Page 419 - The Social Animal

Liking, Loving, and Interpersonal Sensitivity 401

Feelings Versus Judgment People are often unaware of how to
provide constructive feedback. We frequently do it in a way that
angers or upsets the recipient, thereby leading to escalation and caus-
ing more problems than we solve. To illustrate my point, I offer an
example of dysfunctional feedback and of how people can learn to
modify their method of providing feedback (without diluting its con-
tent) to maximize communication and understanding. This example
is an actual event that took place in a communication workshop I
conducted for corporation executives.
In the course of the workshop, one of the members (Sam) looked
squarely at another member (Harry) and said, “Harry, I’ve been lis-
tening to you and watching you for a day and a half, and I want to
give you some feedback: I think you’re a phony.” Now, that’s quite an
accusation. How can Harry respond? He has several options: He can
(1) agree with Sam; (2) deny the accusation and say he’s not a phony;
(3) express anger by retaliating—telling Sam what he thinks is wrong
with him; or (4) feel sorry for himself and go into a sulk. None of
these responses is particularly productive. But doesn’t Sam have the
right to express this judgment? After all, he’s only being open. Don’t
we value openness and authenticity?
This sounds like a dilemma: Effective communication requires
openness, but openness can hurt people. The solution to this appar-
ent dilemma is rather simple: It is possible to be open and, at the same
time, to express oneself in a manner that causes a minimum of pain
and maximizes understanding. The key to effective communication
rests on our willingness to express feelings rather than judgments. In
this instance Sam was not expressing a feeling, he was interpreting
Harry’s behavior and judging it. The word feeling has several mean-
ings. In this context I don’t mean “hunch” or “hypothesis.” By feeling
I mean, specifically, anger or joy, sadness or happiness, annoyance,
fear, discomfort, warmth, hurt, envy, excitement, and the like.
In the workshop, my intervention was a basic one: I simply asked
Sam if he had any feelings about Harry. Sam thought for a moment
and then said, “Well, I feel that Harry is a phony.” Needless to say,
this is not a feeling, as defined above. This is an opinion or a judg-
ment expressed in the terminology of feelings. A judgment is noth-
ing more or less than a feeling that is inadequately understood or
inadequately expressed. Accordingly, I probed further by asking Sam
what his feelings were. Sam still insisted that he felt Harry was a