Chapter 2: Perception

• Perception is an active process and is a continuous process of life - we often perceive things differently and subjectively. Not one person can have the same perception of another perception but even if they do, some things may differ. 
• Perception is the impression that others give you and what you project to others.
• It is the process by which you become aware of objects, events and especially people through your senses. It occurs in five stages: Sensory stimulation occurs, sensory stimulation is organised, sensory stimulation is interpreted-evaluated, sensory stimulation is held in memory, and sensory stimulation is recalled. 

1. Stimulation: At the first stage of perception, your sensory organs are stimulated. Naturally, you don't perceive anything, rather, you engage in selective perception, which includes selective attention and selection exposure. In selective attention you attend to those things that you anticipate will fulfil your needs or will prove enjoyable. In selective exposure you tend to expose yourself to information that will confirm your existing beliefs, that will contribute to your objectives, or that will prove satisfying in some way. 
2. Organisation: At the second stage of perception, you organise the information your senses pick up. One frequently used rule of perception is that of proximity principle, or physical closeness. People or messages that are physically close to one another are perceived together or as a unit. Another rule is closure principle. You perceived as close or complete, a figure or message that is in reality unclosed or incomplete. 
3. Interpreted-evaluated: This step is inevitably subjective and is greatly influenced by your experiences, needs, wants, values, expectations, physical and emotional state, gender, and beliefs about the way things are or should be, as well as by your rules, schemata and scripts. 
4. Memory: You store in memory both your perceptions and their interpretations-evaluations. What you remember about a person or any event isn't an objective recollection, it's more likely heavily influenced by your preconceptions or your schemata about what belongs and what doesn't belongs.
5. Recall: At some later date, you may want to recall or access information you have stored in memory and you may recall it with a variety of inaccuracies: Recall information that is consistent with your schema, fail to recall information that is inconsistent with your schema, and recall information that drastically contradicts your schema. 

Processes influencing perception

Implicit personality theory

- You have your own opinion about someones characteristics of an individual go with other characteristics. This is known as the halo effect. Individuals who have good traits we tend to think they have other good traits as well. 

EG: Susan is cheerful, positive and ( outgoing , shy ).

-There is also the reverse halo effect / horns effect. Individuals who have bad traits we tend to think they have other bad traits as well. 

Potential barriers:

1. Perceive qualities in an individual that your 'theory' tells you should be present when they are actually not.
2. Ignore or distort qualities of characteristics that do not conform to your theory. 

Self-fulfilling prophecy
- Occurs when you make prediction or formulate a belief that comes true because you made the prediction and acted on it as if it was true. Also known as Pymalion effect (which one makes prediction and then proceeds to fulfill it). 
- 4 basics steps in the self-fulfilling prophecy:
step one : You make a prediction or formulate a belief about a person or a situation.
step two : You act toward that person or situation as if that prediction of belief were true.
step three : Because of how you acted towards it, it became true.
step four : You observe your effect on the person or the resulting situation and what you see strengthens. 

EG:  Random students were expected to do exceptionally well. Expectations of teachers caused them to pay extra attention in studies. They did perform higher levels than the other students. And the students became what their teachers thought.

Potential barriers:

1. Influence another's behaviour so it confirms your prophecy. 
2. Distort your perception by influencing you to see what you predicted rather than what it really there. 

Perceptual accentuation

- Lead you to see what you expect to see and what you want to see.you probably see people you like as being better looking or smarter than people you don't like.

Potential barriers:

1. Distort your perception of reality. 
2. Fail to perceived what you do not want to perceived.
3. Influence you to filter out or distort information that might damage or threaten your self-image. For example, criticism of your writing or speaking) and thus make self-improvement extremely difficult.
4. Can influence you to perceive and remember positive qualities better than negative ones and thus distort perceptions of others.

Primary-recency

- Use early information to provide yourself with a general idea of what a person is like. Then use later information to make this general idea more specific. The first impression you make is likely to be the most important, through this first impression others filter additional information to formulate a picture of whom they perceive you to be. 

EG: -intelligent, industrious, stubborn (/)

       - stubborn, intelligent, industrious (x)

Potential barriers: 

1. Tendency to give greater weight to early information in light of these early impressions can lead you form a 'total' picture of an individual on the basis of initial impressions that may not be typical or accurate. 
2. Prevent you from seeing signs of deceit in someone who made a good first impression because of the tendency to avoid disrupting or reversing initial impressions. 

Consistency

- People have a strong tendency to maintain balance or consistency among perceptions.You expect certain things to go together and other things not to go together. 

EG: - I expect my friends to ( like) my friends.

       - I expect my friends to ( dislike ) my enemies.

Potential barriers: 

1. Ignore or distort your perceptions of behaviours that are inconsistent with your picture of the whole person. 
2. Perceived specific behaviours as emanating from positive qualities in people you like and from negative qualities in people you dislike.
3. Lead you to see certain behaviours as positive if other behaviours were interpreted positivity (halo effect) or as negative if other behaviours were interpreted negatively (horn effect).

Stereotyping

- A fixed impression of a group of people. Everyone has attitudinal stereotypes of national, religious group, racial group and others. It can be either positive or negative.

Potential barriers:

1. Perceived someone as having those qualities (usually negative) that you believe characterize the group to which he or she belongs.
2. Ignore the unique of characteristics of an individual and therefore fail to benefit from the special contributions each can bring to an encounter. 

Attribution

- The process through which you try discover why people do what they do and even why you do what you do. They acted this way because of who the person is (their personality) or because of who the person is (their personality) or because of the situation. 

The principle of attribution is 

1. Consensus (Do other people behave the same way as the person on whom I am focusing?)
2. Consistency (Do this person repeatedly behaves the same way in similar situation?)
3. Distinctiveness (Do this person act similar ways in different situations?)
4. Controllability  (Do this person was in control of his/her behaviours?)

Potential barriers:

1. Mind read the motives of another person and confuse guesses with valid conclusions.
2. Self serving bias.
3. Fundamental attribution error.