Interpersonal Communication: Chapter 3

Perception

The process of experiencing your world and then making sense out of 

what you experience. You experience the world through your five senses 

Interpersonal Perception

Process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting your observations of other people. It includes making judgments about their personalities and drawing inferences from what you observe.

Passive Perception

Perception that occurs without conscious effort, simply in response to one’s surroundings. No one teaches you to; you do it naturally and spontaneously. 

Stage 1 of Interpersonal Perception

Selecting: We select certain sensations on which to focus our awareness. The number of sensations you can mindfully attend to at any given time is limited. 

Selective perception

Occurs when we see, hear, or make sense of the world around us based on a host of factors such as our personality, beliefs, attitudes, likes, dislikes, hopes, fears, and culture.

Selective attention

Process of focusing on specific stimuli, locking on to some things in the environment and ignoring others.

Selective exposure

Tendency to put ourselves in situations that reinforce our attitudes, beliefs, values, or behaviors

Selective recall

Occurs when we remember things we want to remember and forget or repress things that are unpleasant, uncomfortable, or unimportant to us.

Thin slicing

Observing a small sample of someone’s behavior and then making a generalization about what the person is like, based on that sample.

Stage 2 of Interpersonal Perception

Organizing: we assemble stimuli into convenient and efficient patterns

Cognitive Schema

A mental framework used to organize and categorize human experiences. (a “mental basket” for sorting and identifying.)

Superimpose

To place a familiar structure on information you select. 

How do we create a cognitive schema?  

Superimpose a category or familiar structure on information we select. 

After you create a cognitive schema, what do you do?  

We link them together as a way of making further sense of how we have chunked what we experience. We link the categories through punctuation. 

Punctuation

Process of making sense out of stimuli by grouping, dividing, organizing, separating, and categorizing information.

Closure

The process of filling in missing information or gaps in what we perceive 

Another way of gathering information?

Gaining closure by filling in perceived gaps in info 

Stage 3 of Interpersonal Perception

Interpreting: We assign meaning to what we have observed. You are attempting to interpret the meaning of the verbal and nonverbal cues you experience.

Impressions

Collections of perceptions about others that we maintain and use to interpret their behaviors.

Impression Formation Theory

Theory that explains how you develop perceptions about people and how you maintain and use those perceptions to interpret their behaviors. Based on our perceptions of physical qualities, behavior, and what others tell us about them. We often give special emphasis to the first things we see or the last things we observe about another person.

Implicit personality theory

the personal assumptions you make about other people’s personalities. It encompasses your own ideas and expectations that influence how you make guesses about others’ personalities.

Construct

Bipolar quality or continuum used to classify people.

Uncertainty reduction theory (URI)

Theory explain our information-seeking behaviors in our initial interactions with others, but has also come to describe the overall process of how we reduce our uncertainty about our social world.

Partner uncertainty

The inability to predict the behavior, thoughts, or feelings of another person.

Self uncertainty

occurs when you feel insecure in describing, explaining, or predicting your own thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

Relational uncertainty

the lack of confidence we may feel in our ability to predict or explain the qualties in the overall nature of a relationship, such as our role in a relationship, or where a relationship is going. 

The three ways to we can collect information to reduce uncertainty?

Passive, active, interactive

How do we form impressions of others online?

What people post about themselves, amount of social media followers, what others post about the person.

Primacy Effect

Tendency to attend to the first pieces of information observed about another person in order to form an impression.

Predicted outcome value (POV) theory

People predict the future of a relationship based on how they size up someone during their first interaction.

Recency Effect

Tendency to attend to the most recent information observed about another person in order to form or modify an impression. Last interaction can change all previous impressions.

Halo Effect

We attribute a variety of positive qualities to them without personally confirming the existence of these qualities. If you like me, you will add a “halo” to your impression of me.

Horn effect

Attributing a variety of negative qualities to those you dislike. Happens during periods of conflict in our relationships. We are more likely to remember the negative information we hear about someone.

Attribution Theory

Theory that explains how you generate explanations for people’s behaviors.

Casual attribution theory

Theory of attribution that identifies the cause of a person’s actions as circumstance, a stimulus, or the person himself or herself.

Standpoint theory

Theory that a person’s social position, power, or cultural background influences how the person perceives the behavior of others.

Intercultural Communication Theory

Our cultural backgrounds and experiences influence how we view the world. Culture impacts interpretation of behavior. 

Cultural elements

The categories of things and ideas that identify the most profound aspects of cultural influence.

Ex: material culture, social institutions, aesthetics, language

Social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE)

The theory that people are more likely to stereotype others with whom they interact online, because such interactions provide fewer relationship cues.

Why do we ignore important information?

We tend to prioritize obvious or superficial qualities (like physical qualities) and we tend to ignore important info.  We may even choose to ignore contradictory information that we receive directly from the other person and hold implicit attitudes that affect how we perceive others.

Why do we overestimate consistency and/or constancy in behavior?

We tend to ignore fluctuation in people’s behaviors and instead see them as consistent. We believe that if someone acted a certain way one day, he or she will continue to act that way in the future. In reality, everyone’s behavior varies from day to day.

Why is “focusing on the negative” a barrier in interpersonal perception?

People give more weight to negative information than to positive information.

Why is “blaming others” a barrier in interpersonal perception?

People are more likely to believe that others are to blame when things go wrong than to believe that the problem was beyond their control.

Fundamental attribution theory

When we think that a person’s behavior is influenced by his or her actions and choices rather than by external causes.

Why is “avoiding responsibility” a barrier in interpersonal perception?

We save face by believing that other people, not ourselves, are the cause of problems; when things go right, it is because of our own skills and abilities rather than any help we may receive from others.

self-serving bias

Tendency to perceive our own behavior as more positive than others’ behavior.

Ex: Things go wrong; other people to blame

Things go right; only because of own skills

What are the five ways to improve interpersonal perception skills?

1) Be Aware of Your Personal Perception Barriers

2) Be Mindful of the Behaviors That Create Meaning for You

3) Link Details with the Big Picture

4) Become Aware of Others’ Perceptions of You

5) Check Your Perceptions

How to “Be Aware of Your Personal Perception Barriers”

Identify which barriers you are susceptible to, work to minimize impact of barriers on perception.

How to “Be Mindful of the Behaviors That Create Meaning for You”

To be mindful is to be conscious of what you are doing, thinking, and sensing at any given moment. Do not go on autopilot, notice details but keep the entire picture in view.

How to “Link Details with the Big Picture”

Strive for accurate perception, think of big picture while also looking for small clues. Try not to use early information to form a quick or rigid judgment that may be inaccurate.

How to “Become Aware of Others’ Perceptions of You”

Listen to criticism and feedback from others

How to “Check your Perception”

Ensure perceptions are accurate, you can do this through indirect perception checking and direct perception checking.

Indirect perception checking

Seeking additional information through passive perception, such as observing and listening, either to confirm or refute your interpretations.

Direct perception checking

Asking the observed person to confirm an interpretation or a perception about him or her.

How to “Become Other-Oriented”

By understanding others, people with greater empathy and ability to understand others are able to perceive others more accurately

The two-step process of being other-oriented?

social decentering and empathizing

social decentering

consciously thinking about another’s thoughts and feelings