Perception: What You See is What You Get

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Perception What You See is What You Get

• Chapter Summary

• The Perception Process
• Influences on Perception
• Common Tendencies in Perception
• Perception Checking
• Empathy and Communication
• The Pillow Method

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The Perception Process

• The Four Steps

• Selection
• Organization
• Interpretation
• Negotiation

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The Perception Process

• Selection

• What attracts your attention?
• Stimuli that are intense attract us.
• You are more likely to remember items that stand
  out
• Tall or short people
• Items that excite your senses
• Unchanging people or things become less
  noticeable over time.
• If youre running late, youll notice all the
  clocks around you.

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The Perception Process

• Organization

After selecting information from the environment,
we must organize it in some meaningful way.

• What do you see?
• In this example there are only twoways to
  organize the impression.
• In reality there are many more.

FIGURE 3.1 Page 85
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The Perception Process

• Organization

After selecting information from the environment,
we must organize it in some meaningful way.
In contrast to Figure 3.1, how many impressions
do you see here?
FIGURE 3.3 Page 86
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The Perception Process

• Organization

• We classify people the same way we did in the
  examples.
• Appearance
• Male or Female, Beautiful or Ugly
• Social Roles
• Student, Teacher, Attorney
• Interaction Style
• Friendly, Helpful, Mean

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The Perception Process

• Organization

• Psychological Traits
• Curious, Nervous, Insecure
• Membership
• Republican, American, Democrat
• How youve classified someone will change the
  way you react to them in the future.

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The Perception Process

• Organization

• Stereotyping
• After weve chosen an organizing scheme to
  classify people, we use that scheme to classify
  similar groups.
• Exaggerated generalizations lead to stereotyping.
• After a stereotype is created, we seek out
  isolated behavior to support these inaccurate
  beliefs.
• Decategorize those you stereotype.
• Treat them as individuals.

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The Perception Process

• Organization

• Punctuation
• How arguments are punctuated can lead to a
  variety of problems

FIGURE 3.4 Page 90
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The Perception Process

• Interpretation

• Interpretation plays a role in every
  interpersonal act.
• Degree of involvement with the other person
• We treat people differently when pursuing a
  relationship.
• Past experience
• Have you been in the situation before?
• Assumptions about human behavior

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The Perception Process

• Interpretation

• Interpretation plays a role in every
  interpersonal act.
• Attitudes
• The attitudes we hold shape the way we view
  others.
• Expectations
• Anticipation shapes interpretation.
• Knowledge
• Knowledge of a situation will change your
  interpretation of it.

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The Perception Process

• Interpretation

• Self-Concept
• How you view yourself will alter your
  interpretation.
• When youre feeling down, the world looks much
  worse.
• Relational Satisfaction
• Positive behavior may be viewed as negative
  depending on your current satisfaction in a
  relationship.
• It is possible for each section of the perception
  process to occur out of order.

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The Perception Process

• Negotiation

• Our personal worlds are described as narratives
• Ask two children what theyre fighting about.
• Chances are youll get different narratives.
• When narratives coincide, they are said to be
  shared
• These narratives do not have to be true to be
  powerful.
• In some cases couples have a happy relationship
  simply because they share the narrative that
  theyve always had one.
• Negotiating each narrative can be tricky.

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Influences on Perception

• Physiological Influences

• The Senses
• How each of us experience our senses changes the
  way we interact and shape our perceptions.
• How many times have you heard someone complain
  about the temperature and you thought it was just
  fine?

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Influences on Perception

• Physiological Influences

• Age
• Experience changes the way one perceives the
  world.
• Biological factors also shape perception.
• Health
• When youre feeling sick, your perception of the
  world changes.
• Fatigue
• Just as being ill can have harmful effects on
  your relationship so can being sleepy.

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Influences on Perception

• Physiological Influences

• Hunger
• People often get grumpy when theyre hungry.
• Several biological changes occur in the body.
• Biological Cycles
• Your body changes constantly throughout your
  daily cycle.
• Change can influence your perception positively
  and negatively.
• Psychological Challenges
• Mental illness and disorder can dramatically
  change the way one interacts with and perceives
  the world.

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Influences on Perception

• Cultural Differences

• Each culture values different principles of
  communication.
• Collectivistic vs. Individualistic Culture
• Ethnocentrism
• The attitude that ones own culture is superior
  to others
• Cultural differences can occur within a single
  country
• North vs. South
• East vs. West

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Influences on Perception

• Social Roles

• Gender Roles
• Socially instructed ways men and women should act
• Violations to these rules is seen as unusual and
  undesirable.
• Occupational Roles
• Depends on level of experience
• Can change instantly when new people are added to
  the group
• Philip Zimbardo conducted the an experiment that
  popularized the theory of occupational roles.
• Prisoners and Guards (PG 101-102)

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Common Tendencies in Perception

• How we Judge Ourselves

• We judge ourselves more charitably than others.
• Even when situations are similar, our tendency is
  to fault the other person rather than admit we
  also made the same mistake.
• He wasnt listening.
• He flies off the handle.
• What did you expect from someone who curses?
• Egocentric tendencies cause us to rate ourselves
  more favorable than others.

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Common Tendencies in Perception

• Others Negative Characteristics

• We pay more attention to others negative
  characteristics.
• To avoid bombarding our self-concept with doubt,
  we tend to focus more harshly on the shortcomings
  of others.
• We are influenced by the obvious.
• Because we select stimuli that is most
  noticeable, it is not surprising that obvious
  events tend to have the most impact.
• We assume that others are similar to us.
• Be careful when telling jokes and using slang.

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Common Tendencies in Perception

• Perception Checking

• Elements of Perceptions Checking
• A description of the behavior you notice
• At least two possible interpretations of the
  behavior
• A request for clarification about how to
  interpret the behavior
• Perception Checking Considerations
• Completeness
• Nonverbal Congruency
• Cultural Rules
• Face-Saving
• Can be a way to raise an issue without directly
  threatening

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Common Tendencies in Perception

• Empathy and Communication

• Empathy
• The ability to re-create another persons
  perspective or to experience the world from
  his/her point of view
• Perspective Taking
• The attempt to take on the viewpoint of another
• Requires a suspension of judgment
• Sympathy
• You view the other persons position from your
  point of view.

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Common Tendencies in Perception

• The Pillow Method

• The Pillow Method is a tool for building empathy.
• The Pillow Method consists of four sides or
  positions.

FIGURE 3.5 The Pillow Method Page 113
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Perception What you see is what you get

• Chapter Summary

• The Perception Process
• Influences on Perception
• Common Tendencies in Perception
• Perception Checking
• Empathy and Communication
• The Pillow Method

Looking Out, Looking In 12th Edition