English essay questions
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Chapter3.pptxPERCEPTION AND COMMUNICATION
WARM UP OF PERCEPTION
Connect the dots using only 4 lines
1.
THE PROCESS OF HUMAN PERCEPTION
Who can define perception?
WHAT IS PERCEPTION?
Active process of creating meaning by selecting, organizing and interpreting people, objects, events, situations and other phenomena
Note its defined as an ACTIVE PROCESS
We don’t passively receive what is out there in the external world, instead we actively work to make sense of everything around us.
1. SELECTION
2. ORGANIZATION
3. INTERPRETATION
PERCEPTION
PROCESS
These three are continuous and interactive so they blend into one another and each of them affects the other two
For example: if we select to focus our perception in a particular situation, it affects how we organize and interpret the situation.
1.SELECTION
2. ORGANIZATION
3. INTERPRETATION
SELECTION EXERCISE
Narrowing attention to what you define as important
1. Stand Out
2. Change
3. Cultures
1.SELECTION
Selection exercise
(we focus on what we decide is relevant to us in any given moment)
1. Stand Out- draws attention bc larger, more intense, or more unusual than other phenomena, flashy ads and neon billboards
2. Change-teacher had a habit of letting you out of class early but then ...-take things for granted
3. Cultures - clothing culture
2.ORGANIZATION
SELECTION
3. INTERPRETATION
Organize what we’ve noticed and attribute meaning to it
Constructivism-we organize and interpret experience by applying cognitive structures called schemata
We rely on 4 schemata to make sense of interpersonal phenomena:
1. Prototypes
2. Personal Constructs
3. Stereotypes
4. Scripts
2.ORGANIZATION
A theory that explains how we organize experience
Mental Cabinet
1. Prototypes-
Organize our perceptions by allowing us to place people and other phenomena in broad categories
Ex: Nick is the best friend you’ve ever known,
Nick= prototype of a friend
2. Personal Constructs
3. Stereotypes
4. Scripts
Clearest or most representative example of some category (ideal representative)
I might think the rock is the most ideal representative of an actor
2. Personal Constructs
“mental yardstick” we use to measure a person or situation along a bipolar dimension of judgment.
Ex: intelligent-not intelligent. Kind-not kind.
1. Prototypes
3. Stereotypes
4. Scripts
We use them to size up people/other phenomena
Helps us make more detailed assessments of particular qualities of people/phenomena (vs. prototypes to put a broad category)
3. Stereotypes
Predictive generalization applied to a person or situation
Ex: racial stereotypes. Americans are often negatively stereotyped in other parts of world: arrogant, ethnocentric
1. Prototypes
2. Personal Constructs
4. Scripts
Based on category in which we place someone/something/how person measures up against personal constructs we apply, we predict what he/she/it will do.
Don't necessarily reflect actual groups to which they refer. Based on perceptions of groups/social perspectives we’ve internalized.
4. Scripts
Guide to action. Consists of sequences of activities that are expected of us and others in particular situations.
Based on our experiences/observations of interaction in various contexts.
1. Prototypes
2. Personal Constructs
3. Stereotypes
Many of daily activities governed by scripts even though may not be aware
Are useful through interactions but not always accurate or constructive
DEFAULT
EXPECT
3. INTERPRETATION
SELECTION
2.ORGANIZATION
Assign meaning by interpreting what we’ve noticed/organized.
Subjective process of explaining our perceptions in ways that make sense to us
Attributions- explanation of why something happened or why someone acts a certain way.
Have 4 Dimensions:
1. Locus
2. Stability
3. Specificity
4. Responsibility
3.INTERPRETATION
To interpret meaning of another's actions we construct explanations/attributions for them
1. Locus-
Attributes a person’s actions to internal factors (Ex: Mandy’s car breaks down because she thinks she’s ignorant about cars ) or external factors (Ex: The car is really old)
2. Stability
3. Specificity
4. Responsibility
The perception that you control your own behavior
Perception that luck/chances/outside forces determine what happens next
2. Stability
Actions as result of stable factors that wont change over time (ex: He failed the history exam because he has naturally bad memorization skills) or unstable factors that may or will be different at another time (He failed the exam because he didn’t spend that much time studying)
1. Locus
3. Specificity
4. Responsibility
Stable-inherent, unchanging factors
Unstable-Variable subject to change
Stable. He couldnt hear the girl talking because he lost his hearing when he was young
Unstable-he couldnt hear the girl talking because he just wasnt paying attention
3. Specificity
Whether behavior has global implications that apply in most of all situations (ex: “I’m no good”) or specific implications that apply in only certain situations or under certain conditions (ex: ”I’m no good at history”)
1. Locus
2. Stability
4. Responsibility
Outcome affects everything vs outcome only affects one task
The whole students life vs limited scope of just history class
4. Responsibility
We’re more likely to hold people responsible for behavior that we think they can control.
We feel more/less positive towards others depending on our interpretation of why they act as they do (ex: we think he’s cranky because he failed his test vs. he’s cranky because his family is going through a tough situation
1. Locus
2. Stability
3. Specificity
How we account for others’ actions affects our perceptions of them and our relationships with them.
2 common errors people make in attributions:
Self-serving bias- bias towards ourselves and our interests. People tend to construct attributions that serve our personal interests.
Fundamental Attribution Error-involves dimension of locus. We tend to overestimate the internal cause of others undesirable behaviors and underestimate the external causes (vice versa)
Attributional Errors
Self Serving: Environment causes our failure, Self causes our success.
Attribution error: Environment causes their success, self causes their failure
Influences on Perception
2.
Physiology
Sensory capacities and physiology conditions differ in everyone.
Medical Conditions and medication side effects alter our perception.
Expectations
Self-fulfilling prophecy: When we internalize others expectations and judgments about us and we behave in ways that are consistent to them.
If you are expecting something in particular, you will focus on finding it.
Age
60 year old vs. 20 year old
The older, the wiser.
Older people have many more complex experiences and have faced life's challenges.
Broader perspective.
Culture
American culture is very individualistic
The identity in American culture is identified by taking personal initiative.
Collectivist culture’s idea of identity is membership to a family.
Individualistic vs. Collectivist
Social Location
Standpoint
High status vs. Less-privileged social groups
Women and Men Social Locations
Maintaining relationships
Racial- ethnic groups
Roles
The training we receive to fulfill a role and actual demands of a role affect what we notice and how we interpret and evaluate the role.
The professions people enter influence what they notice and how they think and act.
Cognitive Abilities
How elaborately we think about situations and people, and our personal knowledge of others.
Cognitive Complexity
Children vs. Adults
Person-Centeredness
Is this empathy?
Self
Attachment styles:
Secure
Fearful
Dismissive
Anxious/Ambivalent
Implicit personality theory: a collection of unspoken and sometimes unconscious assumptions about how various qualities fit together in human personalities.
Social Media and
Perception
Our choices of social media shape our perceptions of events, issues, and people.
VS.
2. Cultural membership influences the content we post on social media.
3. Our sense of time and space has completely changed due to social media.
3.
GUIDELINES FOR IMPROVING PERCEPTION AND COMMUNICATION
Perception is central to interpersonal communication
Seven guidelines exist for improving accuracy of perception
RECOGNIZE ALL PERCEPTIONS ARE PARTIAL AND SUBJECTIVE
Partial - We cannot perceive EVERYTHING
Subjective - Shaped by who we are (culture, physiology, social role, personal experiences, etc)
Remind ourselves that perceptions are based as much on ourselves as outside forces.
ALL perceptions are partial and subjective.
Film example (a movie you think it funny, might not be to someone else for personal, social, cultural, or cognitive differences)
For example I love Arrested Development. I think its one of the funniest series ever made and I love the characters, attention to detail, and pretty much everything about it. A lot of the jokes ironically deal with mis-communication or mis-interpretation. Now, someone else who watches it might think its boring or hard to follow. They probably just have a different frame of reference for what they think is funny based on cultural or personal differences.
TWO MAJOR IMPLICATIONS OF PARTIAL AND SUBJECTIVE PERCEPTIONS
When in an argument with another person and you disagree, neither of you are technically wrong. You more than likely have different subjective differences (i.e. cultural) that contributed to your perceptions.
Our perceptions are as much internal as external. For example, a person could be seen as aggressive to you, but assertive to themselves.
2. AVOID MIND READING
Mind Reading - assuming the thoughts and feelings of another person
DANGER of mind reading is
misinterpreting others
Jumping to conclusions is like someone saying “I know why you’re upset” without actually explaining why you’re actually upset
We mind read when we tell ourselves when we think we know how someone will react, feel, do, or even what they’re saying.
Example of mind reading is this clip from Arrested Development. They call this character the VERY literal doctor and you’ll find out why.
Essentially the characters are taking the doctor’s phrasing of “alright” as in he’s fine, alive, well. In fact he means ALL RIGHT because he lost his left hand.
3. CHECK PERCEPTIONS WITH OTHERS
Helps arrive at mutual understandings of each other
Helps someone know that you’ve noticed something and want to clarify your perceptions of what’s happening and what it means
If you notice something or think you’re perceiving something, its best to confirm your perception with the person.
State what you’ve noticed
Check with the other person if they perceived the same thing
Ask the other person to explain their behavior
(use a tentative tone instead of an accusatory one to minimize the other person being defensive and lead to good discussion)
Steps to checking perceptions
This is a clip from Modern Family that demonstrates checking perceptions. YouTube didn’t give me the full clip, but I’ll give some background. So in this episode, the husband in this scene notices his wife has been upset lately. He doesn’t want to ask why as to not make her more upset, so he tries to assume the issue. He figures their son just went off to college, she’s probably upset that he’s gone, so he drives all the way to school and brings her son home to make her feel better. When that doesn’t work, he’s finally direct.
All of this to say, when you’re direct with a perception, the results are usually better than trying to fix the issue on your own. If he had just asked his wife what was wrong from the start, they could have avoided a lot of miscommunication.
4. DISTINGUISH BETWEEN FACTS AND INFERENCES
Good communication distinguishes these things
fact is based on observation vs inference involves an interpretation beyond facts
Easy to confuse them because we can treat inferences as fact
Risk misperceptions when we don’t distinguish the two
To avoid it, substitute more tentative words (i.e. instead of saying something that sounds like a fact like suzy is lazy, clarify it as suzy seems unmotivated to make an inference)
5. GUARD AGAINST THE SELF-SERVING BIAS
See yourself too good and others as bad
Observe yourself to see how you attribute failures or accomplishments
We are more likely to notice what we do and less aware what others do
Tend to judge ourselves generously but judge others harshly
Substitute generous explanations for the behaviors of others and notice how your perceptions change
Observe yourself to see whether you attribute your failures or your adverse behaviors to factors beyond your control and whether you attribute your accompaniments to your own efforts
6. GUARD AGAINST THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR
Overestimate internal causes of someone’s bad behavior and underestimate external causes
Distorts our perceptions of ourselves and others
To reduce, look for external causes of others’ behaviors that you may not have thought of or appreciated
We tend to do the opposite (hence the self-serving bias)
Instead of assuming that the unwanted behavior reflects another’s motives or personality, ask yourself “what factors in this person's situation might lead to this behavior?”
For example, let’s say I perceived Suzy to be in a bad mood and she said something to me that hurt my feelings. It could be just quick comment that she probably said without thinking but it showed a negative behavior. I could be committing the fundamental attribution error if I assumed “well because of this one instance of her being mean, she’s probably a bad person. In actuality, every other encounter has been positive and she said something out of her character. She could have been sleep deprived working on another assignment or have had another issue come up that put her in a bad mood. By looking for these external causes and being more generous with her internal behavior, I’d realize it probably wasn’t personal. Thus, avoiding the Fundamental Attribution Error
Also, asking what factors in yourself may have led to this situation
7. MONITOR LABELS
So we give names to our perceptions and use these terms to clarify them to ourselves. Once we label these perceptions and are able to identify them, we can implement them and choose how to respond interpersonally.
Giving names to our perceptions can clarify them, but they can also freeze thought
Word choice is crucial when using labels. Monitor labels to adapt to specific people. If you know someone might respond better to one label rather than the other you should take the more sensitive approach.
WARM UP OF PERCEPTION?
Connect the dots using only 4 lines
ANSWER
Connect the dots using only 4 lines
Must have out of the box thinking, our of the box perceptions!
