Documente Academic
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Documente Cultură
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
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
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
“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
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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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.
“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
Works Cited
Adler, Ronald B., et al. Interplay: the process of interpersonal communication. Don Mills,