The complaint letter was
inspired from a romantic story of our team members, who usually had conflicts
(not just a sweet oral fight) with his/her intimate friend (maybe the
girlfriend or boyfriend we don't know for its privacy). Conflicts were documented in the complaint letter,
since it’s not a very formal
communication, and we set the background relatively informal. But we will
express in a very objective and formal way following your instructions.
However, feelings of the complainer to his/her friend will also be attached. We
are Love Triangle Team, trying to narrow down the gap between the closed
girlfriend/boyfriend with communication tool and knowledge taught in the class.
In this particular letter, we set the angle from the female and complained trifling
domestic things.
Dear Mr. CHANG:
Last time I
corresponded with you was three years before, it has been a long time. Only two
or three hours I can see you in our flat and you always come back home in
mid-night, drunk twice a week. Very few messages I sent will be replied and
every time I received only two or three single words when I called you in recent
four days. Let alone the sexual life. Therefore I
had to react to your behavior and attitudes in an attempt to discover the
reasons behind and to repair or end our relationship. We became friends
five years before and lived together after we had the first sexual activity.
Sweet life went quickly since you started your new career in the Big 4, 2014.
Everything changed from that time. You drunk a lot yesterday night and did not
tell me when you would back. I was waiting for you even though I was tired. However,
you went home without saying any words to me going to bed directly. In the
morning, I have prepared breakfast for you but you ignored in a hurry.
I have to write the
letter to let you know my dissatisfaction on your recent behaviors and
attitudes towards our relationship. I have tried to arrange a formal
face-to-face talk with you but disappointedly you refused to do so with an
excuse that you were busy. To be honest, I cannot stand your changeable temper.
Did you remember almost every time you came home drunk at mid-night, you lost
your temper if I did not wait until you back or get bath water heater ready in
advance. I am not your slave or domestic helper, and it is not my
responsibility to take care of you. But I held on because when you opened your
eyes next day, you felt sorry about last night and promised you won’t let it
happen again. What was worse, you did not help to do the housework. AGAIN, I am
not your servant or domestic helper. You throw your shirts, socks, shoes,
slippers, even underwear everywhere in the room. I was frustrated doing the
housework and you never showed appreciation. It seems that you think it’s my job, a matter of course. I think it is ok that I do the
housework when you said you were tired in the company, and you need break on the
weekends, but you have never been relaxed, and you were playing games!
After numerous quarrels,
I think we should not be addicted to this situation. So far I had a feeling about you, however if you take no responds
or ignore all of my complaints, frankly it will be better to end our
relationship as soon as possible. We
cannot understand each other under this phenomenon, which can result broke-up
but not marriage. Therefore, I hope that you can spare your time to me and have
an opportunity to tell each other the inner thoughts. If you really love
me, show me your sincerity and be a man. I hate crying at night.
Yours
Kathrine
housework
What does girlfriend think?
Firstly, I think
communication is essential in a relationship, and feedback is important in the communication.
Trust and reliability are built in this process, but he does not think so. He
was always busy and did his own things, additionally, I think I am just a clown
when we are chatting. At the beginning, although he was busy, he always cared
for me about the daily life and if he had no time to do housework, he would ask
me whether I can help him. However, daily greeting and responses has gone away
with enthusiasm. I am so sad.
What does boyfriend think?
In the beginning of this
relationship, she was so sweet to respect my work and would like to take care
other things. Nevertheless, her temper was changeable recently. She might sent
many messages to me every day, and if I did not reply on time, she would call
me immediately and asked me what I was doing. Sometimes, I was just busy
working and had no time to do housework. When she did the housework, she would
chatter all the time, which drove me crazy. I am so sad.
Analysis- The Ladder of Inference
Her Diary:
He was extremely strange last night. We have planned to have dinner in a
restaurant. Because I went to shopping with my best friend before that, I was
late for this date. He might be unhappy about this, so he neglected me all the
way, which made me more than embarrassed. Afterwards, I was compromised and
said that we should make a concession to communicate with each other. Although
he agreed, he still kept silence with disengaged and slouching state. “Could
you tell me what happened?” “Nothing” “Are you angry with me about the late?” “No,
it is not own your business and leave me alone.” On the way home, I said I love
him but he never responded. I was totally confused and cannot understand the
reason why he did not say “I love you too” anymore.
When we go home, I felt I would lose his favor because he did not want
to have relationship with me anymore, and refused to talk with me. He sat in
the sofa without any words, and just stared television. He was stupefied and
disengaged, so I have to go to the bed. After ten minutes, he went to the bed
with thinking something. He did not have any thoughts on me, which was very
hurtful. I decided to have a formal conversation with him, but to my surprise,
he got to sleep! I have no choice but crying dumbly and was falling asleep with
tears. Now, I am pretty sure that he
must have another woman and want to break up with me, which is a blow for me.
Oh my god, I do not know what the meaning of life is.
His Diary:
Holy shit, Argentina did lose unexpectedly.
All mentioned above is
exactly what we may encounter in our daily life. Some things there is no right or wrong,
however they just lead to the contradiction in interpersonal communication. We start a
psychological process of a phenomenon, this called Mental Model.
Firstly, we saw the
reality and facts from the behaviors of others and this rely on our sense
organs, like the scenario we mentioned above that when you get along with your
boyfriend.
Secondly, we extracted
information from reality or facts. And these rely on our attention, lead us to
select some messages from many distracting information for further processing.
We noticed that your boyfriend did not respond you in above scenario.
Thirdly, we interpreted
these messages with our means. Like the above scenario, we noticed that
boyfriend did not respond, so we think that he did not love you any more, these
all depend on our imagination or top-down processing.
Fourthly, according to
our interpretation, we made some assumption such as he ignored me just because he
love another girl.
Fifthly, we drew a conclusion,
he fell in love with someone else.
Sixthly, we formed some
beliefs about some things, I don't need to be enthusiastic to people who does
not love me.
Finally, we take actions
based on our beliefs and cry.
This process rose step by
step, we call this is the Ladder of Inference.
What we saw and thought
at the beginning is totally different from what we saw and thought in the end
on the top of ladder, as like as an apple to an oyster. And in this process, we
may make a mistake in any stage because we did not notice other useful
information then finally lead to misunderstand and conflict with someone. On
the other hand, direct ideation always easier than reverse way of thinking, so
it make us feel more difficult to find and identify the ladder in the process.
Avoiding the Ladder of Inference
Actually you don’t need
to spend a lot of energy and time to figure out the faces and thoughts of
others. Don't let these meaningless faces or acts or expressions from others to
affect your mood and feeling. You may climb up the ladder of inference
unconsciously if you care too much about others’ behaviors and never be too
fast to jump into conclusion, this not only influence your mood, but also leads
to unnecessary conflicts in your relationship.
How to improve
Introspection
Introspection is the core
methods of improving the mental model. Through self-examination, we are able to
find prejudices, assumptions, logic and rules which are hidden deep in our
inner world. Make these images emerge, confront them and improve them. In
addition, self-reflection also allows us to open our mind to accept different
opinions.
Learning
By acquiring new
information, we can broaden our horizons, broadens "observation and
thinking framework". Try to learn more new ways of thinking through the
logics to master more rules, then you can update your "thinking path"
by drawing on new ideas. You will form a new habit soon and revise your
"value-oriented." Besides, you should expand your interpersonal
communication, make friends with different people and try to learn from their
views, especially accept and appreciate of differences. In short, through
learning, people can get timely mental models, make their action more effective
and suitable.
Change to the new environment
The formation of mental
models has the "path dependence" that is due to each person's
upbringing and experiences are different, so mental models may be not the same.
As Nobel laureate Edelman said, though we live in the same world, but because
of different experiences and purposes, our implications for the understanding
of a particular event are different. Also there is a Chinese story, “Mencius’s
mother moved thrice " reveals the external environment influence
profoundly on mental models. In this regard, change to new environment such as
live in a variety of environments, work or travel, experience various natural
and cultural landscape, culture, customs, lifestyle, access to new knowledge
may help to improve your individual mental models.
Reference:
1. Mark D. Cannon and Robert Witherspoon, Actionable feedback: Unlocking the power of learning and performance improvement ACAD MANAGE PERSPECT May 1, 2005 19:2 120-134;
2. J. A. Irving and D. I. Williams, Critical thinking and reflective practice in counsellin, pp107-114
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General background: Several backgrounds were discussed before we decided
the final one, such as start-up collaboration issues, family education and
harmony issues, campus development issues, and also the study issues. We found
even we had many emotions to express in each issue, not each one was suitable
for all of us. We needed to discuss and select the most practical and
applicable topic. Therefore we came back to the education fields that we were
acquainted with and narrowed down to the daily study issues.
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Personality difference seems to be independent with time conflicts and
virtual communication conflicts. However, Time and virtual communication
conflicts are practice differences, which combined individual difference with
context.
