communication
Emotionally intelligent? Then you can definitely do something with the penguin effect
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Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have investigated why and how often we talk past one another in everyday conversations. It turned out that a frequent cause of misunderstandings is the so-called penguin effect.
Human communication is a small miracle that we take for granted in everyday life and rarely appreciate. Just looking at the language systems that, among other things, brought about our need for communication and that testify to a creativity and intelligence that is unique on earth, could never cease to amaze us. How we also bring elements like empathy, facial expressions and mental flexibility into our interpersonal exchange makes things even more interesting and admirable.
Emotionally intelligent people are often also communication experts
Admittedly, sometimes our communication gets bumpy and some people find it easier to get by on a day-to-day basis than to master it. With something so complex and demanding, that’s no shame. At the same time, however, there are many people who have special communication skills, whether through practice or talent or a mixture of both or something else. They often show a high level of emotional intelligence in general, i.e. an extraordinarily good understanding of what moves them and those around them, i.e. above all for feelings. Emotionally intelligent people are usually very good listeners, often notice misunderstandings before they escalate, and consider that the other person has a fundamentally different perspective than they do. For example, emotionally intelligent people often respond to the penguin effect – even if they may not always be aware of it.
What is the penguin effect?
The Penguin Effect states that even simple, concrete terms are extremely unlikely to evoke roughly the same idea in two people. Even with an apparently very clear concept, which we call the word “penguin”, it is just twelve percent, as researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have now discovered. Some people think of little penguins, some think of big ones, some see a yellow blot on the bird’s head, and some have fluffy, gray penguin chicks in their minds. Even with such concrete nouns as the word penguin, the scientists recorded between ten and 30 different variants of ideas. This gives a rough idea of how many there will be with abstract terms such as fear or comfort.
Can we understand each other at all?
Even when we walk the world with different experiences and beliefs and communicate with others, most people at least manage to come together and understand each other well enough through communication. It may be an illusion to assume that someone else thinks the same way we do, but it is rarely a meaningful goal for an act of communication. Every interpersonal exchange harbors the potential for misunderstandings, as the penguin effect, among other things, vividly demonstrates. Particularly emotionally intelligent people usually know this or possibly sense it. And they usually draw a wise conclusion from this: that when in doubt, there is no reason to communicate less or even louder and angrier – on the contrary, to do it more, calmly and benevolently.
Sources used: scientificamerican.com, inc.com, direct.mit.edu