Page 29 - Effective Communication Skills by Dalton Kehoe

The Conscious Mind and Emotion
Lecture 7

As information Àows through our perception and cognition processes,

we notice bodily changes. For instance, edgy, ¿dgeting body movements

and tension in the shoulders and neck may give way to a moment of
stillness in the body, dropping of the shoulders, and unclenching of

¿ngers. Our muscles are responding automatically to biochemical
changes; once we become aware of these physical reactions, we call
them our feelings. Our individual awareness of and ability to talk about

feelings varies signi¿cantly. Few people are conscious of the interaction
between our feeling and thinking processes and their effect on the way
we communicate with each other. In this lecture, I will describe how
developing an awareness of our feelings, naming them, and describing
them accurately to ourselves and others is central to our becoming
more effective communicators.
here are always three levels of reaction to a changing situation:
emotions, which are the biochemical response to changes; rapid
Tbodily reactions to those biochemical shifts; and your cognitive brain,
where the left frontal lobe interprets these reactions and then names them
as feelings.

Feelings are our way of noticing emotions that require attention and interrupt
cognitive processes and behaviors. After the immediate feeling has subsided,
it usually lingers on in the form of a mood. Does mood matter? Feelings
and mood matter mostly when we’re not paying attention, because when we
do notice our situation, mood doesn’t affect our opinions. When we’re not
consciously thinking, we automatically let our current feeling state shape our
decision making.

We have been consistently discussing face-to-face talk in personal
relationships, but there is much evidence of the effects of feelings in the
workplace too. Feelings and moods are contagious: In 70 work teams across
diverse industries, members who sat in meetings together ended up sharing
moods—good or bad—within 2 hours. Feeling good makes people more

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