost his feelings for her, and she felt blindsided by this. A few days before he had told her he loved her and went with her to her nephews birthday party. She put all her energy in to making the relationship work, but all it took was one person having a change of heart for it to end. This concept made me think about how my friends investments into that relationship will never be recovered, and she is now resentful toward her ex because of this. She had to start all over by purchasing new belongings for a new apartment she is renting, and she said that she now has trust issues that may leak into her next relationship.

Question 2

Sometimes when a person says something that I disagree with my initial reaction is to become defensive which can also lead to me choosing not to acknowledge them. When we disagree with others, disconfirmation comes easily because our responses tend to ignore the feelings of others because we are letting our selfishness rule the situation. The example I have is a particular argument I had with my brother last time I was visiting my family. There were two of Gibb's defensiveness-producing communication behaviors that I can now identify during that situation. I felt disconfirmed and defensive by something I had said to him, and looking back on the situation I can see that I was using evaluation by saying things like "I can't believe you did that, that was dumb, you shouldn't have done that". I was also using strategy because my brother asked me a question that sounded like he was trying to manipulate me. He asked me "Hey sis, now I know you love me and we don't see each other often so do you want to do me a huge favor?". I immediately became defensive and said no to him.

Question 1

I have found it difficult to confirm others when I disagree with them. As we learned in our text the second level of confirmation is "acknowledgment of what another feels, thinks, or says" (pg. 205, Wood).  This chapter helped me understand that each level of confirmation is important separately and together. The first level of recognition involves making others feel like they exist while acknowledgment makes others feel like what they have to say matters. The level of endorsing requires acceptance. The differences with confirming others as people, and endorsing particular ideas are that confirmation of others as people is always possible, whereas endorsement may go against someones personal convictions, opinions, etc. When someone walks into a room that we do not know we can acknowledge their existence by saying hello, but if the person starts making rude comments about something we don't agree with we may not endorse their thoughts and feelings.

An Interesting Concept-Emotion Work

I found the concept of emotion work to be an interesting part of the chapter. I like that I can finally put a name to this type of communication as opposed to just calling it being "fake". Emotion work is how we condition ourselves to feel a certain way because we believe we should feel that way. In Wood (2010) there is an example given that  we "might think it is wrong to feel gleeful when someone you dislike is hurt". This is because we are taught that it is wrong to have that type of negative attitude toward someone. For the most part in our culture, including sports where people are extremely competitive, it is expected that you congratulate others for their win even if their win meant your loss. Although someone may want to express other emotion toward someone in certain situations, they will likely use emotion work to show someone what they think is the appropriate behavior for that situation. I feel that I use emotion work for people when they express to me that they are pregnant because I don't have the same attitudes as many people I know about pregnancy. I was adopted at birth, and I plan to adopt two children, and I don't have that biological maternal instinct that many women claim they have. I think that many people assume all women want to be pregnant. When women tell me they are pregnant I have caught myself wanting to just say "Oh that's great" and then I use emotion work and  respond with something that I think they will like more such as "That's wonderful, do you know if you are having a girl or boy?" Then if they say "girl" I say something to relate which is that "I plan to adopt a baby girl in the near future". By asking them this question I am telling the truth, and I am using a socially acceptable response that they probably hear twenty times a day and would never be offended by.

Question 1-Interactive View

I found the interactive viewpoint which assumes that we have more control over over our feelings then the physiological influences on emotions, which assumes that we have less control. I have always related more to the idea that emotions are the trigger for physiological responses, and that if we learn to control these thoughts and emotion we will experience less stress and anxiety. An example is that when you start thinking about something that makes you anxious you may start to feel uneasiness or nausea. The idea that this works the other way around is interesting to me as well. In Wood (2010) we learned about the James-Lange view which supports the idea that the physiological responses come first, which then trigger the emotional responses we experience. An example of this is seeing someone else give there speech before us may result in our nerves acting up and causing sweaty palms, and a nervous stomach, then in result we begin feeling nervous and emotional toward this response. I agree that our perceptions of our experiences may have great influence on our emotions, but I also believe that your own thoughts, and self-talk can also trigger stress and other physiological responses. From my personal experience I have had both physiological trigger emotional, as well as thought and emotion trigger physiological. The James-Lange philosophical viewpoint does seem helpful in explaining situations where someone sees another person become ill, and then they start feeling ill, or when we see someone yawn, many of us yawn in response. This might be because we are experiencing a perception of tiredness or illness, which then causes us to feel more tired or question our health. I experience the interactive viewpoint more often in life. Having awareness of the interactive viewpoint helps me control my thoughts and remind myself that worrying and thinking about negativity will only lead to other problems including physical responses.

Question 2

While reading through the fallacies section I thought this question was going to be difficult to answer because none of them stood out to me until I got to "Fear of catastrophic failure", which summed up my fallacy in intrapersonal communication well. I have struggled with this side of myself and I was glad to see that it is recognized as a fallacy in self-talk. The fact that I am constantly playing these scenarios in my head of negative things that could happen has had an affect on my life in many different ways. One example of this was that I was procrastinating meeting with an advisor for school simply because I thought that she was going to be upset with me once she realized that I had taken a senior class that was meant for the last semester. I had played out this scenario many times where she was telling me I had to re-take the course, and this would cause me to avoid meeting with her. I realized that I had to go and meet with her in order to graduate, and by doing this I found out wonderful news that I am graduating this Spring. I am very happy about this, but I feel that if I had met with her sooner I would have probably graduated even earlier. As our text explained, we should find ways to counteract these fallacies, and the way that I am slowly learning to change this is by realizing that I have more to lose by avoiding situations based on fantasy and scenario than I do by actually gathering courage to do them. I have changed my self-talk to point out that positive scenarios that may also happen by challenging these fears. While this may still be fantasizing to a certain degree, it is a positive type of fantasy that can keep me focused on the good things I have going on in my life.

My 3 Responses to Others

Unfortunately this is the message I have been getting when trying to leave comments on other posts. In fear that I will miss the deadline I am posting them here. I know some may not get a chance to read these responses on their blogs, but maybe some will. :/

Here is the message I get every time I try to post:

We're sorry, but we were unable to complete your request.

The following errors were found:
Input error: Cookie value is null for FormRestoration
If this happens next week I may have to use a work or school computer for leaving comments to others.


Response to Listening is a 10 part skill

Hi Elek,

I think that not working hard enough at listening is one of the
easiest mistakes to make. I often wonder how much more information I
would have processed if I had effectively listened through the types
of lectures you were discussing. I can think back to my Anthropology
class of which I was so excited to learn about, and I remember
specific lectures where I was zoning out because the information
became a lot to process. It is almost as though your brain says "Hey
I'm tired, I'm checking out for awhile". Then I would find myself
alert and listening better when tests and project due dates were
mentioned(hence the reason they mention selective listening as a
problem too). Being tired is one thing that can effect listening and
this leads me to believe that being well rested is crucial for anyone
who has to listen to anyone else for something such as school, work,
or mentoring such as you mentioned in an older post. Listening can be
work. I enjoyed reading your post. 



Response to Week 5, Post 1. Nonlistening

Hi EatingTurtle,

I was also able to relate a specific style of listening such as
monopolizing listening to a personal experience with a friend. I
thought that it was interesting that you mentioned that this is
something you have accepted in her because I consider my friend who
does this to be a great friend. It's almost as though I am used to it
at this point because it is not surprising when she starts directing
any conversation back to herself. Your post had me thinking a lot
about how it might be better for people to tell one another how they
feel in these situations. This may be easier said then done, but
there are many people who may not be aware that they are not
listening as effectively possible. I think that some people might be
surprised to find out what someone else thinks about their listening
skills, and I am willing to listen to someone else tell me what they
thought about mine.


Response to Nonlistening I need to improve on

Hey Nessa,

I liked the honesty of your post. I have selective listened before as
well, and I think that most people do to some degree. It can
sometimes be hard to block out other things you are thinking of when
someone is talking to you. This happened to me this week with someone
at work who was asking me a question and I did not hear all of what
they had been talking to me about so it made for an awkward
experience when I had to answer them. It's one thing if someone had
just asked you a question because you could just ask them to repeat
it, but it's another thing to have to ask someone to repeat different
parts of a conversation they already thought they were having.
Learning about these types of listening has really been beneficial in
how I plan to change my own communication style for the better.

Question 1

Pseudolistening is something that we are all guilty of (at least I would bet on that) to some degree. We know at this point that effective listening is a skill that involves mindfulness, and this type of listening involves those situations where others think we are listening to them because we may be making eye contact and appearing to listen, but we are tuning them out while they are speaking. I have done this before in class when I have anxiety over something else such as a speech I have to give, etc. and everything the Professor says up until that point is "in one ear out the other" because I am not actually listening even though my eyes are on them. Monopolizing is something a friend of mine is great at. This is when the listener always finds a way to turn the subject of the conversation back to their own experience as the focus. Selective Listening is when we are hearing what we want to hear out of communication. Someone might be talking about 6 different things that they believe are important, and the listener may only hear one or two of these things that they find important. Defensive Listening is when people take offense to others communication because of our own defense issues. My mom would do this when she would make dinner growing up by asking us if we liked something, and if we said something like "Yeah this is good, Jessica's mom makes this too" and my mom would hear that as we like the other one better, so she would often respond with something like "You don't really like it do you?"  It turns out that she has always been insecure about her cooking because my grandma has always told her she is not a great cook. I always loved my mom's food. Ambushing is the kind of listening where people have motives of listening well. They are waiting for the opportunity to speak back with an attack on the speaker. They often listen to hear something they are already anticipating to be a reason to get upset with the speaker. Literal Listening when people are listening to someone without having a connection beyond the content. Similar to the example in our text, my employers used literal listening recently when I asked them for an ergonomic assessment for our work station. I have been in a lot of pain, and I have developed carpal tunnel syndrome from the job. When I was explaining to my supervisor that I had been experiencing this pain, and that I was wondering if they could buy some wrist pads for support on the computer, she just replied with "Wow, I am not sure what we would be able to do about that." She didn't say anything in regard to the pain that I have been experiencing or make any comments that made me feel as though she cared about what I was saying. In my communication I am guilty of Pseudolistening in some interactions, and also of selective listening. I plan to fix this buy being mindful of the negative consequences that can happen from both of these types of listening. When I catch myself pseudolistening I will have to focus my attention on the speaker. For selective listening I will have to concentrate on the fact that I am missing out on great conversations that I may have more to relate to simply because I am selecting what I want to hear from them.