Deep and Surface Acting

From this chapter I found two things I find interesting. Deep acting and surface acting are part of feeling rules which tell us what we have a right to feel or what we are expected to feel in particular situations. Feeling rules can reflect anything such as values of cultures and social groups. Deep acting has to do with controlling or managing ones inner feelings. This involves learning what one should and should not feel. For example, as a child I was taught that I should feel grateful when given a gift even if I did not like the gift. Deep acting requires changing how we perceive and label events and occurrences.  Surface acting is the monitoring of outward expression of inner feelings. It has to do with controlling emotions rather than feelings. For instance, as a child we learn to say thank you when receiving a gift. Expressing gratitude is emphasized more than feelings grateful in this case. 

Fear of Catastrophic Failure

In this chapter there were six different types of fallacies discussed in the text. The fallacies included perfectionism, obsession with should, overgeneralization, taking responsibility for others, helplessness, and fear of catastrophic failure. The one I would have to say I am most guilty of in intrapersonal communication is fear of catastrophic failure. Fear of catastrophic failure involves extreme negative fantasies and scenarios of what could happen. Typically it can affect my ability to do things because of what might happen when I think about it. I’m not saying this happens all the time but it does happen occasionally. After reading about the topic i found there are numerous ways to monitor and revise my intrapersonal communication. Self-talk can be used to question and challenge the irrational thinking that undermines us. Self-talk can be defined as intrapersonal communication that affects our feelings and behaviors. The rational-emotive approach to feelings can also help with the fear of catastrophic failure I deal with. Using rational thinking and self-talk are involved with this approach to change debilitating emotions.

Perspectives on Emotion

After reading the chapter I had to think awhile longer to decide which perspective on emotions made the most sense to me. The four views of emotions are organismic, perceptual, cognitive labeling, and interactive. After reviewing i decided that the organismic and interactive views on emotion were most sensible to me. While the perceptual and cognitive views came to be a little confusing to me. The definitions of organismic and interactive were more straight forward to me and to the point. The organismic view of emotions can be defined as the theory that an external phenomenon causes physiological changes that lead us to experience emotions. The interactive view of emotions states that the social rules and understandings shape what people feel and how they express and withhold feelings. I guess these make the most sense to me because that is how I view emotion.  These two views give me more insight to emotion than the others because the chronological order with perceptual and cognitive labeling is just confusing to me. I don’t know it just throws me off.