Letter#6 - Why Talking Is Not Enough to Communicate

Why Talking Is Not Enough to Communicate ?

Cognitive and Emotional Foundations of Human Communication

We often assume that communication is simply about transmitting information: I know something, I put it into words, you hear it, you understand it.

In this implicit model, choosing the right words should be enough to prevent misunderstandings and conflict. Yet everyday experience suggests the opposite: the more a topic matters, emotionally, relationally, personally, the more fragile and unpredictable communication becomes.

Cognitive and social psychology offer a simple explanation for this paradox:

meaning is not contained in words themselves.

Meaning emerges through interaction between at least two people, a sender and a receiver, each bringing their own emotions, expectations, and cognitive biases into the exchange.

1. Intention, Message, Reception: Three Distinct Realities

When we speak, we have an intention: to explain, reassure, convince, set a boundary, or be understood.

But this intention is not transmitted directly.

It is first translated into a message, words, tone, silences, gestures, timing, rhythm. That message is then interpreted by the other person through their own frame of reference: emotional state, personal history, current concerns.

In other words:

What I intend to say ≠ what I say ≠ what the other person understands

This distinction is fundamental.

It explains why two people can leave a conversation genuinely convinced they were not listened to, even after talking at length.

Human communication does not work like communication between machines through a neutral channel. Between people, messages pass through cognitive and emotional systems that are constantly interpreting.

Exercise: Revisiting a Frustrating Conversation or a Misunderstanding

Think of a recent conversation that left you feeling misunderstood.

  • What was your main intention?

  • What did you actually say or do (words, tone, timing)?

  • What do you think the other person understood?

  • Observe any gap between these levels, without trying to decide who was right.

2. Interpreting Is Not Understanding

During an interaction, we often feel that we interpret the other person’s words, tone, or silences objectively.

In reality, interpretation is rarely neutral.

We enter every exchange with implicit assumptions, about the other person and about the relationship. These assumptions guide what we notice and the meaning we assign to ambiguous cues.

Example

  • Your father asks you to do the dishes and sighs while doing so.

  • You know him well, and usually when he sighs, it signals irritation.

  • You therefore interpret the sigh as annoyance directed at you.

  • In this specific situation, however, the sigh reflects fatigue from his day.

  • A misunderstanding emerges: you become irritated in response, which then genuinely irritates him, and the discussion escalates.

This process is consistent with what psychology calls confirmation bias: we tend to interpret ambiguous information in ways that confirm what we already believe, especially in emotionally charged situations.

Because human communication is almost always ambiguous, this bias is particularly active in interpersonal exchanges.

Join the community

Subscribe to the CogLetter newsletter and get each article a week before everyone else, straight to your inbox.
A coffee, a few lines, and one step closer to a clearer mind.

3. The Fundamental Attribution Error

Why We Explain Behavior Too Quickly in Terms of Personality?

Another central mechanism in communication is what social psychology calls the fundamental attribution error.

It refers to our systematic tendency to explain other people’s behavior by internal characteristics, personality traits, intentions, character, while underestimating other relevant factors.

In other words, when faced with someone else’s behavior, we instinctively think:

“That’s just how they are”

rather than:

“What state are they in?” “What context might be influencing this?”

3.1. Possible Sources of Behavior

When someone acts or communicates, several types of factors may be involved:

  • Internal dispositions Traits, stable attitudes, enduring intentions → “He’s aggressive,” “She’s distant,” “He’s selfish”

  • Situational context External constraints, temporary circumstances → stress, fatigue, time pressure, overload

  • Temporary internal states Emotions, mood, mental exhaustion → anxiety, irritability, sadness

  • Relational dynamics Relationship history, accumulated tensions, past misunderstandings

The fundamental attribution error does not mean we ignore these factors entirely, it means we overweight dispositional explanations, especially when situations are ambiguous or emotionally charged.

3.2. How This Bias Appears in Communication

In everyday exchanges, this leads to quick and seemingly obvious interpretations.

Example 1: Friend and Exam

  • A friend responds curtly the day before an exam.

  • Dispositional attribution: “He’s aggressive,” “He’s selfish”

  • Alternative attributions:

  • internal state: stress, anxiety

  • context: fatigue, academic pressure

  • relationship: nothing personal

Example 2: Partner Under Work Pressure

  • A partner under heavy professional pressure becomes distant.

  • Dispositional attribution: “They’re avoiding me,” “They don’t love me anymore”

  • Alternative attributions:

  • internal state: exhaustion, mental overload

  • context: intense work period

  • relationship: temporary need for withdrawal

In such situations, dispositional explanations are often the most immediate, but not necessarily the most accurate.

3.3. Why This Bias Is Stronger in Important Conversations

This tendency is particularly strong when:

  • the relationship matters,

  • emotional stakes are high,

  • the other person’s behavior is ambiguous.

The more an exchange touches our relational security or identity, the more our mind seeks a quick and coherent explanation, even at the cost of ignoring alternatives.

At that point, we are not only trying to understand what the other person is doing, but implicitly asking a deeper question:

“What does this behavior mean for our relationship?”

Exercise: Exploring an Attribution

Choose a recent situation involving relational tension. What explanation did you give for the other person’s behavior?

Did it focus mainly on:

  • personality traits?

  • context?

  • emotional state?

  • relational dynamics?

  • What alternative explanations could be plausible, without denying your own feelings?

Taking distance and re-situating behavior, including your own, does not eliminate misinterpretations, but it reduces their escalation.

Other attribution and perception biases will be explored in future articles.

4. When Emotion Reduces Cognitive Flexibility

Emotion and cognition are not separate systems. They are deeply intertwined and draw on shared cognitive resources.

When emotions intensify, anger, fear, frustration, sadness, our mental functioning changes:

  • we consider fewer possible interpretations,

  • we cling more strongly to a single reading of the situation,

  • we struggle to integrate the other person’s perspective.

Revising an initial interpretation requires cognitive effort. That effort becomes more costly when emotional arousal is high, leading the brain to favor automatic processing.

In this context, pausing a discussion, slowing it down, or regulating emotion (for example through calm breathing) is not avoidance, it is often a prerequisite for communicating differently.

5. Speaking to Understand… or to Regulate?

We do not speak only to be understood. We also speak to regulate our emotions.

A common example:

One person complains about a situation and the other immediately offers solutions. The first person feels misunderstood and becomes irritated, because they were primarily seeking to be heard. Conversely, empathic listening may be offered when concrete help was expected.

In such cases, clarifying intention helps considerably:

“Do you want advice, or do you just want me to listen?”

“I don’t need solutions right now, I just need to vent.”

Clarifying intention is essential.

In Nonviolent Communication, one core assumption is that others cannot guess our intentions. They must be expressed clearly, sincerely, and with goodwill. We will return to this in a future article.

Practice: Guided Autopsy of a Misunderstanding

This exercise integrates the key ideas discussed above.

Choose a recent conversation that went poorly.

1. What was your main intention?

2. What did you actually say or do (words, tone, timing, silences)?

3. How did the other person respond?

4. What interpretation did you make of that response?

5. What alternative interpretations might be plausible, considering context and emotion?

The goal is not to determine who was right, but to loosen the grip of your initial interpretation.

In summary

Talking is not enough to communicate, not because of bad intentions, but because human communication relies on limited cognitive and emotional processes.

We interpret constantly, often too quickly, especially when the stakes are high.

Understanding these mechanisms does not guarantee perfect communication. It mainly helps reduce premature conclusions, slow down escalation, and create minimal space for clarification.

In the next article, we will explore how practices such as active listening, reformulation, and principles from Nonviolent Communication can build on these limits to make everyday communication more fluid.

Sources

  • Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. University of Illinois Press.

  • Nickerson, R. S. (1998). Confirmation bias: A ubiquitous phenomenon in many guises. Review of General Psychology, 2(2), 175–220.

  • Gilbert, D. T., & Malone, P. S. (1995). The correspondence bias. Psychological Bulletin, 117(1), 21–38.

  • Pessoa, L. (2008). On the relationship between emotion and cognition. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 9(2), 148–158.

  • Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

  • Watzlawick, P., Beavin, J. H., & Jackson, D. D. (1967). Pragmatics of human communication: A study of interactional patterns, pathologies, and paradoxes. W. W. Norton.

Latest articles

If you liked it, share it !

Get CogLetter first…

Join the CogLetter newsletter and receive each article a week before anyone else, straight to your inbox.
A coffee, a few lines, and one step closer to a clearer mind.