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Interpersonal Communication and Perception: Objectives

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Interpersonal Communication and Perception: Objectives

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Azri Razak

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Interpersonal

Communication
and Perception

Objectives

1
2
3
4
5
perception.
3
Define perception and interpersonal perception.
Identify and explain the three stages of interpersonal

Describe the relationship between interpersonal

communication and interpersonal perception.
Explain how we form impressions of others, describe
others, and interpret others’ behavior.
Identify the eight factors that distort the accuracy of our
interpersonal perceptions.

6 Offer five suggestions for improving interpersonal

perceptions.

Outline
• Understanding Interpersonal Perception
• How We Form Impressions of Others
• How We Interpret the Behavior of Others
• Barriers to Accurate Interpersonal Perception
• How to Improve Interpersonal Perception Skills
ISBN 0-558-82929-5

What you see and what you L

ook at the Norman Rockwell painting. What is hap-
pening, and what has happened? What is the relation-
ship among the individuals in the painting? You probably
hear depends a good deal have deduced that the boy was running away from home,
the policeman found him, and then he took the boy into
on where you are standing. the local coffee shop for ice cream or some other treat.
Perhaps you think that the man behind the counter is
It also depends on what wistfully recalling his own days of running away as a child.
What are your feelings about the policeman? Do you see
sort of person you are. him as a friendly and caring person who has a good under-
standing of kids?
C. S. Lewis In Chapter 1, we defined human communication as
the process of making sense of the world and sharing that
sense with others by creating meaning through the use of
verbal and nonverbal messages. In this chapter, we discuss the first half of that defini-
tion—the process of making sense of our world. How we make sense out of what we
experience is the starting point for what we share with others. As human beings, we
interpret and attribute meaning to what we observe or experience, particularly if what
perception Process of
experiencing the world and making we are observing is other people. We tend to make inferences about their motives, per-
sense out of what you experience. sonalities, and other traits based on their physical qualities and behaviors. Those who
are skilled at making observations and interpretations have a head start in developing
interpersonal perception
Process of selecting, organizing, effective interpersonal relationships. Those who are other-oriented, who are aware of
and interpreting your observations and sensitive to the communication behaviors of others, will likely be better at accu-
of other people. rately perceiving others.
Before we turn to the role that perception plays in
interpersonal communication, let’s first take a closer
look at the interpersonal perception process itself.

Understanding
Interpersonal Perception
What is perception? Perception is the process of expe-
riencing your world and then making sense out of
what you experience. You experience your world
through your five senses. Your perceptions of people,
however, go beyond simple interpretations of sensory
information. Interpersonal perception is the process
by which you decide what people are like and give
meaning to their actions. It includes making judg-
ments about personality and drawing inferences from
what you observe.1
When you meet someone new, you select certain
information to attend to: For example, you note whether
the person is male or female, has an accent, smiles, and
uses a friendly tone of voice, as well as particular personal
information (she is from Boone, Iowa). You then
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organize the information into some category that is rec-

ognizable to you, such as “a friendly Midwesterner.”
Saturday Evening Post cover, September 20, 1958. Old Corner Then you interpret the organized perceptions: This per-
House Collection, Stockbridge, Massachusetts. son is trustworthy, honest, hardworking, and likable.

Stage 1: Selecting

permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reservd.

ZIGGY © 2006 ZIGGY AND FRIENDS, INC. Reprinted with
Sit for a minute after you read this passage and tune in to all the sensory input
you are receiving: Consider the feel of your socks against your feet, the pressure
of the floor on your heels, the pressure of the piece of furniture against your
body as you sit, the sounds from various sources around you—“white noise”
from a refrigerator, personal computer, fluorescent lights, water in pipes, voices,
passing traffic, or your own heartbeat or churning stomach. What do you smell?
What do you see? Without moving your eyes, turn your awareness to the images
you see in the corner of your vision. What colors do you see? What shapes?
What taste is in your mouth? How do the pages of this book feel against your
fingertips? Now stop reading and consider all these sensations. Try to focus on
all of them at the same time. You can’t.
You are selective as you attempt to make sense out of the world around
you. The number of sensations you can attend to at any given time is limited. Perhaps
you close your eyes or sit in the dark as you listen to music. This allows you to select
more auditory sensations because you have eliminated visual cues.

We Perceive and Remember Selectively. Why do we select certain

sounds, images, and sensations and not others? Four principles frame the process of
how we select what we see, hear, and experience: selective perception, selective atten-
tion, selective exposure, and selective recall.
Selective perception occurs when we see, hear, or make sense of the world
around us based on a host of factors such as our personality, beliefs, attitudes, hopes,
fears, and culture, as well as what we like and don’t like. We literally see and don’t see
things because of our tendency to perceive selectively. Your eyes and your brain do
not work like a camera, which records everything in the picture. When you develop
film, you capture what was in the viewfinder. Your brain doesn’t necessarily process
everything you see through your viewfinder. Similarly, your ear is not a microphone
that consciously picks up every sound.
In a court of law, eyewitness testimony often determines whether someone is
innocent or guilty of a crime. Recent research suggests, however, that a witness’s pow-
ers of observation are not flawless. In fact, researchers have discovered several percep-
tual errors in eyewitness testimony. Many innocent people have been convicted
because of what a witness thought he or she saw or heard. As this evidence documents,
our eyes are not cameras; our ears are not microphones. We perceive selectively.
Selective attention is the process of focusing on specific stimuli; we selectively
lock on to some things in our environment and ignore others. As in the selective per-
ception process, we have a tendency to attend to those things around us that relate to
our needs and wants. When you’re hungry, for example, and you’re looking for a selective perception Process of
place to grab a quick bite of lunch, you’ll probably be more attentive to fast-food seeing, hearing, or making sense
advertising and less focused on ads for cars. We also attend to information that is of the world around us based on
moving, blinking, flashing, interesting, novel, or noisy. Web page designers, for exam- such factors as our personality,
ple, give a lot of thought to ways of catching our attention with advertisements. beliefs, attitudes, hopes, fears,
and culture, as well as what we
Selective exposure is our tendency to put ourselves in situations that reinforce like and don’t like.
our attitudes, beliefs, values, or behaviors. The fact that we’re selective about what we
expose ourselves to means that we are more likely to be in places that make us feel selective attention Process
of focusing on specific stimuli,
comfortable and support the way we see the world than in places that make us locking on to some things in the
uncomfortable. Whom do you usually find at a Baptist church on Sunday mornings? environment and ignoring others.
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Baptists. Who attends a Democratic Party convention? Democrats. If you perceive

selective exposure Tendency
yourself to be a good student who does everything possible to get high grades, you will to put ourselves in situations that
do your best to attend class. We expose ourselves to situations that reinforce how we reinforce our attitudes, beliefs,
make sense out of the world. values, or behaviors.

Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others, Sixth Edition, by Steven A. Beebe, Susan J. Beebe and Mark V. Redmond. Published by Allyn & Bacon.
Copyright © 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Selective recall occurs when we remember things we want to remember and
forget or repress things that are unpleasant, uncomfortable, or unimportant to
us. Because our brains don’t operate like cameras or microphones, not all that we
see or hear is recorded in our memories so that we can easily retrieve it. Some
experiences may simply be too painful to remember. Or we just don’t remember
some information because it’s not relevant or needed (like the address of the
web page you clicked on yesterday).

We Thin Slice. Have you ever gone to a grocery store and enjoyed the free
samples that are sometimes offered to get you to buy various products? The
grocer hopes that if you like the small sample, you’ll want to purchase more.
Perhaps after tasting a thin slice of cheese, you’ll buy a pound of it. The concept
of thin slicing in the perception process works the same way. You sample a lit-
tle bit of someone’s behavior and then generalize as to what the person may be
like, based on the brief information you have observed. Journalist Malcolm
Gladwell wrote a popular book called Blink: The Power of Thinking Without
Thinking, in which he pointed to several examples of how people thin slice to
make judgments of others.2 For example, Gladwell reviewed research that
found that a patient was less likely to sue a physician for malpractice if the doc-
tor had effective “people skills.” Doctors who took the time to listen, respond
positively, empathize, and, in short, be other-oriented were less likely to be
When we observe others, we gather sued than doctors who were not other-oriented. As patients, we thin slice when
information about them and ascribe we make a judgment about the overall credibility of a doctor based on just one
motives and causes to their behaviors— aspect of the doctor’s behavior—his or her bedside manner. Later in this book,
sometimes incorrectly. What do you
perceive about this couple’s relationship?
we’ll review the research of John Gottman, another researcher who has evi-
What might they be discussing? dence of the accuracy of thin slicing; he has done extensive research about mar-
riage and divorce. Gottman has been able to thin slice behaviors in marriage to
be able to predict with 94 percent accuracy whether a couple will divorce.3 He has
found that when he watches videotapes of couples having conversations and dis-
cussing real issues and problems in their marriage, he can make very accurate guesses
BEING Other-ORIENTED
as to whether the couple will stay together. Gottman has developed a way of thin slic-
We are constantly selecting ing these marriage relationships. The four behaviors that predict divorce if all are pre-
cues from our environment
sent are defensiveness, stonewalling (not responding), criticism, and contempt—with
and then using those cues
to help us perceive and form contempt being the most corrosive.
impressions of others. Are you Some people are better at thin slicing than others. There is evidence, for example,
aware of the behaviors that that women are better than men in interpreting nonverbal cues. Can you improve
you typically notice about other your ability to thin slice with accuracy? Yes, but it takes time and practice. It took
people? What do you focus
marriage researcher John Gottman many years and a significant amount of research
on when selecting information
about other people and forming to be able to know what to look for in order to predict a successful or unsuccessful
impressions of them? marriage. Learning how to be more perceptive and being more other-oriented, the
focus of this book, can improve your ability to thin slice accurately.

selective recall Process that

occurs when we remember things Stage 2: Organizing
we want to remember and forget or
Look at the four items in Figure 3.1. What does each of them mean to you? If you are
repress things that are unpleasant,
uncomfortable, or unimportant to us. like most people, you will perceive item A as a rabbit, item B as a telephone number,
item C as the word interpersonal, and item D as a circle. Strictly speaking, none of
thin slicing Observing a small
those perceptions is correct. We discuss why after we explore the second stage of per-
sample of someone’s behavior and
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then making a generalization about ception, organizing.

what the person is like, based on We organize our world by creating categories, linking together the categories we’ve
the sample. created, and then seeking closure by filling in any missing gaps in what we perceive.

We Create Categories. After we perceive certain stimuli, we

organize them into convenient, understandable, and efficient cate-
gories that let us make sense of what we have observed. Organizing, or
chunking, what we perceive makes it easier to process complex infor-
mation because it lets us impose the familiar on the unfamiliar, and
because we can more easily store and recall simple patterns. A.
One of the ways we create categories is by superimposing a familiar
structure on information we select. To superimpose is to use a framework
we’re already familiar with to interpret information that may, at first, look
formless. We look for the familiar in the unfamiliar. For example, when
you looked at item A in Figure 3.1, you saw the pattern of dots as a rabbit
because rabbit is a concept you know and to which you attach various
meanings. The set of dots would not have meaning for you in and of itself,
nor would it be meaningful to you to attend to each particular dot or to the
B. 555 4433
dots’ relationships to one another. It would be possible to create a mathe-
matical model of the dots indicating their placement on the x-y grid, but C. NTRPRSNL
such a model would be extremely complex and difficult to observe and
remember. It’s much easier to organize the dots by superimposing some-
thing that is stored in your memory: a rabbit. For similar reasons, people
have organized patterns of stars in the sky into the various constellations
and have given them names that reflect their shapes, like the Bear, the D.
Crab, and the Big and Little Dippers.
People also search for and apply patterns to their perceptions of
other people. You might have a friend who jogs and works out at a
gym. You put these together to create a pattern and label the friend as
“athletic.” That label represents a pattern of qualities you use in relating to your FIGURE 3.1
friend, a pattern that we discuss later in the chapter. What Do You See?

We Link Categories. Once we have created categories, we link them together

as a way of further making sense of how we have chunked what we experience. We
link the categories though a process called punctuation. Punctuation is the process of
making sense out of stimuli by grouping, dividing, organizing, separating, and further
categorizing information.4
Just as punctuation marks on this page tell you when a sentence ends, punctuation
in the perception process makes it possible for you to see patterns in information. To
many Americans, item B in Figure 3.1 looks like a telephone number because it has three
numbers followed by four numbers. However, the digits could just as easily represent two
totally independent numbers: five hundred fifty-five followed by the number four thou-
sand, four hundred thirty-three. How we interpret the numbers depends on how we
punctuate or separate them. When we record information, we use commas, periods,
dashes, and colons to signal meanings and interpretations. In our minds, we sometimes
impose punctuation marks where we believe they should be. For example, perhaps you
mentally put a dash between 555 and 4433, even though no dash appears there.
When it comes to punctuating relational events and behaviors, people develop
their own separate sets of standards. You will sometimes experience difficulties and
disagreements because of differences in how you and your communication partner superimpose To place a familiar
choose to punctuate a conversational exchange or a shared sequence of events.5 One structure on information you select.
classic example of relational problems resulting from differences in punctuation
punctuation Process of making
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involves a husband who withdraws and a wife who nags.6 The husband punctuates sense out of stimuli by grouping,
their interactions in such a way that he sees his withdrawing as a reaction to her nag- dividing, organizing, separating,
ging. The wife, in contrast, sees herself as nagging her husband because he keeps and categorizing information.

withdrawing. The husband and wife punctuate their perceptions differently because
they each perceive different starting points for their interactions. Resolving such con-
flicts involves having the parties describe how they have punctuated the event and
agree on a common punctuation.

We Seek Closure. Another way we organize information is by seeking clo-

sure. Closure is the process of filling in missing information or gaps in what we per-
ceive. Looking again at Figure 3.1, you can understand people’s inclination to label
the figure in item D a circle, even though circles are continuous lines without gaps.
We apply the same principles in our interactions with people. When we have an
incomplete picture of another human being, we impose a pattern or structure, clas-
sify the person on the basis of the information we do have, and fill in any missing
information. For example, when meeting someone for the first time who looks and
acts like someone you already know, you may make assumptions about your new
acquaintance, based on the characteristics of the person you already know. You
close the gaps in the missing information about your new acquaintance, based on
the characteristics of the person well known to you. Many of us are uncomfortable
with uncertainty; creating closure is a way of helping us make better sense out of
what is new and unfamiliar.

Stage 3: Interpreting
Once you have selected and organized stimuli, you next typically interpret the stimuli.
You see your best friend across a crowded room at a party. He waves to you, and you
say to yourself, “He wants to talk with me.” Or you nervously wait as your British lit-
erature teacher hands back the results of the last exam. When the professor calls your
name, she frowns ever so slightly; your heart sinks. You think, “I must have bombed
on the test.” Or, while you are out, your administrative assistant leaves you a note that
your sister called. You’re worried. You reflect, “My tightwad sister never uses her day-
time cell phone minutes to call during the day. There must be something wrong.” In
closure Process of filling in each of these situations, you’re trying to make sense out of the information you hear
missing information or gaps or see. You’re attempting to interpret the meaning of the verbal and nonverbal cues
in what we perceive. you experience.

RECAP The Interpersonal Perception Process

Term Explanation Example

Selecting The first stage in the perceptual process, in which we Sitting in your apartment where you hear lots of traffic
select certain sensations to focus awareness on sounds and car horns, but attending to a particular
rhythmic car honking that seems to be right outside
your door

Organizing The second stage in the perceptual process, in which we Putting together the car honking with your anticipation of
assemble stimuli into convenient and efficient patterns a friend’s arrival to pick you up in her car to drive to a
movie that starts in five minutes

Interpreting The final stage in perception, in which we assign meaning Deciding the car honking must be your friend signaling
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to what we have observed you to come out to the car quickly because she’s
running late

Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others, Sixth Edition, by Steven A. Beebe, Susan J. Beebe and Mark V. Redmond. Published by Allyn & Bacon.
Copyright © 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.
We form impressions of others both passively
and actively, and our own implicit assumptions
and expectations color those impressions.

How We Form Impressions

of Others
Impressions are collections of perceptions about others that we maintain and use to
interpret their behaviors. Impressions tend to be very general: “She seems nice,” “He
was very friendly,” or “What a nerd!” According to impression formation theory,
we form these impressions based on our perceptions of physical qualities (what peo-
ple look like), behavior (what people do), what people tell us, and what others tell us
about them. When we first meet someone, we form a first impression without having
much information, and we often hold on to this impression (even if it’s an inaccurate impression Collection of
one) throughout the relationship. So it’s important to understand how we form perceptions about others that
impressions of others. Researchers have found that we often give special emphasis to you maintain and use to interpret
the first things we see or the last things we observe about another person. We also their behaviors.
generalize from specific positive or negative perceptions we hold. impression formation theory
Our perceptions of others affect how we communicate with them, and their per- Theory that explains how you
ceptions of us affect the way they interact with us. It’s through our perceptions that we develop perceptions about people
and how you maintain and use
develop general as well as specific impressions of other people. (And they do the those perceptions to interpret
same—they rely on their perceptions to develop impressions of us.) How much we their behaviors.
notice about another person relates to our level of interest and need. We perceive oth-
passive perception Perception
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ers either passively or actively. that occurs without conscious

Passive perception occurs simply because we are alive and our senses are operat- effort, simply in response to one’s
ing. We see, hear, smell, taste, and feel things around us without any conscious attempt surroundings.

to do so. No one teaches you to be passively perceptive; you simply respond to your
surroundings. Similarly, you don’t have to think about perceiving others, you just do it
because you’re alive.
BEING Other-ORIENTED Active perception doesn’t just happen. It is the process of actively finding out
specific information by intentionally observing and sometimes questioning others.
By listening to and observing
We’re engaged in active perception when we make a conscious effort to figure out
others, we reduce our
uncertainty about how they what we are observing. Do you like to “people watch?” If you have some time on your
will interact with us. Think hands while waiting for a friend, you may start just looking at people and making
about a person you first met guesses about what these strangers do for a living, whether they are friendly, grumpy,
in school who is now a good peaceful, or petulant, where they are from, or whether they are married. When people
friend. What type of active
watching, you are involved in active perception. You consciously make assumptions
perception activities did you
engage in to get to know this about the personalities and circumstances of those you observe.
person better—to reduce As we make these assumptions and form impressions of others, most of us rely on
your uncertainty about him or an implicit personality theory, our personal set of assumptions and expectations or a
her? How would you assess pattern of associated qualities that we attribute to people, which allows us to under-
your skill level in observing,
stand them—whether we met them 10 minutes ago or 10 years ago. An implicit per-
questioning, and processing
information to get to know sonality theory provides a way of organizing the vast array of information we have
other people? about people’s personalities.7
Although an implicit personality theory describes how we organize and interpret
our perceptions of people’s personalities in general, we develop specific categories for
people, called constructs. A construct, according to psychologist George Kelly, is a
bipolar quality (that is, a quality with two opposite categories) or a continuum that we
use to classify people.8 We may pronounce someone good or bad, athletic or nonath-
letic, warm or cold, funny or humorless, selfish or generous, beautiful or ugly, kind or
cruel, and so on. So we don’t necessarily classify people in absolute terms—they are
categorized in degrees.
As we meet and observe people, we draw on our own implicit personality the-
ory to help us reduce our uncertainty about others. Uncertainty reduction theory
suggests that one of the primary reasons we communicate at all is to reduce our
uncertainty about what we see and experience. By making guesses and assump-
tions about people, we reduce our uncertainty. If we can reduce our uncertainty
about other people, then we can predict their reactions and behaviors, adapt our
behaviors and strategies, and therefore maximize the likelihood of fulfilling our
own social needs.9 Being able to reduce uncertainty and increase predictability
active perception Perception that gives us greater control when communicating with others. Although this might
occurs because you seek out specific sound calculating, it really isn’t. If you enjoy outdoor activities such as camping
information through intentional and hiking, one of your goals in establishing social relationships is probably to
observation and questioning. find others who share your interest. So actively observing, questioning, and con-
implicit personality theory sciously processing information to determine a potential friend’s interests can
Your unique set of beliefs and help you assess whether the relationship will meet your goals. And in the spirit of
hypotheses about what people being other-oriented, you will also be able to assess whether you can meet the
are like.
goals and interests of the other person. In Chapter 5, we discuss ways to improve
construct Bipolar quality used your ability to gain information through more effective listening.
to classify people. Now let’s take a closer look at several typical ways most of us form impressions of
uncertainty reduction theory others: our tendency to emphasize what we see first or what we observe last when
Theory that claims people seek interacting with others, and our tendency to generalize from our perceptions of them
information in order to reduce as positive or negative.
uncertainty, thus achieving
control and predictability.
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primacy effect Tendency to We Emphasize What Comes First: The Primacy Effect
attend to the first pieces of
information observed about
There is evidence that when we form impressions of others, we pay more attention to
another person in order to our first impressions. The tendency to attend to the first pieces of information that we
form an impression observe about another person is called the primacy effect. The primacy effect was

documented in a famous study conducted by Solomon Asch.10 Individuals were asked

to evaluate two people based on two lists of adjectives. The list for the first person had
the following adjectives: intelligent, industrious, impulsive, critical, stubborn, and
envious. The list for the other person had the same adjectives, but in reverse order.
Although the content was identical, respondents gave the first person a more positive
evaluation than the second. One explanation for this is that the first words in each list
created a first impression that respondents used to interpret the remaining adjectives.
In a similar manner, the first impressions we form about someone often affect our
interpretation of subsequent perceptions of that person.

We Emphasize What Comes Last: The Recency Effect

Not only do we give more weight to our first impressions, we also give considerable
attention to our most recent experiences and impressions. The tendency to put a lot of
stock in the last thing we observe is called the recency effect.11 For example, if you have
thought for years that your friend is honest, but today you discover that she lied to you
about something important, that lie will have a greater impact on your impression of
her than the honest behavior she has displayed for years. Similarly, if, during a job
interview, you skillfully answered all of the interviewer’s questions yet your last answer
to a question was not the answer the interviewer was looking for, you may not get the
job. If you’re going to make mistakes in an interview, it’s best not to do it at the begin-
ning of the interview (primacy effect) or at the end of the conversation (recency effect).

We Generalize Positive Qualities to Others:

The Halo Effect
One feature common to most of our implicit personality theories is the tendency to
put people into one of two categories: people we like and people we don’t like. Cate-
gorizing people as those we like often creates a halo effect, in which we attribute a
variety of positive qualities to them without personally confirming the existence of
these qualities. If you like me, you will add a “halo” to your impression of me and then
apply to me those qualities from your implicit personality theory that apply to people
you like, such as being considerate of other people, warm, caring, fun to be with and
having a great sense of humor.

We Generalize Negative Qualities to Others:

The Horn Effect
Just as we can use the halo effect to generalize about someone’s positive qualities, the
opposite can also happen. We sometimes make many negative assumptions about a
person because of one unflattering perception. This is called the horn effect, named
for the horns associated with medieval images of a devil. If you don’t like the way
someone looks, you might also decide that person is selfish or stingy and attribute a .
variety of negative qualities to that individual, using your implicit personality theory.
recency effect Tendency
As evidence of the horn effect, research suggests that during periods of conflict in our to attend to the most recent
relationships, we are more likely to attribute negative behaviors to our feuding partner information observed about
than we are to ourselves.12 A little bit of negative information can affect how we per- another person in order to
ceive other attributes of a person. form or modify an impression.
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In support of the premise underlying the horn effect, researchers Dominic halo effect Attributing a variety of
Infante and Andrew Rancer observed that some people have a tendency to see the positive qualities to those you like.
worst in others, which causes them to lash out and be verbally aggressive.13 There horn effect Attributing a variety
is also evidence that some people interpret any negative feedback they receive as of negative qualities to those you
a personal attack, no matter how carefully the feedback is worded.14 For many dislike.

people, there is no such thing as “constructive criticism.” Like a sunburned sun-

bather, such people perceive even a mild suggestion presented with a light touch as
a stinging rebuke.

How We Interpret the Behavior

of Others
“I know why Alicia hasn’t arrived at our meeting yet. She just doesn’t like me. She is
always late,” says Cathy. “I’ll bet she just wants people to think she’s too busy to be
on time for our little group meetings. She is so stuck up.” Cathy seems not only to
have formed a negative impression of Alicia, but also to harbor a hunch about why
Alicia is typically late. Cathy is attributing meaning to Alicia’s behavior. Even though
Alicia could have just forgotten about the meeting, may have another meeting that
always runs overtime right before her meeting with Cathy, or is from a culture in
which meetings almost always start after the announced meeting time, Cathy thinks
Alicia’s absence is caused by feelings of superiority and contempt. Cathy’s assump-
tions about Alicia can be explained by several theories about the way we interpret the
behavior of others. Based on a small sample of someone’s behavior, we develop our
own explanations of why people do what they do. Attribution theory, standpoint
theory, and intercultural communication theory can offer perspectives on how we
make sense on what we perceive.

We Attribute Motives to Others’ Behavior:

Attribution Theory
Attribution theory explains how we ascribe specific motives and causes to the behav-
iors of others. It helps us interpret what people do. For example, suppose the student
sitting next to you in class gets up in the middle of the lecture and walks out. Why did
the student leave? Did the student become angry at something the instructor said? It
seems unlikely—the lecturer was simply describing types of cloud formations. Was
the student sick? You remember noticing that the student looked a little flushed and
occasionally winced. Maybe the student has an upset stomach. Or maybe the student
is just a bit of a rebel and often does strange things like leaving in the middle of a class.
attribution theory Theory that Social psychologist Fritz Heider says that we are “naive psychologists,”15 because we
explains how you generate all seek to explain people’s motives for their actions. We are naive because we do not
explanations for people’s behaviors. create these explanations in a systematic or scientific manner, but rather by applying

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common sense to our observations. Developing the most credible explanation for the
behavior of others is the goal of the attribution process.
Causal attribution theory identifies three potential causes for any person’s action:
circumstance, a stimulus, or the person herself or himself.16 Attributing behavior to
circumstance means that you believe a person acts in a certain way because the situation
leaves no choice. This way of thinking places responsibility for the action outside of the
person. There is interesting research that suggests that during times when you feel
lonely and isolated from others, you are more likely to attribute your feelings of loneli-
ness to your specific circumstance rather than to any flaws in your personality.17
You would be attributing to circumstance if you believed the student quickly left
the classroom because of an upset stomach. Concluding that the student left because
the instructor said something inappropriate would be attributing the student’s action
to the stimulus (the instructor). But if you knew the instructor hadn’t said anything
out of line and that the student was perfectly healthy, you would place the responsibil-
ity for the action on the student. Attributing to the person means that you believe
there is some quality about the person that caused the observed behavior.
To explore how attributions to a person affect us, interpersonal communication
researchers Anita Vangelisti and Stacy Young wanted to know whether intentionally
hurtful words inflict more pain than unintentionally hurtful comments.18 As you
might suspect, if we think someone intends to hurt us, spiteful words have more sting
and bite than if we believe someone does not intend to hurt our feelings. Our attribu- causal attribution theory Theory
tions are factors in our impressions. of attribution that identifies the
cause of a person’s actions as
circumstance, a stimulus, or the
We Use Our Own Point of Reference About Power: person himself or herself.
Standpoint Theory standpoint theory Theory that a
person’s social position, power, or
Standpoint theory is yet another framework that seeks to explain how we intercultural background influences how
pret the behavior of others. The theory is relatively simple: We each see the world the person perceives the behavior
differently because we’re each viewing it from a different position. Some people of others.

UNDERSTANDING OTHERS
Adapting to Differences The Power of Perspective

As noted in our discussion of standpoint perceived place in society and to be more employer, or friends) describe your
theory, where you stand makes a differ- sensitive to how that position of power or power and influence on them?
ence in what you see and how you inter- lack of power affects how you perceive 3. How does your standpoint influence
pret human behavior. Following the others with a different standpoint.
your relationship with others? Identify
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on To explore applications of standpoint a specific relationship with a teacher,
the United States, discussions about the theory in your life, consider the following coworker, or family member in which
perceptions of the power and influence of questions: different standpoints influence the
different cultural groups and countries quality of the relationship in either
became more common. 1. How would you describe your stand-
positive or negative ways.
Men and women, Blacks and Whites, point in terms of power and influ-
Jews and Christians, Muslims and Hindus, ence in your school or at work, or in 4. What can you do to become more
Hispanics and Asians, gay and straight your family? Have you ever experi- aware of how your standpoint influ-
individuals, all experience life from their enced rejection, alienation, or dis- ences your interactions with others?
own cultural standpoints, which means crimination based on how others How can your increased aware-
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they all have perceptions about their influ- perceived you? ness enhance the quality of your
ence on others. To become more other- 2. How would other people in your life interpersonal communication with
oriented is to become aware of your own (parents, siblings, children, coworkers, others?

have positions of power, and others do not; the resources that we have to help us
make our way through life provide a lens through which we view the world and
the people in it.
Standpoint theory explains why people with differing cultural backgrounds have
different perceptions of others’ behavior. In the early nineteenth century, German
philosopher Georg Hegel noted this simple but powerful explanation of why people
see and experience the world differently.19 Hegel was especially interested in how
one’s standpoint was determined in part by one’s power and influence. For example,
people who have greater power and more influence in a particular culture may not be
aware of their power and influence and how this power affects their perceptions of
others. A person with less power (which in many cultures includes women and people
of color) may be acutely aware of the power he or she doesn’t have.
As evidence of standpoint theory, one team of researchers found that people who
perceived that they were the victims of someone’s lying to them or cheating them had
an overall more negative view of the communication with their lying or cheating com-
munication partner than with someone who they perceived did not lie or cheat.20 This
makes sense, doesn’t it? If our point of view is that a certain person can’t be trusted in
one situation, we are less likely to trust the person in other situations. C. S. Lewis was
right: What we see and hear depends a good deal on where we are standing.

RECAP How We Organize and Interpret Interpersonal Perceptions

Theory Description Example

Impression Formation We form general impressions of others based on Categorizing people as nice, friendly, shy, or
Theory general physical qualities, behaviors, and disclosed handsome
information.
Implicit Personality We use a personal set of assumptions to draw “If she is intelligent, then I believe she must be
Theory specific conclusions about someone’s personality. caring, too.”
Attribution Theory We develop reasons to explain the behaviors of “I guess she didn’t return my call because she
others. doesn’t like me.” “He’s just letting off steam
because he had a bad week of exams.”
Causal Attribution We ascribe a person’s actions to circumstance, a “He didn’t go to class because his alarm didn’t go
Theory stimulus, or the person himself or herself. off.” “He didn’t go to class because it was a
makeup session.” “He didn’t go to class because he
is bored by it.”
Standpoint Theory We interpret the behavior of others through the lens “He won’t join the fraternity because he doesn’t
of our own social position, power, or cultural understand how important that network can be to
background. his professional career.”

We Draw on Our Own Cultural Background:

Intercultural Communication Theory
When Cathy thought Alicia was rude and thoughtless because she always arrived at
their meetings late, Cathy was attributing meaning to Alicia’s behavior based on
Cathy’s cultural assumptions about when meetings usually begin. According to Cathy,
if a meeting is supposed to start at 10:00 A.M., it’s important to be prompt and be
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ready to begin on time. But Alicia comes from a culture with a different approach to
time; in Alicia’s culture, meetings never begin on time. In fact, it’s polite, according to
Alicia, to be fashionably late so that the meeting leader can greet people and make any
last-minute preparations for the meeting. To show up on time would be disrespectful.
Both Alicia and Cathy are making sense out of their actions based on their own

cultural framework. Alicia and Cathy aren’t the only ones who interpret
behavior through their cultural lens—we all do.
Culture is a learned system of knowledge, behaviors, attitudes,
beliefs, values, and norms that is shared by a group of people. Our cul-
ture is reflected not only in our behavior but in every aspect of the way
we live our lives. The categories of things and ideas that identify the
most profound aspects of cultural influence are known as cultural
elements. According to one research team, cultural elements
include the following:21
● Material culture: housing, clothing, automobiles, and
other tangible things
● Social institutions: schools, governments, religious
organizations
● Belief systems: ideas about individuals and the universe
● Aesthetics: music, theatre, art, dance
● Language: verbal and nonverbal communication systems
As you can see from the list, cultural elements are not only
things we can see and hear, but also ideas and values. And
because these elements are so prevalent, they have an effect
on how we interpret all that we experience.
Our culture is like the air we breathe, in that we’re
often not aware that it’s there—we simply go about our
daily routines, usually not conscious that we are breath- Our own cultural framework has a profound effect on how we
interpret everything we experience, including our interactions with
ing. Because our culture is ever-present and is con- others. Do people in your own culture typically behave like those
stantly influencing our thoughts and behavior, it has a in this photo? If not, what is your reaction to what you see here?
profound impact on how we experience the world. If
you come from a culture in which horsemeat is a delicacy, you’ll likely savor each
bite of your horse steak, because you’ve learned to enjoy it. Yet if eating horsemeat
is not part of your cultural heritage, you will have a different perception if you’re
invited to chow down on filet of horse. So it is with how we interpret the behavior of
other people who have different cultural expectations than we do. In some coun-
tries, men kiss each other on the cheek when greeting one another, or they may walk
arm in arm down the sidewalk when conversing. These are considered normal and
natural aspects of human interaction. Yet in North America, these behaviors may be
perceived differently because of different cultural expectations.
In a study investigating whether people from a variety of cultural backgrounds used
their own culture to make sense out of the behavior of others, researchers found that
stereotyping—making rigid judgments of others based on a small bit of information—is
rampant in many cultures.22 In this study, participants from Australia, Botswana,
Canada, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and the United States all
consistently formed stereotypical impressions of others. Culture strongly influences
how we interpret the actions of others.

Barriers to Accurate Interpersonal

Perception
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culture Learned system of

Think about the most recent interaction you had with a stranger. Do you remember knowledge, behaviors, attitudes,
the person’s age, sex, race, or physical description? Did the person have any distin- beliefs, values, and norms shared
guishing features, such as a beard, tattoos, or a loud voice? The qualities you recall by a group of people.

will most likely serve as the basis for attributions you make about that person’s
behavior. But these attributions, based on your first impressions, might be wrong.
Each person sees the world from his or her own unique perspective. That perspective
is clouded by a number of distortions and barriers that contribute to inaccurate
interpersonal perception.

We Stereotype
Preconceived notions about what they expect to find may keep people from seeing what’s
before their eyes and ears. We see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear.
We stereotype others. To stereotype someone is to attribute a set of qualities to the per-
son because of his or her membership in some category. The word stereotype was origi-
nally a printing term, referring to a metal plate that was cast from type set by a printer.
The plate would print the same page of type over and over again. When we stereotype
people, we place them into inflexible, all-compassing categories. We “print” the same
judgments on anyone placed in a given category.
Stereotyping other people and then treating them unfairly is a significant prob-
lem in modern society. There is clear evidence that this problem is especially acute for
socially marginalized groups such as gays and lesbians and Blacks.23 Being aware of the
problem is the first step to overcoming it.
We are more likely, according to communication researchers, to maintain our
stereotypes of others if we believe that the people with whom we typically interact also
share our stereotype.24 Why? People who hold a common stereotype reinforce one
another’s thinking.
When we stereotype others, we overgeneralize. To overgeneralize is to treat small
amounts of information as if they were highly representative. This tendency also leads
people to draw inaccurate, prejudicial conclusions.25 For example, a professor may
talk to two students and then generalize the impression he or she develops of those
two students to the entire student population. In a similar way, most people tend to
assume that the small sampling of another person’s behavior is a valid representation
of who that person is. As you saw in Figure 3.1, you might perceive a rabbit even when
you have only a few dots on which to base your perception.
To overgeneralize is similar to the concept of thin slicing that we discussed earlier
in the chapter. Although we each thin slice—use a small sample of information to
reach a conclusion—a problem occurs when the conclusion we reach from a brief
observation is inaccurate. Overgeneralization occurs when the thin-sliced informa-
tion we use to reach a conclusion is wrong. When making snap judgments from only
bits of information, realize the potential for drawing an inaccurate conclusion.
We also stereotype others when we oversimplify—which is a human tendency to
prefer a simple explanation to a more complex one. When Imelda picks you up late to
go to a movie, she says, “Sorry, I lost track of the time.” The next day, Mary also picks
you up late to go to a movie. She says, “Sorry. You wouldn’t believe how busy I’ve
been. I ran out of hot water when I was showering, and my hair dryer must be busted.
It kept shutting off. Then I stopped to get something to eat, and it took forever to get
my order. And then it turned out they had it all messed up and had to redo it.” Whose
explanation can you accept more easily, Imelda’s or Mary’s?
Usually, people prefer simple explanations; they tend to be more believable and
easier to use in making sense of another’s actions. But in reality, our behaviors are
stereotype To attribute a set of
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qualities to a person because of the affected by a multitude of factors, as Mary’s explanation indicates. Unfortunately, it
person’s membership in some takes a lot of effort to understand what makes another person do what he or she
category. does—more effort than we are typically willing to give.

Relating to Others
Stereotyping Others Online
in the 21st Century
We’ve identified several theories that what cues are present online to stereo- Another interesting study suggests
explain how we form impressions of other type others, just as we do in face-to-face that people may form stereotyped
people when communicating via electron- interactions. In fact, we may be more impressions about you based on the per-
ically mediated communication (EMC). likely to stereotype others online than in ceived physical attractiveness of the
These theories can help you explain and person, because we have to make more friends you have posted on your MySpace
predict how others develop stereotypical inferences about the other person— or FaceBook pages.31 We apparently use
impressions of you and how you may because there are fewer cues and all of the information we can get to help
stereotype others based on your EMC. As because it takes longer for relationship us form impressions of others when inter-
we noted in Chapter 1, researchers first cues to emerge. This theory is called the acting online, including how attractive we
thought that because communicating via social identity model of deindividua- perceive other people’s friends to be. If
e-mail, text message, Facebook, Twitter, tion effects (SIDE).28 We are more likely the friends whose photos appear on your
or phone offers fewer nonverbal cues, to reduce someone to a stereotype or, to page are attractive, research suggests
these media allow only limited expres- use a technical term, to deindividuate you will be perceived as more attractive
sions of relationship cues and feelings. someone, online because we have fewer and have a more positive impression on
This theory is called the cues-filtered-out cues to help us develop a clear impres- others than if your friends are perceived
theory.26 But more recently, researchers sion of others. as less attractive in appearance.32 In
have found support for social informa- One study found that Asian American short, you look good if you have friends
tion-processing theory. This theory sug- women were stereotypically perceived as who look good. This suggests that peo-
gests that EMC does include relationship shyer and more introverted compared to ple form stereotypes not only on the
cues and additional information that African American women when commu- basis of the qualities of other people but
communicates feelings and emotions nicating via e-mail but not when commu- also by using context cues about those
(such as emoticons), as well as more nicating by telephone.29 The fewer cues with whom others associate.
subtle cues embedded in the message, available, the more likely stereotypical What are the implications of these
(such as how long someone takes to perceptions of the other person were to research studies? They suggest that in
respond to a message, the formality of a emerge. Since e-mail offers fewer cues the twenty-first century, we are more
message, use of all capital letters for than the telephone (the telephone is a likely rather than less likely to stereotype
emphasis, or even attention to spelling). It richer medium), stereotyping is more others when communicating online. We
just takes longer for those cues to be evi- likely in the media-lean e-mail context. are more likely to overgeneralize and to
denced as we interact online.27 So Another study found that people make oversimplify because we have limited
although there may be fewer cues avail- stereotypical judgments about another information available. The problem is that
able to help us form impressions of oth- person’s gender when communicating with less relational information or fewer
ers when we communicate online, those via e-mail when they aren’t certain cues in general, we may be even more
that do exist may be even more potent in whether the person they are interacting inaccurate in making stereotypical judg-
influencing the impressions we form and with is a male or female.30 We use what- ments of others online. So be mindful of
impressions others form of us. ever cues we have, such as language the potential for developing inaccurate
Regardless of which theory explains style, and even topics discussed, to help stereotypes online. Being aware of the
how we form impressions of others us form a stereotypical impression of the problem is the first step in avoiding the
online, there is evidence that we use other person. problem.

We Ignore Information
People sometimes don’t focus on important information, because they give too much social identity model of
weight to information that is obvious and superficial.33 Why do we ignore important deindividuation effects (SIDE)
information that may be staring us in the face? It’s because, as you learned in the dis- Theory that people are more likely
cussion about attribution theory, we tend to explain a person’s motives on the basis of to stereotype others with whom
they interact online, because
the most obvious information rather than on in-depth information we might have.
such interactions provide fewer
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When meeting someone new, we perceive his or her physical qualities first: color of relationship cues and the cues take
skin, body size and shape, age, sex, and other obvious characteristics. We overat- longer to emerge than they would
tribute to these qualities, because they are so vivid and available, and ignore other in face-to-face interactions.

details. We have all been victims of these kinds of attributions,

some of us more than others. Often, we are unaware that others are
making biased attributions, because they do not express them
openly. But sometimes we can tell by the way others react to us and
treat us. We may even choose to ignore contradictory information
that we receive directly from the other person. Instead of adjusting
our conception of that person, we adjust our perception.34 The halo
and horn effects discussed earlier reflect this tendency. For exam-
ple, if an instructor gets an excellent paper from a student who the
instructor has concluded is not particularly bright or motivated,
she may tend to find errors and shortcomings that are not really
there, or she may even accuse the student of plagiarism.
There is evidence that we make stereotypical judgments of others
even when we may not be fully aware that we are making such judg-
ments. Researchers have found that we hold what are called implicit
attitudes that affect how we perceive others.35 Since these implicit atti-
tudes operate below our level of awareness, it’s important to monitor
Stereotypes can help us make our behavior and reactions to others to ensure that we are not unfairly, inaccurately, or
sense out of the wide range of inappropriately making stereotypical judgments of them.
stimuli we encounter every day.
But we also need to be sure that
Categorizing individuals is not an inherently bad thing to do, but it is harmful to
we don’t overuse stereotypes and hang on to an inflexible image of another person in the face of contradictory informa-
thus fail to see people as tion. For example, not all mothers are responsible or loving. But because American
individuals. culture typically reveres motherhood, we may not easily process our perceptions of a
mother who is abusive or negligent. Researchers have suggested that when we catego-
rize and stereotype others, we do so to meet our own needs for power, authority, and
structure.36 And it’s the minority group with less social and political power that tends
to be marginalized and to get lost in the power shuffle.37
To become more other-oriented is to become aware of your own perceived place in
the power hierarchy in our society and to be more sensitive about how that position of
power or lack of power affects your perceptions of others with a different level of power.
Where are you in the power structure in your school, family, workplace, and in society
in general? Whether you perceive yourself to have power or not, understanding your
relative power level can help explain and predict how others will interact with you.
In the next chapter, we will explore how cultural differences have an impact on
our interactions with others and identify strategies to more mindfully bridge cultural
barriers that may contribute to negative perceptions of others.

We Impose Consistency
People overestimate the consistency and constancy of others’ behaviors. When we organize
our perceptions, we also tend to ignore fluctuation in people’s behaviors and instead
see them as consistent. We believe that if someone acted a certain way one day, he or
she will continue to act that way in the future. Perhaps you have embarrassed yourself
in front of a new acquaintance by acting foolish and silly. At another encounter with
this new acquaintance, you realize that the person is continuing to see your behavior
as foolish, even though you don’t intend it to be seen that way. The other person is
imposing consistency on your inconsistent behavior.
In fact, everyone’s behavior varies from day to day. Some days, we are in a bad
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mood, and our behavior on those days does not represent what we are generally like.
As intimacy develops in relationships, we interact with our partners in varying circum-
stances that provide a more complete picture of our true nature.

We Focus on the Negative

People give more weight to negative information than to positive information.38 Job
interviewers often ask you to describe your strengths and weaknesses. If you
describe five strengths and one weakness, it is likely that the interviewer will attend
more to the one weakness you mention than to the strengths. We seem to recognize
this bias and compensate for it when we first meet someone by sharing only positive
information about ourselves.
In another of Solomon Asch’s experiments on impression formation, participants
heard one of the following two lists of terms to describe a person: (1) intelligent, skill-
ful, industrious, warm, determined, practical, cautious; or (2) intelligent, skillful, indus-
trious, cold, determined, practical, cautious.39 The only difference in these two lists is
the use of warm in the first list and cold in the second. Despite the presence of six other
terms, those who heard the “cold” list had a much more negative impression of the
person than those who heard the “warm” list. One piece of negative information can
have a disproportionate effect on our impressions and negate the effect of several pos-
itive pieces of information. Perhaps you’ve noticed that following a near-flawless
Olympic ice skating performance, the TV commentator, rather than focusing on the
best executed leaps, twists, and turns, will first replay the one small error the skater
made in the performance. In our own lives, we may have a tendency to do the same
thing; we may focus on what we didn’t do well rather than emphasizing what we’ve
done skillfully.

We Blame Others, Assuming They Have Control fundamental attribution error

Error that arises from attributing
People are more likely to believe that others are to blame when things go wrong than to another person’s behavior to internal,
believe that the problem was beyond their control. Your parents were looking forward to controllable causes rather than to
celebrating their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. They planned a quiet family celebra- external, uncontrollable causes.
tion at a restaurant. You set your personal digital assistant to
remind you one week before the anniversary dinner to buy them a
present to give to them at the dinner. You hadn’t anticipated, how-
ever, that you’d lose your PDA. When the phone rang and your
mom asked, “Where are you?” it all came jarringly back to you:
Today was their anniversary, and you’d forgotten it! Not only did
you forget to buy them a present, you forgot to attend the dinner.
Your parents were hurt. Your mother’s quivering “How could you
forget?” still sears your conscience. Your parents’ hurt feelings
evolved into anger. They think you just didn’t care enough about
them to remember such an important day. Rather than thinking
that there might be an explanation for why you forgot their impor-
tant day, they blame you for your thoughtlessness. Although they
certainly have a right to be upset, their assuming that you don’t
care about them is an example of what researchers call a funda-
mental attribution error.
A fundamental attribution error occurs when a person
blames a problem on something that is personally controllable
(such as forgetting an important date because you don’t care
about your parents) rather than something uncontrollable
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(losing your personal digital assistant and having no back-up This driver may be making a fundamental attribution
system to remind you of the event).40 Stated simply: We are error—assuming that the other person’s behavior was
likely to think that a person’s behavior is influenced by his or under her control, when in fact it may not have been.

her actions and choices rather than by external causes. We assume that people are
responsible for their own actions. For example, the fundamental attribution error
would predict that you’re more likely to assume that the person who cuts you off
in traffic is a jerk rather than to assume he’s trying to get out of the way of the
truck that’s tailgating him. If you assume another person made a conscious choice
to hurt you instead of considering that there may be other reasons for the person’s
behavior that are beyond the person’s control, you’ve made a fundamental attribu-
tion error. You can avoid making a fundamental attribution error by honestly
examining your role in the communication process. There is also evidence that the
more empathic or other-oriented we are, the less likely we are to blame the other
person for any problem or mistake.41 For example, if we can empathize with
someone over the recent death of a loved one or a recent divorce, we may “cut that
person some slack” and excuse behavior that otherwise might strike us as rude or
self-centered. When you’ve made a mistake about a person’s behavior, admit it.
You can enhance the quality of your relationships when you own up to making
perceptual errors.

We Avoid Responsibility
People are more likely to save face by believing that they are not the cause of a problem;
people assume that other people or events are more than likely the source of problems or
events that may put them in an unfavorable light. In one classic episode of The Simp-
sons, Bart Simpson created a popular catch phrase by saying, “I didn’t do it” when he
clearly was the cause of a calamity. Whether it was lighting Lisa’s hair on fire, calling
Moe’s tavern asking for Al Coholic, or putting baby Maggie on the roof, Bart would
simply say, “I didn’t do it.” We chuckle at Bart’s antics and would never stoop to such
juvenile pranks. Yet there is evidence that when we do cause a problem or make a mis-
take, we are more likely to blame someone else rather than ourselves. Bart’s “I didn’t
self-serving bias Tendency to do it” approach to life represents self-serving bias.
perceive our own behavior as more When we avoid taking responsibility for our own errors and mistakes, we are
positive than others’ behavior. guilty of what researchers call the self-serving bias. Self-serving bias is the tendency to

Assuming the Best or the Worst About

Building Your Skills
Others: Identifying Alternative Explanations

Do you give people the benefit of the doubt when they do some- • A customer service person promising your car would be
thing that irritates you or make a mistake, or do you tend to fixed by 5:00 P.M., but it isn’t
assume the worst about their intentions? The fundamental attri- • A teacher being late for class
bution error is the human tendency to believe that the cause of a • A teacher not returning grades when he or she promised
problem or a personal slight is something that is within the other
• A student copying test answers from the student next to him
person’s control, rather than external to the person. This ten-
dency to blame others rather than considering that there may be • A sales clerk ignoring you when you need assistance
an alternative explanation for a problem or a behavior can result • A friend not remembering your birthday
in developing a judgmental, negative attitude toward others. For Now go back and generate several additional possible explana-
each of the following, think about what your first explanation was tions for each behavior. How can you be sure which explanation
when the event happened to you: is accurate? How often do you commit the fundamental attribu-
• A person not calling back after a first date tion error? How often do you give someone the benefit of the
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• A server giving you lousy service doubt?

perceive our own behavior as more positive than others’ behavior. Sociologist Erving
Goffman was one of the first to note this tendency when he wrote his classic book The
Preservation of Self in Everyday Life.42 As the title of Goffman’s book reveals, we work
hard to preserve our own selves. We strive to preserve not only our physical existence,
but our psychological health as well. We sometimes may try to preserve a positive
image of ourselves by not taking responsibility for our mistakes and by telling our-
selves that we are skilled and effective. We are likely, for example, to attribute our own
personal success to our hard work and effort rather than any to external, uncontrol-
lable causes. You get an A on your anthropology paper because, you think, “I’m
smart.” When you get an F on your history paper, it’s because your neighbor’s loud
party kept you up all night and you couldn’t study. Self-serving bias is the tendency to
take credit for the good things that happen to you and to say “I didn’t do it” or “It’s
not my fault” when bad things happen to you.43 Simply being aware of the self-serving
bias may help you become more objective and accurate in identifying the causes of
calamities in your own life.

RECAP Barriers to Accurate Interpersonal Perception

Ignoring Information We don’t focus on important information because we give too much weight to obvious and superficial
information.
Stereotyping We allow our pre-existing rigid expectations about others to influence our perceptions.
Imposing Consistency We overestimate the consistency and constancy of others’ behavior.
Focusing on the Negative We give more weight to negative information than to positive information.
Blaming Others by Assuming We are more likely to believe that others are to blame when things go wrong than to assume that the
They Have Control cause of the problem was beyond their control.
Avoiding Responsibility We save face by believing that other people, not ourselves, are the cause of problems; when things go
right, it’s because of our own skills and abilities rather than help from others.

How to Improve Interpersonal

Perception Skills
With so many barriers to perceiving and interpreting other people’s behavior accu-
rately, what can you do to improve your perception skills? Increasing your awareness
of the factors that lead to inaccuracy will help initially, and you will find additional
suggestions in this section. Ultimately, your improvement will depend on your will-
ingness to expand your experiences, to communicate about your perceptions with
others, and to seek out and consider others’ perceptions of you. Realize that you have
had a lifetime to develop these barriers and that it will take time, commitment, and
effort to overcome their effects.

Be Aware of Your Personal Perception Barriers

Don’t get the idea that you (and everybody else) are automatically doomed to enact
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the various perception barriers that we’ve described. We presented them so that you
can spot them and work to minimize them as you form impressions of and interact
with others. But before you can minimize these perception barriers, you need to be

aware of which ones are most likely to affect you. Go back over the descriptions of
the perception barriers and identify those that you’ve found yourself doing most
often. Specifically, which of the barriers are you most susceptible to? Do you tend to
ignore information, to think in terms of stereotypes, or to blame others as your first
response? After identifying the barrier or barriers that you most often encounter, it
may be helpful to think of a specific situation in which you perceived someone else
inaccurately. What could you have done differently to gain additional information
before drawing an inaccurate conclusion? Although making perceptual errors is a
natural human tendency, by being aware of these barriers you can be on the lookout
for them in your own interactions with others and more actively work to minimize
their impact.

Be Mindful of the Behaviors That Create

Meaning for You
To be mindful is to be conscious of what you are doing, thinking, and sensing at
any given moment. In Chapter 2 we noted that you are sometimes unconsciously
incompetent—you may not even realize when you are making a perceptual error. A
way to increase your perceptual accuracy is to make an effort to be less on “auto-
matic pilot” when making judgments of others and more aware of the conclusions
that you draw. The opposite of being mindful is to be mindless—not attuned to
what is happening to you. Have you ever walked into a room and then forgotten
why you were going there? (Trust us: If this hasn’t happened to you, it will happen
as you get older.) Or have you ever misplaced your keys, even though you just had
them in your hand minutes earlier? How could you forget what you were directly
experiencing just moments ago? The answer is, you were mindless rather than
mindful. We sometimes aren’t paying attention to what we are doing. When you
interact with others, try to identify one new thing to focus on and observe each
time. Watch gestures, eyes, the wrinkles around eyes, foot movements; listen to
tone of voice. Try to notice as much detail as possible, but keep the entire picture
mindful Conscious of what you are
in view, being mindful of what you are observing.
doing, thinking, and sensing at any Just by reading this chapter, you’ve gained greater understanding of how the per-
given moment. ception process affects your relationships with others. Use your knowledge of the per-
ceptual process to sharpen your own perceptions and conclusions. Here are additional
strategies to help you become a more accurate perceiver.
BEING Other-ORIENTED
Being willing not only to accept Link Details with the Big Picture
criticism from others but also
to seek it can enhance a rela- Any skilled detective knows how to take a small piece of information or evidence and
tionship, if both people are use it to reach a broader conclusion. Skilled perceivers keep the big picture in mind as
sensitive when sharing and lis-
tening. Can you think of criti- they look for clues about a person. Just because someone may dress differently from
cism that a close friend or you, or have a pronounced accent, don’t rush to judgment about the person based on
family member has shared with such few snatches of information. Look and listen for other cues about your new
you that strengthened the qual- acquaintance that can help you develop a more accurate understanding of who that
ity of your relationship with that
person? Have you heard criti- person is. Try not to use early information to form a quick or rigid judgment that may
cism that caused a relationship be inaccurate. Look at all the details you’ve gathered.
to deteriorate? What kind of
shared information makes a
relationship stronger? What Become Aware of Others’ Perceptions of You
ISBN 0-558-82929-5

kinds of criticism may be dam-

aging to a relationship? The best athletes don’t avoid hearing criticism and observations from their coaches.
Instead, they seek out as much feedback as they can about what they are doing right

and wrong. It is difficult to be objective about our own

behavior, so feedback from others can help us with our
self-perceptions. The strongest relationships are those in
which the partners are willing both to share their percep-
tions and to be receptive to the perceptions of the other.

Check Your Perceptions

Throughout this chapter we’ve encouraged you to be
more mindful of your communication with others. It
may seem like we’re expecting you to be a mind
reader—to just look at someone and know precisely
what he or she is thinking. Mind reading may be a good
circus act, but it’s not a well-documented way of
enhancing your perception of others. What does seem
to work is to check your perceptions of others.
You can check out the accuracy of your perceptions
and attributions in two ways: indirectly and directly.
Indirect perception checking involves seeking additional Do you think this woman is using direct perception checking,
information through passive perception, either to confirm indirect perception checking, or a combination of the two?
or to refute your interpretations. If you suspect someone is
angry at you but is not admitting it, for example, you could look for more cues in his or
her tone of voice, eye contact, and body movements to confirm your suspicion. You
could also listen more intently to the person’s words and language.
Direct perception checking involves asking straight out whether your interpreta-
tion of what you perceive is correct. Asking someone to confirm a perception shows indirect perception checking
that you are committed to understanding his or her behavior. If your friend’s voice Seeking through passive perception
sounds weary and her posture is sagging, you may assume that she is depressed or such as observing and listening
additional information to confirm
upset. If you ask, “I get the feeling from your tone of voice and the way you’re acting or refute interpretations you are
that you are kind of down and depressed; what’s wrong?” your friend can then either making.
provide another interpretation: “I’m just tired; I had a busy week”; or expand on your
direct perception checking
interpretation: “Yeah, things haven’t been going very well. . . .” Your observation Asking for confirmation from the
might also trigger a revelation: “Really? I didn’t realize I was acting that way. I guess I observed person of an interpretation
am a little down.” or a perception about him or her.

Become Other-Oriented BEING Other-ORIENTED

Effective interpersonal perception depends on the ability to understand where others Being other-oriented may
sound like a simple set of
are coming from, to get inside their heads, to see things from their perspectives. techniques that can solve all
Becoming other-oriented involves a two-step process: social decentering relationship problems. But it’s
(consciously thinking about another’s thoughts and feelings) and empathizing not that simple. And we don’t
(responding emotionally to another’s feelings).44 What does your boss think and feel claim that if you are other-
when you arrive late for work? What would your spouse think and feel if you brought a oriented, all your relational
challenges will melt away. Can
dog home as a surprise gift? Throughout this book we offer suggestions for becoming you think of situations in which
other-oriented, for reminding yourself that the world does not revolve around you. you believed you were being
Being other-oriented enables you to increase your understanding of others and other-oriented, yet the
improve your ability to predict and adapt to what others do and say. relationship continued to
To improve your ability to socially decenter and to empathize, strive for two key experience turbulence and
challenges? What are the
ISBN 0-558-82929-5

goals: (1) Gather as much information as possible about the circumstances that are limitations of being other-
affecting the other person; and (2) gather as much information as possible about the oriented?
other person.

How to More Accurately Perceive

Communication and Emotion
the Emotions of Others

One barrier to effective interpersonal How can we improve our ability to Besides using perception checking,
communication is inaccurately perceiving accurately perceive what others may feel it’s useful to keep the following principles
the emotional expressions of others. Mis- or express? One way is to use the per- in mind when trying to accurately perceive
reading someone’s emotional response ception checking skills we’ve presented. others’ emotions.
can impede effective and appropriate You can try the indirect perception check-
• Seek to interpret someone’s emotion
communication with that person. If, for ing approach by simply withholding your
by considering the overall context of
example, you think your friend is angry interpretation until you spend more time
the communication.
with you because of something that you observing your partner. Or you can use
• Don’t consider just one bit of behav-
did, when in reality, he is upset because direct perception checking. Rather than
ior, such as only facial expression or
of his poor performance on a test, your trying to read someone’s mind and make
only tone of voice; look for a variety of
misattribution of your friend’s emotion an assumption about what the person
cues, both spoken and unspoken, to
could create relational turbulence may be feeling, you can check your per-
increase the accuracy of your percep-
between the two of you. Inaccurately ceptions directly by asking that person
tion of your partner’s emotions.
jumping to conclusions, either about what what she or he is feeling.
• Consider how your partner has
emotion someone may be experiencing or
• Step one is to observe what someone responded to information and events
about the cause of that emotion, reduces
is expressing nonverbally (the per- in the past to help you interpret emo-
communication effectiveness.
son’s facial expression, tone of voice, tional responses.
In this chapter we’ve discussed the
movement, posture, and gestures).
role of attribution theory as a framework Being conscious of attribution theory,
for understanding how we interpret the • Step two is to make a mindful guess effectively using perception checking skills,
behavior of others, including emotional as to what the person may be feeling. and being mindful of general strategies for
expression. Attribution theory explains But don’t stop there. accurately interpreting emotions can help
why we may think someone is angry, • Step three is to ask a question to enhance the quality of your interpretations
upset, frustrated, or delighted because of check whether your impression is of the emotional expressions of others.
something we said or did. accurate.

APPLYING AN OTHER-ORIENTATION
to Interpersonal Perception
We continue to stress the importance someone (whether you’re interview- • What might the other person be
of considering the thoughts and feeling the person for a job or thinking feeling right now?
ings of others as a way to enhance about asking the person out on a • What other possible explanations
the quality of our interpersonal rela- date), consider these questions: could there be for the person’s
tionships. When forming impressions actions?
• What factors or circumstances
of others and striving to perceive • What would I be thinking if I were
are affecting the other person
them accurately, it’s especially in the same situation as this
right now?
important to consider what the other person?
• How can I determine whether
person may be thinking and feeling.
there are factors I don’t know • How would I be feeling if I were
To help you become more other-
about or don’t fully understand in the same situation as this
oriented, we offer several questions
about the other person? Should I person?
you could ask yourself. You don’t
ask specific questions? • What would most other people
need to ponder each question every
• What do I know about this person think if they were in that situation?
ISBN 0-558-82929-5

time you meet someone new—that

would be unrealistic. But in situations that explains his or her behaviors? • How would most other people
in which it’s especially important • What might be going on in the feel if they were in that situation?
to form an accurate impression of other person’s mind right now?

Interpersonal Communication: Relating to Others, Sixth Edition, by Steven A. Beebe, Susan J. Beebe and Mark V. Redmond. Published by Allyn & Bacon.
Copyright © 2011 by Pearson Education, Inc.
STUDY GUIDE
Review, Apply, and Explore
Understanding Interpersonal How We Form Impressions
Perception of Others and Interpret Their
(pages 62–66) Behaviors
Interpersonal perception is a fundamental element of interper- (pages 67–73)
sonal communication. It is the process by which you decide Our perceptions and the impressions we form of others affect
what people are like and give meaning to their actions, includ- how we communicate with them, and their perceptions of us
ing selecting information about them and forming impressions affect the way they interact and communicate with us. Attribu-
about their personalities and behavior. We select information, tion theory, standpoint theory, and intercultural communica-
make judgments, organize, and create categories to help us tion theory offer perspectives on how to make sense of what we
make sense of what we observe and interpret what we see, hear, perceive.
and experience.
Key Terms
Key Terms Impressions 67 Recency effect 69
Perception 62 Selective recall 64 Impression formation theory 67 Halo effect 69
Interpersonal perception 62 Thin slicing 64 Passive perception 67 Horn effect 69
Selective perception 63 Superimpose 65 Active perception 68 Attribution theory 70
Selective attention 63 Punctuation 65 Implicit personality theory 68 Causal attribution theory 71
Selective exposure 63 Closure 66 Construct 68 Standpoint theory 71
Uncertainty reduction theory 68 Culture 73
Critical Thinking Questions Primacy effect 68
1. Describe your current environment. What is going on
around you at the moment? Is there noise in the room? Critical Thinking Questions
Noise outside the room? What do you see? What can you 1. Describe a recent situation in which your first impression of
smell? Are you being distracted by technology—TV, radio, someone turned out to be inaccurate. What led you to form
iPod, cell phone, etc.? Are there other people around? this initial impression? What were your initial perceptions?
What are you attending to most closely? What sensory What then led you to change those perceptions?
input are you selecting? Are you perceiving other things
2. Think of a recent interaction with a friend, family mem-
that you are able to ignore or tune out? Explain.
ber, or work colleague in which you interpreted the
2. Do you ever “people watch”? If so, do you find that you person’s behavior incorrectly. Did you attribute specific
thin slice, or make judgments about the people you are motives to the person’s behavior? What led you to
observing? What cues do you tend to focus on? ascribe these motives? What was the outcome of the
exchange?
Activities
Find a magazine ad or illustration, a photograph, or a painting
Activities
that shows a group of people, and bring it to class. In groups of
four or five, pass around the pictures. For each picture, write Pair up with someone in class whom you do not know and with
down a few words to describe your perceptions of what you see. whom you have not interacted before. Without saying anything
What are the people doing? What is their relationship to one to each other, write down ten words that you think apply to the
another? What is each person like? How is each person feeling? other person. Now chat together for five minutes. On a separate
Why are they doing what they are doing? After you have fin- section of your paper, write down any additional words that
ished, share what you wrote with the others in your group. Try you believe apply to the person; you can also go back and cross
to determine why people’s descriptions of what they saw dif- out any of the words in the first list that you now think don’t
fered. What factors influenced your perceptions? apply. Share both lists of words with each other. Discuss the
reasons each of you chose each word.
Web Resources
http://novaonline.nv.cc.va.us/eli/spd110td/interper/siteindex Barriers to Accurate Interpersonal
.html Learn more about the perception process at this site; Perception
explore how the way you make sense out of the world affects
(pages 73–79)
the way you communicate with others.
ISBN 0-558-82929-5

Each person sees the world from his or her own unique perspec-
http://lynn_meade.tripod.com/id38.htm Visit this site and explore tive. That perspective is clouded by a number of distortions or
the meaning of self-concept and perception while gaining barriers that contribute to inaccurate interpersonal perceptions.
knowledge about yourself through an assortment of tests. One of the primary and most common barriers is stereotyping,
83

the tendency to attribute certain qualities to someone because of How to Improve Interpersonal
the person’s membership in a particular category. We tend to Perception Skills
ignore information that doesn’t mesh with our preconceived (pages 79–82)
notions. We may also overgeneralize, focus on negative infor-
mation, or avoid responsibility for a problem in our interaction Despite the barriers to perceiving and interpreting others’
or communication with another person. behavior accurately, there are a number of things you can do to
improve your perception skills. The first step is to be aware of
Key Terms these barriers and mindful of what you are doing, thinking,
Stereotype 74 Fundamental attribution sensing, and observing. Other strategies to improve the accu-
Social identity model of error 77 racy of your perceptions include
deindividuation effects Self-serving bias 78
(SIDE) 75 ● Linking details and clues about a person with the big pic-
ture.
Critical Thinking Questions ● Becoming aware of others’ perceptions of you.
1. What do you think contributes to the tendency to perceive ● Checking your perceptions directly and indirectly.
others inaccurately? How might the effects of those factors ● Becoming other-oriented.
be minimized or eliminated?
2. Think about some of your recent interpersonal conflicts. Key Terms
How would you describe your perception of the problem Mindful 80
in each conflict? How do you think the others would Indirect perception checking 81
describe their perceptions of the problem? What role did Direct perception checking 81
perception play in contributing to or resolving the conflict?
3. Choose several “friends” from Facebook or another social Critical Thinking Questions
networking site—people you don’t know well but who 1. Describe a recent communication exchange in which you
have nonetheless “friended” you. What impressions do you needed to be other-oriented. How did you “step back” to
have of these people? Do you tend to place them into a cat- understand what the other person was thinking and feel-
egory based on their profile information, wall posts, or ing? Did you express empathy? Explain how you did so.
photos? What factors lead you to categorize them in this 2. Ethics: If you are aware of how you are distorting your own
way? Are your perceptions positive or negative? What attri- perceptions and attributions, should you try to change? Are
bution errors might you be making? people morally obligated to perceive others accurately?
4. Ethics: Do you have a right in an intimate relationship to Explain your reasoning.
expect your partner to share his or her perceptions of you,
whether those perceptions are positive or negative? Explain Activities
your reasoning. Think of a person in your life whose recent behavior and/or
communication has puzzled or angered you. Put yourself in the
Activities person’s place and analyze why he or she is behaving in this way.
Make a list to share with classmates of between five and ten List the questions you need to ask yourself to help understand
stereotypes of different groups or categories of people. Com- your perceptions and determine whether these perceptions are
pare and contrast your list and your classmates’ lists. What fac- accurate. What perception-checking steps do you need to take?
tors contribute to the forming of these stereotypes? What, specifically, do you need to do to adjust your perceptions
Ask a classmate to make a list of adjectives that he or she and have more effective communication with this person?
would use to describe you. Then discuss with the classmate how
many of these characteristics are based on stereotypes. How Web Resources
many are based on other perceptual barriers such as lack of http://www.selfgrowth.com/index.html This is a site devoted to
information? personal growth, self-improvement, and self-help. You can also
sign up to receive a free newsletter.
Web Resources http://sds.hss.cmu.edu/risk Make better decisions by under-
https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/ At this site you standing the domain in which they take place. The Center for
can test your implicit attitudes to explore prejudices and Risk Perception and Communication will help you measure
stereotypes that you might have. perceptions and evaluate communication.
ISBN 0-558-82929-5

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Interpersonal Communication and Perception: Objectives

Uploaded by

Interpersonal Communication and Perception: Objectives

Uploaded by

Interpersonal

Describe the relationship between interpersonal

6 Offer five suggestions for improving interpersonal

What you see and what you L

organize the information into some category that is rec-

permission of Universal Press Syndicate. All rights reservd.

We Perceive and Remember Selectively. Why do we select certain

Baptists. Who attends a Democratic Party convention? Democrats. If you perceive

selective recall Process that

then making a generalization about ception, organizing.

We Create Categories. After we perceive certain stimuli, we

We Link Categories. Once we have created categories, we link them together

We Seek Closure. Another way we organize information is by seeking clo-

RECAP The Interpersonal Perception Process

How We Form Impressions

ers either passively or actively. that occurs without conscious

documented in a famous study conducted by Solomon Asch.10 Individuals were asked

We Emphasize What Comes Last: The Recency Effect

We Generalize Positive Qualities to Others:

We Generalize Negative Qualities to Others:

people, there is no such thing as “constructive criticism.” Like a sunburned sun-

How We Interpret the Behavior

We Attribute Motives to Others’ Behavior:

RECAP How We Organize and Interpret Interpersonal Perceptions

We Draw on Our Own Cultural Background:

Barriers to Accurate Interpersonal

culture Learned system of

details. We have all been victims of these kinds of attributions,

We Focus on the Negative

We Blame Others, Assuming They Have Control fundamental attribution error

Assuming the Best or the Worst About

• A server giving you lousy service doubt?

RECAP Barriers to Accurate Interpersonal Perception

How to Improve Interpersonal

Be Aware of Your Personal Perception Barriers

Be Mindful of the Behaviors That Create

kinds of criticism may be dam-

and wrong. It is difficult to be objective about our own

Check Your Perceptions

Become Other-Oriented BEING Other-ORIENTED

How to More Accurately Perceive

time you meet someone new—that

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