Emotions Pt. 2 -- Trigger Happy

I've also learned from reading Ekman's book Emotions Revealed that the events of your past can determine how easily various emotions are triggered within a person.

Such a notion may sound like a no-brainer, but the implications can be quite powerful.

Consider this idea: when a person's emotional triggers have become sensitive due to exposure to certain situations or traumas, anything remotely similar to those events can cause very strong emotions.

For instance, a person who was bullied constantly may hold constant restrained anger at those who impose themselves. When an adult, that same person can become just as angry at some being mildly pushy or bossy. This anger often comes across as an overreaction to others. Whereas the person who has become emotional feels justified.

Here's perhaps the most important information found in Ekman's book.

An abused person will have very sensitive emotions for anything that brings back memories related to abuse. So, if the abused still harbors fear, anger, or guilt, those emotions will surface very quickly and strongly.

Learning this, I have found it easier to diffuse tense situations with people that I see from day to day. Now, I don't look at my wife as a hysterical, overreacting female pumping too much estrogen. Now, I see that she simply has a very sensitive trigger over certain issues because of events from her past. She is overreacting. But not because she's unreasonable or has too much estrogen. She's overreacting because she was injured by some similar event.

Same thing happens with me. I have my sensitive triggers, too. Perhaps not as many since I've had a happier childhood than my wife.

Be that as it may . . . now it's time that we take this knowledge and use it for our advantage.

Learn where your sensitive triggers are. Count to ten or 20 before you speak if you've noticed that you're getting emotional. Especially if the emotion is anger. Anger can be justified and is many times quite necessary. But unchecked anger can cause another sour feeling-- regret.

Learn your loved ones' sensitive triggers-- but, not to exploit them. Rather, learn this so that you'll know when to back down and give them a minute to vent. You'll know that it's a moment when you shouldn't take their emotions too personal if you know a sensitive trigger has been set off. Still take them seriously, but don't take things so personal. An emotion usually fades from a few seconds to a few minutes in most cases, unless you or someone else adds fuel to the flame.

Learning the expressions on people's faces is very helpful, but again, isn't the ultimate goal of the book. This book will not turn you into some covert FBI agent so that you can tell when people are lying by the way they dart their eyes.

But it can help you better understand what people are going through. And this understanding can help you know when to console, encourage, or get ready to move out the fucking way!

Emotions

I'm reading a book called Emotions Revealed by Paul Ekman. I'm finding it to be a very interesting book. His research focuses on how facial expressions are tied to our emotions and that these expressions are universal for (but not necessarily limited to) the emotions of amusement, surprise, sadness, fear, anger, and contempt.

But, he also delves into how we can better understand emotions as they rise up in us. He also gives tips in how to deal with the emotions of others as we better learn how to read them on other people's faces.

Emotions are bound very much to our motivations and needs, or to those objects perceived as obstacles standing between us and our needs and desires.

Anger is an emotion that signals something is standing between us and our goals-- and we want to move it out of the way before it thwarts us. Sometimes with violence, if we're bothered enough.

Sadness is an emotion that tells others we need help. We've lost something or someone dear to us. We may feel helpless or our anger has turned into some sort of resignation. We may be going though or have recently experienced trauma of some sort emotionally. Perhaps the trauma was a long time ago, but remains unresolved.

Contempt is most interesting to me. I used to simply think of contempt as hate. But that's not quite right, according to Ekman's research. Contempt is a feeling of superiority as one looks down on another. Contempt is someone taking pleasure in knowing that he or she is better than someone else, and therefore, it's reasonable to mistreat the object of contempt. It has been reported that terrorists often have this look of contempt before they carry out their plans. Surveillance videos and interrogation reports under the lens of Ekman's research has brought this phenomena to light.

I worry about this emotion. I will be sure to look for it more often upon other people's faces.

And, I will try to pay more attention to see if I ever feel the muscles in my face form a look of contempt. Once you learn how to better identify facial expressions, you can identify them a bit better on yourself as well.

Caveat Emptor

I had the good fortune of reading the book Influence: Science and Practice a few years back.

That has helped me to look back and see when I have been taken advantage of in my life. I can also better tell when someone is trying to bullshit me into buying something I may not need or want.

The goal of most sales people is to take away all your excuses for turning down their product. They want to convince you that your purchase is a "no-brainer".

That's exactly the problem; they don't want your brain involved in the process.

A pair of salesmen came along to my house peddling home security systems. They rolled out about every sales tactic found in the Influence book that I read.

First, they insinuated that the alarm system was "free".

Yeah. Uh-huh.

This was a setup for the "low-ball" technique.

They also said that this was a promotion only being done for about maybe three houses in the area.

That was the tactic of scarcity. Make something seem precious, and people will want it. I would be foolish to turn down a rare opportunity.

They got me to admit that I would want a security system. They got me to verbally acknowledge that having a system would increase the value of my home and make my wife and children feel so much safer. If I say "yes" to this, then I would be foolish to say "no" to the system if it were "free". They even had zeros in all the blanks on the contract showing that I wouldn't owe anything at all if I signed up. They even said that I could try it for a week, and have the service turned off if I don't stay with the plan. The equipment would even be mine to keep!

Then they shove the contract at me and try to get me to sign it while they "see" if the company has enough money in their advertising budget to follow though with this exclusive "promotional" offer that I've been given.

Had I not known about these kinds of sales tactics, I probably would have signed without even reading the contract!

And I would have found myself royally pissed about week later when I realized that I didn't get what I had expected. Worse-- I would have been locked into a three year contract paying for something that I thought was totally free.

Since I could recognize that they were being aggressive, (though they were such polite and nice fellows on the surface) I went into critical thinking mode and starting asking a ton of annoying questions. I slowed things down a bit because they were trying to ram this sell down my throat despite how gentle they came across in conversation.

After all, maybe they do have a good product. I like what I see. Even when you get a decent deal, you've got to wade through a lot of the sales fluff you get during a purchase.

But, I'm not buying if I don't know exactly what I'm getting into.

Up front.

• I finally find out that you DO have to pay $50.00 a month for the monitoring of your home.
• You DO get locked into a contract of three years.
• You do get a grace period to try the product. But it's NOT a week. It's only three days.
• The techs will come out and fix any problems for free-- but only for the first 120 days.

I wouldn't have known any of these things, if I hadn't read the contract right there in front of them and challenge them on all the contradictions between their speech and their contract. The contract itself even says, "Do not sign this form if you don't understand the terms of this agreement and have not read this contract in it's entirety".

See why you should read the contract?

Now, here are some pros in the product's favor:

• The company head quarters did receive awards for their customer service recently.
• Their product seems to have quality, seems solid and appears to be quite advanced.
• They are very affordable. My wife really, really wanted an alarm system a few years ago, but we didn't get it; Too expensive. I would have to pay lots of money up front for the equipment, get a phone line, and then pay their monitoring fee. Here, I only had a monitoring fee. That's a huge savings compared to the offer I received a year ago.

I still didn't like the sales tactics they used, but I was impressed with the product and even the price (which they try to hide for as long as they can). Since I knew I had three days to cancel, I gave it a try.

I did my homework some more during the grace period. I tested out the system. I read up on the company.

I discovered that most people like their service when they know what they've gotten into. But most people hate the company when they unwittingly signed a binding contract without understanding the terms of agreement.

There seems to be a dichotomy between their product and their sales force. The product seems worth having if you want a security system. Their customer service is even award winning. But, the sales team will eat you alive if you don't stay on your toes. So buyer, beware!

I can deal with $50.00 a month for three years if I know that's what I'm signing up for. I CANNOT, however, deal with $50.00 a month if someone surprises me with that news a month later!

After doing my research, I have decided to keep the system.

I called back to see what I would have to expect if I wanted any enhancements or upgrades. They started trying to sale me more stuff after giving me the prices for all the upgrades I asked about.

I told them I'd like to sleep on it. They tried the "scarcity" thing again. If you hang up . . . you might not get this deal from my manager later.

"OK, well, that's too bad for me then. I'll call you back if I'm interested. Thanks."

I did the math. I know what I want in the future if I upgrade. And I know that I don't want their exclusive deal that supposedly discounts the upgrades I want.

By now, you might be saying to yourself, "Uruk, you said that you recognized all of these sales tactics, yet you still bought the product. Weren't you still fooled by them anyway?"

Possibly. But, the way I see it . . . I didn't treat this situation like a "no-brainer". That's what the sales guys wanted. Rather, I walked into this knowing what I'm getting. So the difference is that I purchased this knowing the terms and agreeing with them, rather than having terms I don't like or didn't realize imposed upon me later.

In short: I bought the system of my own free will because I evaluated the product. I did not buy the system simply as a reflex to psychological cues. I don't think I'll be waking up in the morning wondering, "how the hell did I get trapped" three days later. I walked into the deal with my eyes wide open.

At least, I think.

Caveat emptor.