“Emotional Granularity” is the ability to describe and differentiate between the many nuances and variations within a broader category of emotion. So, instead of just saying “I’m good” when your body feels relaxed, you may have different language for the levels or types of “goodness” or “calm” you’re experiencing, like “serene” or “peaceful” and recognize the wide subtle variances within broad emotional categorizations.
Other than the obvious relevance of this for anyone in their personal lives and relationships, I think it’s also critical for leaders and designers to practice:
😊 As leaders, emotional granularity can be really helpful to practice, as it starts to build more awareness around what’s happening in your body when you feel a certain way, and this can improve your ability to shift your negative responses to situations with practice. This can be useful for any high stakes or potentially emotional conversation, but also just for clear communication and making you more approachable to your team.
✏️ As designers, increasing emotional granularity as we think through how we want our experiences to make users feel helps us to evoke the desired feelings. It’s also helpful to think about granularity and specificity as you think about a user’s emotional state and their goals. By increasing specificity, we gain clarity about all aspects of a design and can get inspiration how to improve the results.
