In following yesterday post on The Culprits of Miscommunication, we will begin by addressing our linguistic or non-verbal “distortions”. The actual distortion per se is not necessarily in the original message or information that shows up in your speech as much as it is in the translation of your message. Keeping in mind that your brain is constantly, relentlessly trying to establish pattern and predictability in your surroundings, it is no wonder communication distortions occur.
“Mind Reading” is one such distortion and can occur in your communication partner’s translation of your message. For instance, let’s say you are out on a date and things seem to be going swimmingly… Your date seems to be really into you, but as usual your starting to run out of things to say. Searching your mind you remember a story that a friend told you earlier that day about a date gone wrong for them. All though it is a bit racy, you go for it anyway… What the heck, things seem comfortable enough.
Well as you get to the end of your story, your dates demeanor changes suddenly and once the check comes they split… What the heck happened? You only told a story about a friend of yours… More on this is a bit, let’s get to the science of it.
The mammalian population has been gifted with what are known as “mirror neurons” in our brains and their sole responsibility is to mimic or imitate the person/animal that we are engaged with. When I say mimic, this doesn’t necessarily mean actually performing the same action as them, but at a minimum internally/mentally mimicking them… the result is the ability to “feel” internally what they are feeling/experiencing at the time. The benefits to this are evident. If we choose to do so, we can learn and implement skills we see. This also facilitates powerful socializing and networking tools we have such as compassion, empathy and teamwork.
Along with this network of mirror neurons, we have a hormone running through us called oxytocin that, although much more prevalent in women, has shown in experiments to greatly increase our ability to “mind read”. Oxytocin is much more concentrated in women as one it’s main functions surrounds the facilitation of reproduction and birth bonding. We are not referring to ESP here, but oxytocin does aid in our ability to more accurately predict what someone is feeling based on our own sensory acuity. This is our reading of their facial expressions, body language, verbiage, etc…
From a psychological stand point, we can only view and understand messages through our own frame of reference. Our frame of reference is analogous to a mental filter through which we “see” the world. When we receive linguistic and nonverbal communication alike, our brain instantly compares that information to our stored knowledge and experience. In this way and only in this way are we able to “understand” the messages we are receiving. As a result, we have an inherently limited capacity to interpret our surroundings. All three of the above mechanisms combine facilitate our capacity to “mind read” during our interactions. Unfortunately, we are only correct a certain percentage of the time… and if it isn’t 100%, we can run into problems.
OK, back to the date… Now, you were only telling a story that you thought was funny in hopes to prevent the weird awkward silence that both of you have been dreading. You were hoping to simply get a laugh out of her… Let’s look at it from your date’s point of view.
Earlier that week she had been on another date with some creepy guy… right before he tried to grab her and make out with her he told her a story very similar to yours… In fact, his facial expressions kind of looked like yours while you were telling that story… So what does this mean? In short, she “felt” like you were going to try something more than simply telling a story. She performed a mind read... Although it was inaccurate, it inevitably happened and your left holding the check and nothing but a bruised sense of self… Less than ideal?
Worthy of note is that this does NOT happen consciously, these are all messages and interpretations happening at the nonconscious level. Without top-down executive control, this will simply “happen” and people (including you) will react automatically and turn the rest of your communication into history…
How do you fix this? Good question and this is something that I get into specifically in my series “The Evolved Communicator”. Please visit me to learn more.
David J. Parnell | Communication Expert
The Evolved Communication Blog
No comments:
Post a Comment