Perceptions, The Self
and Communication
Perceiving Others
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Narratives
Attributes
What influences one’s perceptions?
Culture
Empathy vs. Sympathy
Self Perception
• Self-concept
• Self-Fulfilling prophecies
Perceiving Others
• Narratives: “The personal stories that one
creates to make sense of one’s personal
world.”
How We Perceive Others
• Self-serving bias: “Judging oneself more
generously than one judges others.”
• We take the “easiest route”
– What is most obvious
– First Impressions
– Similarities to oneself
Perceptions of others, cont.
• We value negative impressions over
positive ones
• We blame innocent victims for their
misfortunes
Perceptions are Situational
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Relational satisfaction
Degree of involvement
Past experience
Expectations
Social Roles
Knowledge
Self-concept
Perceptions and Culture
• Empathy: experience the world through
other’s perspective
• Sympathy: feel both compassion for others
and accept others reasons as valid
• Perception checking: awareness of
perceptions
Perceiving the Self
• Self-concept: “A set of relatively stable
perceptions that each of us hold about
ourselves.”
• Self-esteem: evaluation of self-worth
• Reflected appraisal: “We develop an image
of ourselves from the way we think others
view us.”
Self-fulfilling Prophecy
• “When a person’s expectations of an
outcome make the outcome more likely to
occur than would otherwise have been
true.”
Types of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
• Your own expectations influence your
behavior
• Expectations of others influence your
actions