Emotional Scale
What is it for?
A sociometric scale of emotional responses to certain situations.
Time & People
6 – 30
Ideal: around 15
Materials
Emotional scale cards
Source
Applied Improv Network, tweaks by Sept 2017 Design for Aliveness Workshop, Melbourne
And also...
Tweaks
#1 People were asked to respond to a neutral statement from the previous day at the workshop using the scale above
#2 We took a topic that was controversial (e.g. climate change). One person framed up up a question ((e.g. the climate change is affecting our country – why or why not; Same sex marriage)
#3 When you changed your position on the scale, you had to use a different reason than the one you used last time
#4Respond in first person “I….”
Description
5 people line up and each position has an emotional reaction designation.
Position 1 = Extremely negative
Position 2 = Somewhat negative Position 3 = Neutral
Position 4 = Somewhat positive Position 5 = Extremely positive
A 6th person delivers a line of text to the person in position 1. For example, “The bus is late.” Person 1 reacts extremely negatively to this information (“OMG I’m going to miss my plane! I knew I shouldn’t have trusted you and your myopic eco-ethics. My mother may be dead but she’s never going to forgive me for missing her funeral. This is all your fault. I hate being in this relationship!”)
Then the delivery person moves to the person in position #2. They react somewhat negatively (“Well, what do you expect? No one cares about us in this neighborhood.”), etc. Each interaction is independent of the others. When the deliverer gets to the last person everyone rotates a position (to the positive direction!).
After doing this a few times ask the group some real questions about their default positioning.
– Thinking back on your day, what position were you in most of the time today?
– Where were you on this scale when you left the house this morning?
– How have you been responding to your colleagues so far this semester?
– Think of the person you spend the most time with in your life currently. What is your default setting for that relationship? (part 2 – Where would you like to be?)