The Communication Playbook. Teri Kwal Gamble
34
co-cultures 34
collectivistic cultures 37
cultural imperialism 28
cultural pluralism 26
cultural relativism 30
culturally confused 28
culture 34
digital divide 41
diversity 24
ethnocentrism 29
feminine cultures 39
globalization 24
high-context communication 37
high power distance cultures 38
individualistic cultures 37
intercultural communication 25
interethnic communication 25
international communication 25
interracial communication 25
intracultural communication 25
low-context communication 37
low power distance cultures 38
masculine cultures 39
melting pot philosophy 26
monochronic 38
multiculturalism 24
polychronic 38
separation 35
3 The “I” Behind the Eye: Perception and the Self
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After completing this chapter, you should be able to:
3.1 Define and explain the process of perception.
3.2 Describe the nature of self-concept.
3.3 Describe the various ways self-concept affects behavior.
3.4 Describe the factors affecting self-concept and outlook.
3.5 Explain how to use life scripts, the Johari window, and impression management to develop self-awareness.
3.6 Identify common barriers to perception.
3.7 Explain how gender impacts perception of the self and others.
3.8 Explain how culture impacts perception of the self and others.
3.9 Analyze how media, including digital and social media, influence perception of the self and others.
3.10 Use communication skills to improve the accuracy of self-perception, perception of others, and perceptions of events.
As I am, so I see.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Can we believe our eyes? Do we actually see what’s there? Are you aware that the testimony given by eyewitnesses during trials is wrong about one third of the time?1 How can we account for differences in how we perceive ourselves, other people, objects, and events? What do our contrasting reports tell us about how we think and feel about ourselves, and our relationship to others and society? And if we do not see the same thing and cannot agree on what we see, how are we able to communicate with one another about anything? These are some of the questions we address in this chapter.
Perception of the Self, Others, and Experience
How we perceive ourselves, others, and experience influences all we say and do. Perception, self-concept, and communication are intertwined, interacting with and influencing one another. Two or more people will not necessarily perceive you similarly. In fact, many of them may not see you as you see yourself. For example, when one consultant asked a group of college students to select a word representing how employers perceived them, she told the students that the word she was looking for began with the letter e. What word would you have selected? Students, believing that employers viewed them positively, suggested answers such as enthusiastic and energetic. The correct answer was entitled. 2
The meanings we form, and the messages we send to others about what we see and how we think, shape their understanding of us. Similarly, how you perceive yourself affects your relationship with yourself. What words would you select to describe that relationship? Do your chosen words suggest you feel good about yourself? If not, what is it about your perception of you that keeps you from doing so?
People living in different countries, the members of different generations, and the members of different genders, races, religions, or classes (just to name a few demographic categories) also tend to perceive things differently. They have different opinions about many things, including the alt-right, same-sex marriage, transgender people, immigration, human rights, and the news media. By exploring the “I” behind the eye, we will come to better understand why each of us is much more than a camera and why the “I” of the perceiver makes such a big difference.
What is Perception?
Perception is the complex process we use to make experience our own. Thus, what actually occurs in the “real world” may be quite different from what we perceive. We define perception as the process of selecting, organizing, subjectively interpreting, retrieving, and responding to sensory data in a way that enables us to make sense or meaning of our world. Our physical location, interests, personal desires, attitudes, values, personal experiences, physical condition, and psychological states interact to influence our perceptions.
Perception Occurs in Stages
Perception involves a series of stages: (1) the selecting stage, during which we attend to only some stimuli from all those to which we are exposed; (2) the organizing stage, during which we give order to the selected stimuli; (3) the interpreting/evaluating stage, during which we make sense of or give meaning to the stimuli we have selected and organized based on our life experiences; (4) the retrieving stage, during which we use our memory to recall related information; and (5) the responding stage, during which we decide what to think, say, or do as a result of what we have perceived (Figure 3.1).
Figure 3.1
Perception is Selective and Personal
Our senses function as perceptual antennae gathering information at all times, which makes it impossible for us to process every stimulus available to us. Without realizing it, we take steps to select or limit what we perceive. According to information theorists, the eye processes about 5 million bits of data per second. The brain, however, is able to use only some 500 bits per second. Therefore, we are forced to select those stimuli that we will attend to or experience. We combat data overload by simply not assimilating large amounts of data, focusing instead on the data we want for closer and more careful viewing. Effectively, attention helps us focus. We shift our searchlight of attention from one person, place, or thing to another, until one catches our interest, transforming our perceptual searchlight into a perceptual spotlight that we now focus on a selected stimulus.3
As we saw in Figure 3.1, selection is a key part of the perception process. We use selective perception—an aspect of the perceptual process that includes selective exposure (the tendency to expose oneself to information that reaffirms existing