Perception
Can you remember a time when you felt it was important for you to make a positive first
impression? What about a time when someone made a positive first impression on you? First
impressions are important aspects of how we perceive others and how others perceive us.
The Process of Perception
Perception is the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensory information. This
cognitive and psychological process begins with receiving stimuli through our primary senses
(vision, hearing, touch, taste, and smell). This information is then passed along to corresponding
areas of the brain and organized into our existing structures and patterns, and then interpreted
based on previous experiences. How we perceive the people and objects around us directly
affects our communication. We respond differently to an object or person that we perceive
favourably than we do to something or someone we find unfavourable. But how do we filter
through the mass amounts of incoming information, organize it, and make meaning from what
makes it through our perceptual filters and into our social realities?
Selecting Information
We take in information through all five of our senses, but our perceptual field (the world around
us) includes so many stimuli that it is impossible for our brains to process and make sense of it
all. So, as information comes in through our senses, various factors influence what actually
continues on through the perception process (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). Selecting is the first part of
the perception process, in which we focus our attention on certain incoming sensory
information. Think about how, out of many other possible stimuli to pay attention to, you may
hear a familiar voice in the hallway, see a pair of shoes you want to buy from across the mall, or
smell something cooking for dinner when you get home from work. We quickly cut through and
push to the background all kinds of sights, smells, sounds, and other stimuli, but how do we
decide what to select and what to leave out?
We tend to pay attention to information that is salient. Salience is the degree to which
something attracts our attention in a particular context. The thing attracting our attention can
be abstract, like a concept, or concrete, like an object. For example, a person’s identity as a
Native American may become salient when they are protesting at the Columbus Day parade in
Denver, Colorado. Or a bright flashlight shining in your face while camping at night is sure to be
salient. The degree of salience depends on three features (Fiske & Tayor, 1991). We tend to find
things salient when they are visually or aurally stimulating, they meet our needs or interests, or
when they do or don’t meet our expectations.
Visual and Aural Stimulation
It is probably not surprising to learn that visually and/or aurally stimulating things become
salient in our perceptual field and get our attention. Creatures ranging from fish to
hummingbirds are attracted to things like silver spinners on fishing poles or red and yellow bird
feeders. Having our senses stimulated isn’t always a positive thing though. Think about the
couple that won’t stop talking during the movie or the upstairs neighbor whose subwoofer
shakes your ceiling at night. In short, stimuli can be attention-getting in a productive or
distracting way. However, we can use this knowledge to our benefit by minimizing distractions
when we have something important to say. It’s probably better to have a serious conversation
with a significant other in a quiet place rather than a crowded food court.
Needs and Interests
We tend to pay attention to information that we perceive to meet our needs or interests in
some way. This type of selective attention can help us meet instrumental needs and get things
done. When you need to speak with a financial aid officer about your scholarships and loans,
you sit in the waiting room and listen for your name to be called. Paying close attention to
whose name is called means you can be ready to start your meeting and hopefully get your
business handled. When we don’t think certain messages meet our needs, stimuli that would
normally get our attention may be completely lost. Imagine you are in the grocery store and you
hear someone say your name. You turn around, only to hear that person say, “Finally! I said your
name three times. I thought you forgot who I was!” A few seconds before, when you were
focused on figuring out which kind of orange juice to get, you were attending to the various
pulp options to the point that you tuned other stimuli out, even something as familiar as the
sound of someone calling your name. We select and attend to information that meets our
needs.
We also find information salient that interests us. Of course, many times, stimuli that meet our
needs are also interesting, but it’s worth discussing these two items separately because
sometimes we find things interesting that don’t necessarily meet our needs. I’m sure we’ve all
gotten sucked into a television show, video game, or random project and paid attention to that
at the expense of something that actually meets our needs like cleaning or spending time with a
significant other. Paying attention to things that interest us but don’t meet specific needs seems
like the basic formula for procrastination that we are all familiar with.
In many cases we know what interests us and we automatically gravitate toward stimuli that
match up with that. For example, as you filter through radio stations, you likely already have an
idea of what kind of music interests you and will stop on a station playing something in that
genre while skipping right past stations playing something you aren’t interested in. Because of
this tendency, we often have to end up being forced into or accidentally experiencing something
new in order to create or discover new interests. For example, you may not realize you are
interested in Asian history until you are required to take such a course and have an engaging
professor who sparks that interest in you. Or you may accidentally stumble on a new area of
interest when you take a class you wouldn’t otherwise because it fits into your schedule. As
communicators, you can take advantage of this perceptual tendency by adapting your topic and
content to the interests of your audience.
Expectations
The relationship between salience and expectations is a little more complex. Basically, we can
find expected things salient and find things that are unexpected salient. While this may sound
confusing, a couple examples should illustrate this point. If you are expecting a package to be
delivered, you might pick up on the slightest noise of a truck engine or someone’s footsteps
approaching your front door. Since we expect something to happen, we may be extra tuned in
to clues that it is coming. In terms of the unexpected, if you have a shy and soft-spoken friend
who you overhear raising the volume and pitch of their voice while talking to another friend,
you may pick up on that and assume that something out of the ordinary is going on. For
something unexpected to become salient, it has to reach a certain threshold of difference. If you
walked into your regular class and there were one or two more students there than normal, you
may not even notice. If you walked into your class and there was someone dressed up as a
wizard, you would probably notice. So, if we expect to experience something out of the routine,
like a package delivery, we will find stimuli related to that expectation salient. If we experience
something that we weren’t expecting and that is significantly different from our routine
experiences, then we will likely find it salient.
There is a middle area where slight deviations from routine experiences may go unnoticed
because we aren’t expecting them. To go back to the earlier example, if you aren’t expecting a
package, and you regularly hear vehicle engines and sidewalk foot traffic outside your house,
those pretty routine sounds wouldn’t be as likely to catch your attention, even if it were slightly
more or less traffic than expected. This is because our expectations are often based on previous
experience and patterns we have observed and internalized, which allows our brains to go on
“autopilot” sometimes and fill in things that are missing or overlook extra things. Look at the
following sentence and read it aloud:
Percpetoin is bsaed on pateetrns, maening we otfen raech
a cocnlsuion witouht cosnidreing ecah indviidaul elmenet.
This example illustrates a test of our expectation and an annoyance to every college student. We
have all had the experience of getting a paper back with typos and spelling errors circled. This
can be frustrating, especially if we actually took the time to proofread. When we first learned to
read and write, we learned letter by letter. A teacher or parent would show us a card with A-P-P-
L-E written on it, and we would sound it out. Over time, we learned the patterns of letters and
sounds and could see combinations of letters and pronounce the word quickly. Since we know
what to expect when we see a certain pattern of letters and know what comes next in a
sentence since we wrote the paper, we don’t take the time to look at each letter as we
proofread. This can lead us to overlook common typos and spelling errors, even if we proofread
something multiple times. Now that we know how we select stimuli, let’s turn our attention to
how we organize the information we receive.
Organizing Information
Organizing is the second part of the perception process, in which we sort and categorize
information that we perceive based on innate and learned cognitive patterns. Three ways we
sort things into patterns are by using proximity, similarity, and difference (Coren, 1980).
Proximity
In terms of proximity, we tend to think that things that are close together go together. For
example, have you ever been waiting to be helped in a business and the clerk assumes that you
and the person standing near you are together? The moment usually ends when you and the
other person in line look at each other, then back at the clerk, and one of you explains that you
are not together. Even though you may have never met that other person in your life, the clerk
used a basic perceptual organizing cue to group you together because you were standing in
proximity to one another.
Similarity
We also group things together based on similarity. We tend to think similar-looking or similar-
acting things belong together. For example, a group of friends that spend time together are all
males, around the same age, of the same race, and have short hair. People might assume that
they are brothers. Despite the fact that many of their features are different, the salient features
are organized based on similarity and they are assumed to be related.
Difference
We also organize information that we take in based on difference. In this case, we assume that
the item that looks or acts different from the rest doesn’t belong with the group. For example, if
you ordered ten burgers and nine of them are wrapped in paper and the last is in a cardboard
container, you may assume that the burger in the container is different in some way. Perceptual
errors involving people and assumptions of difference can be especially awkward, if not
offensive. Have you ever attended an event, only to be mistaken as an employee working at the
event, rather than a guest at the event?
These strategies for organizing information are so common that they are built into how we
teach our children basic skills and how we function in our daily lives. I’m sure we all had to look
at pictures in grade school and determine which things went together and which thing didn’t
belong. If you think of the literal act of organizing something, like your desk at home or work,
we follow these same strategies. If you have a bunch of papers and mail on the top of your
desk, you will likely sort papers into separate piles for separate classes or put bills in a separate
place than personal mail. You may have one drawer for pens, pencils, and other supplies and
another drawer for files. In this case you are grouping items based on similarities and
differences. You may also group things based on proximity, for example, by putting financial
items like your check book, a calculator, and your pay stubs in one area so you can update your
budget efficiently. In summary, we simplify information and look for patterns to help us more
efficiently communicate and get through life.
Simplification and categorizing based on patterns aren’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, without
this capability we would likely not have the ability to speak, read, or engage in other complex
cognitive/behavioural functions. Our brain innately categorizes and files information and
experiences away for later retrieval, and different parts of the brain are responsible for different
sensory experiences. In short, it is natural for things to group together in some ways. There are
differences among people, and looking for patterns helps us in many practical ways. However,
the judgments we place on various patterns and categories are not natural; they are learned
and culturally and contextually relative. Our perceptual patterns do become unproductive and
even unethical when the judgments we associate with certain patterns are based on
stereotypical or prejudicial thinking.
We also organize interactions and interpersonal experiences based on our firsthand
experiences. Misunderstandings and conflict may result when two people experience the same
encounter differently. Punctuation refers to the structuring of information into a timeline to
determine the cause (stimulus) and effect (response) of our communication interactions (Sillars,
1980). Applying this concept to interpersonal conflict can help us see how the process of
perception extends beyond the individual to the interpersonal level. This concept also helps
illustrate how organization and interpretation can happen together and how interpretation can
influence how we organize information and vice versa.
Where does a conflict begin and end? The answer to this question depends on how the people
involved in the conflict punctuate, or structure, their conflict experience. Punctuation
differences can often escalate conflict, which can lead to a variety of relationship problems
(Watzlawick, Bavelas, & Jackson, 1967). For example, Linda and Joe are on a project team at
work and have a deadline approaching. Linda has been working on the project over the
weekend in anticipation of her meeting with Joe first thing Monday morning. She has had some
questions along the way and has e-mailed Joe for clarification and input, but he hasn’t
responded. On Monday morning, Linda walks into the meeting room, sees Joe, and says, “I’ve
been working on this project all weekend and needed your help. I e-mailed you three times!
What were you doing?” Joe responds, “I had no idea you e-mailed me. I was gone all weekend
on a camping trip.” In this instance, the conflict started for Linda two days ago and has just
started for Joe. So, for the two of them to most effectively manage this conflict, they need to
communicate so that their punctuation, or where the conflict started for each one, is clear and
matches up. In this example, Linda made an impression about Joe’s level of commitment to the
project based on an interpretation she made after selecting and organizing incoming
information. Being aware of punctuation is an important part of perception checking, which we
will discuss later. Let’s now take a closer look at how interpretation plays into the perception
process.
Interpreting Information
Although selecting and organizing incoming stimuli happens very quickly, and sometimes
without much conscious thought, interpretation can be a much more deliberate and conscious
step in the perception process. Interpretation is the third part of the perception process, in
which we assign meaning to an experience using a mental structure known as schema. A
schema is a cognitive tool for organizing related concepts or information. Schemata are like
databases of stored, related information that we use to interpret new experiences. Overtime we
incorporate more and more small units of information together to develop more complex
understandings of new information.
We have an overall schema about education and how to interpret experiences with teachers
and classmates. This schema started developing before we even went to preschool based on
things that parents, peers, and the media told us about school. For example, you learned that
certain symbols and objects like an apple, a ruler, a calculator, and a notebook are associated
with being a student or teacher. You learned new concepts like grades and recess, and you
engaged in new practices like doing homework, studying, and taking tests. You also formed new
relationships with classmates, teachers, and administrators. As you progressed through your
education, your schema adapted to the changing environment. How smooth or troubling
schema revaluation and revision is varies from situation to situation and person to person. For
example, some students adapt their schema relatively easily as they move from elementary, to
middle, to high school, and on to college and are faced with new expectations for behavior and
academic engagement. Other students don’t adapt as easily, and holding onto their old schema
creates problems as they try to interpret new information through old, incompatible schema.
It’s also important to be aware of schemata because our interpretations affect our behavior. For
example, if you are doing a group project for class and you perceive a group member to be shy
based on your schema of how shy people communicate, you may avoid giving them
presentation responsibilities in your group project because you do not think shy people make
good public speakers.
As we have seen, schemata are used to interpret others’ behavior and form impressions about
who they are as a person. To help this process along, we often solicit information from people
to help us place them into a preexisting schema. In the United States and many other Western
cultures, people’s identities are often closely tied to what they do for a living. When we
introduce others, or ourselves, occupation is usually one of the first things we mention. Think
about how your communication with someone might differ if he or she were introduced to you
as an artist versus a doctor. We make similar interpretations based on where people are from,
their age, their race, and other social and cultural factors.
In summary, we have schemata about individuals, groups, places, and things, and these
schemata filter our perceptions before, during, and after interactions. As schemata are retrieved
from memory, they are executed, like computer programs or apps on your smartphone, to help
us interpret the world around us. Just like computer programs and apps must be regularly
updated to improve their functioning, we update and adapt our schemata as we have new
experiences.
Effects on Perception
Are you a good judge of character? How quickly can you “size someone up?”
Interestingly, research shows that many people are surprisingly accurate at predicting how an
interaction with someone will unfold base on initial impressions. Fascinating research has also
been done on the ability of people to make a judgment about a person’s competence after as
little as 100 milliseconds of exposure to politicians’ faces. Even more surprising is that people’s
judgments of competence, after exposure to two candidates for senate elections, accurately
predicted election outcomes (Ballew II & Todoroy, 2007). In short, after only minimal exposure
to a candidate’s facial expressions, people made judgments about the person’s competence,
and those candidates judged more competent were people who actually won elections. As you
read this section, keep in mind that these principles apply to how you perceive others and to
how others perceive you. Just as others make impressions on us, we make impressions on
others. We have already learned how the perception process works in terms of selecting,
organizing, and interpreting. In this section, we will focus on how we perceive others, with
specific attention to how we interpret our perceptions of others.
Attribution and Interpretation
You may have a family member, friend, or coworker with whom you have different beliefs.
When conversations and inevitable disagreements occur, you may view this person as “pushing
your buttons” if you are invested in the issue being debated, or you may view the person as “on
their soapbox” if you aren’t invested. In either case, your existing perceptions of the other
person are probably reinforced after your conversation and you may leave the conversation
thinking, “They is never going to wake up and see how ignorant they are. I don’t know why I
even bother trying to talk to them.” Similar situations occur regularly, and there are some key
psychological processes that play into how we perceive others’ behaviors. By examining these
processes, attribution in particular, we can see how our communication with others is affected
by the explanations we create for others’ behavior. In addition, we will learn some common
errors that we make in the attribution process that regularly lead to conflict and
misunderstanding.
Attribution
In most interactions, we engage in attribution, the process of coming up with explanations for
what is happening. Why did my neighbor slam the door when she saw me walking down the
hall? Why is my partner being extra nice to me today? Why did my officemate miss our project
team meeting this morning? In general, we seek to attribute the cause of others’ behaviors to
internal or external factors. Internal attributions connect the cause of behaviors to personal
aspects such as personality traits. Whereas external attributions connect the cause of behaviors
to situational factors outside of our control. Attributions are important to consider because our
reactions to others’ behaviors are strongly influenced by the explanations we reach. Imagine
that Gloria and Jerry are dating. One day, Jerry gets frustrated and raises his voice to Gloria. She
may find that behavior more offensive and even consider breaking up with him if she attributes
the cause of the blow up to his personality, since personality traits are usually fairly stable and
difficult to control or change.
Conversely, Gloria may be more forgiving if she attributes the cause of his behavior to
situational factors beyond Jerry’s control, since external factors are usually temporary. If she
makes an internal attribution, Gloria may think, “Wow, this person is really a loose cannon. Who
knows when he will lose it again?” If she makes an external attribution, she may think, “Jerry
has been under a lot of pressure to meet deadlines at work and hasn’t been getting much sleep.
Once this project is over, I’m sure he’ll be more relaxed.” This process of attribution is ongoing,
and, as with many aspects of perception, we are sometimes aware of the attributions we make,
and sometimes they are automatic and/or unconscious. Attribution has received much scholarly
attention because it is in this part of the perception process that some of the most common
perceptual errors or biases occur.
One of the most common perceptual errors is the fundamental attribution error, which refers
to our tendency to explain others’ behaviors using internal rather than external attributions
(Sillars, 1980). For example, when I worked at an urban college in Denver, Colorado, I often had
students come into class irritated, saying, “I got a parking ticket! I can’t believe those people.
Why don’t they get a real job and stop ruining my life!” If you Google some clips from the reality
television show Parking Wars, you will see the ire that people often direct at parking
enforcement officers. In this case, illegally parked students attribute the cause of their situation
to the malevolence of the parking officer, essentially saying they got a ticket because the officer
was a mean/bad person, which is an internal attribution. Students were much less likely to
acknowledge that the officer was just doing his or her job (an external attribution) and the ticket
was a result of the student’s decision to park illegally.
Perceptual errors can also be biased, and in the case of the self-serving bias, the error works out
in our favor. Just as we tend to attribute others’ behaviors to internal rather than external
causes, we do the same for ourselves, especially when our behaviors have led to something
successful or positive. When our behaviors lead to failure or something negative, we tend to
attribute the cause to external factors. Thus, the self-serving bias is a perceptual error through
which we attribute the cause of our successes to internal personal factors while attributing our
failures to external factors beyond our control. When we look at the fundamental attribution
error and the self-serving bias together, we can see that we are likely to judge ourselves more
favorably than another person, or at least less personally.
The professor-student relationship offers a good case example of how these concepts can play
out. Students who earned an unsatisfactory grade on an assignment may attribute that grade to
the strictness, unfairness, or incompetence of their professor. Professors may attribute a poor
grade to the student’s laziness, attitude, or intelligence. In both cases, the behavior is explained
using an internal attribution and is an example of the fundamental attribution error. Students
may further attribute their poor grade to their busy schedule or other external, situational
factors rather than their lack of motivation, interest, or preparation (internal attributions). On
the other hand, when a student earns a good grade on a paper, they will likely attribute that
cause to their intelligence or hard work rather than an easy assignment or an “easy grading”
professor. Both of these examples illustrate the self-serving bias. These psychological processes
have implications for our communication because when we attribute causality to another
person’s personality, we tend to have a stronger emotional reaction and tend to assume that
this personality characteristic is stable, which may lead us to avoid communication with the
person or to react negatively. Now that you aware of these common errors, you can monitor
them more and engage in perception checking, which we will learn more about later, to verify
your attributions.
Impressions and Interpretation
As we perceive others, we make impressions about their personality, likeability, attractiveness,
and other characteristics. Although much of our impressions are personal, what forms them is
sometimes based more on circumstances than personal
characteristics. All the information we take in isn’t treated equally. How important are first
impressions? Does the last thing you notice about a person stick with you longer because it’s
more recent? Do we tend to remember the positive or negative things we notice about a
person? This section will help answer these questions, as we explore how the timing of
information and the content of the messages we receive can influence our perception.
First and Last Impressions
The old saying “You never get a second chance to make a good impression” points to the fact
that first impressions matter. The brain is a predictive organ in that it wants to know, based on
previous experiences and patterns, what to expect next, and first impressions function to fill this
need, allowing us to determine how we will proceed with an interaction after only a quick
assessment of the person with whom we are interacting (Hargie, 2011). Research shows that
people are surprisingly good at making accurate first impressions about how an interaction will
unfold and at identifying personality characteristics of people they do not know. Studies show
that people are generally able to predict how another person will behave toward them based
on an initial interaction. People’s accuracy and ability to predict interaction based on first
impressions vary, but people with high accuracy are typically socially skilled and popular and
have less loneliness, anxiety, and depression; more satisfying relationships; and more senior
positions and higher salaries (Hargie, 2011). Having the ability to form accurate first impressions
correlate with other positive characteristics.
First impressions are enduring because of the primacy effect, which leads us to place more
value on the first information we receive about a person. So, if we interpret the first information
we receive from or about a person as positive, then a positive first impression will form and
influence how we respond to that person as the interaction continues. Likewise, negative
interpretations of information can lead us to form negative first impressions. If you sit down at a
restaurant and servers walk by for several minutes and no one greets you, then you will likely
interpret that negatively and not have a good impression of your server when they finally arrive
at your table. This may lead you to be short with the server, which may lead them to not be as
attentive as they normally would. At this point, a series of negative interactions has set into
motion a cycle that will be very difficult to reverse and make positive.
In contrast, the recency effect leads us to put more weight on the most recent impression we
have of a person’s communication over earlier impressions. Even a positive first impression can
be tarnished by a negative final impression. Imagine that a professor has maintained a relatively
high level of credibility with you over the course of the semester. They made a good first
impression by being organized, approachable, and interesting during the first days of class. The
rest of the term went fairly well with no major conflicts. However, during the last week of the
term, they didn’t have final papers graded and ready to turn back by the time they said they
would, which left you with some uncertainty about how well you needed to do on the final
exam to earn an A in the class. When you did get your paper back, on the last day of class, you
saw that your grade was much lower than you expected. If this happened to you, what would
you write on the instructor evaluation? Because of the recency effect, many students would
likely give a disproportionate amount of value to the professor’s actions in the final week of the
semester, negatively skewing the evaluation, which is supposed to be reflective of the entire
course. Even though the professor only returned one assignment late, that fact is very recent in
students’ minds and can overshadow the positive impression that formed many weeks earlier.
Physical and Environmental Influences on Perception
We make first impressions based on a variety of factors, including physical and environmental
characteristics. In terms of physical characteristics, style of dress and grooming are important,
especially in professional contexts. We have general schema regarding how to dress and groom
for various situations ranging from formal, to business casual, to casual, to lounging around the
house.
You would likely be able to offer some descriptors of how a person would look and act from the
following categories: a goth person, a prep, a jock, a fashionista, a hipster. The schema
associated with these various cliques or styles are formed through personal experience and
through exposure to media representations of these groups. Different professions also have
schema for appearance and dress. Imagine a doctor, mechanic, congressperson, exotic dancer,
or mail carrier. Each group has clothing and personal styles that create and fit into general
patterns. Of course, the mental picture we have of any of the examples above is not going to be
representative of the whole group, meaning that stereotypical thinking often exists within our
schema. We will learn more about the negative effects of stereotypical thinking later in the
chapter, but it’s important to understand how persuasive various physical perceptual influences
can be.
Think about the harm that has been done when people pose as police or physicians to commit
crimes or other acts of malice. Seeing someone in a white lab coat automatically leads us to see
that person as an authority figure, and we fall into a scripted pattern of deferring to the
“physician” and not asking too many questions. The Milgram experiments offer a startling
example of how powerful these influences are. In the experiments, participants followed
instructions from a man in a white lab coat (who was actually an actor), who prompted them to
deliver electric shocks to a person in another room every time the other person answered a
memory question incorrectly. The experiment was actually about how people defer to authority
figures instead of acting independently. Although no one was actually being shocked in the
other room, many participants continued to “shock,” at very high levels of voltage, the other
person even after that person supposedly being shocked complained of chest pains and became
unresponsive (Encina, 2003).
Just as clothing and personal style help us form impressions of others, so do physical body
features. The degree to which we perceive people to be attractive influences our attitudes
about and communication with them. Facial attractiveness and body weight tend to be common
features used in the perception of physical attractiveness. In general people find symmetrical
faces and non-overweight bodies attractive. People perceived as attractive are generally
evaluated more positively and seen as kinder and more competent than people evaluated as
less attractive. Additionally, people rated as attractive receive more eye contact, more smiles,
and closer proximity to others (people stand closer to them). Unlike clothing and personal style,
these physical features are more difficult, if not impossible, to change.
Finally, the material objects and people that surround a person influence our perception. In the
MTV show Room Raiders, contestants go into the bedrooms of three potential dates and choose
the one they want to go on the date with based on the impressions made while examining each
potential date’s cleanliness, decorations, clothes, trophies and awards, books, music, and so on.
Research supports the reliability of such impressions, as people have been shown to make
reasonably accurate judgments about a person’s personality after viewing his or her office or
bedroom (Hargie, 2011). Although the artificial scenario set up in Room Raiders doesn’t exactly
match up with typical encounters, the link between environmental cues and perception is
important enough for many companies to create policies about what can and can’t be displayed
in personal office spaces. It would seem odd for a bank manager to have an Animal House
poster hanging in his office, and that would definitely influence customers’ perceptions of the
manager’s personality and credibility. The arrangement of furniture also creates impressions.
Walking into a meeting and sitting on one end of a long boardroom table is typically less inviting
than sitting at a round table or on a sofa.
Although some physical and environmental features are easier to change than others, it is useful
to become aware of how these factors, which aren’t necessarily related to personality or verbal
and nonverbal communication, shape our perceptions. These early impressions also affect how
we interpret and perceive later encounters, which can be further explained through the halo
and horn effects.
The Halo and Horn Effects
We have a tendency to adapt information that conflicts with our earlier impressions in order to
make it fit within the frame we have established. This is known as selective distortion, and it
manifests in the halo and horn effects. The angelic halo and devilish horn are useful metaphors
for the lasting effects of positive and negative impressions.
The halo effect occurs when initial positive perceptions lead us to view later interactions as
positive. The horn effect occurs when initial negative perceptions lead us to view later
interactions as negative (Hargie, 2011). Since impressions are especially important when a
person is navigating the job market, let’s imagine how the horn and halo effects could play out
for a recent college graduate looking to land her first real job. Nell has recently graduated with
her degree in communication studies and is looking to start her career as a corporate trainer. If
one of Nell’s professors has a relationship with an executive at an area business, his positive
verbal recommendation will likely result in a halo effect for Nell. Since the executive thinks
highly of his friend the professor, and the professor things highly of Nell, then the executive will
start his interaction with Nell with a positive impression and interpret her behaviors more
positively than he would otherwise. The halo effect initiated by the professor’s recommendation
may even lead the executive to dismiss or overlook some negative behaviors. Let’s say Nell
doesn’t have a third party to help make a connection and arrives late for her interview. That
negative impression may create a horn effect that carries through the interview. Even if Nell
presents as competent and friendly, the negative first impression could lead the executive to
minimize or ignore those positive characteristics, and the company may not hire her.
Culture, Personality, and Perception
Our cultural identities and our personalities affect our perceptions. Sometimes we are conscious
of the effects and sometimes we are not. In either case, we have a tendency to favor others
who exhibit cultural or personality traits that match up with our own. This tendency is so strong
that is often leads us to assume that people we like are more similar to us than they actually
are. Knowing more about how these forces influence our perceptions can help us become more
aware of and competent in regards to the impressions we form of others.
Culture
Race, gender, sexual orientation, class, ability, nationality, and age all affect the perceptions that
we make. The schemata through which we interpret what we perceive are influenced by our
cultural identities. As we are socialized into various cultural identities, we internalize beliefs,
attitudes, and values shared by others in our cultural group. Schemata held by members of a
cultural identity group have similarities, but schemata held by different cultural groups may vary
greatly. Unless we are exposed to various cultural groups and learn how others perceive us and
the world around them, we will likely have a narrow or naïve view of the world and assume that
others see things the way we do. Exposing yourself to and experiencing cultural differences in
perspective doesn’t mean that you have to change your schema to match another cultural
group’s schemata. Instead, it may offer you a chance to better understand why and how your
schemata were constructed the way they were.
As we have learned, perception starts with information that comes in through our senses. How
we perceive even basic sensory information is influenced by our culture, as is illustrated in the
following list:
• Sight. People in different cultures “read” art in different ways, differing in terms of
where they start to look at an image and the types of information they perceive and
process.
• Sound. “Atonal” music in some Asian cultures is unpleasing; it is uncomfortable to
people who aren’t taught that these combinations of sounds are pleasing.
• Touch. In some cultures, it would be very offensive for a man to touch—even tap on the
shoulder—a woman who isn’t a relative.
• Taste. Tastes for foods vary greatly around the world. “Stinky tofu,” which is a favorite
snack of people in Taipei, Taiwan’s famous night market, would likely be very off-putting
in terms of taste and smell to many foreign tourists.
• Smell. While US Americans spend considerable effort to mask natural body odor, which
we typically find unpleasant, with soaps, sprays, and lotions, some other cultures would
not find unpleasant or even notice what we consider “b.o.” Those same cultures may
find a US American’s “clean” (soapy, perfumed, deodorized) smell unpleasant.
Aside from differences in reactions to basic information we take in through our senses, there is
also cultural variation in how we perceive more complicated constructs, like marriage, politics,
and privacy. In May of 2012, French citizens elected a new president. François Hollande moved
into the presidential palace with his partner of five years, Valerie Trierweiler. They are the first
unmarried couple in the country’s history to occupy the presidential palace (de la Baume,
2012). Even though new census statistics show that more unmarried couples are living together
than ever before in the United States, many still disapprove of the practice, and it is hard to
imagine a US president in a similar circumstance as France’s Hollande. Other places like Saudi
Arabia and the Vatican have strong cultural aversions to such a practice, which could present
problems when France’s first couple travels abroad.
As we’ve already learned, our brain processes information by putting it into categories and
looking for predictability and patterns. The previous examples have covered how we do this
with sensory information and with more abstract concepts like marriage and politics, but we
also do this with people. When we categorize people, we generally view them as “like us” or
“not like us.” This simple us/them split affects subsequent interaction, including impressions
and attributions. For example, we tend to view people we perceive to be like us as more
trustworthy, friendly, and honest than people we perceive to be not like us (Brewer, 1999). We
are also more likely to use internal attribution to explain negative behavior of people we
perceive to be different from us. If a person of a different race cuts another driver off in traffic,
the driver is even more likely to attribute that action to the other driver’s internal qualities
(thinking, for example, “He or she is inconsiderate and reckless!”) than they would someone of
their own race. Having such inflexible categories can have negative consequences, for example,
forcing people into rigid categories leads to stereotyping, prejudice, and discrimination. Of
course, race isn’t the only marker of difference that influences our perceptions, and the
problem with our rough categorization of people into “like us” and “not like us” categories is
that these differences aren’t really as easy to perceive as we think. We cannot always tell
whether or not someone is culturally like us through visual cues. For some cultural identities,
like sexual orientation and ability, our awareness of any differences may only come when the
other person discloses their identity to us.
You no doubt frequently hear people talking and writing about the “vast differences” between
men and women. Whether it’s communication, athletic ability, expressing emotions, or
perception, people will line up to say that women are one way and men are the other way.
While it is true that gender affects our perception, the reason for this difference stems more
from social norms than genetic, physical, or psychological differences between men and
women. We are socialized to perceive differences between men and women, which leads us to
exaggerate and amplify what differences there actually are (McCornack, 2007). We basically see
the stereotypes and differences we are told to see, which helps to create a reality in which
gender differences are “obvious.” However, numerous research studies have found that,
especially in relation to multiple aspects of communication, men and women communicate
much more similarly than differently. In summary, various cultural identities shape how we
perceive others because beliefs, attitudes, and values of the cultural groups to which we belong
are incorporated into our schema. Our personalities also present interesting perceptual
advantages and challenges that we will now discuss.
Personality
Often during the hiring process employers will conduct an “employment verification” during
which they ask former employers general questions about the applicant . While they may ask a
few questions about intellectual ability or academic performance, they typically ask questions
that try to create a personality profile of the applicant. They basically want to know what kind of
leader, coworker, and person the applicant is. This is a smart move on their part, because our
personalities greatly influence how we see ourselves in the world and how we perceive and
interact with others.
Corporations and television studios spend millions of dollars on developing personality profiles
and personality testing. Corporations can make hiring and promotion decisions based on
personality test results, which can save them money and time if they can weed out those who
don’t “fit” the position before they get in the door and drain resources. Television studios make
casting decisions based on personality profiles because they know that certain personalities
evoke strong and specific reactions from viewers. The reality television show Survivor has done
more than one season where they bring back “Heroes and Villains,” which already indicates that
the returning cast members made strong impressions on the show’s producers and audience
members. Think about the reality television stars that you love to root for, want to see lose, and
can’t stand to look at or look away from. Shows like Celebrity Rehab intentionally cast fading
stars who already have strong personalities and emotional and addiction issues in order to
create the kind of human train wrecks that attract millions of viewers. So why does this work?
It is likely that you have more in common with that reality TV star than you care to admit. We
tend to focus on personality traits in others that we feel are important to our own personality.
What we like in ourselves, we like in others, and what we dislike in ourselves, we dislike in
others (McCornack, 2007). If you admire a person’s loyalty, then loyalty is probably a trait that
you think you possess as well. If you work hard to be positive and motivated and suppress
negative and unproductive urges within yourself, you will likely think harshly about those
negative traits in someone else. After all, if you can suppress your negativity, why can’t they do
the same? This way of thinking isn’t always accurate or logical, but it is common.
The concept of assumed similarity refers to our tendency to perceive others as similar to us.
When we don’t have enough information about a person to know their key personality traits,
we fill in the gaps—usually assuming they possess traits similar to those we see in ourselves. We
also tend to assume that people have similar attitudes, or likes and dislikes, as us. If you set your
friend up with a man you think she’ll really like only to find out there was no chemistry when
they met, you may be surprised to realize your friend doesn’t have the same taste in men as
you. Even though we may assume more trait and taste similarity between our significant others
and ourselves than there actually is, research generally finds that while people do
interpersonally group based on many characteristics including race, class, and intelligence, the
findings don’t show that people with similar personalities group together (Beer & Watson,
2008).
In summary, personality affects our perception, and we all tend to be amateur personality
scholars given the amount of effort we put into assuming and evaluating others’ personality
traits. This bank of knowledge we accumulate based on previous interactions with people is
used to help us predict how interactions will unfold and help us manage our interpersonal
relationships. When we size up a person based on their personality, we are auditioning or
interviewing them in a way to see if we think there is compatibility. We use these implicit
personality theories to generalize a person’s overall personality from the traits we can perceive.
The theories are “implicit” because they are not of academic but of experience-based origin,
and the information we use to theorize about people’s personalities isn’t explicitly known or
observed but implied. In other words, we use previous experience to guess other people’s
personality traits. We then assume more about a person based on the personality traits we
assign to them.
This process of assuming has its advantages and drawbacks. In terms of advantages, the use of
implicit personality theories offers us a perceptual shortcut that can be useful when we first
meet someone. Our assessment of their traits and subsequent assumptions about who they are
as a person makes us feel like we “know the person,” which reduces uncertainty and facilitates
further interaction. In terms of drawbacks, our experience-based assumptions aren’t always
correct, but they are still persuasive and enduring. As we have already learned, first impressions
carry a lot of weight in terms of how they influence further interaction. Positive and negative
impressions formed early can also lead to a halo effect or a horn effect, which we discussed
earlier. Personalitybased impressions can also connect to impressions based on physical and
environmental cues to make them even stronger. For example, perceiving another person as
attractive can create a halo effect that then leads you to look for behavioral cues that you can
then tie to positive personality traits. You may notice that the attractive person also says
“please” and “thank you,” which increases his or her likeability. You may notice that the person
has clean and fashionable shoes, which leads you to believe he or she is professional and
competent but also trendy and hip. Now you have an overall positive impression of this person
that will affect your subsequent behaviors (Beer & Watson, 2008). But how accurate were your
impressions? If on your way home you realize you just bought a car from this person, who
happened to be a car salesperson, that was $7,000 over your price range, you might have
second thoughts about how good a person he or she actually is.
Improving perception
So far, we have learned about the perception process and how we perceive. Now we will turn to
a discussion of how to improve our perception by becoming aware of how schema, socializing
forces, self-fulfilling prophecies, and negative patterns of thinking can distort our ability to
describe and evaluate ourselves. How we perceive others can be improved by developing better
listening and empathetic skills, becoming aware of stereotypes and prejudice, developing self-
awareness through self-reflection, and engaging in perception checking.
Improving Self-Perception
Our self-perceptions can and do change. Recall from module 1 that we have an overall self-
concept and self-esteem that are relatively stable, and we also have context-specific self-
perceptions. Context-specific self-perceptions vary depending on the person with whom we are
interacting, our emotional state, and the subject matter being discussed. Becoming aware of the
process of self-perception and the various components of our self-concept will help you
understand and improve your self-perceptions.
Since self-concept and self-esteem are so subjective and personal, it would be inaccurate to say
that someone’s self-concept is “right” or “wrong.” Instead, we can identify negative and positive
aspects of self-perceptions as well as discuss common barriers to forming accurate and positive
self-perceptions. We can also identify common patterns that people experience that interfere
with their ability to monitor, understand, and change their self-perceptions. Changing your
overall self-concept or self-esteem is not an easy task given that these are overall reflections on
who we are and how we judge ourselves that are constructed over many interactions. A variety
of life-changing events can relatively quickly alter our self-perceptions. Think of how your view
of self-changed when you moved from high school to college. Similarly, other people’s self-
perceptions likely change when they enter into a committed relationship, have a child, make a
geographic move, or start a new job.
Aside from experiencing life-changing events, we can make slower changes to our self-
perceptions with concerted efforts aimed at becoming more competent communicators
through self-monitoring and reflection. As you actively try to change your self-perception’s, do
not be surprised if you encounter some resistance from significant others. When you change or
improve your self-concept, your communication will also change, which may prompt other
people to respond to you differently. Although you may have good reasons for changing certain
aspects of your self-perception, others may become unsettled or confused by your changing
behaviors and communication. Remember, people try to increase predictability and decrease
uncertainty within personal relationships. For example, many students begin to take their
college education more seriously during their junior and senior years. As these students begin
to change their self-concept to include the role of “serious student preparing to graduate and
enter the professional world,” they likely have friends that want to maintain the “semiserious
student who doesn’t exert much consistent effort and prefers partying to studying” role that
used to be a shared characteristic of both students’ self-concepts. As the first student’s behavior
changes to accommodate this new aspect of his or her self-concept, it may upset the friend who
was used to weeknights spent hanging out rather than studying. Let’s now discuss some
suggestions to help avoid common barriers to accurate and positive self-perceptions and
patterns of behavior that perpetuate negative selfperception cycles.
Avoid Reliance on Rigid Schema
As we learned earlier, schemata are sets of information based on cognitive and experiential
knowledge that guide our interaction. We rely on schemata almost constantly to help us make
sense of the world around us. Sometimes schemata become so familiar that we use them as
scripts, which prompts mindless communication and can lead us to overlook new information
that may need to be incorporated into the schema. It’s important to remain mindful of new or
contradictory information that may warrant revision of a schema. Being mindful is difficult,
however, especially since we often unconsciously rely on schemata. Think about how when
you’re driving a familiar route you sometimes fall under “highway hypnosis.” Despite all the
advanced psychomotor skills needed to drive, such as braking, turning, and adjusting to other
drivers, we can pull into a familiar driveway or parking lot having driven the whole way on
autopilot. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing. But have you slipped into autopilot on a
familiar route only to remember that you are actually going somewhere else after you’ve
already missed your turn? This example illustrates the importance of keeping our schemata
flexible and avoiding mindless communication.
Be Critical of Socializing Forces
We learned that family, friends, sociocultural norms, and the media are just some of the
socializing forces that influence our thinking and therefore influence our selfperception. These
powerful forces serve positive functions but can also set into motion negative patterns of self-
perception. Two examples can illustrate the possibility for people to critique and resist
socializing forces in order to improve their self-perception. The first deals with physical
appearance and notions of health, and the second deals with cultural identities and
discrimination.
We have already discussed how the media presents us with narrow and often unrealistic
standards for attractiveness. Even though most of us know that these standards don’t represent
what is normal or natural for the human body, we internalize these ideals, which results in
various problems ranging from eating disorders, to depression, to poor self-esteem. A relatively
overlooked but controversial and interesting movement that has emerged partially in response
to these narrow representations of the body is the fat acceptance movement. The fat
acceptance movement has been around for more than thirty years, but it has more recently
gotten public attention due to celebrities like Oprah Winfrey and Kirstie Alley, who after years of
publicly struggling with weight issues have embraced a view that weight does not necessarily
correspond to health. Conflicting scientific studies make it difficult to say conclusively how
strong the correlation is between weight and health, but it seems clear that a view that
promotes healthy living and positive self-esteem over unconditional dieting is worth exploring
more given the potential public health implications of distorted body image and obesity.
Cultural influences related to identities and difference can also lead to distorted selfperceptions,
especially for people who occupy marginalized or oppressed identities. While perception
research has often been used to support the notion that individuals who are subjected to
discrimination, like racial and ethnic minorities, are likely to have low self-esteem because they
internalize negative societal views, this is not always the case (Armenta & Hunt, 2009). In fact,
even some early perception research showed that minorities do not just passively accept the
negative views society places on them. Instead, they actively try to maintain favorable self-
perceptions in the face of discriminatory attitudes. Numerous studies have shown that people
in groups that are the targets of discrimination may identify with their in-group more because of
this threat, which may actually help them maintain psychological well-being. In short, they
reject the negative evaluations of the out-group and find refuge and support in their
identification with others who share their marginalized status.
Beware of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
Self-fulfilling prophecies are thought and action patterns in which a person’s false belief triggers
a behavior that makes the initial false belief actually or seemingly come true (Guyll et al., 2010).
For example, let’s say a student’s biology lab instructor is a Chinese person who speaks English
as a second language. The student falsely believes that the instructor will not be a good teacher
because he speaks English with an accent. Because of this belief, the student doesn’t attend
class regularly and doesn’t listen actively when they do attend. Because of these behaviors, the
student fails the biology lab, which then reinforces their original belief that the instructor wasn’t
a good teacher.
Although the concept of self-fulfilling prophecies was originally developed to be applied to
social inequality and discrimination, it has since been applied in many other contexts, including
interpersonal communication. This research has found that some people are chronically
insecure, meaning they are very concerned about being accepted by others but constantly feel
that other people will dislike them. This can manifest in relational insecurity, which is again
based on feelings of inferiority resulting from social comparison with others perceived to be
more secure and superior. Such people often end up reinforcing their belief that others will
dislike them because of the behaviors triggered by their irrational belief. For example, an
insecure person assumes that his date will not like him. During the date he doesn’t engage in
much conversation, discloses negative information about himself, and exhibits anxious
behaviors. Because of these behaviors, his date forms a negative impression and suggests they
not see each other again, reinforcing his original belief that the date wouldn’t like him. The
example shows how a pattern of thinking can lead to a pattern of behavior that reinforces the
thinking, and so on. Luckily, experimental research shows that self-affirmation techniques can
be successfully used to intervene in such self-fulfilling prophecies. Thinking positive thoughts
and focusing on personality strengths can stop this negative cycle of thinking and has been
shown to have positive effects on academic performance, weight loss, and interpersonal
relationships (Stinston et al., 2011).
Create and Maintain Supporting Interpersonal Relationships
Aside from giving yourself affirming messages to help with self-perception, it is important to find
interpersonal support. Although most people have at least some supportive relationships, many
people also have people in their lives who range from negative to toxic. When people find
themselves in negative relational cycles, whether it is with friends, family, or romantic partners,
it is difficult to break out of those cycles. But we can all make choices to be around people that
will help us be who we want to be and not be around people who hinder our self-progress. This
notion can also be taken to the extreme, however. It would not be wise to surround yourself
with people who only validate you and do not constructively challenge you, because this too
could lead to distorted self-perceptions.
Beware of Distorted Patterns of Thinking and Acting
You already know from our discussion of attribution errors that we all have perceptual biases
that distort our thinking. Many of these are common, and we often engage in distorted thinking
without being conscious of it. Learning about some of the typical negative patterns of thinking
and acting may help us acknowledge and intervene in them. One such pattern involves self-
esteem and overcompensation.
People with low self-esteem may act in ways that overcompensate for their feelings of low self-
worth and other insecurities. Whether it’s the businessman buying his midlife crisis Corvette,
the “country boy” adding monster tires to his truck, or the community leader who wears several
carats of diamonds everywhere she goes, people often turn to material possessions to try to
boost self-esteem. While these purchases may make people feel better in the short term, they
may have negative financial effects that can exacerbate negative self-perceptions and lead to
interpersonal conflict. People also compensate for self-esteem with their relational choices. A
person who is anxious about his career success may surround himself with people who he
deems less successful than himself. In this case, being a big fish in a small pond helps some
people feel better about themselves when they engage in social comparison.
People can also get into a negative thought and action cycle by setting unrealistic goals and
consistently not meeting them. Similar to a self-fulfilling prophecy, people who set unrealistic
goals can end up with negative feelings of self-efficacy, which as we learned earlier, can
negatively affect self-esteem and self-concept. As we learned in module 3, the goals we set
should be challenging but progressive, meaning we work to meet a realistic goal, then increase
our expectations and set another goal, and so on.
Some people develop low self-esteem because they lack accurate information about
themselves, which may be intentional or unintentional. A person can intentionally try to
maintain high self-esteem by ignoring or downplaying negative comments and beliefs and
focusing on positive evaluations. While this can be a good thing, it can also lead to a distorted
self-concept. There is a middle ground between beating yourself up or dwelling on the negative
and ignoring constructive feedback about weaknesses and missing opportunities to grow as a
person. Conversely, people who have low self-esteem or negative self-concepts may discount or
ignore positive feedback.
Overcoming Barriers to Perceiving Others
There are many barriers that prevent us from competently perceiving others. While some are
more difficult to overcome than others, they can all be addressed by raising our awareness of
the influences around us and committing to monitoring, reflecting on, and changing some of
our communication habits. Whether it is our lazy listening skills, lack of empathy, or stereotypes
and prejudice, various filters and blinders influence how we perceive and respond to others.
Develop Empathetic Listening Skills
Effective listening is not easy, and most of us do not make a concerted effort to overcome
common barriers to listening. Our fast-paced lives and cultural values that emphasize speaking
over listening sometimes make listening feel like a chore. But we shouldn’t underestimate the
power of listening to make someone else feel better and to open our perceptual field to new
sources of information. Empathetic listening can also help us expand our self- and social
awareness by learning from other people’s experiences and taking on different perspectives.
Empathetic listening is challenging because it requires cognitive and emotional investment that
goes beyond the learning of a skill set.
If one person’s biggest problem is getting enough money together to buy a new cell phone and
another person’s biggest problem is getting enough money together to get much needed
medication, each of these people is likely experiencing a similar amount of stress. As an
outsider, we might look at this example and think about how a cell phone isn’t necessary to live
but the medication is. But everyone’s reality is his or her own reality, and when you can concede
that someone’s reality isn’t like yours and you are OK with that, then you have overcome a
significant barrier to becoming more aware of the perception process.
Beware of Stereotypes and Prejudice
Stereotypes are sets of beliefs that we develop about groups, which we then apply to
individuals from that group. Stereotypes are schemata that are taken too far, as they reduce and
ignore a person’s individuality and the diversity present within a larger group of people.
Stereotypes can be based on cultural identities, physical appearance, behavior, speech, beliefs,
and values, among other things, and are often caused by a lack of information about the target
person or group (Guyll et al., 2010). Stereotypes can be positive, negative, or neutral, but all run
the risk of lowering the quality of our communication.
While the negative effects of stereotypes are pretty straightforward in that they devalue people
and prevent us from adapting and revising our schemata, positive stereotypes also have
negative consequences. For example, the “model minority” stereotype has been applied to
some Asian cultures in the United States. Seemingly positive stereotypes of Asian Americans as
hardworking, intelligent, and willing to adapt to “mainstream” culture are not always received
as positive and can lead some people within these communities to feel objectified, ignored, or
overlooked.
Stereotypes can also lead to double standards that point to larger cultural and social
inequalities. There are many more words to describe a sexually active female than a male, and
the words used for females are disproportionately negative, while those used for males are
more positive. Since stereotypes are generally based on a lack of information, we must take it
upon ourselves to gain exposure to new kinds of information and people, which will likely
require us to get out of our comfort zones. When we do meet people, we should base the
impressions we make on describable behavior rather than inferred or secondhand information.
When stereotypes negatively influence our overall feelings and attitudes about a person or
group, prejudiced thinking results.
Prejudice is negative feelings or attitudes toward people based on their identity or identities.
Prejudice can have individual or widespread negative effects. At the individual level, a hiring
manager may not hire a young man with a physical disability (even though that would be illegal
if it were the only reason), which negatively affects that one man. However, if pervasive cultural
thinking that people with physical disabilities are mentally deficient leads hiring managers all
over the country to make similar decisions, then the prejudice has become a social injustice. In
another example, when the disease we know today as AIDS started killing large numbers of
people in the early 1980s, response by some health and government officials was influenced by
prejudice.
Since the disease was primarily affecting gay men, Haitian immigrants, and drug users, the
disease was prejudged to be a disease that affected only “deviants” and therefore didn’t get the
same level of attention it would have otherwise. It took many years, investment of much money,
and education campaigns to help people realize that HIV and AIDS do not prejudge based on
race or sexual orientation and can affect any human.
Engage in Self-Reflection
A good way to improve your perceptions and increase your communication competence in
general is to engage in self-reflection. If a communication encounter doesn’t go well and you
want to know why, your self-reflection will be much more useful if you are aware of and can
recount your thoughts and actions.
Self-reflection can also help us increase our cultural awareness. Our thought process regarding
culture is often “other focused,” meaning that the culture of the other person or group is what
stands out in our perception. However, the old adage “know thyself” is appropriate, as we
become more aware of our own culture by better understanding other cultures and
perspectives. Developing cultural self-awareness often requires us to get out of our comfort
zones. Listening to people who are different from us is a key component of developing self-
knowledge. This may be uncomfortable, because our taken-for-granted or deeply held beliefs
and values may become less certain when we see the multiple perspectives that exist.
We can also become more aware of how our self-concepts influence how we perceive others.
We often hold other people to the standards we hold for ourselves or assume that their self-
concept should be consistent with our own. For example, if you consider yourself a neat person
and think that sloppiness in your personal appearance would show that you are unmotivated,
rude, and lazy, then you are likely to think the same of a person you judge to have a sloppy
appearance. Asking questions like “Is my impression based on how this person wants to be, or
how I think this person should want to be?” can lead to enlightening moments of self-reflection.
Asking questions in general about the perceptions you are making is an integral part of
perception checking.
Perception Checking
Perception checking is a strategy to help us monitor our reactions to and perceptions about
people and communication. There are some internal and external strategies we can use to
engage in perception checking. In terms of internal strategies, review the various influences on
perception that we have learned about in this module and always be willing to ask yourself,
“What is influencing the perceptions I am making right now?” Even being aware of what
influences are acting on our perceptions makes us more aware of what is happening in the
perception process. In terms of external strategies, we can use other people to help verify our
perceptions.
The cautionary adage “Things aren’t always as they appear” is useful when evaluating your own
perceptions. Sometimes it’s a good idea to bounce your thoughts off someone, especially if the
perceptions relate to some high-stakes situation. But not all situations allow us the chance to
verify our perceptions.
Perception checking helps us slow down perception and communication processes and allows
us to have more control over both. Perception checking involves being able to describe what is
happening in a given situation, provide multiple interpretations of events or behaviors, and ask
yourself and other questions for clarification. Some of this process happens inside our heads,
and some happens through interaction. Let’s take an interpersonal conflict as an example.
Stefano and Patrick are roommates. Stefano is in the living room playing a video game when he
sees Patrick Walk through the room with his suitcase and walk out the front door. Since Patrick
didn’t say or wave good-bye, Stefano must make sense of this encounter, and perception
checking can help him do that. First, he needs to try to describe (not evaluate yet) what just
happened. This can be done by asking yourself, “What is going on?” In this case, Patrick left
without speaking or waving good-bye. Next, Stefano needs to think of some possible
interpretations of what just happened. One interpretation could be that Patrick is mad about
something (at him or someone else). Another could be that he was in a hurry and simply forgot,
or that he didn’t want to interrupt the video game. In this step of perception checking, it is good
to be aware of the attributions you are making. You might try to determine if you are
overattributing internal or external causes. Lastly, you will want to verify and clarify. So, Stefano
might ask a mutual friend if they know what might be bothering Patrick or going on in his life
that made him leave so suddenly. Or he may also just want to call, text, or speak to Patrick. Even
though Stefano has already been thinking about this incident, and is experiencing some conflict,
Patrick may have no idea that his actions caused Stefano to worry. If Stefano texts and asks why
he’s mad (which wouldn’t be a good idea because it’s an assumption) Patrick may become
defensive, which could escalate the conflict. Stefano could just describe the behavior (without
judging Patrick) and ask for clarification by saying, “When you left today you didn’t say bye or let
me know where you were going. I just wanted to check to see if things are OK.”
The steps of perception checking as described in the previous scenario are as follows:
Step 1: Describe the behavior or situation without evaluating or judging it.
Step 2: Think of some possible interpretations of the behavior, being aware of attributions
and other influences on the perception process.
Step 3: Verify what happened and ask for clarification from the other person’s perspective.
