Assignment 2

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