This document summarizes key points about emotional intelligence and expression from Chapter 7. It discusses emotional intelligence, empathy, emotional challenges like emotional labor and avoidance. It also covers irrational beliefs that can influence emotions, such as the need for approval or perfection. Strategies are provided for improving emotional expression, including identifying feelings, looking at situations differently, and focusing on what is within one's control. The influence of culture and gender on emotional expression is also addressed.

1. CHAPTER 7
Emotional Expression
Copyright © 2022 W. W. Norton & Company

2. Emotional intelligence
• Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to
identify, manage, and express your emotions
effectively.
• Empathy is the ability to understand,
appreciate, and value what someone else is
feeling.
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3. Emotional expression
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4. 7.2 Emotional challenges
• Emotional labor is the effort it takes to generate,
manage, and mask your emotions.
• Avoidance is the act of evading or skirting a
person, interaction, or conversational topic.
• Passive-aggressiveness is a form of indirect
hostility that allows the sender to appear
outwardly noncombative.
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5. Irrational thinking (1)
• Many of our negative, debilitative emotions are
supported by irrational beliefs, also referred to as
fallacies.
• The fallacy of approval is the belief that it’s
essential to seek and win everyone’s acceptance
and admiration.
• When you’re convinced that a communication
choice will definitely result in a certain outcome,
you’re committing the fallacy of causation.
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6. Irrational thinking (3)
• The fallacy of overgeneralization entails taking a
single instance and believing that it’s an enduring
absolute.
• You subscribe to the fallacy of perfection if you think
it’s essential to communication exceptionally well all
the time.
• The fallacy of should is the belief that others ought to
think and behave just as you do.
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7. Communicate your emotions competently (1)
• Postpone conversations strategically.
• Perspective-taking is the act of imagining that
you are the other person in a given situation.
• Express your emotions asynchronously.
• Use I-language and “I feel . . . because . . . I need”
statements—a sentence structure that helps you
focus on the behavior that affects you and what
you’d like your relational partner to do.
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8. 7.3 Improving emotional expression
• The following seven questions will identify and
manage your emotions:
 What am I feeling?
 Why do I feel this way?
 How can I look at my situation differently?
 What can I do to make myself feel better?
 What is outside of my control?
 What is right about my life?
 What hasn’t changed in my life?
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9. Emotional expression
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10. 7.1 Emotion and IPC
• An emotion (or feeling) is a psychological or
physiological response to an activating event.
• Blended emotions vs. conflicting emotions
• Meta-emotion is an emotion about an emotion—or
a feeling about a feeling.
• Compared to an emotion, a mood is an emotional
state that lacks a clear cause or contextual stimulus.
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11. Emotion is a process (1)
• Emotional experience is the internal sensation and
identification of your own emotions.
• The rational-emotive theory (RET) is the idea that
your cognitive interpretation of an event has more to
do with your emotion than the activating event does.
• Emotional contagion vs. emotional expression
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12. Emotion is a process (2)
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13. Emotional experience and expression
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14. Emotions are facilitative and debilitative (1)
• Facilitative emotions are emotions that help you
improve the quality of your communication and
enhance relational outcomes.
• Debilitative emotions are emotions that interfere
with your ability to communicate and produce
negative relational outcomes.
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15. Emotions are facilitative and debilitative (2)
“At age 19 I was always angry and
frustrated with my mom. We argued a
lot, often in nasty ways, which hurt our
relationship. These same emotions—
anger and frustration—motivated me to
venture out and become independent.
After I moved out, we got along much
better. It really helped improve our
relationship!” —Lorana
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16. The influence of culture and gender
• Throughout your life you’ll receive direct and
indirect messages encouraging you to adhere to
certain emotional display rules, or the social dos
and don’ts of emotional expression.
• Belonging to an organizational or societal culture
can influence how you express your feelings.
• Gender socialization plays a significance role in how
we experience and express emotion.
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17. Avoidance
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18. Displacement and trapping (1)
• Displacement occurs when you lash out at someone
who is not the cause of your negative emotions.
• Trapping is the act of asking someone to
communication in a certain way and the making that
person regret doing what you’ve asked.
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19. Displacement and trapping (2)
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20. Withholding
• Withholding occurs when you purposely deprive
someone of something they want or need in order
to express your negative feelings and exert control.
• Withholding can also be used to manipulate and
control a person’s behavior.
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21. Irrational thinking (2)
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22. Irrational thinking (4)
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23. Identify and manage your emotions
‟When I was a kid, I remember standing
in the yard with my mom and sister. We
had just given our dog Lucky a bath. She
jumped out of the outdoor tub and
started shaking her fur like crazy to dry
off. She put her whole body into it. My
mom said, ‘See, you can do the same
thing when you are angry or upset, just
shake it off.’ We stood there and shook
our bodies just like Lucky. It was
hilarious. Later, whenever one of us
would get upset, someone would say,
‘Just shake it off,’ and imitate our
beloved dog. It was hard not to laugh or
smile.” —Devon
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24. Communicate your emotions competently (2)
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25. Communicate your emotions competently (3)
• Validation is the act of recognizing another
person’s stated or unstated thoughts, feelings, and
needs.
• Convey more gratitude—make it a point every day
to communicate the positive things you see in your
relational partners.
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26. Communicate your emotions competently (4)
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27. Practice and seek forgiveness effectively
• Forgiveness is an emotional process that requires
time and the ability to reconstruct your thoughts.
• If you are seeking forgiveness:
 Admit your wrongdoing, apologize sincerely,
do not repeat the transgression, try to make
amends, listen to your relational partners, and
validate their feelings.
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28. Express your love to stay in love
• There are certain practices that may reinforce a
deeper romantic and emotional connection:
 Stare into your romantic partner’s eyes for at
least two minutes on a regular basis while
holding hands.
 Exercise together.
 Engage in more spontaneous activities with
each other.
 Hold hands when talking about thorny topics.
 If it’s a part of your relationship, talk openly in
a loving way about your sex life.
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29. Credits
This concludes the Lecture PowerPoint presentation for Chapter 7.
For more resources, please visit It’s Interpersonal, An Introduction to
Relational Communication, at:
http://digital.wwnorton.com/interpersonal
Copyright © 2022 W. W. Norton & Company