Conflict Resolution

idrisniyi94

9781138700956-Chapter-2-Using-Perception-to-Understand-Self-and-others.pdf

Home >Computer Science homework help >Conflict Resolution

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition by Cheryl Hamilton, Bonnie Creel and Tony Kroll

Reprinted for Personal Account, Purdue University Global

[email protected]

Reprinted with permission as a subscription benefit of Skillport,

Chapter 2: Using Perception to Understand Self and others

Overview

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

2.1 What is the definition of perception, and what are the three basic steps involved?

2.2 What are the three major factors in perception that help explain why people perceive things differently (and sometimes erroneously)?

2.3 What is the definition of self-concept, how does it relate to perception and communication, and what are some of the major barriers in forming an accurate self-concept?

2.4 What are the barriers to accurate perception of others, arid how does each barrier affect our communication success?

2.5 What are the perceptual skills used to improve self-concept, arid how are those skills used to improve perception with others?

2.6 What perception skills covered in this chapter relate specifically to your career?

AFTER STUDYING THIS CHAPTER, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO …

Define perception and explain the three steps involved.

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Recognize the importance of accurate perception in your everyday communication.

Analyze and improve the accuracy of your selfconcept.

Analyze and improve your perception of others by pinpointing the perceptual errors that cause you the most trouble.

Develop the skills of self-reflection, mindfulness, and perception checking.

Apply perception skills to three different career options.

Credit: Shutterstock.com/AsiaImagesGroup.

Figure 2.1

Introduction

The factors that shape our perceptions are significant because they are at the heart of how successfully we communicate. Most of the time, when we think about becoming more effective communicators, what we really mean is that we want to become better at encoding messages (i.e., improving the clarity or persuasiveness of our ideas). However, successful communication depends as much—perhaps even more—on how competent we are at decoding the messages others send to us. For that reason, Chapters 2 and 3 will focus, respectively, on the decoding processes of perception and listening. Each chapter will discuss difficulties we encounter in being accurate perceivers and listeners and will offer valuable skills we can use to solve these difficulties and improve our communication as receivers.

Before you apply Chapter 2 concepts to your own life, see if you can apply them to Julie and Waan in our Unit I Scenario. For example, what is your impression of how both Julie and Waan feel about themselves? Look for other specific questions to answer in the margins at various spots throughout this chapter. Refer to the scenario on page 1 to refresh your memory as needed. Be prepared to share your answers with one or more classmates.

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Perception: Definitions and Steps

As our opening scenario illustrates, communication is directly affected by our perceptions. Perception is the process by which individuals become aware of, organize, and interpret information received though their senses. As this definition indicates, perception doesn't happen all at once—it is a process that involves at least three steps. First, we select available data by "becoming aware of" or registering a small amount of stimuli in the environment; second, we organize this data into a form that we can more easily use and remember; and third, we interpret the data by adding meaning and making predictions (Geise & Baden, 2016). These steps may progress slowly, or they may occur in very quick succession—even in a matter of seconds. Let's expand our definition of perception by looking at each of these steps in more detail.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

2.1 What is the definition of perception, and what are the three basic steps involved?

STEP 1: SELECTING AVAILABLE DATA

At any given moment, you are being bombarded by stimuli. As you are reading this sentence, for example, your visual sense is activated as you observe the words on the page. However, if you stop and listen, you will notice that there are also sounds in your environment that stimulate your auditory sense: you may have music on in the background, there may be sounds emanating from the light fixture overhead, or there may be any number of other sounds from people or objects in your immediate vicinity or in the distance. In addition, although you may not have noticed, there may be aromas in the room that can be detected by your olfactory sense. If you concentrate a little more, you might notice that your gustatory sense is able to discern taste, even if you are not currently eating or drinking anything. Furthermore, your tactile sense is at work, registering such stimuli as the touch of fabric on your skin and the temperature of the air in the room.

The conscious effort of choosing which stimulus from all those present in the environment to pay attention to is called selection. Opposite are some of the factors that determine why we choose to attend to one stimulus and ignore others. Each of these factors affects our own communication as receivers and can be useful when communicating as senders in various contexts—such as public speaking, where getting and keeping attention is crucial:

A stimulus that is more intense than another is more likely to "pop-out" and catch your ear or eye (Mather, 2016). For example, louder voices and richer colors are more noticeable than quiet voices and muted hues (see Figure 2.2).

A stimulus that changes in some way—the sudden movement of something that was at rest, for example—may increase your awareness.

A stimulus that is novel or unexpected is more likely to draw your attention. For example, the presence of a female in an otherwise all-male crowd might cause you to take notice.

A stimulus that has the potential to meet our needs at a given moment will certainly attract our attention. For instance, if you are very hungry, you are more susceptible to the aromas of cooking food than you might be if you had just eaten a hearty meal. Also, you are more likely to notice the sandwich shop located in the middle of the block if you are hungry (although you may have passed this same shop many times before without realizing it was there). And you are much more likely to tune in to your teacher's lecture if you know there will be a quiz at the end of it.

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Figure 2.2: Which circle pops out for attention?

On the other hand, even with awareness and training, there are some physical and psychological factors that limit or distort our selection of stimuli. For example:

It is impossible to pay attention to two stimuli or tasks at the same instant. In other words, most people are not competent at multitasking (Wu, 2017). We like to think we are good at multitasking—we think that we can drive while also talking on the telephone or we can study while also responding to a text message. Research evidence, however, shows that we are wrong. We can only attend to one task or stimulus at a particular instant and must divide our attention by shifting back and forth between them. As an example, Horrey et al. (2017) found that simply having something interesting to listen to while driving decreases breaking time because of reduced concentration. This divided attention usually causes us to perform less effectively on one or both tasks unless a particular task has become automatic.

Our personal filters may unconsciously distort accurate awareness of selected stimuli. Not only do we selectively choose stimuli, we may unknowingly selectively distort them. Selective distortion is the process of an individual's expectations or fears deceiving the senses into reporting a false stimulus as real. Consider this example:

A realtor walks into a deserted building to measure it for renovation. As she closes the door, the wind blows a crumpled piece of paper past her. She screams and runs back outside yelling that the building has rats. Even after she is shown the paper by her colleague, who offers a more plausible version of what happened, the woman refuses to go back into the building until it is fumigated.

The realtor is positive that she saw a rat—if pressed, she could probably recall how large it was and the length of its tail. Yet her expectations (based on past experiences or fears) gave her a distorted view of reality.

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Credit: Shutterstock.com/Joyseulay.

Figure 2.3: Is multitasking possible? Can you pay attention to driving while on a cell phone? If you said yes, think again

Summarizing Step 1 of the perception process, we can see that not only do we selectively attend to a small amount of the available stimuli in any situation, but that the stimuli we do select may be limited and/or distorted by sensory and psychological factors.

We have to conclude by looking at the first step in the perception process that we are not perfect decoders. Unfortunately, the next step in perception also contains some decoding problems.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW: PERCEPTION AND MULTITASKING

"I multitask" is a comment people make with pride. But can nurses, mothers, teachers, and business professionals or any of us really multitask or are we just good at breaking down stimuli and tasks into small pieces and moving back and forth between them? Apply what you know to these questions:

When a student works on math problems for a class while listening to music—is this multitasking? Would this be the same as a student who is listening to music in preparation for a music appreciation exam while also working on math problems for a class? Why or why not?

What about an employee working on an important project while answering email—can these tasks be done simultaneously? What do you think happens to the employee's concentration each time a new email arrives—would the quality of work and the level of concentration be affected? Why or why not?

STEP 2: ORGANIZING DATA INTO A USABLE FORM

What do the following symbols mean to you: "Toaтe фиинцeлe yмaнe ce нacx либepe ши eraлe ын дeмнитaтe ши ын дpeптyръ?" Unless you can read the Cyrillic alphabet used in eastern Slavic countries, just attending to this stimulus isn't very helpful, is it? Once we choose to pay attention to a specific stimulus (Step 1 of the perception process), the next step is to organize the data into a usable form. Organization involves discovering the recognizable patterns in the stimulus and recoding them in a form that is simple enough to remember and use. You might have suspected that the above symbols represented words, but you would not be able to organize them into meaningful communication; however, a Russian or Romanian would likely have no problem. Translated into English, the Cyrillic words read: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights" (Lazarev, 2017).

To communicate and make sense out of our environment, it is important for humans to organize and group stimuli into usable patterns. There are several ways we do this, depending on the type of stimuli. Two of the most useful ways of organizing data involve laws of organization and stereotyping.

LAWS OF ORGANIZATION One of the first ways humans discover the recognizable patterns in a stimulus is almost automatically initiated by their brains. Gestalt psychologists discovered several ways the brain groups visual and vocal stimuli into patterns and called them laws of organization (Mather, 2016). Gestalt is a German word meaning "whole"; gestalt psychologists were interested in how the whole became more than a "sum of its parts."

We will look at three laws of organization:

Proximity—Objects that are close together tend to be grouped together.

How many groups are in each item?

A: ■■ ■■■ ■■ ■■

B: ■■■■■■■■■

How many groups of sounds are in this item?

tap-tap, pause, tap-tap, pause, tap-tap

Similarity—Objects that look similar tend to be grouped together.

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

How many groups are in each item?

A:∎ ∎ ∎ ∎ ∎ ∎

B: ABCXYZ

How many groups of sound waves do you see?

How many objects are here?

Closure—Incomplete figures tend to be closed or filled in to represent a whole object.

What object do you see here?

Since the initial development of Gestalt theory, knowledge of perceptual grouping has expanded widely. For example, artists and advertisers know that size, distance, color, texture, shapes, spatial relations, motion, and figure-ground cues are just a few additional factors that also affect organization of data. Let's look at two specific ways that organizing data may cause possible decoding issues:

1. Ambiguous figures: Figure-ground contrast allows figures to be organized so that they can be viewed in more than one way. Psychologists refer to these figures as ambiguous figures (Kosslyn & Rosenberg, 2009, p. 146). Take a look at Figure 2.5. In example a, do you see a variety of dark shapes, or do you see a word? In example b, do you see a person playing an instrument such as a saxophone or do you see a woman's face? In example c, there are three different people —do you see a young woman, an old woman, and a man with a mustache?

Credit: Shutterstock.com/MilanMarkovic78.

Figure 2.4: Even in the noisy yet interesting environment of a crowded party, we humans organize and group stimuli into usable patterns

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Figure 2.5: Ambiguous figures: Talk with your classmates and see which objects they saw first. Why didn't everyone see the same objects first? Once you can see each object, is one still dominant? What you see depends on how you organize or attend to the stimuli in the figures

2. Visual illusions: What your eyes tell you is true is not always as it appears to be. For example, take a look at the objects in Figure 2.6. Look at the horizontal lines in example a. If your eyes tell you that the horizontal lines are not parallel, your eyes are wrong. The placement of the white and black squares is causing a visual illusion. Which line in example b is shorter: the top or bottom? Although the bottom line definitely looks shorter, both lines are identical in length. How about the curved objects in example c —which is obviously smaller: the blue or the green object? You probably chose the blue on the right (pull back from the page to make it look even smaller). Yet, if you look very carefully, you can see that the objects are identical in size. And finally, count the black dots in example d. Actually, all of the dots are white, but if you look at a white surface first, then look at the object, blink, and move your eyes around the object, several black dots will appear —a visual illusion.

Figure 2.6: Visual illusions: If our eyes were like a camera that takes a picture of what is there, would magicians be able to fool us so easily?

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Even though you probably will find Figures 2.5 and 2.6 intriguing, you may be wondering how these visual illusions apply to communication. We use these same principles to generalize and organize our impressions of people to make sense of their behaviors and to communicate with them. For example, if we see a person whom we think has a certain characteristic (e.g., "quiet") but we know little else about the person, we will gain closure by assigning other characteristics to that person that fit into the same cluster. If we consider "quiet," "intelligent," and "friendly" to cluster together, "we may then attribute intelligence to that person without any firsthand evidence" (Trenholm & Jensen, 2006, p. 181). Additionally, we tend to attribute the shape of the body with similarity in attitudes, behavior, and personality (Bahns et al., 2017). In an experiment with people wearing black plastic bags over their upper body, Bahns and her research partners found that when we can't see the upper body of another person we are more likely to align with others who are less similar on attitudes, behavior, and personality.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW: PERCEPTION AND ORGANIZATION

To apply what you know about perception and organization, answer these critical thinking questions:

There are many factors that cause us to choose to attend to one stimulus while ignoring others: for example, if the stimulus is novel; if the stimulus has motion; or if the stimulus is intense. Select two factors and give an example of each.

How could you use proximity and similarity as organizational tools to make it easier to remember information about classmates? Give a specific example.

STEP 3: INTERPRETING THE DATA BY ADDING MEANING AND MAKING PREDICTIONS

Having selected a particular stimulus to which you will pay attention, and having figured out exactly what that stimulus is, your next step is to interpret the stimulus. Interpretation is the process of attaching meaning to words, acts, or events in our environment and using the meaning to make predictions about future events or behaviors. In other words, we go beyond the data we have collected and the stereotypes we used to store our impressions and assign meanings and make predictions. When making meaning of news coverage, as an example, Powell et al. (2015) found that visual images in news coverage influence our opinions and our plan for making a change in behavior. There were three different conditions in this experiment— visual images alone, visual images that matched accompanying text, and visual images that did not match accompanying text. When the images were shown alone there was a stronger effect on opinion and plans for behavior change compared to times when there was accompanying text. When text and image are shown together, the text influences our opinions and the images influence our plans for changing a behavior.

UNIT I SCENARIO

Question #4

Which of the three steps involved in perception seem to be causing the most communication problems between Julie and Waan? How do you know? Support your answer by relating to specific content from the chapter and scenario.

To illustrate the interpretation process and to distinguish it from selection and organization, consider this example: You are at a crowded party. There are many stimuli in the environment that could activate any of your five senses: There are people talking, there is music, there are fragrances and aromas, there is food, and there are many things you could be touching. At the moment, however, you are conscious only of the sight and sound of someone you find attractive and with whom you are conversing. Suddenly you hear a loud sound from across the room. Because the sound is intense and a change from the previous level of noise, you now select that sound as the stimulus to which you will pay attention. To figure out what the sound is, you observe it long enough to determine that what you are hearing is the sound of several people laughing. If you shift your attention back to your conversational partner, you will have only partially perceived the laughter. In order to form a more complete perception, you must interpret what the laughter means. To do that, you will need to select and organize other stimuli. Perhaps you notice that everyone seems to be looking at one person in the middle of the group, Gary, and that Gary does not appear to be joining in the laughter. He is glaring at Mike and he appears to have a wet spot on his shirt and an empty glass in his hand. For clarity, you may store your impressions of Gary in a "harmless party prank" stereotype. Your interpretation might be merely that people are laughing because a drink has been spilled on Gary, and you might predict the situation will be over momentarily.

Because people's frames of reference are never exactly the same, we may interpret an event quite differently from someone else. Using the scenario above as an example, what additional interpretation might we draw from observing the laughing party- goers?

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Assume for a moment that your friend Sonya notices the laughter, the stain on the shirt, and Gary's frown. Because of her negative past experiences with both Gary and Mike, she stores her observations in the stereotype of "trouble-maker." Her interpretation of the situation may be that Mike likely spilled the drink on Gary on purpose and that Gary is hot-headed and likely to use this as an excuse to start a fight. Although you may think Gary is involved in a harmless party prank, Sonya thinks that Gary is a trouble-causer. She motions to a mutual friend to join you and she says she thinks it would be a good idea for all three of you to get out before things get ugly.

With a third interpretation, however, the mutual friend says, "Oh, it's no big deal. Gary is just embarrassed about spilling his drink."

Here we see three people and three different interpretations of what happened as well as predictions of what may happen next. We might question whether all three were observing the same event. It's no wonder that perceptual differences cause misunderstandings.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW: PERCEPTUAL DIFFERENCES

Apply what you know about interpreting data and making predictions by answering the following questions:

Consider the opening scenario from Unit I. Do you think Julie's perception and interpretation of events are more a result of active or subjective perception? Explain your choice.

What role does Waan's frame of reference contribute to her interpretation of Julie's behavior?

Factors That Lead to Differences in Perception

Although we have already discussed many factors that can cause errors in perception, let's review three of the major factors that help explain why people perceive things differently (and sometimes erroneously): physiological, psychological, and cultural factors.

PHYSIOLOGICAL FACTORS IN PERCEPTUAL ERRORS

Our perceptions begin at the physiological level where our sensory organs are activated and send messages to our brain. Therefore, there are physiological factors (any impairment of a sensory organ) that affect our perceptions by interfering with accurate perception of stimuli. Poor vision or hearing, for example, may cause us to err in perceiving sights and sounds. Potential vision problems include near- or far-sightedness, color blindness (see Spotlight on feature later in chapter), and light sensitivity—when you walk into a dark room on a sunny day and are "blinded," how long does it take for you to adjust? Within 30 minutes, most people's eyes are 100,000 times more sensitive to light (Kosslyn & Rosenberg, 2009). Or you may have difficulty (as many people do) distinguishing colors such as red and brown that look alike when viewed from a distance (Johnson, 1995).

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

2.2 What are the three major factors in perception that help explain why people perceive things differently (and sometimes erroneously)?

Our other senses may not be so reliable either. Take smell, for example: some people are 20 percent more sensitive to smell than are others (Rabin & Cain, 1986). Our hearing varies also. People who like to listen to loud music, use portable music players with ear buds, are musicians, or work in a loud environment may have a significant hearing loss in later years since hearing loss is usually a gradual occurrence (Perusse, 2008).

UNIT I SCENARIO

Question #5

Decide on which personality type best describes each roommate. If time allows, answer the personality questions on pages 50–51 from each roommate's perspective to get a more accurate personality type. Based on Chapter 2, what role do the scores likely play in each person's self-perception and perception of others?

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Other physiological factors that play a role in perception include gender, physical characteristics, and health. Researchers are actively engaged in studying how a man's cerebral cortex processes emotional stimuli differently than a woman's (Schirmer & Simpson, 2008). In addition, a physically fit person may assess the weight of an object differently from a less able-bodied friend. Also, there is considerable difference in the degree of sensitivity to stimuli from person to person. Do you know someone who is perpetually cold even when you find the room temperature quite comfortable? If you are ill, hungry, or tired, you probably perceive many things differently from the way you might if you were healthy, well-fed, and well-rested.

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS IN PERCEPTUAL ERRORS

In addition to physiological factors, there are many psychological factors that enter into how we perceive others and how others perceive us. People who are experiencing strong emotions—sorrow, anxiety, fear, anger, joy—undoubtedly perceive events differently from those who are not caught up in those emotions, and differently from the way they themselves would if they were not experiencing those feelings. Your outlook on life (generated by your personality traits) will color your perceptions as well. People who are generally more optimistic may interpret events more favorably than those who tend to be pessimistic about life. Your present circumstances will also affect how you perceive events. For example, when you feel confident about yourself and about your relationship with someone else, you may interpret comments differently from the way you do when you feel insecure about yourself or the relationship. Have you found that your moods may cause you to interpret things differently from day to day? What you found funny yesterday may be annoying today. No doubt you can think of many other psychological variables that affect how you are likely to perceive words, acts, or events.

CULTURAL FACTORS IN PERCEPTUAL ERRORS

The culture or co-culture with which you identify exerts a powerful influence on your perception. From simple things, such as whether a food item is spicy or bland, to more complex issues, such as what sorts of behaviors are acceptable or unacceptable, your perceptions are strongly related to the norms of your cultural group. Do body odors offend you? For members of some cultural groups, the normal smells of the human body are just that—normal. People in these groups find the American obsession with personal hygiene mystifying! In business settings, Friedman et al. (2017) found that people from India, Korea, and Taiwan are less offended when promises are broken, compared to people from the United States. We will discuss some of the differences in cultural expectations more thoroughly in Chapters 3 and 5, but for now consider the perceptual differences shown by Figure 2.7—a somewhat tongue-in-cheek guide of phrases used by British citizens (especially British business people). Also included are what the phrases really mean and what others hearing the phrases probably assume them to mean. If you are from the United States or other countries, what do you mean by these phrases? After looking at the differences in meanings in Figure 2.7, is it any wonder that communication errors occur? You can probably think of many other ways in which perceptions you have about many things differ from the perceptions of friends of yours with different cultural heritages.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW: CULTURE AND PERCEPTUAL ERRORS

Apply what you know about perception by answering these questions relating to culture:

Based on Figure 2.7, make a similar list of three or more phrases used in the United States (or your country if different), what they really mean, and what people from other countries probably think they mean.

Using your new list and the information in Figure 2.7, discuss at least two perceptual and cultural differences that could likely cause misunderstandings if an international problem-solving team included members from both Great Britain and the United States (and your country, if different). If you were the leader of the team, what could you do to minimize any misunderstandings, and why do you think your approach has a chance of working?

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Credit: Adapted from Moran et al. (2014). Source: Adapted from Moran, R. T., Abramson, N. R., & Morgan, S. V. (2014). Managing Cultural Differences (9th ed.). New York: Routledge, p. 76. Based on http://www.scribd.com/doc/55551980/Analo- EU-Translation- Guide.

Figure 2.7: Translation guide

Now that we have talked in general terms about the perception process and factors that lead to differences and errors in perception, we will turn our attention to two very important entities in our perception: ourselves and others. Our understanding of ourselves and our perception of the other person with whom we are communicating are the principal factors that determine not only how we send messages but, most particularly, how we receive and decode messages.

Perception and Self

Successful communication requires successful perception on the part of those involved. As we discussed in Chapter 1, intrapersonal communication deals with how we perceive ourselves; interpersonal communication deals with how we perceive others. How you perceive yourself plays a large role in how successfully you communicate with others.

SELF-CONCEPT DEFINED

Your overall understanding of who you are is referred to as your self-concept. Self-concept is a kind of umbrella term that includes many other concepts. For example, a self-image is the picture you have of yourself—not only how you look, but how you interact with others. Another important element of your self-concept is your self-esteem, which refers to the degree to which you see yourself as valuable and worthwhile. We often talk about how some people seem to have an "inferiority complex," meaning that they tend to see others as more competent and worthy than themselves. We generally believe that it is a good thing to have "positive self-esteem," although certainly there are people who seem to have an inflated impression of their own value, as is true when someone is arrogant or habitually criticizes or demeans others. A healthy self-esteem would be illustrated by people who have confidence in their own worth but also recognize the worth of others.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

2.3 What is the definition of self-concept, how does it relate to perception and communication, and what are some of the major barriers in forming an accurate self-concept?

BARNLUND'S "6-PERSON" CONCEPT: A "SELF" ORIENTATION

To illustrate how perception and self-concept play definite roles in the success of your communication, let's revisit the transaction model of communication covered in Chapter 1 (see Figure 1.7). As you recall, a transaction is an exchange in which both parties are responsible for the outcome and in which both parties affect and are affected by the other. Dean Barnlund (1970) was a communication theorist who advocated the transactional process of communication and illustrated the problems involved by referring to his "6-person" concept. According to Barnlund, when two people are talking, there are six separate entities involved. Each person communicates from within an understanding of who he or she is—which is perception

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

of self or self-concept. At the same time, each person has a view of the other person; perception of others is filtered by our frames of reference and personality. Further, each person has a perception of how he or she is viewed by the other person—in other words, "who you think they think you are," which is a reflected appraisal.

Let's go back to our opening scenario for this unit involving Waan and Julie. Following Barnlund's 6-person concept, when Waan and Julie are communicating, the following six entities are involved:

Person 1 = Waan's view of Waan

Person 2 = Julie's view of Julie

Person 3 = Waan's view of Julie

Person 4 = Julie's view of Waan

Person 5 = Waan's view of how Julie sees her

Person 6 = Julie's view of how Waan sees her

So it's no wonder that Waan and Julie were having communication difficulties in the Unit I Scenario.

PLUS-2 CONCEPT: AN "OTHER" ORIENTATION[1]

Being aware that there are six entities involved in interpersonal interaction may improve our communication by making us aware of the inherent complexity of the process. However, all six of these entities are egocentric or "self" oriented. In other words, when I am talking with you, there is my view of myself, my view of you, and my view of how you see me—"self" oriented. And you are equally as self-oriented.

DEVELOPING SKILLS: HOW TO DETERMINE YOUR PERSONALITY TYPE

One reason our perceptions of objects, ideas, and other people differ is that our personality types differ. To get an indication of your personality type, complete the following survey, based on Jung's Typology and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). When answering these questions, don't think of a single situation; instead, consider generally how you would answer each question regardless of the situation.

Choose either a or b for each question below–select the one that is more like you:

1. I would rather:

a. Solve a new and complicated problem

b. Work on something I've done before

2. I like to:

a. Work alone in a quiet place

b. Be where "the action" is

3. I want a boss who:

a. Establishes and applies criteria in decisions

b. Considers individual needs and makes exceptions

4. When I work on a project, I:

a. Like to finish it and get some closure

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

#ftn.fn0002

b. Often leave it open for possible change

5. When making a decision, my most important considerations are:

a. Rational thoughts, ideas, and data

b. People's feelings and values

6. On a project, I tend to:

a. Think it over and over before I begin to work

b. Start working right away, thinking as I go

7. When working on a project, I prefer to:

a. Maintain as much control as possible

b. Explore various options

8. In my work, I prefer to:

a. Work on several projects at a time, learning as much as possible from each

b. Have one project that is challenging and keeps me busy

9. I often:

a. Make lists and plans whenever I start something and hate to alter them

b. Avoid plans and just let things progress as I work on them

10. When discussing a problem with colleagues, it is easier for me:

A. a. To see "the big picture" b. To grasp the specifics of the situation

11. When I listen to someone talk, I usually:

a. Consider it an interruption

b. Don't mind answering it

12. The word that describes me better is:

a. Analytical

b. Empathetic

13. When working on assignments, I tend to:

a. Work steadily and consistently

b. Work in bursts of energy with "down time" in between

14. When I listen to someone talk, I try to:

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

a. Relate it to my experience and see if it fits

b. Assess and analyze the message

15. When I come up with new ideas, I generally:

a. "Go for it"

b. Like to contemplate them some more

16. When working on a project, I prefer to:

a. Narrow the scope so it is clearly defined

b. Broaden to include related aspects

17. When I read something, I usually:

a. Confine my thoughts to what is written

b. Read between the lines and relate words to other ideas

18. When making a decision in a hurry, I often:

a. Feel uncomfortable and wish for more information

b. Am able to do so with available data.

19. In a meeting, I tend to:

a. Continue formulating my ideas as I talk about them

b. Speak out only after I have carefully thought the issue through

20. At work, I prefer spending a great deal of time on issues of:

a. Ideas

b. People

21. In meetings, I am most often annoyed with people who:

a. Come up with many sketchy ideas

b. Lengthen the meeting with many practical details.

22. I tend to be:

a. A morning person

b. A night owl

23. My style in preparing for a meeting is:

a. To be willing to go in and be responsive

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

b. To be fully prepared and sketch out an outline of the meeting.

24. In meetings, I would prefer for people to:

a. Display a fuller range of emotions

b. Be more task-oriented

25. I would rather work for an organization where:

a. My job was intellectually stimulating

b. I was committed to its goals and mission

26. On weekends, I tend to:

a. Plan what I will do

b. Just see what happens and decide as I go

27. I am more:

a. Outgoing

b. Contemplative

28. I would rather work for a boss who is:

a. Full of new ideas

b. Practical

In numbers 29–32, select the word in each pair that is more appealing to you:

29.

a. Social

b. Theoretical

30.

a. Inventiveness

b. Practicality

31.

a. Organized

b. Adaptable

32.

a. Active

b. Concentration

Scoring A: Put the letter of your answer to each question in the blanks below:

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

1. _____

2. _____

3. _____

4. _____

5. _____

6. _____

7. _____

8. _____

9. _____

10. _____

11. _____

12. _____

13. _____

14. _____

15. _____

16. _____

17. _____

18. _____

19. _____

20. _____

21. _____

22. _____

23. _____

24. _____

25. _____

26. _____

27. _____

28. _____

29. _____

30. _____

31. _____

32. _____

Scoring B:

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

1. Circle answers below if you find them in the list above. For example, if you answered a to 1, you would locate 1a below next to Intuition and circle it; if you answered b to 1, you would locate 1b next to Sensing and circle it.

2. In each bracketed group of two characteristics listed below, the line with the most circled answers is most like you. Circle the bold letter representing your style located in front of each bracketed pair.

3. Your MBTI is made up of all four circled bold letters (i.e., ENFP) – write them below.

Your Final Style: _______________

Note: The above test prepared by Daft and Marcic is a quick self-test only to give you an idea of how the MBTI works and not the licensed instrument.

Figure 2.8

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

For a complete picture, we need to add two more entities to our 6-person concept. These two entities give us an "other" orientation to add to our self-orientations—thus the "Plus-2." When I add "my view of how you see yourself," and you add "your view of how I see myself," we have added more than understanding; we have added empathy. Empathy occurs when you put yourself in other people's frames of reference—try to walk in their shoes or see the situation through their eyes. This view makes cooperation, problem-solving, and communication much easier; perception is now less self-oriented and more other- oriented. Now when Waan and Julie are communicating, there are eight entities—the two new entities include:

Person 7 = Waan's view of how Julie sees herself

Person 8 = Julie's view of how Waan sees herself

Whereas we were beginning to get overwhelmed with six entities, now that we have added two, it all starts to make more sense and seem less frantic. By emphasizing the other person, the pressure seems more manageable; perception seems more valuable. Empathy is covered in much more detail in Chapter 3, including empathic listening responses.

BARRIERS TO AN ACCURATE SELF-CONCEPT

It is important to have an accurate self-concept when we communicate because when we interpret the meaning of others, we filter it through our understanding of who we are. However, there are many things that may cause us to have problems in accurately perceiving ourselves. See if any of the following problems relate to you and your self-concept:

SELF-CONCEPT IS A REFLECTION OF APPRAISALS FROM OTHERS We do not come into this world with a ready-built self-concept. Our understanding of who we are results from how and what others communicate to us throughout our lives. We develop a self-concept from the inferences or reflected appraisals we perceive from what others say to us or how they behave towards us (Edwards, 1990). In other words, the way we think others see us is often the way we see ourselves. From infancy, we receive messages about whether we are worthwhile, based on the ways that our parents and caregivers respond to our needs. Imagine crying when you were young and no one coming versus having several people running to you at even the smallest peep. As our contact with other significant people increases, we receive additional messages about who we are from teachers, other adults, and peers—whether we are pretty, smart, athletic, musically gifted, and so on. For example, in a Communication class, it is very likely that we will receive feedback from our professor; in a professional setting, we will receive feedback from a supervisor. Paul King (2016) studies this type of feedback and makes the argument that when giving feedback to others it is important to consider their emotional sensitivity to feedback to allow the receiver to "overcome perceptual barriers and concentrate fully on performance improvement" (p. 12). If all goes well, we will develop a stable self-concept.

SELF-CONCEPT IS RESISTANT TO CHANGE One problem in accurate self-perception is that our self-concepts, once they are stable, tend to resist change. Even if your understanding of yourself is distorted, it is the concept with which you are comfortable, so you tend to cling to it. Therefore, developing a fairly stable self-concept is both a good thing and a bad thing. Certainly it is a good thing to have a strong self-concept so that you are not confused about who you are or overly willing to accept others’ appraisals of you. On the other hand, a strong self-concept can be a problem. If others tell us something that contradicts what we believe to be true about ourselves, how do we handle those messages? Typically, we ignore contradictory messages, or explain them away. "He's just being nice," we say, or "That can't be true; I know I'm not attractive." Consider the example of people who suffer from eating disorders. Everyone they know tells them that they are dangerously underweight, but in their mind—their self-image—they are not just overweight, they are fat. They may hear what others tell them as efforts to undermine what they see as a healthy weight-loss or as jealousy. Clearly, an inaccurate self-concept can have dangerous consequences.

SELF-CONCEPT INVOLVES SELF-SERVING BIAS Another problem in accurate self-perception is the self-serving bias (Duval & Silva, 2002), which occurs when we tend to accept responsibility for positive outcomes in our life but deny responsibility for negative outcomes. When you make a good grade on an exam, you are most likely to attribute that to your superior intellect or your diligence in preparing for the exam; when you do poorly on an exam, you are likely to find others to blame. Another example of the self-serving bias at work is found in the tendency we have to think of ourselves as among those who fall into the "above average" category. For example, a study of 1,255 college students found that 99 percent judged themselves to be either "very honest" or "honest," and 62 percent felt that other people would rate them as "very honest" (Rakovski & Levy, 2007). However, 60 percent of these same students admitted to performing dishonest acts.

SELF-CONCEPT INVOLVES SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY

Another problem that leads to a distortion in our perception of ourselves is called self-fulfilling prophecy—which occurs when we predict the outcome of an anticipated event and then engage in behaviors that insure that outcome. When you say, "I can't possibly pass this exam, so I may as well not waste my time studying for it," you are setting yourself up for the self-fulfilling prophecy. Chances are that you will then decide not to study for the exam and, as a result, will do poorly on it. Then you will

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

point to the outcome and declare, "See! I knew I wouldn't do well. I know myself." But did you really know yourself, or did you simply choose the behaviors that led to the failing grade?

In an experiment about helping people avoid risky health behaviors, Apran et al. (2017) found that messages are more effective when they include affirming text. In other words, the idea of a self-fulfilling prophecy can be manipulated in a positive way. In the experiment, the researchers were studying public service announcements and the participants in the experiment that received affirming messages (e.g., You can do it!) had a greater sense of confidence to avoid the risky behavior.

Credit: Shutterstock.com/NicolaeCucurudza.

Figure 2.9: An accurate self-conception is difficult to achieve

SELF-CONCEPT CLINGS TO STAGNANT THINKING Another challenge to accurate self-perception lies in the tendency to cling to stagnant thinking. As we discussed above, our self-concept, once it is relatively stable, resists change. However, human beings do change. If you think back to the sort of person you were in grade school, you can likely identify several ways in which you have changed as you have matured. Perhaps you used to be less confident than you are now. Or you might have discovered abilities that you didn't know you had until recently. If we cling too much to our self-concept, we limit what we can come to know of ourselves because we avoid trying out new activities or exploring new ways of thinking about ourselves. Because you were not proficient in playing soccer in kindergarten does not mean that you do not have any athletic ability; it may just mean that soccer is not your sport!

SELF-CONCEPT IS AFFECTED BY SELF-TALK All of these problems in accurately perceiving ourselves are compounded by our self-talk—the intrapersonal messages we send to ourselves. These messages powerfully affect the choices we make in everything, including how we communicate. "I know I'll fumble my responses in this job interview" is exactly the kind of self-talk that leads to the self-fulfilling prophecy. "I've never been good at meeting people" perpetuates stagnant thinking.

Psychologist Albert Ellis, founder of the therapeutic approach known as Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) or cognitive restructuring (Ellis, 1994, 2004), points out that our self-talk is often self-defeating, and that this is due to our tendency to hold certain "irrational beliefs." For example, many people refuse to try something new because they believe that they must be competent in all they do. When you think about this idea, you can see that this is wholly irrational, and yet how often do you berate yourself when you are not successful at something you are trying to do? Some people think that they must always be loved and approved of, which causes them to feel deeply hurt when they encounter someone who does not seem to

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

like them. You may meet many people in your life who are not particularly attracted to you, but this does not mean that you are not lovable or worthwhile. For athletes, Martin Turner (2016) claimed REBT can be used as an important mental framework to help shift away from self-defeating talk (e.g., If I fail in this routine it would be bad, but it does not mean I'm an awful athlete). The problem with holding any of these irrational beliefs (Dr. Ellis and his protégés identified 12 of them) is that they lead to distortions in how we view ourselves, our competence, and our essential worthiness. For more information on self-talk, see Apply Cognitive Restructuring in Chapter 10.

Credit: Shutterstock.com/Romrodphoto.

Figure 2.10: This child's self-concept will be formed in part from the messages he receives from others about who he is

SELF-CONCEPT AND IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT CAN CREATE ETHICAL ISSUES Whether we realize it or not, we strive to create a special image of ourselves in our interactions with others. This process of impression management involves choices that we make about how we speak and behave to affect what others think of us (Rosenfeld, 1997). Some scholars refer to this as "facework," meaning that we choose which "face"—which aspect of our personality—we will reveal to a given person at a given time (Ting-Toomey, 2000; Ting-Toomey & Kurogi, 1998). If we are ethical communicators, we do not try to manipulate others’ impressions of us by pretending to be something we are not. However, we are complicated creatures; we do not have just one "self." Each of us embodies many different traits, sometimes even traits that are opposites. You may know, for example, that you have a quiet self, but that you also have a more boisterous and sociable side. You may recognize that you are often very responsible, but that you have a more carefree and fun-loving "face" as well. You reveal different faces to different people according to the type of relationship you hope to develop with each person. It is not dishonest to be somewhat different in different relationships, but it is unethical to pose as something you are not to win someone's favor through deception. For more on face and face negotiation theory, see the Making Theory Practical feature in Chapter 6.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW: PERCEPTION AND SELF

Now that you are aware of the terms and information used to explain self-concept, consider these questions:

How would you describe your self-concept–including how healthy and accurate you judge it to be?

Think of some aspect of your self-concept that may be a product of stagnant thinking or negative self-talk. How can you determine whether change is needed?

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

[1]The Plus-2 Concept was developed specifically for this text by Cheryl Hamilton—one of your authors.

Perception and others

As important as our self-concept is in determining how we decode the messages of others, our accuracy in perceiving others is equally crucial. Unfortunately, there are many barriers to accurate perception of others. Which of these perception problems have affected you and your communication?

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

2.4 What are the barriers to accurate perception of others, and how does each barrier affect our communication success?

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

One problem we have in perceiving others accurately is that we tend to adhere to first impressions (Burgoon & Hoobler, 2002; Zunin & Zunin, 1994). We cannot avoid forming first impressions; they are a natural part of sizing up another person to determine whether communication with them is desirable or not. Interviewers certainly form first impressions. One of the first studies on interviewers and first impressions (Blakeman, 1971, p. 57) found that positive first impressions (formed in the first five minutes) resulted in a job offer 75 percent of the time; however, negative first impressions resulted in no job offer 90 percent of the time. A study of business professionals found that even a single writing error in a company brochure could cause a negative attitude toward the company (Guffey & Loewy, 2016). The problem arises when we cling to our first impressions to such a degree that we fail to alter those impressions even when new information is received—which might happen as we come to know the person or the company better. We may decide, based on a first impression, that the person is not worth getting to know better at all and choose to have no further interaction. If so, we will have no way to confirm or reject the first impression. It is important to be open to new information and new ways of perceiving.

STEREOTYPING

Often the inaccuracy in our first impressions is complicated by our tendency to stereotype. Stereotyping is what we do when we make assumptions about people based on our perceptions of the groups to which they belong. More specifically, stereotyping (which relates to the organizational principle of similarity) occurs when we store our perceptions of a person by inserting them into a larger, more generalized category. Sometimes these categories (which were learned from experiences, friends, family, and the media) require some thought; usually, however, they come to us almost automatically. Although stereotyping generally has a negative connotation, it does help order our lives, saves time, and allows us to function in situations where we may have limited information. Stereotyping—like first impressions—can serve as a kind of "first hunch" about how to approach communication with a person from a particular group. However, stereotyping can cause real problems if we fail to realize that our perceptions are not "reality" but are "filtered views of reality." It can also cause us to forget that all people are unique.

We typically think of stereotypes as they relate to how we react to people from different cultural or social groups from our own. As a member of one race, you may have perceptions of what people from another race are likely to believe or how they are likely to behave; you then assume that a certain individual from that race will embody all the characteristics you believe to be true of that racial group. Stereotypes are not limited to race, however; they include beliefs we may hold about people of certain age groups, occupations, social classes, geographic regions, gender, political persuasion, or other connections.

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Credit: Shutterstock.com/MonkeyBusinessImages.

Figure 2.11: This airline ticket agent knows how important first impressions are to company success

PERCEPTUAL CONSTANCY

Another problem we have with accurately perceiving others is that we seek perceptual constancy. Perceptual constancy refers to a desire for consistency between what we have experienced in the past and what we are experiencing in the present. If my first impression of you is that you are an honest individual, then I am going to expect you to be honest in all of our interactions. This tendency is related to the problem of halo effect, which occurs when a positive assessment of a person with respect to one central trait leads to the assumption of other positive traits, whether observed or not (Forgas & Laham, 2016). The devil effect is the reverse of the halo effect and happens when a negative assessment for one central trait leads to the assumption of other negative traits (Cook et al, 2003; Forgas & Laham, 2016). For example, attractive people are often assumed to possess other traits that are considered socially desirable, such as friendliness, honesty, or successfulness. The halo and devil effects are related to stereotyping and the organizational principle of closure discussed earlier.

FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR

The fundamental attribution error is discussed in more detail in Making Theory Practical. The term attribution refers to how we assign cause. When something happens, or someone behaves in a particular way, we ask ourselves, "Why did this happen? What caused her to do that?" Our attributions are the explanations we develop for the event or behavior. The fundamental attribution error occurs when we overestimate the effects of character traits and underestimate the effects of the situation in explaining another's behavior. This problem in perceiving others is similar to the self-serving bias that interferes with our perception of ourselves. While we tend to attribute our successes to our personal qualities and blame our failures on others or on situations beyond our control, we tend to do the reverse when explaining the successes and failures of others. When a friend does poorly on an exam, we attribute that to his lack of diligence as a student; when he does well, we attribute it to luck.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW: PERCEPTION AND OTHERS

Expand your knowledge of perception and others by answering the following questions:

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Give an example of when you or someone you know made a fundamental attribution error. How serious was this error in perception, and what, if anything, was done to remedy it?

Which perceptual barriers give you the most trouble with strangers–first impressions or projection? With close friends? Give examples to clarify your answers.

PROJECTION

Projection is our tendency to attribute to others the similar traits, motivations, and reactions that we possess. In the field of psychology, projection is the term used generally to refer to a defense mechanism that causes a person to attribute negative traits or motivations to someone else as a way to feel less ashamed (Lewis et al., 1994). For example, dishonest people are often quick to assume dishonesty in others. In this context, however, we are not using the term to refer only to negative traits or behaviors. Projection occurs any time we assume that others think, feel, and act the same way and for the same reasons that we do. We conclude that another person is happy about an event because we would be if it were to happen to us. Or we presume that someone else is angry about something because the person is acting the way we would act if we were angry. However, human beings vary too widely in how they think or act in response to similar situations for us to make assumptions.

Using Perceptual Skills to Improve Self-Concept

Obviously, there are many roadblocks to building a strong yet accurate self-concept. If your self-esteem is low in some areas of your life, or you are uncertain about the accuracy of your self-image, or perhaps you haven't really thought much about your self-image—you may want to try the following two tips for improving self-concept: self-reflection and feedback.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

2.5 What are the perceptual skills used to improve self-concept, and how are those skills used to improve perception with others?

SELF-REFLECTION

If we are to improve the accuracy of our self-concept, it is helpful for us to cultivate self-reflection. To use self-reflection is to have conscious awareness of what we are doing and thinking at any moment—it is an introspective process that includes the following:

Awareness of our self-talk. Hansen and Allen in The One Minute Millionaire (2002) suggest that because so many people use negative self-talk, it is a good idea to place a rubber band around your wrist and snap it each time you think or say something negative. You will be amazed at how many times you snap the band in just a single day—by the end of the day, most people have a red welt around their wrist.

Recognition of using a self-serving bias, self-fulfilling prophecy, or irrational beliefs. When you are interpreting the words or acts of others are you aware of when you are using the filter of the self-serving bias? Are you aware of when you aresetting yourself up for a self-fulfilling prophecy? Can you recognize when you are succumbing to irrational beliefs? The self-reflective person learns to challenge those beliefs (e.g., She may not like me, but that does not make me unlovable) and to assess in a realistic way the validity of the messages received from others.

Recognition of using impression management in an unethical manner. As mentioned earlier, although you do not always present the same "face" to every person you know, you should consider how your behaviors are or are not authentic reflections of who you are. No one likes to find out that the person they thought they could trust is a different person from the image that was presented. Deception is not ethical; it causes people to make relationship choices based on faulty information. The self-reflective person is aware of the difference between impression management used to present a polished image and impression management used to manipulate.

MAKING THEORY PRACTICAL: ATTRIBUTION THEORY

Imagine this situation:

Both you and a team member come to the team's final preparation meeting but have not completed your assignments. Your failures are actions or behaviors that will be interpreted by the team members as they search for understanding.

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

One theory that helps to explain the process your teammates will use in the above situation is called Attribution Theory (Heider, 1958; see also Littlejohn et al., 2017).

THEORIST

Attribution Theory, launched by psychologist Fritz Heider's book The Psychology of Interpersonal Relations (1958), describes how individuals process information and use it to explain behaviors of self and others.

Credit: Shutterstock.com/michaeljung.

Figure 2.12: Do you attribute the failures of others to their personal qualities but blame your own failures on the situation or on other people?

THREE BASIC STEPS

According to Heider, attribution theory involves three basic steps:

Step 1. We perceive an action/behavior/comment.

Step 2. We judge the intent of the action/behavior/comment.

Step 3. We attribute a reason or motivation for the action/behavior/comment.

Unfortunately, according to Littlejohn et al. (2017), most of us are biased and even illogical when we use attributions. How about you? Do you think that your judgments are made quickly and overgeneralized–or just the judgments of others? Unfortunately, personal psychological factors are affecting our interpretations. These factors include frames of reference, gender and cultural differences, emotional state, listening skills (discussed in Chapter 3), and what Heider calls the perceptual style of each member (i.e., an optimistic person is more likely than a pessimistic one to give others and self the benefit of the doubt). Also, keep in mind that once an attribution is made, we tend to stick with it even if later evidence sheds doubt on it.

PRACTICAL USES

So the next time you, your friends, or your team (or family) members attempt to assign a reason or motivation to an event or behavior, think about the insights that attribution theory and the fundamental attribution error offer. When differences in interpretation occur (often leading to arguments), remember the role that personal psychological factors play in our attributions. We are not as "unbiased" as we like to think.

FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR

As your team members strive to understand your behavior, they are likely to assume that what happened was a result of

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

specific things you did or failed to do–in other words, your failure was your fault. As mentioned earlier in this chapter, this tendency to overestimate the role that a person's character plays in behavior while underestimating the role of the situation is called the fundamental attribution error (Ross, 1977). The fundamental attribution error also suggests that when you describe the situation, you will join the other team members and likely consider the other person's failure as "his fault" (poor attitude or poor study habits). However, when describing your own failure, you are more likely to attribute your failure to "the situation" (faulty alarm or illness) rather than to a personal characteristic. Does this sound reasonable? In other words, your date's unhappiness was due to a slip of the tongue caused by your not getting enough sleep the night before; your friend's girlfriend problems are due to his poor communication skills.

Source: Heider (1958).

SEEKING FEEDBACK

Another way to improve accuracy in your perception of yourself is to seek feedback. You can ask others to give you an honest appraisal of your strengths and weaknesses. It is, of course, important that you seek this type of information only from people whose opinions you value and who have proven to be insightful and constructive in the past. You are under no obligation to accept the opinions of others as being the final word on who you are! However, be careful that you do not ask for such feedback if you are not open and willing to consider it carefully. It is not fair to others—and may be damaging to your interpersonal relationships—to ask for honest opinions and then become defensive or angry about what you hear. If you are looking for honest feedback, you could ask: "What do you think about this outfit for my job interview on Monday?" However, if you are only looking for agreement, it might be better to say: "You do like this outfit, don't you?" This type of comment is a fairly clear message that you are asking for approval, not constructive criticism. Seeking feedback can be very beneficial, but it is not a good strategy if you do not have a trusted respondent or are unwilling to use the feedback in a constructive way.

Exploring Perception: Culture, Gender, Ethics, and Technology

Not only can perceptual skills help you improve your self-concept, but they can also help improve your communication with others. Specifically, there are some special areas where perception affects the success of our communication—culture, gender, technology, and ethics. Let's look at each of these areas in more detail.

PERCEPTION AND CULTURE

Earlier in the chapter we looked at how cultural factors can lead to perception errors. Now we shift over and look at some techniques to help you become more aware of how your perceptions can be influenced by culture. Deliberately paying attention (conscious awareness) to your thought processes in a nonjudgmental way is referred to as mindfulness (Jones et al., 2017). Being mindful will enable you to identify those moments when you may be swayed by one or more perceptual barriers discussed earlier. When you meet someone from a different social group or culture from your own, being mindful will cause you to recognize the tendency to operate from stereotypes and remind you to keep an open mind. When you are mindful, you will be able to catch yourself projecting your own perspective or cultural traditions onto someone else. Communication scholars Burgoon, Berger, and Waldron (2000) express mindfulness this way:

Communication that is planful, effortfully processed, creative, strategic, flexible, and/or reason-based (as opposed to emotion-based) would seem to qualify as mindful, whereas communication that is reactive, superficially processed, routine, rigid, and emotional would fall toward the mindless end of the continuum (p. 112).

Mindful communicators show more compassion and greater emotional support in their interaction with others (Jones & Hansen, 2015). While mindfulness occurs at the intrapersonal level, shared mindfulness is important at the interpersonal level when two or more people are working together to make effective decisions often in crisis situations (Krieger, 2005).

PERCEPTION AND GENDER

In Chapter 1 we looked at a basic communication model and the influence that comes from an individual's frame of reference. The differences in perception between men and women are shaped through being socialized through a male or female worldview. These differences can be so pronounced that author John Gray (2012) even used the title Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus for one of his books. When you reflect on your last miscommunication with a member of the opposite sex, it was probably the result of a difference in perception. Even something as simple as "How was your day?" can be perceived differently for men and women. For women, this is a time to connect and relate through different emotions experienced throughout the day. They want to share their experiences. Men, on the other hand, view this is as time to solve problems and to strategize for what to do differently next time.

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

UNIT I SCENARIO

Question #6

How do reframing and perception checking work? Would they be beneficial for Julie and Waan? Why or why not? Create a possible situation that could occur at the approaching party and write out how reframing and/or perception checking could be used. Include ethics in your discussion. Be prepared to share your results if asked.

Men and women also differ in how they think about and use technology. In an analysis of 50 articles spanning nearly 20 years, Cai, Fan, and Du (2017) found that men have a more favorable attitude toward technology use compared to women. As users of technology, Chang (2015) found that women are more likely to elaborate on the positive aspects when posting and reading consumer comments. Men, on the other hand, were more likely to post and read both positive and negative consumer comments, but experienced more discomfort with this type of communication.

PERCEPTION AND ETHICS

In our discussion of ethics in Chapter 1 we looked at examples of actual codes of ethics that are used in professional settings. In addition to business guidelines, individuals also need to develop skills for making more personal ethical choices in communication. Reframing and perception checking are two of these skills.

ETHICAL CHOICES AND REFRAMING Effective reframing involves recasting a situation from the perspective of the other person, not just from your own perspective. Although it is easy to imagine what probably happened from your own frame of reference, looking at the same situation from the other person's frame of reference (i.e., reframing the situation) is much more difficult. Even if you think your version of events is the correct one, try to see the situation as though you were the other person. This exercise will help you become more open to other points of view and to other people—thus becoming a more ethical communicator.

Credit: Shutterstock.com/MonkeyBusinessImages.

Figure 2.13: Experts are more successful when they can reframe their knowledge from the novice's perspective

ETHICAL CHOICES AND PERCEPTION CHECKING An active step toward improving your perception of others is to cultivate the skill known as perception checking. A perception check is a verbal request for feedback to determine whether your interpretation of someone's nonverbal behavior is accurate. To illustrate how the skill of perception checking, when used correctly, can be beneficial to you, consider this example. Suppose you notice that a classmate does not respond to your

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

"hello" when you enter the classroom. If she customarily returns your greetings, you will probably wonder why she didn't do the same this time. You decide that the most likely explanation is that she is miffed because you didn't return her call the night before. Wouldn't it be helpful to know what her behavior really meant before responding? This is where a perception check would add to ethical communication and help avoid a potential crisis in your relationship.

Use Perception Checking Correctly For a perception check to be effective, it is important that you consider exactly what to say. Many people would say, "What's wrong?" And chances are good that the response they would receive is "Nothing." If this has ever happened to you, you probably know what follows. Often this opening to dialogue leads to even more conflict. The problem is that you have put the other person in a defensive position by assuming that there is something wrong, and that whatever is wrong is their responsibility. Let's look at a better way to get the feedback you need to make an accurate perception.

Include Four Basic Steps Effective perception checks require four basic steps (the first two occur in your mind; the last two are spoken):

Step 1: Determine the exact behavior that triggered your perception.

Step 2: Identify your initial interpretation of the behavior but consider other possible interpretations as well.

Step 3: Describe (in an open and non-accusatory manner) the specific behavior you observed along with two or three possible interpretations.

Step 4: Ask the other person to verify or correct your interpretations.

Your perception check in the above example might proceed like this:

Step 1: Rachel ignored me completely when I said "hello"—I can't believe she did this!

Step 2: I'm afraid she's mad at me because I didn't return her call the night before; however, it's possible that she is preoccupied with something or didn't even hear me.

Step 3: "Rachel, I noticed that you didn't respond when I said hello, which isn't like you. I wondered if you were just preoccupied, or maybe you didn't hear me, or if you are upset because I didn't have time to return your call last night?"

Step 4: "Is everything OK?"

Understand Reasons for Each Step At first, this formula for an effective perception check may seem too mechanical and awkward. However, there are good reasons for each of the suggested steps.

Reason for Step 1: Determining the specific behavior that has triggered your perception requires you to recognize that a behavior is different from an interpretation. Too often we accuse others of "acting" angry. But anger is not a behavior; it is the interpretation that an observer draws from someone's behavior. The behavior is the frown, the stomping out of the room, or the slamming of the door.

Reason for Step 2: Identifying the interpretation you have drawn, recognizing why you have drawn it, and exploring the range of other possible interpretations forces you to acknowledge that any nonverbal behavior may have many different meanings. Too often we make the dangerous assumption that there is only one plausible reason for people to act the way they do. Furthermore, we fail to recognize that our interpretations are ours and are based on something personal, such as the reluctant admission that we may have done something that would justify someone else's behavior. By taking time to perform the first two steps, we are accomplishing mindfulness in our communication. Also we are being self-reflective, acknowledging our own role in the formation of the perception.

Reason for Step 3: Describing the specific behavior you have observed along with several non-accusatory interpretations allows you to check the accuracy of your perception. It also allows the other person to know exactly what he or she did that confused you. Sometimes people are not as aware as they should be about how their behaviors communicate (as in the cartoon on page 52). When you tell them what has caused you to wonder about the meaning of their behavior and possible interpretations you have reached about that behavior, you are, in effect, helping them to understand that their behaviors do communicate.

Reason for Step 4: The request for feedback is simply an invitation to dialogue. It lets the other person know that you are genuinely interested in hearing their perspective and that you are striving to achieve shared meaning instead of misunderstanding. There are many ways to ask for feedback; you could simply say, "What's up?" or you could elaborate by saying, "I'd really like to know, so I don't misunderstand."

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Your initial attempts at performing effective perception checks may feel strange and uncomfortable, but there is always a period of awkwardness when you are learning a new skill. It is also true that when you first use a perception check with someone with whom you have a longstanding relationship, your efforts may surprise them. After all, this isn't the normal routine. However, over time, perception checks will become second nature to you, and they have the potential to greatly improve communication within your relationships.

PERCEPTION AND YOUR CAREER

The communication and perception skills covered in this chapter can be of special importance to you as you search for and develop a career. The Spotlight on, Career Moment, and Connecting to features relate communication skills from the chapter to success in the specific fields of business, education, and healthcare.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

2.6 What perception skills covered in this chapter relate specifically to your career?

Spotlight on the Importance of Perception

Business

Employers are interested in learning how your attitudes and personality affect your perceptions of colleagues, projects, and ideas. For example, when Southwest Airlines hires, they look for seven traits: "cheerfulness, optimism, decision-making ability, team spirit, communication, self-confidence, and self-starter skills" (Krames, 2003, p. 180).

Also, employers have identified a need for more creativity and critical thinking skills in the graduates they hire (Desai et al., 2016). In a survey of hiring managers, 60 percent identified critical thinking and problem-solving skills as lacking, followed by attention to detail (56 percent), communication (46 percent), and writing proficiency (44 percent) (Dishman, 2016). Enhancing your perception skills is a first step toward improving these business skills.

Education

According to the Handbook of Instructional Communication (Mottet et al., 2016), approximately 20 percent of college students experience communication apprehension (CA)–fear of communicating with other people–they perceive the instructor and other students as dangerous. Students who perceive communication as enjoyable generally sit in the front or in the middle of the classroom, students with high CA are likely to sit in the back or along the sides of the classroom, which instructors generally ignore (Mottet et al., 2016, p. 63). To make class less fearful for high CAs, the Handbook offers these ideas:

Encourage participation.

Avoid randomly calling on students.

Avoid alphabetical seating.

Healthcare

Is it possible that healthcare providers could be influenced by their own perception of different racial/ethnic groups? Hall et al. (2015) found an implicit bias for most healthcare providers that was positive for whites and negative for people of color. A study of perception is especially important for people going into healthcare so they can become aware of their own hidden bias. Penner et al. (2016) found that the influence of racial/ethnic bias for oncologists can be associated with shorter interaction times and communication that is less patient-centered. Patients had less confidence in the physician's recommendation and a perception of greater difficulty in following the physician's recommendation.

Career Moment: Personality Tests College counselors use personality tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) to help students select careers in which their abilities and personality match the job requirements. The self-test included in our Developing Skills feature for this chapter is only an indication of your scores. We recommend that you go to your counseling department and take the complete licensed MBTI and let them suggest careers that would be a match for your abilities and personality (Daft & Marcic, 2015):

Sensing-Thinking Intuitive-Thinking

Accounting Systems design Computer programming Law/management

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Sensing-Thinking Intuitive-Thinking

Engineering Teaching business

Sensing-Feeling Intuitive-Feeling

Supervising Public relations Counseling Advertising/politics Selling Human resources

The Big Five personality questionnaire on the next page is another way to assess your personality strengths and weaknesses.

Credit: Shutterstock.com/AdamGregor.

Figure 2.14

Many companies use personality tests to match the worker with the best job assignment (Chatterjee, 2015). Chatterjee reports that three of the most accurate personality tests for job hiring are the Caliper Profile, Gallup StrengthsFinder, and the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire. Prior to an interview, find out whether assessments are used during hiring. Then go to a bookstore or library and find about the specific assessment tool.

Also, keep in mind that you can learn to be a good communicator regardless of your personality characteristics. Just by taking a single course in Communication and applying the skills presented, you can improve your choices, abilities, and communication confidence and make yourself more desirable to employers.

Connecting to … Business

Are you aware of the following "Big Five" personality factors (Daft & Marcic, 2015, p. 127):

1. Extroversion–are you "outgoing, talkative, assertive, and comfortable" with others?

2. Agreeableness–are you "likable, forgiving, understandable, and trusting"?

3. Conscientiousness–are you "dependable, persistent, and achievement oriented"?

4. Emotional stability–are you "calm, enthusiastic, and self-confident"?

5. Openness to experience–are you "imaginative and creative"?

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Credit: Shutterstock.com/Monkey Business Images.

ACTIVITY

Rate yourself on each statement:

1 (low) to 5 (high)*

Extroversion

I am usually the life of the party.

I feel comfortable around people.

Agreeableness

I am kind and sympathetic.

I have a good word for everyone.

Conscientiousness

I am systematic and efficient.

I am always prepared for meetings.

Emotional Stability

I am happy when others receive recognition.

I am a relaxed, cheerful person.

Openness

I enjoy trying new things.

I look for creative solutions.

Interpretation:

Higher scores = effective employee;

lower scores = self-assessment needed.

*Source: Adapted from Daft & Marcic (2015, p. 428).

Connecting to … Education

As students, you know that your perceptions may not always be the same as your professors’ perceptions. But students’ perceptions can affect how much they learn. According to Professor C. Roland Christensen (2006), teachers play an important catalytic role in what their students perceive and potentially in what they learn in two important areas:

1. Students learn more if they perceive the instructor as open and caring (p. 647).

2. Students learn more if they perceive the instructor as relaxed and patient (p. 650).

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Credit: Shutterstock.com/AVAVA.

ACTIVITY

Join three or four other students who have an interest in education and discuss the following questions:

1. Recall teachers you have had in the past who aided positive student perceptions or negative student perceptions.

2. Share your descriptions of an "open and caring" professor and contrast it with the description of a "closed and indifferent" professor. Why do students learn more when an instructor is open and caring?

3. Describe a "relaxed and patient" professor and contrast the description with a "rushed and impatient" professor. Why do students learn more when an instructor is relaxed and patient?

Connecting to … Healthcare

What if today was your first day on the job as an ER nurse or other healthcare professional? You would need to be a competent communicator and realize that the perceptions of patients, family members, and healthcare workers are not always the same (Scotti et al., 2007). When the perceptions of these three groups do not overlap, chaos and problems are likely to occur for all involved.

Credit: Shutterstock.com/Tyler Olson.

ACTIVITY

In groups of four to six people, read the following scenario and answer the questions that follow.

This is Rob's first day as a nurse in the ER. When the intercom calls "Rob to room #4 for code red stat!", he enters the room to see a three-year-old boy with lower abdomen trauma screaming and kicking. The ER doctor is busy tending to the wounds while other healthcare workers assist. The parents are screaming, "Save my baby!" A physician calls, "Please, leave and let us do our job!" Rob sees the head nurse point toward the family, and it is apparently Rob's role to deal with them.

1. Describe this chaotic situation from the perceptions of the following people: the child, parents, and healthcare staff.

2. What should Rob do and not do to spread calm and provide an overlap of perceptions to those in the room?

Finally, for successful perception checking, we have two additional suggestions: First, do not wait until there seems to be a potential crisis brewing to try out your new skill. The best time to learn a new approach is in situations that have a low-risk threshold. Perhaps you see your friend smiling broadly. Practice your new skill by saying, "Wow, you sure do have a big smile on your face! Did you get some good news or are you just in a good mood today? What's going on?" Practicing in these types of situations will enable you to draw on your new skill with less awkwardness when there are potentially more serious issues to confront.

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Second, you do not need to check every perception. It would be quite annoying if you performed a perception check every time you observed a behavior—not to mention time-consuming, since nonverbal behaviors are nearly constant! However, when someone does something that has potential significance to how you perceive them or to how you perceive your relationship, a perception check is deserved. Misunderstandings lead to conflicts that can have potentially devastating effects on relationships.

PERCEPTION AND TECHNOLOGY

We already looked at a common myth earlier in the chapter—while we like to think we are good at multitasking, the reality is that we are not. Being distracted by technology can increase perception errors. As an example, there is evidence that exam scores in college courses are higher when students are studying with two or fewer media sites in the background, compared to being distracted by seven or more media sites (Patterson, 2016). Hawi and Samaha (2016) have even shown that students who suffer from a smartphone addiction have lower overall GPAs. Eliminating distractions from technology will improve the perception process. Another way to improve communication is to consider how you are using technology.

Credit: Shutterstock.com/LStockStudio.

Figure 2.15: Perception-checking is critical for healthy communication

Brown et al. (2016) found that errors in the words used in email message (e.g., all upper case or all lower case, misspelled words, lack of emoticons, and typographical errors) created a negative impression of the sender that lasted longer than when errors are used in a face-to-face setting. Studies like this show us that the language we use in our online correspondence is very important for how meaning will be interpreted. We look deeper into the nature of language in Chapter 4.

APPLY WHAT YOU KNOW: PERCEPTUAL SKILLS

Apply what you know about perceptual skills by identifying each of the following situations (select from: A = Self-reflection, B = Reframing, or C = Perception checking) and give reasons why you feel that your answers are correct:

Josue, who is discussing the recent football game with some friends, acknowledges Chase with a frown when he walks

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

up to the group. Later that day, Chase finds Josue alone and says, "You frowned when you saw me earlier today. Were you reacting to something someone said or are you still angry that I took your parking spot yesterday when I was late for an exam? What was going on?" Chase's question to Josue is an example of _______.

Dana sees one of her classmates, Amy, in the cafeteria. Since she does not see anyone else she knows, she decides to greet Amy in hopes that she will be invited to join her. However, Amy just looks up from her book and says, "Hi," and then returns to her reading. Dana is offended by Amy's rudeness until she stops to consider that Amy might be studying for an exam. Dana's consideration of this possibility is an example of _______.

Joe and Sally were having a disagreement. In the middle of the argument, Joe realized that Sally was right, but that he was still arguing because he couldn't stand to be wrong. Joe's awareness of his behavior is an example of _______.

CHAPTER SUMMARY

Understanding and using accurate perceptions of self and others requires knowledge and skill. Most people have inaccurate perceptions of themselves and others which lead to communication misunderstandings. For a detailed summary of the chapter's learning objectives, see Online Materials for Chapter 2. Summarize this chapter by checking each skill that you now feel qualified to perform:

I can recognize the importance of accurate perception for communication and its effect on my daily communication.

I can more accurately analyze my self-concept and recognize areas that need improvement.

I can pinpoint two or three perceptual errors that cause me trouble and plan to improve them so I can more accurately perceive others.

I can use the perception skills of self-reflection, mindfulness, and perception checking.

The next chapter will look at the role that listening plays in the success or failure of our communication with others.

KEY TERMS (CHECK GLOSSARY FOR DEFINITIONS)

6-person concept

ambiguous figures

attribution theory

closure

devil effect

empathy

first impressions

fundamental attribution error

halo effect

impression management

interpretation

laws of organization

mindfulness

Myers-Briggs type indicator

organization

perception

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

perception checking

perceptual constancy

physiological factors

plus-2 concept

projection

proximity

psychological factors

rational-emotive behavior

reflected appraisal

reframe/reframing

selection

selective distortion

self-concept

self-esteem

self-fulfilling prophecy

self-image

self-reflection

self-serving bias

self-talk

similarity

stagnant thinking

stereotyping

visual illusions

SKILL BUILDERS

1. Unit I Scenario Activity: To demonstrate your knowledge of Chapter 2, complete the following:

a. In groups of three to seven, answer the Chapter 2 questions that relate to the Unit I Scenario about Julie and Waan (questions 4, 5, and 6). Be prepared to share your answers with other groups.

b. End by answering this final question: Which perceptual skills do you think would make good communication goals for Waan and Julie and would go a long way toward helping them improve their communication now and in the future? Why?

2. Perception Activity: Divide into groups and complete the following exercise involving King Arthur, Lancelot, Guinevere, and a disgruntled knight who is an enemy of the king. The history of King Arthur goes something like this:

King Arthur introduces his wife to his faithful knight, Lancelot. When the king leaves on an important mission, he makes Lancelot promise to watch over and protect Guinevere. The friendship between Lancelot and Guinevere grows into an attraction that soon gets out of hand. Feeling shame and fearing the imminent return of the king, they agree to meet one

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

last time. An enemy of the king follows Lancelot and plans a trap so they will be discovered.

Instructions: On paper, each group member should rank the four people involved in the story from the most acceptable behavior to the least acceptable. When everyone is finished, discuss your rankings and work as a group to get unanimous agreement. When you are finished with the exercise, discuss the reason for any disagreements and why your perceptions were different or the same.

3. Personality Type Activity: Using the same groups from Activity 1 above, have each group member complete the Developing Skills (on pages 50–51). During the following class period, take a few minutes to compare the results of each member's personality type. Discuss the differences and similarities of personality types found in your group and discuss what effect, if any, personality might have had on possible group disagreements in Activity 1.

4. Critically Evaluating What You Read Activity: Using the critical evaluation form in Chapter 1, select and evaluate an article from the CROW: Course Resources on the Web supported by the Associated Colleges of Illinois (http://jfmueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/crow/theself.htm). Although any article on this page will work, you will especially enjoy Jonathan Mueller's article, "The Forgotten Origins of the Self-serving Bias." Be prepared to share your observations with your classmates.

5. Assessment Activity: Consider the use of military force by the United States against another country or terrorist group (pick one for this activity). Reflect on differing perceptions as discussed in this chapter. Regardless of your personal opinion, be as objective as possible in discussing use of military force from several of the perceptions listed below. Be prepared to share your results if asked:

Republican Senator

Democratic Senator

Active member of the U. S. military

Citizen from another country

Liberal American citizen

Conservative American citizen

College student aged 18–25

College student aged 26 and older

NOTE

1. The Plus-2 Concept was developed specifically for this text by Cheryl Hamilton—one of your authors.

Communicating for Success, 2nd Edition

Chapter 2: Using Perception to Understand Self and others
Overview
Introduction
Perception: Definitions and Steps
Factors That Lead to Differences in Perception
Perception and Self
Perception and others
Using Perceptual Skills to Improve Self-Concept
Exploring Perception: Culture, Gender, Ethics, and Technology