Cause & Effect For Effective Communication

Distortions showing up in our communication come in several different forms and can absolutely plaque our ability to effectively communicate. Once such distortion that rears it’s ugly head often enough is in falsely attributed cause and effect statements. The false attribution is based on erroneously formulated beliefs at the subconscious level and as such often go unchecked. Effective communication skills are necessary in order to neutralize the damaging effects these may have. Allow me to give you a quick example to illustrate my point:

Let's say that your at the office when all of a sudden your boss comes running in screaming that the project deadline has been moved up!  You need to run over to this meeting right away in order to rearrange the schedules and make sure that you're going to meet the new deadline.  Without a second to lose, you run from your office to the conference room and make sure that everything is okay.  Unfortunately, you didn't have a second to stop and call your wife to let her know that you would be home late for dinner.  When the meeting finished, rather than calling her you rushed to your car and drove home as quickly as you could.  All the while hoping to salvage any semblance of a family meal.  As soon as you come to the door you're greeted with a really unhappy wife… When you ask her what's wrong, she replies with "you came home late because you don't love me".  This my friends is a falsely attributed cause and effect statement.  In your wife's mind at least at this moment she believes that your tardiness is due to the fact that you don't love her.  Now we both know that this is incorrect (well at least I think it’s incorrect :-).  Before we go further, let's talk about the psychology of this.

Every day we go through life making a massive amount of decisions especially while communicating with others.  Whether big or small it doesn't really matter, any decision can and generally will cause what's known as cognitive dissonance.  Exploring in depth the actual definition and causes of cognitive dissonance is fodder for another article.  For our purposes here, all you need is a surface understanding.  Cognitive dissonance is basically when an individual holds two opposing beliefs and has what can be an extremely uncomfortable feeling inside.

This can be a major factor in anything from depression to anxiety to overall ineffectiveness during a daily routine.  As a result of the anxiety and the discomfort that cognitive dissonance creates, people can become highly motivated to settle on a decision.  Often times decisions are made with having incomplete or in certain circumstances almost no information.  The outcome of such an instance can be one of two things.  First they may simply use information from both their declarative and procedural memory to make a semi-informed decision.  Second,  they may actually make things up (subconsciously) in order to validate a decision. (Really!) Both processes can cause people to develop these falsely attributed cause and effect beliefs and statements.

In now knowing this, what do you do?  Your wife has just told you that you're being late is because you don't love her.  Of course there are many times when these cause and effect beliefs are very real and accurate.  The reality of the matter is though that you were pressured by your boss and really had no other choice.  In fact, you're putting up with the crap you get from your boss BECAUSE you love your wife.  Unfortunately,  simply telling her this would add best be a futile effort to pacify her fears and anxiety. So how do you handle this effectively?

Most important is that she most likely doesn’t know why she actually feels this way and as a result the “cause” is awarded to your tardiness. Feelings like this are usually based on past experiences such as watching a cheating father come home late time and again… or stories from a friend who’s perpetually late husband wound up leaving her. So what do you do? How can she communicate more effectively? How can you help her to communicate more effectively?

Running into a scenario where someone poses you with what is clearly an incorrect cause and effect statement can be frustrating.  As such, handling this appropriately can take quite a bit of effort and tact. There are indeed ways that you can go about neutralizing these statements without ruffling someone else's feathers. 

It is also very important to be aware of these types of statements in your own communication.  Cause-and-effect statements many times can be metaphorical, but depending on the recipient of your communication they may very well be construed as literal.  Choosing your words carefully is important. 

How do you handle these types of statements?  How can you work with your own thought process to be certain that you're not communicating ineffectively?  We talk about this and a whole host of other communication techniques in my series "The Evolved Communicator", please visit my site to learn more.

David J. Parnell