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Chapter 2
Perceiving the Self and Others
CHAPTER OUTCOMES
• Describe how our personal perspective on the world influences our communication
• Explain how we use and misuse schemas when communicating with others
LECTURE NOTES
• Perception is the cognitive process through which we interpret our experiences and come
to our own unique understandings.
• Perception: Making Sense of Your World explores how our interpretations of what we
see, hear, and touch are unique because of the ways in which we select, organize, and
interpret information. Communication processing is how information is gathered,
organized, and evaluated by individuals.
ƒ Selecting information involves sifting through what we consider important in every
situation.
ƒ Schemas: Organizing Perceptions
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Schemas are mental structures that help us put together bits of information to form
patterns and create meaning.
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The function of schemas is to help us to understand and anticipate how things should
work.
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Challenges with schemas and perceptions include the following:
Ɠ Schemas can cause us to rely on stereotypes or misinformation.
Ɠ Schemas may lead to uncritical, passive information processing, or mindlessness, as
opposed to mindfulness, or focus. Its signs include:
Ƈ Reduced cognitive activity
Ƈ Inaccurate recall
Ƈ Uncritical evaluation
ƒ Attributions: Interpreting Your Perceptions
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Attributions are personal characteristics we use to explain behavior; these may
include:
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Fundamental attribution error says that we overemphasize the internal and
underestimate the external causes of behavior we see in others and that we do the
opposite when it comes to ourselves (called self-serving bias).
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Interaction appearance theory explains how our attributions of someone change the
more we interact with them. This is especially true of physical appearance.
ƒ Improving Your Perceptions involves the following three suggestions:
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Verify your perceptions to confirm or debunk conclusions.
• Perception in a Diverse World explores how our perceptions are linked to the wide
diversity we encounter in the world.
ƒ The Cultural Context
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Culture has a profound effect on the way we perceive ourselves and those around us.
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Diversity is the differences among people, such as race, education, ability, and
geography. Effective communication requires that we understand and appreciate those
who are different from us.
ƒ Perceptual Barriers are barriers to competent communication that are caused by
perceptual challenges; these may include:
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A Narrow Perspective
Ɠ People often see things through their own circumstances.
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Stereotyping and Prejudice
Ɠ Stereotyping is an impression of a group of people that is fixed so that you apply a
• Cognition: Perceiving Ourselves explores the three important influences on our cognitions,
or thoughts about ourselves: self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy.
ƒ Self-Concept: Who You Think You Are
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Self-concept is your understanding of who you are, shaped through thinking about
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When you interact with others, you get impressions from them about how they evaluate
you, and that information gets woven into your self-concept.
Ɠ Social comparison theory—how we compare ourselves to others as we develop
ideas about ourselves
ƒ Self-Esteem: How You Feel About Yourself
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Self-esteem is the way a person feels (or attitude) about himself or herself.
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Self-concept is tied to self-esteem in that you must first know yourself before you have
ƒ Self-Efficacy: Assessing Your Own Abilities
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Self-efficacy is the ability to predict actual success from self-concept and self-esteem.
Ɠ People often avoid situations where they believe their self-efficacy to be low.
ƒ Assessing Our Perceptions of Self
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Whenever we communicate, we are assessing our strengths and weaknesses.
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Self-actualization is when you feel you have negotiated a communication situation as
well as you possibly could.
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Self-adequacy is when your assessment of your communication is acceptable or
sufficient.
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Self-denigration occurs when you criticize yourself for your communicative
performance.
Ɠ Most self-denigration is unnecessary and prevents real improvement
• Behavior: Managing Our Identities explores the role cognition and behavior play in how
we perceive others and how they perceive us.
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ƒ The self has cognitions, including self-concept, self-esteem, and self-efficacy, all of
which influence verbal and nonverbal behavior. Our behaviors generate feedback from
others, which leads to assessments of self-actualization, self-adequacy, and self-
denigration. These assessments affect our cognition.
ƒ Self-Presentation
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Self-presentation is intentional communication designed to show elements of our self
for strategic purposes; it occurs in the following ways:
Ɠ Face-to-face conversation
Ɠ Mediated forms, such as e-mail, text messaging, and Facebook
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Self-monitoring is your ability to watch your environment and others in it for cues on
how to present yourself in particular situations.
Ɠ People who are high self-monitoring try to portray themselves as the “right person at
ƒ Self-Disclosure
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Self-disclosure is when you share important information about yourself with others.
ƒ Technology: Managing the Self and Perceptions
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Technology can allow for more controlled presentation of self.
CLASS DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are some schemas that you use in your everyday life?
2. What are some things that we tend to not select when it comes to perception? What do we
tend not to see? What do we tend not to hear? Why is that?
3. Think of someone who has influence on how you perceive things. Do you feel that
influence is undue influence?
• It is important that you talk about yourself as teacher. How does what you say (or what
the textbook says) influence how students perceive things? For example, when I teach
4. How does your culture influence your perceptions? Do you think your gender influences
your perceptions? What about your age? Give some examples.
• What do students see as edible? Culture influences their choices significantly. What
about toys that were fun to play with as a child? Gender often influences that. What
music do they enjoy? Age usually influences this choice.
5. What are some situations in which you are more likely to self-monitor how you present
yourself? Why do you think that is?
6. When applying for a job or internship, would you rather do an in-person interview, a
phone interview, or a Skype interview? Why? How do you think each of those mediums
would affect an interviewer’s perception of you?
• With these answers, be sure to pull from students the “why” part of their preferences.
Would they prefer to monitor more channels (physical, verbal, nonverbal) or fewer?
Why? Here’s an interesting question, if you had a phone interview, would you still
dress up? Why or why not?
PERSONAL WRITING ASSIGNMENTS
1. This I Believe
Who influences you? Think of one or two of your specific beliefs and ask yourself how
you developed them. Who has helped shape these beliefs over the years?
2. We Are Family…
As of this writing, there are nineteen children in the Duggar family of Tontitown,
Arkansas. They are the stars of a reality television show about their life. In contrast, China
has a one-child policy, but it only applies to those who are of the ethnic majority living in
urban areas. Many different cultural understandings about family exist around the world.
3. Do I Perceive a Bias Here?
4. Do You Hear What I Hear?
For 5 minutes, pay very close attention to every sound you can hear in the space where
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Perception Line
Goal: To understand how the perception process works
Time Required: 20 minutes
Materials:
1. Categories by which you can organize or group your students. Examples include
2. Space in the classroom for students to line up, facing the class
Directions:
1. Ask for seven to eight volunteers (or about half the class if your class is smaller than
fourteen).
3. Explain to the class that perception involves selection, organization, and interpretation
4. Ask students who are seated to come up to the line of students one at a time, select
some visible “thing” about those students, and then rearrange the line of students to
5. Repeat this process a few times, depending on time allotted. If you have time, you
can have students go through the process a second time. (Note: To be fair, you may
want to be the last person to go through the group because you began with the “easy”
example of gender.)
Debriefing: Have students discuss whether or not they noticed things they chose before
the exercise (such as what color eyes their fellow students have or who has or does not
have earrings). Why didn’t they notice these things before? Students will likely answer
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2. I Know That Guy!!
Goal: To enable students to understand how perception influences their characterizations
of others
Time Required: 15 minutes
Materials:
1. A set of photos of people you know but who are unknown to the class
2. Blank paper and writing implements for students
3. Document camera
Directions:
2. Ask the class to create a detailed story about the person(s) in each photo, including
the following:
• The names of the people in the photo
3. Tell students to be ready to answer the question “Why did you think that?” in
4. Once students have finished their stories, have a volunteer from each group read
them to the class. Put each photo, in turn, on the document camera so the rest of the
class can see them. Ask the students, “Why did you think that?” for each question
3. Self-Concept and Self-Esteem
Goal: To understand the difference between self-concept and self-esteem
Time Required: 5 minutes
Materials: Blank paper and writing implement for each student
Directions:
1. Tell students they have 3 minutes (extend it to 5 minutes if you need to) to write
down as many answers as they can to the question “Who Are You?”
2. After they have done this, have students circle any nouns they have included, such as
“brother,” “student,” “mother.”
4. People Eat That???
Goal: To understand how cultural perceptions about food are formed
Time Required: 15 minutes
Materials:
1. Samples of foods that are not common to many students. Examples include
artichoke, avocado, kumquat, sardines, tofu, and ugli fruit
3. Optional: Access to the Internet to visit the following Web site: www.moolf.com/
interesting/top-ten-strangest-foods-from-around-the-world.html
Directions:
1. Allow the students to view the food samples.
3. Next, ask students a series of questions about the foods they have eaten. For
example, ask if anyone in the class has eaten something that came from a cow?
Something that came from a horse? (Note: Expect mainly “Yes” responses to the
4. Lead students in a discussion about our perceptions of food. What do we
(culturally) see as edible, and what do we consider inedible? Why do we think and
feel these this way? If there is time, pull up a list of “strange” foods from other
5. Are You a “Good” Student?
Goal: To enable students to understand that they have common perceptions about the
terms “good student” and “bad student,” even if they are not conscious of them
Time Required: 10 minutes
Materials: None
Directions:
1. Ask students to present themselves as a “good student.” What does a “good student”
look like? It is likely that students will straighten up, make eye contact perhaps, pick
2. Now, ask students to present themselves as a “bad student.” Most will slump down;
some may pretend to sleep. (Note: I had a student who walked out of the room then
came right back in. His argument was that bad students weren’t even there!)
Debriefing: Lead students in a discussion on how they self-monitor in the classroom.
What things in the classroom influence students to become high self-monitors about their
behaviors? What influence students to be less conscious of their own self-monitoring?
6. Do You Remember?
1. Ask students to take out a piece of paper and a pencil and then look straight down at
their paper.
2. Instruct students that they are not allowed to look in any direction other than directly
at their paper. Ask students to answer the following questions:
• How many outlets are in the classroom?
• How many desks are in the classroom?
• How many light fixtures are in the classroom?
• How many ceiling tiles are in the classroom?
(Note: Add questions that are pertinent to your classroom.)
Debriefing: Ask students to check their answers. Did they get any answers right? If so,
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. How can a person’s perception alter communication? In what ways do you perceive the
world?
2. How does stereotyping affect your own communication?
3. What are some advantages to stereotyping?
4. How does self-efficacy relate to communication competence?
5. How does technology help to foster self-concept?
6. How is communication shaped by the self and others?
8. Explain some barriers to communication as presented in this chapter.
9. How can one reverse the self-fulfilling prophecy?
10. How do the media influence self-esteem and self-concept?
12. Think of a time when you formed a first impression that turned out to be wrong. How did
your impressions and perceptions change?
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MEDIA
Easy A (Sony Pictures, 2010)
This comedy follows the saga of Olive, a “good girl” who assists in falsely spreading
Mockingbird Don’t Sing (Dorian Films, 2001)
This film tells the story of “Katie,” a thirteen-year-old girl whose parents kept her locked
