Interpersonal Speech

My Emotions and I, Emotions, at times I can not help feel that they can be caused by others. On the surface, if you witness a person’s reaction to a message received from another person, depending on the content of the message it can incite feelings of happiness or sadness causing one to believe what they just witnessed was a form of cause and affect.However, I believe this is not true because ones reaction to a message may be influenced by the content of it, but the emotions displayed because of the message comes from ones own personal self Emotions are labels we use to describe our feelings and the physiological, non-verbal, cognitive and verbal expression components of emotions help solidify the approach that we cause our own feelings by interpreting an event in one way or another (J. Whitton, personal communications, March 24, 2010). The physiological factors of emotions support the previous statement, sweating, nausea and an accelerated heart beat are factors that can only be determined by the person who is experiencing the actuating event.

The biological portion of the self-concept that shapes ones personality plays a role in determining these factors coming into play (Alder & Proctor, 2009). A promotion is given to both an extroverted and introverted persons, both of them feel the same adrenaline rush and the emotion of joy is felt, but this affects each of them differently. The extroverted person will feel joy and his body might respond by an increase in blood pressure caused by excitement, because of his personality, this will allow him to gravitate towards a more social celebration where hugging and chatting with fellow co-workers about the promotion takes place. However, the introverted person will feel joy and have the same increase in blood pressure, but this time it is caused by nervousness, resulting in the likelihood that person will shy away from any congratulatory situations. Everyone has their own personality and how we emotional respond to a message will depend on how we feel physiologically, which is unique to individuals. These emotions can be seen physically through body language, gestures, voice deflection and appearance (Alder & Proctor, 2009). The two people who received the promotions may have a smile on their face because of their accomplishment, blushing caused by a bit of feeling embarrassed and maybe more of an erect posture with their head held up high because of pride.

These nonverbal reactions helps display ones’ emotions, communicating to others their feelings, but if a person not smiling after receiving a promotion does not mean they are unhappy they just may not want to. The reason for not smiling can be that person feels ill or is shy, not because they are not happy about the promotion. This opposite reaction of the norm can cause an emotional state were the person’s body will actually start to feel unhappy (Alder & Proctor, 2009).The nonverbal and physical reactions need to be appropriate with the context, other wise a miscommunication might occur. Cognitive interpretation assigns a meaning to emotions, and depending on the context, the same emotions can have different meanings (Alder & Proctor, 2009). The one individual who just received a promotion is feeling ecstatic and is running around like a small child on Christmas expressing joy in a loud verbal manner, notices others are leaving the area of celebration. So now that emotion of joy which started out as a happy one turns into a sad one because the person doing the celebrating reacted to the situation of people leaving, feeling he scared everyone away by making them feel uncomfortable, but in reality it was the end of the day and they wanted to go home.

Order custom essay Interpersonal Speech with free plagiarism report

450+ experts on 30 subjects Starting from 3 hours delivery

Get Essay Help

Verbally expressing ones emotions can distinguish the level and intensity of these emotions, by doing so it allows others to understand exactly how a person is feeling (Alder & Proctor, 2009).The ecstatic individual who is celebrating his promotion tells everyone he is ecstatic about it, but uses the same word “ecstatic” to describe how he is doing everyday will not allow people to receive his true emotions about certain situation. They can not judge his level of happiness causing them to maybe feel he really does not appreciate his promotion because his base of happiness is a higher intensity emotion reserved for extreme happiness, which he uses on a day to day basis. To verbally express ones emotions correctly will allow the acknowledgement of these true feelings which can be shared or not (Alder & Proctor, 2009).

When one interprets an event which influences their emotions through different reactions physically and mentally these emotions are brought forward only by the person who is experiencing this event. It is the person’s own interpretation and experiences that will dictate how and what kind of emotions will be displayed and transmitted, and as long as these reactions to actuating events are rational and without fallacies, control of genuine emotions will be maintained and the right to feel these emotions will be preserved. Conveying a message to another person where it may cause them to feel happy or sad would depend on the context, impact it will have and what may be at stake (J. Whitton, personal communications, March 24, 2010).

The amount of responsibility will depend on these factors. Questions need to be asked and answered before a message is communicated resulting in the receiver feeling happy or sad. Is it my place to be the communicator of such message, if it is not my place to do so it might evoke a feeling of sadness even though the message is a happy one.Will this message bring a resolution to the situation, make it worse or have no effect, and what actually might be at stake with the conclusion of the communication, will it end a relationship, get me fired, or jeopardize my health? These questions should be addressed before communicating messages that would make another person feel happy or sad. Then the degree of responsibility will be clear, allowing you to convey that message or not. The day I knew I wanted to marry my wife Allison; I assumed the responsibility to inform her parents of such intentions.

The message resulted in their feelings of joy and I received their blessings to propose to Allison. This message could have had an opposite reaction if I did not communicate this message to them before I proposed, which might have a negative impact on my relationship with her parents and possibly make it go from good to bad. This could have also affected my relationship with Allison and may have had a direct impact on my future. I recall one time when I had to be a bearer of bad news which caused sadness to the people receiving the message, but it was my responsibility even though I felt uncomfortable about it, but it needed to be done. Early in my military career I became friends with a guy named Jason “Pepsi” McCully, we went through boot camp, school and ended up in the same unit together. We both made a pact to inform each others family if something would have happen to one of us. Unfortunately Pepsi died from injuries he sustained from a motor vehicle accident on his way back to base.

With this news and my promise to my friend, I called his family in Kentucky to tell them of the accident and my friend’s fate, knowing this message would bring sadness to them, it was message that needed to be said, along with making sure it got to the right destination. In both situations I knew what would be at stake and the type of impact these messages would bring and my role in presenting them. Although both messages brought different reactions to each receiver, the questions that needed to asked before the messages were communicated I had asked and answered intrapersonal to ensure it was the right context and my responsibility to do so (J. Whitton, personal communications, March 24, 2010). These messages could not have been communicated with their true meaning unless I had my emotions in place to help me express the importance of each message. When I heard the news of my friend’s death I was angry and could have easily allowed this to become a debilitative emotion to be it would have influenced the communication with Pepsi’s family possibly impacting them negatively and causing their own debilitative emotion. Instead I chose to use this emotion to help me facilitate better communication with his family and influence their emotional reaction which helped them express and except their true emotions of the activating event (Alder & Proctor, 2009).

I can acknowledge the genuine emotion that is being felt within myself by being able to recognize and monitor my emotional reactions of an activating event, along with self-talk to check any fallacies to help me displace any irrational thoughts and beliefs ensuring I do not over react and say something that might hinder the true message. By setting these foundations I was able to resolve the situations with a positive impact and help strengthen my relationships with those receiving the messages by sharing these honest mixed emotions (J.Whitton, personal communications, March 24, 2010).

The knowledge I gained about emotions and how they reflect on my ability to communicate effectively is truly eye opening. Knowing that I am the only one that can make my emotions come to the surface and how they affect my body and physically and mentally, is really amazing, who knew anger and joy will make my heart race and the different levels of intensity of each emotion can be described with a better vocabulary (J.Whitton, personal communications, March 24, 2010). Being able to express myself using the right word(s) to describe what I really am feeling will help me extend myself in a truer light for others to see, so my communications with them will have a more precise and clearer meaning.

I will engage in communications with more confidence knowing I can not truly make someone feel one way or the other, but may influence them to feel a certain way with y true and honest emotions. Knowing how to channel and recognize facilitative and debilitative emotions will allow me to react appropriately to situations with more defined emotions increasing my sensibility and accuracy in communication (Alder & Proctor, 2009). Going forward I will practice these concepts and utilize them in my future interpersonal communications so I can develop my skills in communications so I can become a better and effective communicator. The meaning of a message can only be interpreted and labeled by the one receiving it, this person will control the amount of meaning and intensity applied to it, determining which emotions will be brought forward to acknowledge and react to the communication.

Reference

1. Adler, R. , & Proctor, R. Looking Out, Looking In (12th ed.). Belmont, Ca: Thomson Wadsworth.

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Run a free check or have your essay done for you

Check my essay Hire Writer