CHAPTER 2: THE SELF AND PERCEPTION (PART 2)

In class, we learned that there are 3 stages in creating a perception towards someone or something. 

 Stage 1: Stimulation
 In this stage, our five senses are stimulated. We will usually perceived something which is meaningful and do not perceived what is not meaningful.

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Now, let us take a look at some extra information we obtained from other sources.
As we do not perceive everything but we are engaged in selective perception instead. Selection perception comprise of selective attention and selective exposure.

Selective Attention	Selective Exposure
We will only attend to those things that we anticipate will fulfil our needs or prove enjoyable to us.	We will only attend to information that confirms our existing beliefs and it will contribute to our aim or prove satisfying in some other way.
Example: Scene Imagine that you are now daydreaming in class. You would not be aware of the surrounding around you. However, when the teacher suddenly calls your name, you would be awakened from your daydreaming. Conclusion Hence, in this example, your selective attention mechanism is focused on your senses of your name being called.	Example: When we just bought a phone, we would be more prone to read and listen to advertisements for the phone we just bought because the messages they convey would tell us that we made the right choice. We would avoid advertisements for the phones that we had put into consideration before but rejected in the end as those messages would tell us that we made the wrong decision.

Stage 2: Organization
In this second stage of perception, there are three ways for us to       organize the information picked up by our senses. They include :

A)organization by rules 
B)organization by schemata and 
C)organization by scripts.

Although in class we were only taught about organization by rules, we would still include information on the organization by schemata and organization by scripts.
  
A) Organization by Rules
 There are 3 categories of organization by rules.

1.Proximity/ Physical closeness

This rule states that things that are physically close together     constitute a unit. That is the reason why we would perceive that     people who are often together or messages spoken one right after     another as a unit. We would think that they belong together.         Furthermore, this proximity can be seen in our daily communication whereby we have a tendency to assume that verbal and non-verbal signals sent at almost the same time are related to one   another. We would assume that they convey the same meaning although at times they do not.

2.Closure principle

We usually perceive a figure or message that in reality is unclosed or incomplete to be closed or complete.Take the figure below as an example. When we see A is a star, subsequently we would perceive  B, C and D to be a star too. The truth is that B, C and D are not stars as they are not complete in a sense. This proves that we have a tendency to be affected by the closure principle.

B) Organization by Schemata

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C) Organization by Scripts

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Stage 3: Interpretation-Evaluation

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Basically, those are the stages in creating a perception towards someone or something.Now, we would move on to impression formation processes.

Impression Formation Processes

Below are some of the most common impression formation processes.

Impression Formation Processes	Description
Implicit personality theory	-We expect certain qualities to go  with other qualities. -Includes halo effect  and reverse  halo effect. -Halo effect works when we believe  that a person has some positive  qualities would possess other  positive qualities as well. -Reverse halo effect/horns effect  on the other hand would lead us  to perceive those who are not  attractive to be a mean,dishonest  and sneaky person -At times, we tend to ignore or   distort the qualities of   characteristics that do not   conform to our theory.
Primacy-Recency	-We are mostly influenced by what  occurs first and last. -Initial information helps us to  form a schema for a person and  once that schema is formed, we  might have a tendency to resist  information that contradicts it.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy	-We act as if our own predictions  were true and it becomes true. -It also known as a Pygmalion  effect whereby we would make  predictions about ourselves and  then act it a manner that would  fulfill our own prediction. -Pygmalion is a sculptor from one  of the Greek myths whereby he  fell in love with one of his  carved statue.His strong believe  in it finally made the statue  came to life. -There are basically 4 steps in  the self-fulfilling prophecy:  1.You make a prediction or          formulate a belief about a       person or a situation.  2.Next, you act towards that        person or situation as if that     prediction of belief were true.  3.This act then causes it to     become true.  4.Lastly,you observe your effect     on the person or the resulting     situation and with that, what     you see strengthens. -Self-fulfilling prophecy   distorts our perception by   influencing us to see what we   had predicted rather than the   reality.
Perceptual accentuation	-We only want to see and perceive  what we want as reality, even  though it might not be the  reality. -We usually perceive those we like  in a more positive manner  compared to those whom we  dislike. -This distorts our perceptions of   reality and it could influence   us to perceive and remember   positive qualities better than   negative ones causing a distort   perceptions of others.
Stereotyping	-We form an impression of someone  based on their race, religion,  skin color and many more other  stereotypes. -This process is learned without a  conscious awareness and it often  misleads us.
Consistency	-We assume that people are  consistent. -Hence, if a person is good in our  mind, we will perceive that they  will only do good things and so  is the opposite. -For this, we should be careful as  we as a normal person would not  always be consistent.
Attribution	-It is the process through which   you try discover why people do   what they do and why you do   what you do. -The act could be due to who the   person is (their  personality) or  because of the situation. -Principles of attribution:  #Consensus (do other people    behave the same way as the    person on whom I am focusing?)   #Consistency (does this person    repeatedly behaves the same way    in similar situation?)  #Distinctiveness (does this    person act similar ways in    different situations?)   #Controllability (was this      person in control of his/her       behavior? ) -One of its potential barrier is   there is room for fundamental   attribution error.

Before we moved on to the next sub-topic under The Self and Perception Mr. Anwari gave us an activity. We were to list down what we think could make perception more accurate. Well, some of things we listed included:

=Seek confirmation by asking questions to determine the truth of  your assumptions
=Increase our cultural sensitivity by knowing what people do and  do not do in their culture 

=Avoid mind reading

=Get to know a person better before judging and

=Avoid making early conclusions

That was our opinion on how to make perception more accurate. We got to know how to perception more accurate in the subsequent lecture class. Do you want to know the ways? I am sure you do.

No? Yes?  

Whatever..your answer does not matter. If you are curious about it, take a few seconds and go through this short list.

Critical perception: making perceptions more accurate

General strategies

- passive strategies

- active strategies

- interactive strategies

Specific strategies

- look for a variety of cues

- formulate hypotheses

- delay conclusions

- avoid mind reading

Finally, we are at the end of this topic...

We certainly gained knowledge from this topic and hopefully YOU, yes you right now who is reading our post has stored this knowledge in your memory too.