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Chapter 3: Perception and Communication
Key Concepts
attribution
cognitive complexity
constructivism
culture
empathy
fundamental attribution error
implicit personality theory
inattention blindness
interpretation
mind reading
Müller-Lyer illusion
perception
personal construct
prototype
script
self-serving bias
standpoint
stereotype
Chapter Outline
I.
Process of perception—Creating meaning by selecting, organizing, and
interpreting people, objects, events, situations, and other phenomena.
A.
Selection—We consciously select which of the infinite number of stimuli
around us is most relevant at any point in time.
1.
We select stimuli that stand out above the others.
2.
We influence what we select by noticing things we had not noticed before.
3.
Who we are, what we need, why we need it, and where we are at a
moment in time influences what we select.
4.
The culture in which we grow up also influences what we select to
perceive.
B.
Organization—Constructivism is a theory that states that we organize and
interpret experience by applying cognitive structures called schemata. We use
four schemata to make sense of interpersonal phenomena:
1.
Prototypes represent the clearest or most representative example of some
category, such as a particular group of people, places, objects, activities,
relationships, or events.
2.
Personal constructs are “mental yardsticks” that we use to measure a
person or situation along a bipolar dimension of judgment.
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3.
Stereotypes are generalizations about people and situations that allow us to
predict another person’s likely behavior.
4.
Scripts are guides for action. They consist of sequences of activities that
are expected of us and others in particular situations.
C.
Interpretation is the process of attaching meaning or explanations to phenomena
we have noticed and organized.
1.
Attributions are explanations for why things happen or why people act the
way they do.
2.
Attributional errors occur when we attach distorted meanings to what
happens around us.
a.
A self-serving bias occurs when we take excessive personal credit
for our successes and assume someone or something else is
responsible for our poor performances.
b.
A fundamental attribution error occurs when we overestimate the
internal causes and underestimate the external causes of others’
undesirable behaviors or when we overestimate the external causes
and underestimate the internal causes of our undesirable behaviors.
II.
Influences on perception—Individuals differ in how they perceive situations and
people. At least six factors affect our perception process.
A.
Physiology—People differ in their sensory abilities, which can also be
impacted by biorhythms or medical conditions.
B.
Expectations—Our expectations affect what we notice. This explains the
self-fulfilling prophecy.
C.
Age and the number and complexity of life experiences alter our views or
interpretations of particular communication situations.
D.
Our culture provides each of us with a particular set of beliefs, values,
understandings, and practices that influence our perception.
1.
Social location—The social groups to which we belong in a particular
culture shape our standpoints or points of view that grow out of political
awareness of the social location of the groups to which we belong.
2.
Roles—The training we receive to fulfill a role and the actual demands
of the role affect what we notice and how we interpret and evaluate the
role.
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E.
Our cognitive abilities influence the number of different interpretations we can
create for a situation.
1.
People who have more schemata for organizing and interpreting situations
are considered to be more cognitively complex than those who rely on few
personal constructs and focus more on concrete categories than abstract
ones.
2.
Person-centeredness is the ability to interact with another individual as a
unique human being.
3.
When we empathize with another person, we do our best to feel what
that person is feeling in a particular situation.
F.
Self—We have implicit personality theories, which are collections of
assumptions about how various qualities fit together in human
personalities.
III.
Social media and perception
A.
Our choices of social media shape our perceptions of events, issues, and people.
B.
Cultural memberships influence the content of digital and online communication.
C.
Social media have altered how we perceive time and space.
IV.
Guidelines for improving perception and communication. Seven guidelines can help us
improve the accuracy of our perceptions.
A.
Recognize that all perceptions are partial and subjective. We need to understand
that all of our perceptions occur at a single point in time, represent only a portion
of the stimuli we could notice, and cannot be determined to be true or false.
B.
Avoid mind reading, assuming we understand what another person thinks, feels,
or perceives. We need to avoid assuming that we know what another person
thinks or how he or she perceives a particular situation.
C.
Check perceptions with others by asking others to what extent our perceptions are
accurate. This will help us arrive at mutual understandings of each other, the
situation, and our relationship.
D.
We need to distinguish between facts (those things we can verify based on
observation) and inferences (those things we create by interpreting what we have
observed).
E.
Guard against the self-serving bias because it can distort our perceptions.
F.
Avoid the fundamental attribution error by looking for external reasons for others’
actions and internal motivations for your own.
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G.
Monitor labels. We need to remember that the labels we attach to particular
interactions affect not only how we perceive situations but also how we will
behave in future interactions.
Discussion Ideas
• Selection Process: Ask students to make a list of three things they saw, heard, felt,
smelled, and tasted prior to class today. Chances are they will have the most difficulty
with taste. Why is taste the sense to which we pay the least attention? Why do we pay
the most attention to sight and hearing? If time and weather permit, you could take them
outside and ask them to use one sense at a time and make a list of the stimuli they
perceive with each individual sense.
• Personal Constructs: Ask students to make a list of 10 adjectives they would use to
describe someone they like. Then ask them to make a list of 10 adjectives for someone
they dislike. Chances are there will be no negative adjectives on the like list and no
positive adjectives on the dislike list. Why is that the case? What are the most common
mental yardsticks we use to judge those we like? Those we dislike?
• Person-Centeredness: Ask students to write a short letter persuading you to give them
$50. Now ask them to write a letter asking their parent or guardian to give them $50.
Compare and contrast the tactics used in their two letters. Why are we usually in a
position to use more person-centered, I–Thou communication with parents and
guardians?
• Stereotyping: What stereotypes can you think of? Where did you get these stereotypes?
How are stereotypes developed? How can stereotypes be changed?
• Empathy: To what extent do you believe that you can truly feel what another person is
feeling? Be sure to have students distinguish among empathy, dual perspective, and
person-centeredness in the discussion.
• Shaping Perceptions: A spin doctor is a person, often a political aide, who is responsible
for ensuring that others interpret an event from a particular point of view (visit the
Merriam-Webster online dictionary at http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/spin%20doctor for the complete definition). From news reports
(in magazines, newspapers, or on the Internet), pick a current political controversy and
ask students to analyze how concepts associated with selection, organization (e.g.,
schemata), and interpretation (e.g., attributions) are exploited to create a favorable
version of events by the spin doctor, while undermining other points of view. Further,
ask students to demonstrate how the self-serving bias and fundamental attribution error
relate to a particular controversy. Oftentimes, for example, one side will overestimate the
internal causes and underestimate the external factors when events go bad for the
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other side. This activity provides an excellent segue into verbal communication and how
symbols shape perceptions.
• Distinguish between Facts and Inferences: Use the following story about Chris. Ask
students to assess whether each of the statements that follow the story is a fact or inference.
Another interesting question to ask students is whether they believe Chris is male or female
and why?
Chris went to the mall to get a new compact disc. Even though Chris didn’t have the
money to pay for it, Chris really wanted the CD. After looking in several stores and
comparing prices, Chris found the least expensive CD, but it still cost $30. Chris knew it
was not affordable. Later when Chris was playing a new CD for friends, they all
complimented Chris on such great taste in music.
o Chris bought the $30.00 compact disc.
o Chris stole the $30.00 compact disc.
o Chris left the mall with the $30.00 compact disc.
o Chris really wanted the new compact disc.
o Chris is irresponsible with money.
Only statement four is factual. The others are inferences that go beyond the facts
presented in the story. We know only that Chris went to the mall to get a compact disc
and later Chris played a new compact disc. We do not know WHICH compact disc Chris
played and we do not know whether Chris charged it on credit, paid in cash, or shoplifted
the compact disc. We also don’t have facts that would allow us to determine whether
Chris is irresponsible with money.
If you made mistakes, why do you think you made them? If you got all of them correct,
what kept you from making mistakes?
Activities
Title
Individual
Partner/
Ethno
Group
Demonstration/
Whole Class
Internet
1. Selective perception
X
2. How I see you
X
3. Perceiving differences
X–P
4. What did you see
X
5. Remaking the social world
X
6. Color perception and symbolism
X–P
8. What do you remember?
X
X = Marks type of activity H = Handout P = Preparation required for students/teacher
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Selective Perception
The goal of this activity is to make students aware of how selectively they perceive and how
much of “raw reality” they usually don’t notice.
Tell students you want to help them perceive the classroom more fully than they have so far by
letting them concentrate on each of the five senses. Begin with vision. Ask students to describe
what they see in the room. After they’ve identified obvious visual aspects of the room, push
students to be more observant. Point out chipped paint, a scene outside that can be seen through
the window, the filtering light in the room, the flickering fluorescent light, and so forth. Next, tell
students to close their eyes and focus on what they can hear in the room. After they mention
obvious auditory stimuli, nudge them to focus more closely and notice other sounds: a bird
singing, noise in the hallway, breathing of fellow students, and so forth. Follow this procedure
for the senses of touch (plastic or wooden chairs, comfortable or not), smell (scents of spring
flowers or wet wool from snow-covered coats), and taste (air is dry or moist, stuffy or fresh).
After students have used all five senses to perceive the classroom, discuss how this exercise
illustrates the process of perception. Ask students why they didn’t initially perceive all of the
stimuli that they eventually were able to notice using each sense. Encourage them to identify the
factors that influenced what they most readily perceived. Ask your students how more complete
perceptions of the classroom affect their impressions of it.
How I See You
The purpose of this activity is to provide students with a concrete understanding of how they use
cognitive schemata to organize their perceptions of others.
Begin the exercise with a brief review of the four kinds of cognitive schemata: prototypes,
constructs, stereotypes, and scripts. Then create small discussion groups in which students are
asked to provide examples of each of the four schemata as applied to their perceptions of you,
the teacher. Assure students that you will reciprocate by explaining the schemata you have used
to perceive them. Allowing students to work in groups is important for this activity since a group
prevents individual students from feeling (and being) personally exposed. After 20 minutes, end
the discussions.
Make four columns on the chalkboard and label them prototypes, constructs, stereotypes, and
scripts. Ask students to call out their prototypes (examples from my students’ prototypes of me
are liberal, teacher, and woman). Next, invite students to share the constructs they use to
interpret you (e.g., intelligent–unintelligent, funny–boring, attractive–unattractive, personal–
impersonal).
Record students’ stereotypes (e.g., will expect us to do readings, is open to conversations outside
of class) and scripts (e.g., it’s appropriate to challenge or disagree with this professor; we need to
respect what others say in the class). Finally, you should keep your part of the bargain by
providing examples of the schemata you use to interpret them.
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Through discussion, students should gain a concrete understanding of the ways in which they
actively construct their perceptions of others. Important within this discussion is raising students’
sense of responsibility for the ways in which they construct or misconstrue others. To reinforce
the diversity theme of the text, you may ask students to describe changing schemata about
different racial groups and gays and lesbians.
Perceiving Differences
The goal of this activity is also to make students aware of how selectively they perceive and how
much of “raw reality” they usually don’t notice. This activity is designed to increase their
awareness of how they perceive others and how others may perceive them. If you have a student
with a physical disability, you may want him or her to discuss his or her experiences afterward.
Before class, try to rent or borrow two wheelchairs, two canes with blindfolds, two old big
sunglasses (with lots of scratches on it or you can rub Vaseline on the outside of the lenses), two
pairs of professional earphones/ear plugs, and two pairs of crutches. Then, on slips of paper write
down the different items.
The objective is to let students perceive their world differently if suddenly they had a disability.
During class, ask each student to find a partner. One student will be the “participant” and the
other student will be the “observer/helper.” Ask one person from each dyad to draw randomly
for a slip of paper that has the different items.
o If the student receives “wheelchair,” then he or she must use the wheelchair and he or
she is not allowed to walk on his or her legs anywhere.
o If the student receives “a cane,” then he or she has to close his or her eyes, and find
his or her way around without using sight.
o If the student receives “sunglasses,” then he or she has to wear the sunglasses and find
his or her way around as a person who has very poor vision.
o If the student receives “ear plugs,” then he or she has to wear the earplugs and pretend
he or she is deaf.
o If the student receives “crutches,” then he or she has to manage as if he or she is
dependent on the crutches.
Give the students about 15 minutes of class time with their partner to perform two basic tasks,
such as the following:
1.
Find a stranger and ask for directions to the library.
2.
Go to the nearest water fountain and have a drink.
3.
Try finding the nearest exit and go to another building and use the elevator.
4.
Try finding the nearest bathroom and wash your hands.
5.
Go to the next classroom and sit in the very back.
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Each participant should try as much as possible to do each task by him- or herself. The
observers/helpers should assist only if the participant might be in danger or they might hurt
themselves. The observers/helpers should also note how other students or other people react to
the participant.
Afterward, discuss the students’ perceptions and what they thought of the exercise. Did they gain
an appreciation of others with physical disabilities? Did they notice how strangers reacted to
them? How did strangers react to them in this condition? Was there a difference in their
communication styles? Were the tasks easy or difficult to perform? What did they learn from this
activity that they might apply to future interactions with someone who is physically disabled?
What Did You See?
The goal of this activity is to illustrate the selection process. It will demonstrate that people do
not always perceive the same things.
Before class, find one person to come into the front of the classroom, take an item that you have
already identified with this person to take, and then have that person leave the room. Tell
students that a crime has just occurred and that they need to write down as many details as they
can about what just happened. Have the students write down what the person looked like, what
they were wearing, what they did, and what the response was in the classroom. Then, discuss
these observations. Afterward, have the student come back to the classroom to see if the
observations were correct.
Remaking the Social World
This activity increases students’ awareness of the arbitrariness and partiality of how we perceive
and classify people. It also heightens their awareness of factors other than race, sex, class, and
sexual orientation that describe individuals.
Assign students to groups of five to seven members. Groups should be as diverse as possible in
terms of race, gender, sexual orientation (if known), religion, class, and so forth. Remind
students that perception involves selectively noticing and labeling certain (and not other) aspects
of the stimuli around us. Also remind them that humans need to organize perceptions into some
sort of categories in order to make sense of the world. Following these reminders, instruct
students to devise a method of classifying people into groups. The only restriction is that they
may not use race, sex, socioeconomic class, or sexual orientation as bases for classifying people.
Encourage students not to suggest superficial bases of classification, such as eye color or height.
After 20 minutes, end the group discussions and ask students to explain their classification
systems to the class. Write each system on the chalkboard. After all groups have shared their
ways to categorize people, lead a discussion in which you highlight key ideas: classification
systems are human constructions; classification systems are arbitrary and partial; how we
classify others affects what we perceive about them and how we act toward them.
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If time allows, work with students to probe the implications of the classification systems they
devised. Intelligence is invariably one of the bases of classification proposed by groups in my
classes. We discuss the social, education, political, and personal implications that might follow
from defining people in terms of how intelligent they are. We also discuss the arbitrariness of
available methods of assessing intelligence.
What Do You Remember?
Ask each student to pair up with another student. Ask the students to write down things that they
remember from the last class period. Ask them if they remember what the instructor wore, what
was discussed, what major incidents occurred, what the other students wore and said in class.
Tell them to be as specific as possible. Give them about 10 minutes to complete the assignment.
Then, ask the pairs to share what they observed.
Discuss how similar or different the perceptions were from each other. Did males or females do
better? Did the location where students sit in the classroom influence their perceptions?
Discuss how these different variables might influence perception.
Journal Items
• Describe the steps in the abstraction process that you followed in a particular instance. Be
sure to identify each inferential move and analyze what was eliminated with each step up or
down the ladder of abstraction.
Responses will vary, but one example might be: someone might claim that Al acted strange
in a particular situation, which implies that the strange behavior was something specific to
Al. Someone else might argue that Al is a student, and students would generally act that
way, which implies that it was not something specific to Al but applies to people who would
be categorized as students. A third person might add that it is not just students who act that
way, but anyone might, which implies that humans in general, a more abstract category,
would have the same “strange” response. This process could also word “down” the ladder of
abstraction, which would reverse the implications.
• Analyze the attributional patterns you use to explain a mean or disappointing behavior by a
good friend and by someone whom you do not like. Analyze how differences in your feelings
about the two individuals affect your attributional tendencies.
Responses will vary but for people we like, we tend to make external, unstable, and specific
attributions for undesirable behaviors (which implies that factors were beyond his or her
control). For people we dislike, we tend to make internal, stable, and global attributions for
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undesirable behaviors (which implies that he or she had control of his or her mean action
and perhaps intended to act that way).
• Describe specific advertisements that stood out to you this week. Fully discuss how you
perceived some stimuli around you and may have ignored other things around you. What was
it about these stimuli that stood out? Why did you pay more attention to certain
advertisements compared to others? Explain how this relates to concepts discussed in the
text.
Responses will vary, but students should mention that they select stimuli that stand out
above others, that they are influenced by culture, and that they are also influenced by who
they are and by their motives and needs.
• Identify a situation where stereotypes (as a schemata used in organizing perceptions) may be
useful and helpful in a communication situation. Next, identify a situation in which that
same stereotype becomes unproductive and perhaps damaging.
Responses to the issue will vary, but look for students to see both the useful and necessary
aspects of stereotyping, as well as the negative connotations this term often carries. That is,
stereotypes allow humans to make predictions about situations and people, and this is a
necessary process, so we are not constantly overwhelmed with new information. However,
this can be unproductive if we do not continually seek to engage in person-centeredness to
distinguish people from the social groups in which they may be categorized.
• Describe what you noticed in class last week. Fully discuss how you perceived some stimuli
around you and may have ignored other things around you. Why did you pay more attention
to certain things compared to others? What was it about these stimuli that stood out to you?
How does this relate to concepts that were discussed in the book?
Responses will vary, but students should mention that they select stimuli that stand out
above others, that they are influenced by culture, and that they are also influenced by who
they are and by their motives and needs.
Media Resources
Websites
Name: Interpersonal Perception and Communication Lab
Developer: Interpersonal Perception and Communication Laboratory, Stanford University
Brief Description: This website is a center of research aimed at understanding the ways in which
social factors interplay with perception, cognition, and behavior.
URL: http://ambadylab.stanford.edu/
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Name: Perception in Communication
Developer: Culture at Work
Brief Description: It is a brief overview of how perceptions are
developed.
URL: http://www.culture-at-work.com/perception.html
Name: Fundamentals of Communication
Developer: Dr. Lee McGaan
Brief Description: It explains differences in the way we see, feel, hear, and so on.
URL: http://department.monm.edu/cata/McGaan/Classes/cata101/Perception-101.htm
Film Ideas
Forrest Gump. A 1994 film that provides many examples of how actively humans shape their
realities by the ways they perceive and label what exists and what it means. Excerpts from this
film give students a solid understanding of how perceptions differ and how our perceptions
shape our thoughts and feelings. For example, how is Forrest perceived differently while at
college when the football coach finds out how fast Forrest can run?
What Women Want. This film is about a man who can “hear” what women are thinking.
Through this, he is purportedly able to accurately perceive “what women want.” The title of the
film raises the question of what is it that women want and men’s ability to perceive what women
want. Given the diversity of women’s perspectives, does this movie end up essentializing all
women and their needs and desires?
Addams Family. This film is about a family that has very different perceptions about the world.
Several parts of the film can be used to illustrate how one family culture varies from other family
cultures. For example, when the children go to summer camp, Wednesday is disgusted by the
camp traditions and activities, but the other children adore the camp.
At First Sight. This film is about a man who is blind and falls in love with a woman. Then, he
is given the chance to get a radical surgery to get his sight. Once he gets his sight, it is different
from what he perceived.
Inception. This is a sci-fi film about a person who has the ability to go into people’s dreams.
He deals with perception and reality.
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Print Resources
A Natural History of the Senses by Diane Ackerman. In this fascinating book, the author
discusses the physiological, sociological, and cultural dimensions for each of the five primary
senses (smell, touch, taste, hearing, and vision). What are the metaphors we use to describe our
senses and how are our senses culturally constructed?
The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
by David Abram.
Action in Perception (Representation and Mind) by Alva Noe.
Using these books, students can reflect and compare what they learned from the textbook.
