Lecture on what emotions are and how they work

1. Dr. Marquita Byrd
Communication Studies Department
San Jose State University
byrd.marquita@yahoo.com

2. What’s Love Got to Do with It?
What’s Love, but a Second Hand Emotion?
Tina Turner, 1993

3. Humans Can Respond to the
Environment in Four Ways
 Cognitive :Think
 Affective: Feel
 Behave: Act
 Spiritual: Immaterial world, Other reality,
Inner Life

4. Emotions are often Absent from
Academic Discussions
 Considered inferior to intellect
 Uncontrollable
 Weak
 Causes Confusion
 Try to control , ignore or remove
 Impossible because emotions are a central part of our
psychological filters

5. Four Components of Emotions
 Physiological
changes in autonomic systems: hormones,
respiratory, cardiovascular
 Nonverbal
face, gestures, posture, movement, eyes
 Cognitive: labeling
 Verbal expression: what is said

6. Six Factors Influencing Emotions
 Personality
 Culture
 Gender: anger, vulnerability, crying, expression of
 Social Conventions:
how to interpret, what to feel, when to express
 Risks in Self-Disclosure
 Emotional Contagion

7. Emotions Exist on a Continuum
 No good or bad emotions
 Continuum from Facilitative to Debilitative
Facilitative Debilitative
• All emotions can be used in facilitative or debilitative
manners
Love, hate, fear, happiness

8. Fallacious Thinking
 Erroneous conclusions based upon faulty information
or logic
 Irrational Thinking
 Cause us to use emotions in negative ways

9. Irrational Thinking
• Approval
• Perfection: self and others
• Catastrophic expectations
• Helplessness
• Control
• Wrongness of difficulty
• Overgeneralization
• Past is inescapable
• You do not matter

10. Rational Emotive Responses
 Does it do harm: self or others
 Why should it change
 Must you always be right
 Is it within your power to change it
 Is it your responsibility or right to change it
 Are you perfect enough to cast a stone
 Is it still relevant today
 Can you ignore the small stuff

11. Guidelines for Expressing Emotions
 Recognize them
 Difference between thinking, feeling and acting
 Expand emotional vocabulary
 Share multiple
 Right time, place, person, and motive
 Take responsibility: use “I” language not “You”
language
• Mindful of how you communicate it
• Take a deep breath before you start

12. Conclusion
 Emotions are integral to the human experience
 Recognition and management of them is essential for
good living
 Increase your Emotional Quotient