0.5 How do emotion, attention, thought, and arousal work together  (Page 5/17)

Lindgren also showed how some things are unconscious, people may come up with reasons for their behavior, but the real reason could be something that is unconscious and beneath their awareness. The feeling-tone that people convey is similarly beneath awareness most of the time. People could be acting one way, but be communicating something completely different unconsciously.

Here is another example he gives and a conclusion:

• The communication of feeling-tone is essential, too, in courtship. T w o people may meet accidentally and discuss the weatheror the latest television program in a casual fashion. Yet whfle this desultory con\'ersation proceeds, there is an exchange of feelingtone,and each may begin to feel the effects of mutual attraction and warm feelings. This experience leads to other meetings, untflthe participants are sufficienth' a-ware of their feelings to make them a subject for communication on the conscious level.
• In the situations w e ha\'e described above, the words spoken at the conscious level do not necessarily give clues to the communicationtaking place at the feeling le\el. And, as we have indicated, the latter type of communicadon realh' plays the more importantpart in attitude formation, motivation, and the course of action people actually will take.

Here is another conclusion he makes, which shows that you cannot hide or act differently, your feelings are there and going to determine what occurs:

• The abihty to put oneself in another's place and sense his attitudes and feelings is an unconscious process termed " empathy."It is highly necessary- if one is to understand others and communicate with them effectively. If w e are not empathic, w e are indanger of being chronically disappointed in others. Thus we must be aware of h o w others feel, and of the fact that their feelings arefrequently at odds with what the}' say. At the same time, w e must be aware of our own feelings, which have an effect on others.There is, in short, an exchange of feeling-tone.

Emotions lie at the heart of social interactions. Subtle changes in emotion occur all of time, and these changes are going to influence what you think and do, and also the larger, more potent emotions that you feel. Empathy is just one important aspect of how emotion works in a social interaction, without it there would be a disconnection, and much of the subtlety involved might not occur. For instance the "subtle little mannerisms, quirks, facial expressions, tones of voice, and so on" might not occur at all.

Cognitive performance

Someones beliefs and views of the world are obviously going to influence how they socially interact - along with their personal history. Their personal history is going to matter because it is who the person is - people use knowledge of past events and especially experience from them to guide behavior in social interactions. Knowledge may be activated whenever the proper conditions for retrieval are met - that basically means when the time is right, your knowledge is going to be used accordingly.