MediaSpace Wiki

Relationships And Communities Session Twenty Two

Announcements

• Students looking for COM 412 should know that the spring semester's COM 395, Mediated Interpersonal Communication, will be counted as COM 412 for the purposes of satisfying departmental requirements in human communication.
• Shakespeare's Classic "A Midsummer Nights Dream is playing on Campus this weekend. I have seen a number of productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream over the years (it was a primary subject matter of my senior thesis). Every once in a while a Shakespeare production comes along in which you stop experiencing the play's 16th century language and see the play in much the same way Shakespeare's original audiences did: as a wild entertainment. This production hits that mark. It is easily the best production of Midsummer's Night I have ever seen: both literate and three stooges comical. You will love it. There are performances all this weekend (Thursday to Sunday). Check it out.
• The Communication Studies Alumni Weekend is November 2. This is a great opportunity for you to see some of the things you can do with your degree and make contact with people who may be able to help you find jobs eventually. Check out the afternoon seminars. Attend the Saturday night Alumni dinner. The registration deadline (online) is Friday, October 25.

• higher SAT scores and acheivement

Goes to the heart of the quesition of spontaneity and strategy in our emotional communication

• is the high achiever happier?

Strategic Expression of Emotions

• Planalp, 71-103
• Stewart, 157-162

• Emotional Expression
• Impression Formation/Identity Management
• Conversation Management
• Relational Messages

Expression is, to at least some extent, hard coded in our genes.

• Advocates of this position include:
  • Charles Darwin. The Expression of Emotion in Man and animals.
  • Steven Pinker. The language instinct and other books
• If this suggests that emotion is a natural and spontaneous reaction, that's only partly true
  • It is also symbolic and strategic (Buck, 1984, The communication of emotion)
• There is a certain wisdom in the emotions that underlies our expression:
  • including the wisdom of evolution
    • fear helps us escape danger
    • disgust helps us avoid noxious foods
    • love helps create and maintain bonds
    • loneliness and jealously protect relationships
  • and the wisdom of moving on
    • boredom helps us set new goals
    • pride causes us to protect our progeny: both genetic and creative
    • regret will have implications for future behavior
    • grief helps us to reposition the important people in our live when they are gone and strengthen surrounding relationships
    • even paranoia may have survival value
  • this wisdom argues for spontaneity, and that is often appropriate
  • but sometimes our spontaneious emotion conflicts with other goals
    • the dead have to be buried
    • other people don't always love us back
    • our fears and paranoias may be misplaced
    • lessons of the past don't always apply to the future

There is also a wisdom in controlling emotion

• This isn't always easy
• Emotional messages are, and we like to think of them as being, spontaneous
  • But babies quickly learn to manage interaction with emotional expression