Quiz 2. Test Your Self Disclosure

Think about the person you currently consider closest to you, such as your best friend, a close family member, or your romantic partner. For each phrase below, rate your self-disclosure between 0 and 4, 0 indicating no self-disclosure to your partner and 4 denoting full self-disclosure. Add your ratings to arrive at your total score.

______ 1. My personal habits

______ 2. Things I’ve done that I feel guilty about

______ 3. Things I wouldn’t do in public

______ 4. My deepest feelings

______ 5. What I like and dislike about myself

______ 6. What is important to me in life

______ 7. What makes me the person I am

______ 8. My worst fear

______ 9. Things I’ve done that I’m proud of

______ 10. My close relationships with other people

Scoring: 0–15 - low disclosure; 16–25 - moderate disclosure; 26–40 - high disclosure.

Repeat this exercise for other people in your life, such as same-sex friends, coworkers, and casual acquaintances. Examine your pattern of scores. Do you tend to be high, moderate, or low in disclosure? Does your willingness to disclose depend on the relationship? What do your scores generally tell you about how you self-disclose?

Chapter 4. Experiencing and Expressing Emotions

Theory

I. Defining Emotions

A. Emotions are intense reactions to an event that involves interpreting the meaning of the event, becoming physiologically aroused, labeling the experience as emotional, attempting to manage our reaction, and communicating this reaction in the form of emotional displays and disclosures.

B. John T. Cacioppo: Hence, five key features: (a) emotion is a reaction to events; (b) emotion leads to physiological arousal; (c) emotion must be consciously tagged so; (d) emotions are constrained by historical, cultural, relational and situational norms; (e) choices you make regarding emotion management are reflected outward in your verbal and nonverbal displays, in the form of word choices, exclamations or expletives, facial expressions, body posture, and gestures.

DISCUSSION STARTER 1: Recall an event in a close relationship that caused you to feel an intense emotion. Consider the physical and mental sensations you experienced. If you had to put your emotional experience into words, how would you describe it?

II. Communicating Emotions

A. We communicate emotions by (a) expressing them verbally and nonverbally, (b) sharing our emotions with others; (c) engaging in emotional contagion.

DISCUSSION STARTER 2: With whom do you share your emotional experiences? Does such sharing always have a positive impact on your relationships, or does it cause problems at times? What ethical boundaries govern emotion sharing?

B. Distinguishing Between Emotions, Feelings and Moods: Barbara Cunningham: (a) feelings are short-term emotional reaction to events that generated limited arousal; (b) moods are low-intensity states that are not caused by particular events and typically last longer than feelings or emotions.

C. Moods: (a) influence our perception and interpersonal communication; (b) influence how we talk to people; (c) need to be dealt with, but are mostly dealt with unproductively (drinking, smoking, overeating); (d) other ways include relaxation, stress management, mental focusing and exercise.

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30