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Chapter 2: Perception, Self, and Communication
Chapter Objectives and Integrator Guide
After reading and thinking about this chapter, students should be able to meet the
following objectives.
Objectives
1. Describe what perception is.
Key terms: perception, active perception, subjective perception
2. Identify factors in the perceptual process.
3. Explain some of the reasons why people can perceive things differently.
Key terms: perceptual constancy, role
4. Describe how selection, organization, and interpretation occur during perception and how
they affect the way you communicate with others.
Key terms: selective exposure, selective attention, selective perception,
selective retention
5. Differentiate among figure and ground, proximity, closure, and similarity in
communication examples.
Key terms: organization, figure, ground, closure, proximity, similarity,
interpretive perception
6. Identify errors you might make when you perceive others that affect your communication
with them.
Key terms: stereotyping, prejudice, out-group, first impression, perceptual checking
7. Recognize how the choices you make about who you communicate with and how you
communicate with them are influenced by your view of yourself.
Key term: symbolic interactionism
8. Define identity management and describe how it influences your perception of self
and others.
Key term: identity management
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Activities
Activity 2.1 The Perception Test
Objectives
Students should be able to identify the perceptual processes involved in each problem, to
describe the different ways in which people interpret the same stimuli, and to state the
reasons for the different interpretations.
Procedure
Distribute a copy of the “Perception Test” that follows here to each of the students, and tell
them to try to solve the problems individually. After approximately ten minutes, let the
students work in pairs or groups of three. Encourage them to try all the problems, rather than
concentrating on the most difficult ones.
Class Discussion
When everyone has had a reasonable chance to solve the problems, ask the students to
explain their answers to each question. The students should also identify the perceptual
processes involved in each problem. (The correct answers are provided after the handout.)
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Perception Test
1. t n m n i b s n y s
i e o o d d e e a i
f s t y a l c s w s
o e s n e u n e e i
e k i a r o e h h h
s a e f e h t t t t
Do these symbols have any meaning for you? Write the sentence that they form.
2. What is the relationship between the pairs of lines below?
3. Read and write out the following phrases:
Paris Snake Busy
in the in the as a
the spring the grass a beaver
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4. Polk is pronounced with the l silent. Folk is pronounced like coke, a silent l. The white of an
egg is pronounced:
5. Join all nine dots with four straight lines. Do not lift your pencil from the paper or retrace
any lines.
6. A man has a window that measures 12" x 12" but does not let in enough light. So he saws
around the window and has a window that measures 12" x 12" but lets in exactly twice as
much light. What did he do?
7. Write the word proof on the lines below:
8. A man has drowned in the middle of a lake, which is almost twenty feet deep, and is lying at
the bottom of the lake. He did not swim there; nor was he carried. How did he get to the
middle of the lake and drown?
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Answers to Perception Test
1. Start at the bottom right-hand corner and read vertically from the bottom to the top: “This is
2. Any interpretation is acceptable: the pairs of lines are parallel, their length differs, they are
5. The key to this problem is to regard the figure as nine dots rather than a square.
6. The original window was a right-angle triangle with 12-inch sides. He sawed around the
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7. Possible solutions are below. Any method of writing proof is acceptable. Concepts: People
8. The man walked to the middle when the lake was frozen. He drowned when the ice broke.
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Activity 2.2 Fast Thinking
Objectives
Students should be able to realize that individual differences in perception exist due to
different factors—physiological, past experiences, present feelings, or circumstances.
Procedure
This brief activity is best used as an introduction to perceptual differences. Indicate to
students that they are to write down what word, words, or phrases immediately come to mind
when one of the following simple terms is mentioned.
List of terms: black, moon, contemporary, literate, poor, white, queen, guardian, New Jersey,
conjure up perceptual fields that are similar across individuals? Why do dramatic differences
exist?
Applications
This activity illustrates the concept of perceptual constancy. In addition, the students should
be better able to understand the activities of selection, organization, and interpretation that
which people’s perceptions of another person agree.
Procedure
This is a relatively threatening assignment for some, and it is necessary that it be performed
by groups of students. Divide the students into groups of three or four. Have each group
observe a different person outside the classroom. Ask each group to decide on the
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Class Discussion
The students should bring the results of their experiment to the next class meeting and
organization, and interpretation to our perception of personal; gives students a chance to
identify their stereotypes; and leads into the influence of nonverbal behavior on our
interactions.
Activity 2.4 Describe What You See
Objectives
Students should be able to observe and understand that people have different perceptions of
one another and the impact these differences have on interpersonal relationships.
Procedure
Circulate the adjective list below to students and divide the class into groups of three
students. First, students should circle adjectives that best describe themselves. Then they put
their classmates’ initials next to adjectives that best describe the classmates. The groups
should share perceptions. Have the class compare similarities and differences and their
causes.
Adjectives: conservative, friendly, outgoing, controversial, skeptical, eclectic, easygoing,
nervous, affluent, intelligent, apprehensive, eager, risky, confident, jovial, flirtatious, stylish,
precise, shrewd
Class Discussion
What effect do these differences in perception, both of self and others, have on our
communication in interpersonal relationships? Class discussion should center on how
interpersonal relationships are contingent on the perceptions of another. Emphasis should be
placed on the value of appreciating individual differences in the development of interpersonal
relationships.
Applications
This activity underscores the importance of recognizing interpersonal qualities of another
person and realizing that these qualities often play a vital role in accurately perceiving
another individual.
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Activity 2.5 Selective Attention
Objectives
Students should be able to identify ways in which selective attention helps to create order in
our perception of stimuli and explain how selective attention affects our perception of others.
Procedure
After a discussion of how perception involves all five senses, have the students focus on one
their shoes on their feet, the pressure of their belts on their stomachs, the tickle of their hair
on their ears and neck. For taste: Can they taste their toothpaste? Food? Drink? For smell:
Can they detect aftershave lotion? Perfume? Deodorant?
Class Discussion
After identifying a reasonable number of perceptions, discuss the factors that determine
which stimuli we tend to focus on—for example, information that fulfills our needs, startling
stimuli, familiar cues, and unusual stimuli.
Applications
This activity illustrates the nature of selective attention, can be used to introduce factors that
affect individual perception, and relates well to factors that affect active listening.
Activity 2.6 Selective Retention
Objectives
Students should be able to define selective retention and identify the factors that affect it.
Procedure
Instruct the students to number a piece of paper from one to ten. Tell them that you will write
ten words on the board. They will then be given two seconds to study the words, after which
time they will write down as many of the words as they can remember. Have them close their
eyes while you write the following ten three-letter words on the board:
dog cup big sex fig
lap tub ran car boy
Have the students look at the words for two seconds. Then erase the words. When everyone
has written down the remembered words, count by a show of hands how many remembered
each word. The most remembered will probably be dog, lap, boy, and sex; and almost
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everyone will remember sex. As a variation, use the following list of words and
nonsense syllables:
tlk ntp ykf pgrn Irw
mbc aeq sex kkk ptq
Class Discussion
Discuss why the students remembered some words and not the others. Why was sex easy
to remember? The discussion should identify sequence, unusual characteristics, and
expectations as factors that affect selective retention. In the variation, sex and kkk are
remembered best because of their familiarity and because of the differences between those
letters and the nonsense syllables that compose the rest of the list.
Applications
This activity illustrates selective attention and retention and may also be used to illustrate the
arbitrary nature of symbols—that is, why do some symbols have more impact than others?
Why do some symbols convey meaning, while others do not?
Activity 2.7 Stereotypical Thinking
Objectives
Students should be able to understand how their perception process operates in
stereotyping others.
Procedure
Divide the class into two groups. Distribute the following list of individuals and situations to
students. Have students determine and role-play how two (or more) individuals respond to
the same situation.
Situations: fixing a flat tire; washing an infant; choosing a movie; rescuing a cat from a
tree; planning a vacation
Individuals/roles: priest, actor, teacher, mail carrier, fashion blogger, florist, international
student, construction worker
The class should then discuss why the particular communication episodes occurred and if any
stereotyping underscores their perception of the situation.
Class Discussion
As mentioned above, stereotyping should be discussed as a determinant of the perception of
others. Why do individuals stereotype? Are there any advantages to stereotyping? What are
possible implications of stereotyping those with whom we have no affiliation? Cite examples
as necessary.
Applications
This activity indicates that our perception of others is often based on our ability and
willingness to stereotype. Further, our interactions in our future relationships are often
determined by the stereotyping we do.
Activity 2.8 Self-Awareness and Maslow’s Pyramid
Objectives
Students should be able to recite and describe the five levels of Maslow’s pyramid and state
how the pyramid is related to the concept of self-awareness and the development of self.
Procedure
Draw Maslow’s1 pyramid on the board. Discuss with students the various levels of the
hierarchy as necessary for understanding. The physical needs include our needs for food,
sleep, sex, and water. Safety and security needs include our need for stability, order,
predictability, and freedom from fear, harm, injury, and chaos. Our social needs include the
needs to belong, to feel a part of social groups, and to feel acceptance, approval and
affection. Our esteem needs are based on our need to feel competent and confident and to
receive the recognition others can give us. Finally, our self-actualization needs include our
desires to live up to our unique potentialities and our needs for self-fulfillment.
Our self-awareness and development of self is limited if we live at subsistence levels
wherein our main concern is finding food, water, and sex. Similarly, if we have to be
primarily concerned with survival by always protecting ourselves, other levels of individual
development may be ignored. In other words lower levels of the pyramid need to be satisfied
before higher levels can be developed. Have students decide, either individually or in small
groups, where they are in their development of self. Are they at the lower levels, middle
levels, or high levels? Have they already become all they wish to be (self-actualization)?
See if students agree that lower needs have to be substantially satisfied before higher needs
are developed.
Class Discussion
After individuals or small groups have talked over their ideas about Maslow’s pyramid, the
instructor should reassemble the class to talk about the exercise. Discover where individuals
placed themselves on the hierarchy by saying which needs are basically satisfied and which
are not. More importantly, have them reveal what the satisfaction of needs has to do with
their own self-awareness, their own development of self.
Applications
The purpose of this activity is to help students determine the level of their own development
of self. Being aware of what we need is an important first step in self-awareness. This
pyramid can also be used later in the book in the section on public speaking, where it is
1 Abraham H. Maslow, “Hierarchy of Needs,” in Motivation and Personality, 2ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1970): 35–72.
