I have
found it difficult to confirm others when I disagree with them. However, reading this chapter helps me
understand between confirming people and/or their ideas. There are three different ways you can
confirm either people and/or their ideas.
Recognition is, “recognizing that another person exists.” This means that if you disagree with someone
you may ignore them and not acknowledge their presence by not looking at
them. Acknowledgment is the way one
acknowledges what others feel, think or say.
By confirming others through acknowledgment we can give a head nod or
use paraphrasing to communicate that we are listening to what the other person
is saying. If you disagree with someone
you may use acknowledgement by completely ignoring what the other person is
saying and start talking about something completely different. Endorsement is the way in
which we accept another person’s feelings and thoughts. If you disagree with someone you may reject
the feelings they are expressing and deny their emotions.
I think by understanding these levels of confirmation I can distinguish
between confirming people and confirming their ideas. If I do find myself in a disagreement I need
to confirm them rather than disconfirm them by acknowledging they are there, recognizing
their feelings and accepting their thoughts.
Hi Bee,
ReplyDeleteIsn’t it amazing how insightful this book is to our lives?! I do not think I have ever been in a class where I have found a textbook so useful. I see your point on how it can be hard to confirm another when you are in disagreement with them. Even with the knowledge from this chapter, I think it may be challenging to put all of the tricks, such as confirming people to make them feel like you are not personally attacking them, but not in flow with their idea. I think when people feel unconfirmed, they start to take things personally and it can be very damaging to your relationship with that person. I hope that in future, we both are able to utilize these newly learned concepts to better our communication with others.
Thanks for sharing!
Sea Star
Hi Bee!
ReplyDeleteI really liked this post! I definitely agree that it is extremely difficult to confirm others when you disagree with them. I think the book does a great job by distinguishing all of the different types of confirmation and disconfirmation. I like your idea of confirming others even if you don’t agree with them rather than disconfirming them. I find that when I don’t agree with others I have a hard time endorsing them and get very defensive. It makes complete sense that if you acknowledge one’s thoughts the discussion will end in a resolution instead of an argument.