End-year Special: Implications of using emotions as social information tokens(6)

What message does an MJ goodbye mean or make you do?

Source:Wikimedia Commons.

Some of the implications of the EASI model are:

Emotions can be used to regulate human social life.

Based on the perception of the observer and the interpreted or responded to emotion, people can adaptively respond to the signals of their environment, to fight or flight, and to send signals about their intentions to their immediate environment.

Emotions can be used to coordinate one’s social life.

If you believe a partner is committed to a relationship because he is attentive to your demands, then you’d want to be yourself.

Emotions can ensure human survival.

A society without the mechanism of language would have to rely on non-verbal cues for communication. But that would serve as a disadvantage when danger lurks and such danger is of immediate or spontaneous concern.

Emotions can be used to change the destiny of others.

Followers react to their leaders anger and are happy when he is happy. Nations go to war on the say-so of their President. When a lover feels loved, he wants to love in return.

Emotions are influencing tools.

People respond readily to emotions of trust and want to reply in like. Most persons dislike treachery and are disgusted to hear accounts of such.

Emotions are signals of intentions and desires.

By watching a deaf-and-dumb sign, you can deduce sometimes if they are angry, happy, sad or annoyed. When other methods that serve as vehicles of communication fail, people often resort to emotional cues.

Emotions can be used to shape behavior.

People can decode emotional signals differently. Persons with high information processing abilities react to a leader’s anger while those with low information processing abilities believe the leader is insensitive, dislikes them etc when he expresses the emotion of anger. The accuracy to decode the message transmitted by an emotion and the degree of emotional expressivity can greatly shape other’s behavior.

Emotions are tied to cultures.

Remember display rules? Also, traditions and customs can greatly shape one’s emotions. I can particularly testify to that this year when I went to the village to attend my grandmother’s burial. I even blogged about it.

So, the EASI model can be a good tool in understanding, regulating and coordination our social life using emotions interpretation and responses.

The EASI model is a groundbreaking work by Van Kleef. You can read the full textual explanation here. The six series of blog articles that are focused on this theme are:

How to use emotions to Human Advantage (Introduction).

Series 1: How emotions can function as message bearers.

Series 2: Why emotions can drive a second emotional response.

Series 3: How emotions play a part in decision making.

Series 4: Information processing of emotional signals.

Series 5: The social context in responding and interpreting emotions.

Series 6: Implications of using emotions as social information tokens.

End-of-Year special: How to use emotions to Human Advantage (Introduction)

MJ captivated thousands with his emotional music.

Source:Wikimedia Commons.

If you watch any video of Michael Jackson, you’d be amazed at how he creatively uses his emotions – his voice, face, hands and body movements – to convey messages that are meant to influence you. Emotions are not only meant to influence others in social relations, it also determines our reactions and personal feelings. Take for example a man who sees a snake on his path. He feels the emotion of fear and decides either to run or look for a stick to kill it. Emotions regulate and coordinate humans and their relationship with others. Emotions could trigger a fight or a flight response.

A nation could go to war riding on the wave of emotions.

Understanding how our emotions determine our existence and using them to human advantage both at an intrapersonal and interpersonal level is then important. This end-of-year special series of blog articles will describe a model developed by Van Kleef that was developed towards this end, but on the interpersonal level. The model is named Emotions As Social Information (EASI) model.

The EASI describes human emotions as signals from one’s face, voice, bodily posture, choice of words etc that were expressed to influence the observer and trigger either an emotional response or trigger his brain to make deductions on what message(s) the emotion was meant to convey based on his information processing ability and social context.

The six series of blog articles that are focused on this theme are:

How to use emotions to Human Advantage (Introduction).

Series 1: How emotions can function as message bearers.

Series 2: Why emotions can drive a second emotional response.

Series 3: How emotions play a part in decision making.

Series 4: Information processing of emotional signals.

Series 5: The social context in responding and interpreting emotions.

Series 6: Implications of using emotions as social information tokens.