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Mikayla Gao

Kelly Smith

Interpersonal Communication

23 October 2017

Inside Out

Emotional response is something that is studied all across the communication world. It is extremely

important to determine why we react emotionally and how to better formulate our response to

communicate effectively. Through a personal experience, I will break down how joy was evoked in a

specific interaction and how I walked through the 4 categories of what Adler, Rosenfeld and Proctor II

say we compile to make emotion responses.

Last Saturday, October 21st, my church put on an event called Operation Winterize. This is our

largest event of the year to reach out and help those in our community. People of low income, and often

single parenting families, are nominated to bring their car to our building where it is taken to a car shop.

There the brake pads, windshield wipers, tires and other problems with their vehicles are fixed in order

to make the car safer for winter weather. While those families are waiting to receive their updated car,

we have a cafe, spa, salon, daycare, gym, raffle and wellness classes available all free of charge to them.

I am a licensed cosmetologist so I volunteered to work in the salon all day providing haircuts. This is

such a wonderful time where we get to see first hand the kind of joy it brings to bless others. More

specifically, I got the chance to help a mentally disabled family by giving them much needed haircuts.

There was a grandma, mom, dad and 3 boys, all of which suffered with a mental disability except for the

mother. My interaction with Michael, a 20-year-old, stuck with me the most. He had been yelling over
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the balcony for a while when they finally coaxed him to sit in my chair. Initially, I felt as though he did

not want me to cut his hair or that he was angry with his mom for telling him to interact with me because

of his reluctance and skittishness. It made sense, since I had never met him before, but once I peeled

back a few of his layers he began sharing a lot with me. He told me how excited he was to get to stay in

high school until he was 21 and how his younger brother, Ryan, told him he would get his hair cut much

faster than Michael. He kept telling me how he did not want to race. My whole body relaxed a little. I

felt more at ease knowing he wasn't begrudging me for doing what his mom had asked and actually

seemed to like talking to me. We continued conversation as I buzzed his head, with each hair that flew, I

felt more and more guilty for going into this interaction with a negative expectation. By the time we

were done, Michael was covered in his own hair and he had done most of the talking. After asking

permission, I took the blow dryer and began dusting the hair off of his face. Laughter spewed out of

Michael in the most genuine, childlike glee. I couldn’t help but laugh along with him! This joy quickly

spread to all of the stylist and clients surrounding us. Sometimes the simplist of things can cause the

most abundant delight.

All emotions can be contagious, but in my opinion, joy is the most captivating. When

we talk about being “emotional” it is typically with a negative context. I believe we should capitalize on

our joy in this life. To me, joy is abundant and provided by the Lord. Because He will never leave or

forsake us, we experience joy through our interactions with Him as well as our interactions with others.

Joy is the emotion that gives us hope and encourages our faith. It’s accompanied by smiles and laughter

and the pleasure that comes with experiencing what God’s original design was - no pain, no sorrow,

only joy. Adler says that joy or happiness “makes us feel “warm all over.”” (237). He also gave

examples by stating that some physical symptoms of joy are “a racing heart, perspiration, tense muscles,
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and elevated blood pressure.” (Adler, 239). In the next paragraph I will expound on the physiological

changes that happen when we experience joy.

“When a person experiences strong emotions, many bodily changes occur” (Adler, 237) defines a

physiological change. They are the reactions our body has that cannot be controlled, such as fluctuations

in blood pressure, heart rate, etc. In my experience with joy, I had a slight rise in body temperature,

which would create that “warm and fuzzy” feeling. The emotion I felt caused my body’s natural state to

slightly alter, creating a physiological change. Although I knew I was experiencing joy at the time, I did

not consciously make the decision to raise my temperature. Because this change is such an internal

response, there was no external sign that this was happening to Michael or anyone around me.

Physiological changes are not only involuntary but also cannot be detected by the naked eye.

On the other hand, nonverbal reactions are often “noticed and interpreted by others” (238).

Nonverbals can be either voluntary, such as behaviors, or involuntary, such as blushing (Adler, 238).

Since we as humans are constantly communicating in one form or another, nonverbal reactions are the

messages we send about our feelings without using words. Because Michael was disabled, his speech

was hindered. This caused us to experience a lot of nonverbal communication. Laughter, tone of voice,

smiles, a change in posture and eye contact are all nonverbal reactions we exchanged. Sometimes

nonverbals can cause emotions! For example, when Michael started laughing, he communicated joy to

me which caused me to feel joy and laugh, communicating joy back with him and with those around us,

causing people (who were not originally intended to be the receiver of this message) to feel joy and

laugh along with us!

This was such an uplifting experience that I am very thankful to have been a part of. I wish that I had

started this interaction out with expectations of joy, maybe it would have made an even more joyful
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experience. Unfortunately, in the beginning of my story I gave way to my cognitive interpretation of

Michael’s behavior. In Adler’s words, I succumbed to when our “mind plays an important role in

determining how we feel.” (238) I assumed that he did not like me. One key part about communication,

and miscommunication for that matter, is the interpretation. Cognitive interpretation deals with the

decoding of messages within oneself in effort to determine our emotional state. Due to the similarities

between the physical changes and nonverbal responses of different emotions, without cognitive

interpretation, it would be hard to determine if our emotion is joy, fear, excitement, etc (Adler, 239).

When Michael changed from being apprehensive around me to comfortable with me, I felt my posture

change. I began to interpret my own nonverbal as happiness and told myself I was likable. Because I

assumed I was likable and having a positive experience with Michael, I felt joy from our interaction.

Our minds are powerful tools that can dictate our attitudes, perspectives and even emotions.

With physical changes, nonverbals and cognitive interpretations, we have so much going on in our

heads! It can be hard for us to clearly, effectively communicate how we feel. We sometimes lack some

verbal expression. Verbal expression is “putting emotions into words” (Adler, 240). Although the joy in

my interaction helped me feel able to participate in normal conversation and was the most apparent

during the powerful nonverbal laughter, I wish I had told Michael how much it meant to me that he

enjoyed his time with me. Often we neglect to outwardly express to others how they’ve made us feel,

especially when it’s had a positive impact. Our words can also have an impact on how others feel.

Maybe I could have even deepened the joy Michael felt by simply telling him how I felt.

Because of joy’s deepening of my relationship with Michael, it was a facilitative emotion or it

“contributed to effective functioning” (Adler 253). The intense laughter felt so good because it was the

result of effective communication. Joy shaped my responses in all four avenues of physical, nonverbal,
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cognitive and verbal communication and all of these interactions changed from neutral or even negative

to positive. It’s a shame we can’t always have facilitative emotions. However, we still have appearances

of love and joy. I would say that this process is a circle- being joyful will help create flourishing

relationships that will then help fill you with love. By choosing to attempt the use of facilitative

emotions, we choose more efficient health all the way around not only emotional but mental, physical

and relational as well, let’s make the most of that.

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Works Cited

Adler, Ronald B., et al. ​Interplay: the process of interpersonal communication​. Don Mills,

Ontario, Canada, Oxford University Press, 2016