Chapter 4: Retrospective sense making

I am often guilty of acting before I think. I find my emotions will guide my decisions at times in place of rational thought and planning. In the retrospective sense making theory it talks about how people often think they plan things out, but in reality people will often act first and then think about what they did. The theory has a "recipe" for knowing what you think about what you said or did. A sort of self therapy in becoming more self aware of why we act the way we do. I really like this because sometimes I feel like I have no idea why I act the way I do in a situation and why other people act differently. In his recipe he talks about identity construction, retrospection, enactment, socialization, continuation, extracted cues and plausibility. I find the idea of socialization most useful for myself. This part of the "recipe" says, "what I say, single out, and conclude are determined by who socialized me and how I was socialized, as well as by the audience I anticipate will audit my conclusions." (Eisenberg, 115)

The concept of thinking beyond a single situation and realizing why we communicate the way we do because of how we were raised and the environment we are in is really important in sense making. People have no problem judging others and making assumptions about their life, when what we should be doing is looking at our own lives and figuring out why we are the way we are. I think it is so much more valuable because we can only ever be sure of ourselves. We do not know others life experiences, so I find it much more valuable to spend time learning about myself to help me in future situations.