INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION

Perception is the process of making meaning from the things we experience in our environment. When we apply this process to people
and relationships, we are engaged in interpersonal perception. We engage in interpersonal perception constantly. You notice what your
friends, colleagues, relatives, and co-workers do and say, and their words and actions have meaning to you based on the way you interpret
them.

3 Stages of the Perception Process

Our minds usually select, organize, and interpret information so quickly and so sub-consciously that we think our perceptions are objective,
factual reflections of the world.

1. Selection. The process of perception begins when one or more of your senses is stimulated. You pass a construction site and hear
two workers talking about the foundation they’re pouring. You see one of your classmates smile at you. A co-worker bumps you on
the shoulders as he walks past. If you notice these sensory experiences of hearing, seeing, and being bumped, then they can
initiate your process of forming perceptions. In truth, your senses are constantly stimulated by things in your environment. It’s
simply impossible, though, to pay attention to everything you’re seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feely at any given
moment. When you’re walking past the construction site, for instance, you’re probably no longer hearing the sounds of traffic
going by. Rather than pay attention to all stimuli in your environment, you engage in selection, which means your mind and body
help you select certain stimuli to attend to.

Research indicates that three characteristics especially make a particular stimulus more likely to be selected for attention. First, being
unusual or unexpected makes a stimulus stand out. Second, repetition, or how frequently you’re exposed to a stimulus, makes it stand out.
For example, you’re more likely to remember radio ads you’ve heard repeatedly than ones you’ve heard only once. Thirds, the intensity of a
stimulus affects how much we take notice of it. We notice strong odors more than weak ones, for instance, and bright and flashy colors
more than dull and muted ones.

2. Organization. Once you’ve noticed a particular stimulus, the next step in the perception process is to classify it in some way. This
is that task called organization, and it helps you make sense of the information by understanding how it is similar to, and
different from, other things you know about. To classify a stimulus, your mind applies a perceptual schema to it, or a mental
framework for organizing information. According to communication researcher Peter Andersen, we use four types of schema to
classify information we notice about other people.

Physical constructs emphasize people’s appearance, causing us to notice objective characteristics such as a person’s height, age, ethnicity,
or body shape, and subjective characteristics such as a person’s physical attractiveness.

Role constructs emphasize people’s social or professional position, so we notice that a person is a teacher, an accountant, a father, a
community leader, and so on.

Interaction constructs emphasize people’s behavior, so we notice that a person is outgoing, aggressive, shy, sarcastic, or considerate.

Psychological constructs emphasize people’s thoughts and feelings, causing us to notice that a person is angry, self-assured, insecure,
envious, or worried.

Whichever schema we use to organize information about people—and we may use more than one at a time—the process of organization
helps us determine the ways in which various pieces of information that we select for attention are related to one another.

3. Interpretation. After noticing and classifying a stimulus, you have to assign it an interpretation to figure out what it means for
you. Let’s say one of your co-workers has been acting especially friendly to you for the last week. She smiles at you all the time,
bring you little gifts, and offers to run errands for you over her lunch break. Her behavior is definitely noticeable, and you’ve
probably classified it as a psychological construct, because it relates to her thoughts and feelings about you.

What does her behavior mean, though? That is, how do you interpret it? Is she being nice to you because she’s getting ready to ask you for
a big favor? Does she want to look good in front of her boss? Or does she like you? If she does like you, does, she like you as a friend, or is
he making a romantic gesture? To address these questions, you likely will pay attention to three factors to interpret her behavior: your
personal experience, your knowledge of her, and the closeness of your relationship with her. Your personal experience helps you assign
meaning to behavior

Fundamental Forces that Affect Perception

 Stereotyping. Stereotypes are generalizations about a group of category of people that can have powerful influences on how we
perceive other people. Stereotyping is a three-part process: first, we identify a group we believe another person belongs to (“you
are a blonde”); second, we recall some generalizations others often make about the people in that group (“blondes have more
fun”); finally, we apply that generalization to the person (“therefore, you must have more fun”). Many people find stereotyping to
be distasteful or unethical, particularly when stereotypes have to do with characteristics such as sex, race, or sexual orientation.

 Primacy. According to a principle called the primacy effect, first impressions are critical because they set the tone for all future
interactions. Our first impressions of someone seem to stick in our mind more than the second, third, or fourth impressions do. In
an early study of the primacy effect, psychologist Solomon Asch found that a person described as “intelligent, industrious,
impulsive, critical, stubborn, and envious” was evaluated more favorably than one described as “envious, stubborn, critical,
impulsive, industrious, and intelligent.” Notice that most of those adjectives are negative, but when the description begins with a
positive one (intelligent), the effects of the more negative ones that follow it are diminished.

 Recency. Stand-up comedians will you that the most two important joke in a show are the first and the last. We’ve already
discussed how important it is to more a good first impression. As most entertainers know, however, it’s equally important to make
a good final impression, because that’s what the audience will remembers after leaving. This advice follows a principle known as
the recency effect, which says that the most recent impression we have of someone is more powerful than our earlier
impression.

 Perceptual set. “I’ll believe it when I see it,” people often say. Our perception of reality is influenced not only by what we see,
however, but also by our biases, our expectations, and our desires. These elements can create what psychologists call a
perceptual set, or a predisposition to perceive only what we want or expect to perceive. An equally valid motto, therefore, might
be “I’ll see it when I believe it.”

 Egocentrism. If you’ve spent any time around preschoolers, you’ve probably notice that they often behave in ways that, to
adults, seem selfish or inconsiderate. Timmy stands right in front of the TV, blocking your view. Susie asks you questions while
you’re on the phone. These types of behaviors can be frustrating for parents, but in reality, the children aren’t being selfish or
inconsiderate at all. Instead, they are egocentric, meaning they lack the ability to take another person’s perspective. Although
most people grow out of the egocentric stage by mid-childhood, even adults can behave egocentrically from time to time. More
important, our egocentrism can influence our perceptions of others. This happens when we assume that other people experience
the world the same way we do.
  Positive and negative biases. Sometimes our perceptions are influenced more by positive or negative information than by
neutral information. When we pay the most attention to positive information, we are exhibiting what researchers call a positivity
bias. One form of the positivity bias is the tendency of people in love to look at each other “through rose-colored glasses,”
overestimating the partner’s positive qualities while underestimating or ignoring his or her faults or shortcomings. The opposite of
the positivity bias is the negativity bias, or the tendency to weigh negative information more heavily that positive. According to
negativity bias, even one piece of negative information can taint your perception of someone you would otherwise like. As you
might have guessed, the negativity bias is particularly strong in competitive situations, such as a job interview or graduate school
administrations.

Source: Floyd, K. (2009). Interpersonal communication. New York: McGraw Hill

INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION
Interpersonal communication is the process by which people exchange information, feelings, and meaning through verbal and non-verbal
messages: it is face-to-face communication.

Interpersonal communication is not just about what is actually said -- the language used -- but how it is said and the nonverbal messages
sent through tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures, and body language (http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/interpersonal-
communication.html).

Four principles of interpersonal communication:

(http://www.pstcc.edu/facstaff/dking/interpr.htm)

 Interpersonal communication is inescapable

We can't not communicate. The very attempt not to communicate communicates something. Through not only words, but through tone of
voice and through gesture, posture, facial expression, etc., we constantly communicate to those around us. Through these channels, we
constantly receive communication from others. Even when you sleep, you communicate. Remember a basic principle of communication in
general: people are not mind readers. Another way to put this is: people judge you by your behavior, not your intent.

 Interpersonal communication is irreversible

You can't really take back something once it has been said. The effect must inevitably remain. Despite the instructions from a judge to a
jury to "disregard that last statement the witness made," the lawyer knows that it can't help but make an impression on the jury. A Russian
proverb says, "Once a word goes out of your mouth, you can never swallow it again."

 Interpersonal communication is complicated

No form of communication is simple. Because of the number of variables involved, even simple requests are extremely complex. Theorists
note that whenever we communicate there are really " at least six people" involved: 1) who you think you are; 2) who you think the other
person is; 3) who you think the other person thinks you are; 4) who the other person thinks /she is; 5) who the other person thinks you
are; and 6) who the other person thinks you think s/he is.

We don't actually swap ideas; we swap symbols that stand for ideas. This also complicates communication. Words (symbols) do not have
inherent meaning; we simply use them in certain ways, and no two people use the same word exactly alike.

Osmo Wiio gives us some communication maxims similar to Murphy's law (Osmo Wiio, Wiio's Laws--and Some Others (Espoo, Finland:
Welin-Goos, 1978):

If communication can fail, it will.

If a message can be understood in different ways, it will be understood in just that way which does the most harm.
There is always somebody who knows better than you what you meant by your message.
The more communication there is, the more difficult it is for communication to succeed.

These tongue-in-cheek maxims are not real principles; they simply humorously remind us of the difficulty of accurate communication.

 Interpersonal communication is contextual

In other words, communication does not happen in isolation. There is:

1. Psychological context, which is who you are and what you bring to the interaction. Your needs, desires, values, personality, etc.,
all form the psychological context. ("You" here refers to both participants in the interaction.)
2. Relational context, which concerns your reactions to the other person--the "mix."
3. Situational context deals with the psycho-social "where" you are communicating. An interaction that takes place in a classroom will
be very different from one that takes place in a bar.
4. Environmental context deals with the physical "where" you are communicating. Furniture, location, noise level, temperature,
season, time of day, all are examples of factors in the environmental context.
5. Cultural context includes all the learned behaviors and rules that affect the interaction. If you come from a culture (foreign or
within your own country) where it is considered rude to make long, direct eye contact, you will out of politeness avoid eye contact.
If the other person comes from a culture where long, direct eye contact signals trustworthiness, then we have in the cultural
context a basis for misunderstanding.