By David Hegg
Have you ever written what you thought was a relatively innocuous email or text only to find out much later that the recipient found it offensive and hurtful? Or have you ever received an email or text that came off rather strident, even mean-spirited, and left you wondering how in the world you managed to tick off the author?
As we all eventually learn, there is much more to interpersonal communication than passing along words. Those who succeed in personal and professional relationships understand the place of non-verbal cues, which provide the emotional guardrails for the words they speak and those they hear from others. By guardrails, I mean those commonly understood emotional boundaries or situational contexts that shape and add necessary nuance to the words. In face-to-face conversation, we may not even realize how eye contact, smiles, body language, pauses, pace and other non-verbals allow the sender and receiver to understand what is meant by what is being said.
But, it turns out there are even more cues included in these conversations than we know.
Daniel Goleman is the man who first brought the idea of “emotional intelligence” to the world. This has quickly become an area of study for those interested in the relational aspects of family and business life because it seeks to understand and enhance how and why we relate to one another the way we do. Much of the research has centered on brain function, and Goleman and others have made remarkable discoveries that now allow us to chart which parts of the brain give us certain emotions and cause us to react and respond the way we do.
In his book, “The Brain and Emotional Intelligence: New Insights,” Goleman describes the fascinating discovery of “mirror neurons.” These brain particles respond not to what we think or feel but to what we see others doing or feeling. He describes several academic research projects that tested these neurons, and the results were quite astounding. We now know the “why” behind a phenomenon we all already recognized.
You know how, when one person in the group yawns, several others will yawn as well? Here’s why: The yawner gives off visible signs (the yawn, the sigh, the shaking of the head, etc.) that stimulate the mirror neurons in others, producing the same action. While this might be a no-brainer to us, the research goes further to help us understand why emails (and other non-personal communication) are sometimes poorly communicated and misunderstood.
Research has shown that we all give off hundreds of facial and other non-verbal cues. The television show “Lie To Me” popularized this area of study (most of it is based on the work of Dr. Paul Ekman), but that makes it no less accurate.
It turns out that some of these cues are aimed at our mirror neurons. For example, if the person talking is happy, excited, or quite serious, our mirror neurons can pick up on it and begin to give us the same feelings.
However, when the communication is via email, these cues play no part in the exchange. In fact, research has shown that the absence of all non-verbal cues, especially those aimed at mirror neurons, causes the receiver to take on a position of negative bias from the start. This means that unless an email starts quickly with something positive, we will usually approach it from a negative stance, especially if the sender is not well-known or is someone we’ve not come to understand and appreciate.
That said, be careful with your texts and emails. They can sting and hurt unnecessarily. Emails and texts are great ways to send thoughtful notes and pass along unemotional information. But as a means of honest communication, they suffer from an absence of nonverbal cues we all use, even unconsciously, to ensure what we mean is getting through in our words.
When it truly matters, pick up the phone, or better yet, knock on the door and share a cup of coffee.
Local resident David Hegg is senior pastor of Grace Baptist Church. “Ethically Speaking” appears Sundays.
