Chapter 3
The “I” Behind the Eye:
Perception and the Self
ABOUT CHAPTER 3
In this chapter students explore how they see themselves and how they see the world around
them. We explore questions like: Who are you? How do others see you? How do you see them?
How can we account for differences in the way we perceive ourselves, others and events. What
do these differences tell us about how we think and feel about ourselves and our relationship to
others and society. If we cannot agree on what we see, how can we communicate with others? By
exploring the “I” behind the eye, students will come to better understand why we are each more
than a camera, and why the I of the perceiver makes such a big difference in effective
communication.
This chapter examines why a student’s perception of the world cannot be identical to the worlds
of those sitting around him or her. Once the students have come to this realization, they are led
through the major perceptual and self concept principles that affect our relationships with others.
They can then focus on overcoming problems that occur because each of us lives—in a very real
sense—in a personal, individual world.
LEARNING OUTCOMES AND INTEGRATOR GUIDE
Learning Outcomes and Content Content in Brief, Activities and
Resources
LO 1: Define and explain the nature of
perception.
In the Text:
Pages 43-48
What is Perception?
Stages of Perception
How We Perceive
How We Organize
Tests for Closure
In the Instructor’s Manual
3.14 Skill Builder Managing Memories
LO 2: Describe the nature of self-concept
and the various ways that it interacts with
behavior
In the Text:
Pages 49-56
Perceiving the Self: Who Are You?
Looking at the Self
Self-Concept /Behavior Connection
Dark Side of Self-Esteem,
The Bright Side of Self-Esteem
How Self Esteem Develops
Self-Concept, Outlook, and Behavior
Ethics and Communication: Age, Physical
Challenges, Self-Esteem and Perception
Expectations Matter: The Self-Fulfilling
Prophecy and the Pygmalion Effect
Discussion Starter: The Self-Fulfilling
Prophecy in Action
Review, Reflect, & Apply
Recall
Understand
Summarize
Apply
Evaluate
Identify
In the Instructor’s Manual
3. Skill Builder: Ethics and
Communication: Self-Concern and
Concern for Others
3. Skill Builder Exploring Diversity:
Describe Yourself
Ethics and Communication: Age, Physical
Challenges and Self-Esteem
Sidebar Discussion Starters
3.1: Skill Builder: Exploring the Johari
Window
3.2: Skill Builder: Dancing upon a Spindle
3.3: Skill Builder: Henry Ford”
Mantelpiece
3.4: Skill Builder: Self and Self-Concept
3.5: Skill Builder: Passion
3.9: Skill Builder: Who Are You?
3.15 Skill Builder: Prejudiced Eyes
On the Online Learning Center
Self-Inventory
LO3 Explain how to use life scripts, the
Johari window, and impression
management to develop self awareness.
In the Text:
Pages 56-60
Developing Self-Awareness
Identifying Life Scripts
Cartoon Discussion Starter: Peanuts
The Johari Window
Skill Builder: Symbolizing the Self
Review, Reflect, & Apply
Recall
Understand
Apply
Analyze
Media Wise: My Media Life
Discussion Starters
LO 4: Identify common barriers to
perception.
In the Text:
Pages 60-67
In the Text:
Barriers to Perceiving Yourself and Others
Is Your Past Following You?
Exploring Diversity: What Do You See?
What Do You Think?
Are your Eyes and Mind Closed?
Do You Freeze Your Perceptions?
Are You a Lazy Perceiver?
Do You Think You Know It All?
Discussion Starter: Blindering
Skill Builder: The Detective
Do You Confuse Facts and Inferences?
Cartoon Discussion Starter: Peanuts
Facts/Inference
Do You Lack Empathy?
Review, Reflect, & Apply
Recall
Understand
Analyze
The Johari Window Model
Skill Builder: Symbolizing the Self
In the Instructor’s Manual:
3.14 Skill Builder: My Memories
3.16 Skill Builder: Frames of Reference
LO 5: Explain how culture and gender can
affect perceptions of the self and others.
Pages 67-71
In the Text:
Gender, Self-Concept and Perception
Photo Discussion Starter: Others treat us
differently
Culture, Self-Concept and Perception
Photo Discussion Starter: Woman in
military redefining gender prescription?
Exploring Diversity: Idiocentric vs.
Allocentric
Exploring Diversity: “I Hate Him”
Discussion Starters
In the Instructor’s Manual
3.15 Skill Builder: Prejudiced Eyes
LO 6: Analyze how media and technology
influence perceptions of the self and others.
In the text
Pages 71-74
Self-Concept, Perception and Media and
Technology
Cartoon Discussion Starter: What was the
point of writing a blog…
Cartoon Discussion Starter: On the
internet, nobody knows you are a dog
Review, Reflect, & Apply
Understand
Evaluate
In the Instructor’s Manual
Thinking Critically: Reflect and Respond
7 Skill Builder: Personality Profile Game
3.10 Skill Builder: Personality Code
Exercise
3.11: Skill Builder: Where Do You Feel
Free to be You?
LO 7: Use guidelines to improve the
accuracy of self-perception perception of
others, and perception of events
In the text, pages 75-77
Communication Skills
Practice Improving
Understand that perception is personally
based.
Watch yourself in action.
Ask how others perceive you.
Take your time
Commit to Self Growth
In the Instructor’s Manual
3.17 Skill Builder: Reflect and Respond
3.18 Skill Builder: Service Learning
Additional Activities On the Online Learning Center (OLC):
Key Chapter Terms
Idioms in Translation
Culture Cue
Key Term Flashcards
Self Quizzes
Power Point Files (Teacher Area of OLC)
LESSON OUTLINE FOR CHAPTER 3
I. What is the Perception?
A. Picturing Perception in Action
B. How We Perceive
1. Perception is Selective and Personal
2. Memory Influences Perception
C. How we organize perceptions
1. Figure Ground
2. Perceptual Schemata
3. Closure
Note: Incorporate activities from the text and instructor’s manual.
II. Perceiving the Self: Who Are You
A. Looking at the Self
B. Self Concept Behavior Connection
C. How Self Concept Develops
D. How is your self concept formed?
Note: Incorporate activities from the text and instructor’s manual.
III. Developing Self Awareness
A. Identifying our life scripts
B. Viewing Ourselves and Others: The Johari Window
Note: Incorporate activities from the text and instructor’s manual.
IV. Barriers to Perceiving Yourself and Others
A. Is Your Past Following You/
B. Are your Eyes and Mind Closed
C. Do You Freeze Your Perceptions?
D. Are You a Lazy Perceiver
E. Do You Think that You Know It all?
F. Are You Wearing Blinders?
Note: Incorporate activities from the text and instructor’s manual.
V. Self Concept, Perception, Popular Media, and Technology
Note: Incorporate activities from the text and instructor’s manual.
VI. Practice Improving Skills
Note: Incorporate activities from the text and instructor’s manual.
TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION
1 What special masks or faces do you wear in your own life?
2 How do cartoon programs on television affect the self-concepts of young children?
3 Would you like to become rich and famous? What would you do to achieve this status?
Would it affect your self-concept?
4 Do you recall instances in your own life where the self-fulfilling prophecy, in the form of
the Pygmalion effect or the Galatea effect, has been a factor in your success or failure?
Explain.
5 Would you feel differently about yourself if you were a member of the other sex? Why?
6 What factors account for people’s reluctance to disclose information about themselves to
others?
MORE DISCUSSION STARTERS
1 Ben Franklin said, “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know
one’s self.” Do you agree or disagree?
2 “The self is not something that one finds. It is something that one creates.” (Thomas
Szasz). What steps have you taken to create your self?
3 Have you ever been teased by others? How did it affect your sense of self?
4 Is self control more important than self esteem?
5 Playwright Arthur Miller said, “Part of knowing who we are is knowing we are not
someone else.” Do you agree?
6 How do you think your boss and your friends picture you?
7 What masks might people in business wear?
8 In “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “Prepare a face to meet
the faces that you meet.” What do you think of such advice? Do you ever prepare your
face when interacting with others? If so, why?
9 According to psychologist Martin Seligman, pessimists can learn to be optimists. How do
you think such a change would affect a person’s self-concept?
10 Are you the person you think you are, the person someone else thinks you are, or the
person you think someone else thinks you are? Why?
11 The media have participated in a number of “outings”—that is, exposing the
homosexuality of persons who until that point had kept their sexual preferences private.
In effect, the media have moved information from the hidden area of the Johari Window
of these persons into the open area without their permission. In your opinion, should
anyone other than you ever be in control of what you reveal or conceal from others?
12 If you could trade places with any television or film star or character, who would you be?
What does this person—real or fictional—“do” for you? Do you have a more positive
image of this person than you have of yourself? Why? Would you like to be more like the
media image, or would you like the image to be more like you?
13 Do you have any beliefs that cause you to function in ways that are self-defeating? If so,
what are they and what can you do to eliminate them?
14 Identify people who have functioned as positive or negative “Pygmalions” in your life.
Then complete these sentences: I work best for people who. . .; I work least for people
who . . . .
15 Biologists have determined that technically speaking, the bumblebee cannot fly.
Fortunately, the bumblebee likely does not realize this. Do you believe that people rise no
higher than their expectations?
16 In one of his columns aptly titled, “Beauty and the Beast,” Miami Herald columnist and
humorist Dave Barry reported that for men, being considered average looking is just fine;
whereas for women, being average is not good enough. To what extent, if any, do your
experiences mirror such an observation?
17 What policies would you advocate that the media follow regarding the disclosure of
private information? Which in your opinion is more harmful: the media revealing a
personal fact to the public that an individual did not want disclosed, or someone whom
you trusted revealing a personal fact about you to someone to whom you did not want to
reveal the information.
18 Which communication style shown in the Johari Window is most characteristic of you
and the people you interact with?
19 Do you ever find yourself doing things in private, such as making faces at yourself in the
mirror, which you would never think about doing in front of other people? If so, why?
20 Imagine that you were given the opportunity to design a personal website whose function
was to communicate yourself to everyone who accessed the site. The people who opened
your site could be friends or faceless, anonymous strangers. What aspects of yourself
would you focus on? What facets would you ignore? How much would you reveal about
yourself on the site? Would you include pictures, or would you leave them off? To what
extent, if any, do you think that having a personal website enhances your ability to better
manage the identity you present to others?
21 What changes do you feel the military makes in the men and women who enlist and serve
our country?
ADDITIONAL SKILL BUILDERS
3.1 SKILL BUILDER: Exploring the Johari Window
Ask students to look at the Johari Window in the text. In pairs or groups, have them devise real
or hypothetical examples of situations that illustrate the open, hidden, blind and unknown areas.
Poll the teams, and have them share their examples with the class.
3.2 SKILL BUILDER: Dancing upon a Spindle
You can begin your self-concept lesson by having students consider the implications of the
following poem
The Clown
Teri Kwal Gamble
The rubber man in the spotlight
Propels himself
Beyond the reach
Of reality.
Midway between today and tomorrow
He pauses
Suspended in his reverie by the crowd.
The rubber man in the spotlight
Warmed by laughter
Finds a face
To play to.
Dancing upon an ever-turning spindle
He plays to another,
And another and another.
The rubber man in the spotlight
Sweeps up the dreams
That remind him
Of yesterday.
Then tumbling out of the ring,
His face frozen in a rainbow smile
He wonders who he is.
Who are you? How do you know? These are just two of the questions we will consider in this
lesson.
3.3 SKILL BUILDER: Henry Ford’s Mantelpiece
Henry Ford is said to have had the following words placed on his fireplace mantel.
You can do anything if you have enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the yeast that makes
your hope rise to the start. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, it is the swing
in your gait, the grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of your will and your
energy to execute your ideas. Enthusiasts are fighters. They have fortitude. They
have staying qualities. Enthusiasm is at the bottom of all progress! With it there is
accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis.
What importance do these words have for today’s career-oriented communicator?
3.4 SKILL BUILDER: Self and Self-Concept
What does the diagram below—adapted from the work of the industrial psychologist William
Haney—reveal about the relationship between your self and your self-concept?
Self-Concept
Self
A. Self-concept is highly structured; self is fluid, changing.
B. Some of the pictures we have of ourselves lie outside the self.
C. Because the self-concept covers only a portion of the self, the diagram shows that we
all have a great deal of untapped potential.
3.5 SKILL BUILDER: Passion
Anthony Robbins, in his book Unlimited Power, which is based on a branch of psychology
called neurolinguistic programming, suggests that passion is a key ingredient in the self-image.
It is passion that causes people to stay up late and get up early. Passion gives life
power and juice and meaning. There is no greatness without a passion to be
great, whether it is the aspiration of an athlete or an artist, a scientist, a parent,
or a businessperson.
Do you have passion—an almost obsessive drive to be, say, an effective and successful student?
Why or why not? Do you have a real passion for a particular career? Do you feel that such a
passionate drive for excellence can be developed? How might you go about doing it?
3.6 SKILL BUILDER: Questions
Gregory Stock is a biophysicist who teaches at Harvard Business School. His unusual book, The
Book of Questions: The Ultimate Conversation Starter, provides students with humorous and
often outrageous questions to use in conversations. Many of the questions are simply fun; others
ask people to reveal aspects of their self-image. Here are some examples:
If you were to die this evening, what would you most regret not having told someone?
Would you accept $2 million to leave this country and never set foot in it again?
What is your favorite memory?
What is your worst nightmare?
What would you tell someone about yourself, if it were important for you to impress that
person?
Would you be willing to eat a bowl of live crickets for $50,000?
Stocks’s books include:
The Book of Questions. New York: Workman Publishers, 1987.
The Book of Questions: Love and Sex. New York: Workman Publishers, 1980
The Book of Questions: Business Politics and Ethics, Workman Publishers, 1991.
See also:
If… Questions for the Game of Life. Evelyn McFarlane and James Saywell.
For additional questions, see Amazon.com. Several pages of questions from each book are
posted.