INHALING: PERCEPTION
By: Cara Giovinazzo
WHAT IS PERCEPTION? Defined as a social and cognitive process
in which people assign meaning to sensory cues.
Sensory Cues Seeing Hearing Touching Tasting Smelling
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
WHAT IS PERCEPTION? “Seeing is believing”
People are often looking for the “truth” in what they are experiencing
“Perception takes a picture through a lens, not through a window.” Perception is active, not passive
“If an individual thinks something is so, it is so (at least to that individual). Our ‘definition of a situation,’ whether accurate or inaccurate, is real to us and determines our behavior.”
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
Luna Lucero, Myra. "Perceptions and Nonverbal Communication Featuring "Eat Shoes You Cat!." Conference Papers -- National Communication Association (2007): 1. Communication & Mass Media Complete.
BEAUTY IS IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER Is perception reality?
For leaders, remembering that experience influences the interpretation of reality is critical for success. This is especially true for situations that require the leader to relay information to stakeholders with a role in the realization of the leader's organizational vision.
No two people will look at things the same. It doesn't make one or the other wrong, it just means that each person has differing opinions and ideas. A leader must know how to use all ideas in a positive way to motivate the team to achieve success.
Brainstorming ideas becomes an excellent tool to use in leadership.
You do not know how others perceive situations, so talking to them about it is the best way to understand someone else and to come to a shared perception
Perception can be used to come to an agreement on something that is not factual.
Perception has now fallen into the category of a fantasy realm.
HOW ARE PERCEPTIONS FORMED? Perception is the process by which people
select, organize and interpret... sensations. The study of perception, then, focuses on what we add to these raw sensations in order to give them meaning.
We view everything with which we come into contact through perceptual lenses affected by our cultural backgrounds and previous experiences among other factors.
Ming-Yi, Wu, and Anastacia Kurylo. "Proverb Activity: Understanding How Perception and Gender Stereotypes are Formed."Communication Teacher 24.2 (2010): 69-73. Communication & Mass Media Complete.
CULTURE Different cultures answer questions
differentlyWhat is the value of the individual versus
the value of the group?How do people advance in life, by heritage
or achievement?How should society be organized? Is the nature of a human being good or evil?How do humans relate to each other?Where does meaning lie, explicitly in the
language or hidden in the context?Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill
Companies, 2012. Print.
CULTURE ...One's own culture provides the "lens" through
which we view the world; the "logic"... by which we order it; the "grammar" ... by which it makes sense.
Communication styles Words and phrases having different meanings, volume
of voice has different meanings Attitudes towards conflict
Americans are encouraged to confront problems Eastern countries conflict is embarrassing and shameful
Approaches to completing tasks Asian and Hispanic cultures focus on building a
relationship first v. European and American cultures that focus on task completion
http://www.pbs.org/ampu/crosscult.html
CULTURE Decision-making
Americans- delegate decision making v. Southern Europe and Latin America- being able to make decisions is powerful and they do not delegate
American majority rules v. Japanese consensus Attitudes towards disclosure
How much personal information is appropriate? Is it acceptable to be frank about feelings?
Approaches to knowing European cultures gather information through cognitive
means i.e. counting and measuring African cultures use affective ways of knowing such as
symbolic imagery and rhythm Asian cultures emphasize knowledge gained through
striving for transcendence
http://www.pbs.org/ampu/crosscult.html
GENDER Women and men in North America interpret the same
action differently (According to Malz and Borker, 1982) Men perceive head nodding while listening as a sign of
agreement while women perceive it as a signal that the person is listening This could be the root of the problem that women think men never
listen or don’t offer emotional support and women are unreliable because women always just agree with what men say
Frontal lobe in men and women differ Frontal lobe is responsible for emotional reasoning
Corpus callosum is larger in women This is a mass of fibers connecting the two halves of the brain Helps integrate the language and emotional centers better
resulting in women being able to verbalize feelings better than men
Socialization can affect how men and women communicate regardless of the brain
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
PROVERB ACTIVITY: UNDERSTANDING HOW PERCEPTION AND GENDER STEREOTYPES ARE FORMED Why did you remember these particular proverbs?
Selecting Are there commonalities between the proverbs
you remembered? Organizing
What do the proverbs mean? Inferring
What are gender-specific proverbs? What factors might influence how we interpret
information? How might perception adversely affect
communication? How might a person avoid problems caused by
perception?
PROVERB ACTIVITY: UNDERSTANDING HOW PERCEPTION AND GENDER STEREOTYPES ARE FORMED What are gender-specific proverbs?
What factors might influence how we interpret information?
How might perception adversely affect communication?
How might a person avoid problems caused by perception?
Where do we learn proverbs? What role does culture play in our ability to understand
proverbs? What value do proverbs have for a culture? What implications do these proverbs have for the way
in which men and women are viewed in a culture?
Ming-Yi, Wu, and Anastacia Kurylo. "Proverb Activity: Understanding How Perception and Gender Stereotypes are
Formed."Communication Teacher 24.2 (2010): 69-73. Communication & Mass Media Complete.
COGNITIVE SCHEMATA Mental guidelines that help process
incoming cues Frederic Bartlett (1932) originated the
Schema Theory All remembering is constructive We do not store all stimuli in memory,
rather the brain uses schemata to provide an impression of the whole
Schemata for people, relationships, actions and emotions
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
EAT SHOES YOU CAT! Perceptions are formed through
communication with other people. Perceptions are the way in which an
individual gives meaning to an object. “As we encounter worldviews that differ
from our own, we have two major choices: We can engage in communication that isolates and protects us from those perspectives, or we can embrace challenges to our thinking as opportunities for growth and change.”
Luna Lucero, Myra. "Perceptions and Nonverbal Communication Featuring "Eat Shoes You Cat!." Conference Papers -- National Communication Association (2007): 1. Communication & Mass Media Complete.
PERSON PROTOTYPES AND SCRIPTS Person prototypes are generalized
representations of certain types of people Based on experience and repeated
interactions with people Professor? Lawyer? Student? Car salesmen?
Person prototypes help us orient with the world, meet people we would be comfortable with and help avoid dangerous situations
Omit specific information so they can be misleading and create stereotypes
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
PERSON PROTOTYPES AND SCRIPTS Structures that deal with certain
sequences of action Helps us to know what to do and expect in
common situationsGoing to a restaurant, wedding, the doctor’s
office, etc. This helps us make automatic actions
instead of having to make constant decisions
Person prototypes and scripts influence how people organize sensory cues
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
INTERPRETATION Impression Formation
Integrating or synthesizing a variety of sometimes contradictory observations into a coherent overall “picture”
The impression formed is a combination of traits that are similar and fit together
Implicit Personality Theory What the person’s personality must be based on qualities or
characteristics implied by their behavior Someone is outgoing, talkative, and ________ (funny or not funny)
People who generalize or categorize are position centered because it focuses on social roles and norms as opposed to unique characteristics of individuals and have impersonal communication
Person centered communicators are more aware of perceptual features and have more interpersonal communication
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
ATTRIBUTION When people devise theories or
explanations about other’s behaviors to make sense of the situation
Assigns a cause or intention to behaviorA student is late to class and the instructor
thinks, “The student is lazy.” Or they could think, “There must be bad traffic today.”
Allows a person to believe that they can predict how someone will act in the future
This helps understand what is going on and how one should operate in future interactions with a person
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
ATTRIBUTION Internal Factors vs. External Factors
The student is lazy- it is the student’s fault they are late
The student got stuck in traffic- it is not the student’s fault they are late
When others make mistakes, people tend to use internal factors to explain behavior
When people make mistakes themselves, they contribute it to external factors
Attributions can help understand a person, but can also interfere with considering other reasons for their actions
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
STEREOTYPING According to the Oxford English Dictionary
stereotyping is a “preconceived and oversimplified idea of the characteristics which typify a person, situation, etc.; an attitude based on such a preconception. Also, a person who appears to conform closely to the idea of a type.”
Stereotypes can be positive or negative Stereotypes vary in intensity Racism and sexism continue with the help of
stereotypes Stereotyping is impersonal Stereotyping is unavoidable and can sometimes
be helpful Studies show that while stereotyping is
influential, what happens during a conversation is more important
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
PRACTICAL PERCEPTION PROBLEMS Selection Problems
Fast Thinking People speak from 115 to 130 words per minute,
but people can listen to upwards of 500 words per minute
Avoiding Overload Tuning out distractions and deciding to let the
wrong things go The Entertainment Factor
We want information to be communicated in a lively, attractive and stimulating way
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
PRACTICAL PERCEPTION PROBLEMS Person Perception
Snap Judgments Inferences that are usually rather immediate and do not
involve complex cognitive processes Most limited kind of stereotype people make of others Snap judgments are mostly based on physical appearance Snap judgments are liable to distort you understanding of
what a person is saying Attributional Errors
Fundamental attribution error People mistakenly attribute behaviors to internal causes,
instead of external causes Ultimate attribution error
Negative behavior is an internal cause and positive behavior is an external cause
Stewart, John. Bridges Not Walls: A Book About Interpersonal Communication. New York: The McGraw Hill Companies, 2012. Print.
APPLYING YOUR KNOWLEDGE Each unique view will make for a more creative outcome if
the leader knows how to channel the different perspectives. A leader can use perception to his or her advantage.
Knowing that perception is assigning meaning to the senses and it is individual, then the leader could use the senses of the group to discuss the project they are working on.
Showing others that you support them and believe in them will essentially effect how they perceive themselves and, in this case, in a positive way benefiting themselves and the organization too.
A leader should never try to make organizational perception changes on their own or against the well wishings of the stakeholders of the organization
A leader of an organization can apply perception to his or her organization through the mission statement of the company.
PERCEPTION IN ORGANIZATIONS Are there any new ideas/thoughts about
perception in organizations? As a leader, should you self-monitor? As a leader, should you encourage self-
monitoring of your organizational members?
How can you help your organization understand the implications of perception?
Can a person ever truly be objective?
CALVIN AND HOBBES
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