Emotions affect what we perceive, and they also help our brain determine what is most useful to pay attention to. Emotions draw our attention to certain things and away from others. Emotions can keep our attention focused or distract us from information that’s available to us. Emotions also affect how we interpret what we perceive […]
How emotions affect perception and attention in conflict Read More »
While I was preparing our Working with Emotions in Conflict online course, I came across a great exercise and I’m going to challenge you all to participate! It’s from Lisa Feldman Barrett‘s book How Emotions are Made (an essential book in this field). As you may know, the bigger vocabulary we have to describe our emotions,
Invent your own emotion Read More »
When we are in conflict, we often feel stuck, perhaps between a rock and a hard place! It’s important to remember, though, that we always have many choices about whether and how we respond in a conflict situation. Our first two obvious choices are: (1) do something, or (2) do nothing. Assuming that we would
When we are in conflict, we tend to only see what we want to see and hear what we want to hear. We filter out information that is inconsistent with our interpretation of events and we can ignore information that is glaringly obvious to other people around us. When we are emotional, this problem is
Are your emotions messing with your memory? Read More »
Managing conflict well is not about suppressing emotions; rather it is about providing a constructive way to communicate about and through them. What does this mean in practice? Firstly, we need to accept that emotions are an integral part of conflict. They are always there, whether or not they are expressed, and whether or not
Managing emotions in conflict Read More »
