Verbal Messages
Extentionalize
Intensional orientation: tendancy to view people, objects, and events in terms of how they are talked about or labeled
Acting as if the words or labels are more important then the things they represent
Recognize Complexity
Allness: particularly relevant when you are dealing with people
Thinking you may know all there is to know about someone but then they show you another side of them
For example, people I went to high school with are very fake and act like they like you, but then turn around and speak ill of you to others
Facts and inferences
Fact-inference confusion
Language enables you to form statements of facts and inferences without making any linguistic distinction between the two
Discriminate among individuals
Indiscrimination: focus on classes of individuals,, objects, or events and fail to see that each is unique
Index: spoken or mental subscript that identifies each individual in a group as an individual
Talk about the middle
Polarization: the fallacy of "either/or" is the tendency to look at the world and to describe it in terms of extremes
Examples: good and bad, healthy and. sick, brilliant and stupid, rich and poor
Update messages
Static evaluation: retain an evaluation of a person, despite the inevitable changes in the person
Your evaluations of yourself and others needs to keep pace with the rate at which you mature and grow