2.5 Improving Perception

So far, we have learned about the perception process and how we perceive others and ourselves. Now we will turn to a discussion of how to improve our perception. We can develop our self-perception by becoming aware of how schemata, socializing forces, self-fulfilling prophecies, and negative patterns of thinking can distort our ability to describe and evaluate ourselves. How we perceive others can be improved by developing better listening and empathetic skills, becoming aware of stereotypes and prejudice, developing self-awareness through self-reflection, and engaging in perception checking.

Improving Self-Perception

Our self-perceptions can and do change. Recall that we have an overall self-concept and self-esteem that are relatively stable, and we also have context-specific self-perceptions. Context-specific self-perceptions vary depending on the person with whom we are interacting, our emotional state, and the subject matter being discussed. Becoming aware of the process of self-perception and the various components of our self-concept will help you understand and improve your self-perceptions.

Since self-concept and self-esteem are so subjective and personal, it would be inaccurate to say that someone’s self-concept is “right” or “wrong.” Instead, we can identify negative and positive aspects of self-perceptions as well as discuss common barriers to forming accurate and positive self-perceptions. We can also identify common patterns that people experience that interfere with their ability to monitor, understand, and change their self-perceptions. Changing your overall self-concept or self-esteem is not an easy task given that these are overall reflections on who we are and how we judge ourselves that are constructed over many interactions. A variety of life-changing events can alter our self-perceptions relatively quickly. Think of how your view of yourself changed when you moved from high school to college. Similarly, other people’s self-perceptions likely change when they enter into a committed relationship, have a child, move to a new city, or start a new job.

Aside from experiencing life-changing events, we can make slower changes to our self-perceptions with concerted efforts aimed at becoming more competent communicators through self-monitoring and reflection. As you actively try to change your self-perceptions, do not be surprised if you encounter some resistance from significant others. When you alter or improve your self-concept, your communication will also change, which may prompt other people to respond to you differently. Although you may have good reasons for changing certain aspects of your self-perception, others may become unsettled or confused by the alterations in your behaviours and communication. Remember, people try to increase predictability and decrease uncertainty within personal relationships. For example, many students begin to take their post-secondary education more seriously as they progress through their diploma or degree programs. As these students begin to change their self-concept to include the role of “serious student preparing to graduate and enter the professional world,” they likely have friends who want to maintain the “semi-serious student who doesn’t exert a consistent effort and prefers partying to studying” role that used to be a shared characteristic of both students’ self-concepts. As the first student’s behaviour changes to accommodate this new aspect of their self-concept, it may upset the friend who was used to weeknights spent hanging out rather than studying. Let’s now discuss some suggestions to help avoid common barriers to accurate and positive self-perceptions and patterns of behaviour that perpetuate negative self-perception cycles.

Avoid Reliance on Rigid Schemata

As we learned earlier, schemata are sets of information based on cognitive and experiential knowledge that guide our interactions. We rely on schemata almost constantly to help us make sense of the world around us. Sometimes schemata become so familiar that we use them as scripts, which prompts mindless communication and can lead us to overlook new information that may need to be incorporated into a particular schema. So it’s important to remain mindful of new, or contradictory, information that may warrant revision of a schema. Being mindful is difficult, however, especially since we often unconsciously rely on schemata. Think about how when you’re driving a familiar route, you sometimes fall into “highway hypnosis” (Image 2.12) and travel to your destination without really thinking about where you’re going. Despite all the advanced psychomotor skills we need to drive, such as braking, turning, and adjusting to other drivers, we can pull into a familiar driveway or parking lot having driven the whole way on autopilot.

Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing, but have you ever slipped into autopilot on a familiar route only to remember that you are actually going somewhere else and you’ve already missed your turn? This example illustrates the importance of keeping our schemata flexible and avoiding mindless communication.

Be Critical of Socializing Forces

We learned earlier that family, friends, sociocultural norms, and the media are just some of the socializing forces that influence our thinking and therefore influence our self-perception. These powerful forces serve positive functions, but they can also set negative patterns of self-perception into motion. Two examples can illustrate the possibility for people to critique and resist socializing forces in order to improve their self-perception. The first example deals with physical appearance and notions of health, and the second deals with cultural identities and discrimination.

Media presents us with narrow and often unrealistic standards for attractiveness. Even though most of us know that these standards don’t represent what is normal or natural for the human body, we internalize these ideals, which results in various problems ranging from eating disorders to depression to poor self-esteem. A relatively overlooked but controversial and interesting movement that has emerged partially in response to these narrow representations of the body is “Health at Every Size” and the National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance. They have challenged the narrative put out by the $30-billion-a-year weight-loss industry that fat equals lazy, unattractive, and unhealthy. Conflicting scientific studies make it difficult to say conclusively how strong the correlation is between weight and health, but it seems clear that a view promoting healthy living and positive self-esteem over unconditional dieting and a cult of thinness is worth exploring further given the potential public health implications of distorted body image and obesity.

Cultural influences related to identities and difference can also lead to distorted self-perceptions, especially for people who occupy marginalized or oppressed identities. Although perception research has often been used to support the notion that individuals who are subjected to discrimination, such as those belonging to racial and ethnic minorities, are likely to have low self-esteem because they internalize negative societal views, this is not always the case (Armenta & Hunt, 2009). In fact, even some early perception research showed that minorities do not just passively accept the negative views that society places on them. Instead, they actively try to maintain favourable self-perceptions in the face of discriminatory attitudes. Numerous studies have shown that people in groups that are the targets of discrimination may identify with their in-group more because of this threat, which may actually help them maintain psychological well-being. In short, they reject the negative evaluations of the out-group and find refuge and support in their identification with others who share their marginalized status.

Beware of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

Self-fulfilling prophecies are thoughts and action patterns in which a person’s false belief triggers a behaviour that makes the initial false belief actually or seemingly come true (Schaedig, 2020). For example, let’s say a student’s biology lab instructor speaks English as a second language. The student falsely believes that the instructor will not be a good teacher because they speak English with an accent. Because of this belief, the student doesn’t attend class regularly and doesn’t listen actively when they do attend. Because of these behaviours, the student fails the biology lab, which then reinforces their original false belief that the instructor isn’t a good teacher.

There are two subtypes of self-fulfilling prophecies. Self-imposed prophecies, which occur when your own expectations influence your actions, and other-imposed prophecies, which occur when others’ expectations influence your behaviour (Schaedig, 2020). Being aware of self-fulfilling prophecies can also help increase self-perception.

Create and Maintain Supporting Interpersonal Relationships

Giving yourself affirming messages can help with self-perception, but it is also important to find interpersonal support. Although most people have at least some supportive relationships, many people also have individuals in their lives who are negative or even toxic. When people find themselves in negative relational cycles, whether it is with friends, family, or romantic partners, it is difficult to break out of those cycles. But we can all make choices to be around people who will help us be who we want to be and not spend time with people who hinder our self-progress. This notion can also be taken to the extreme, however. It would not be wise to surround yourself with people who only validate you and do not constructively challenge you because this, too, could lead to distorted self-perception.

Beware of Distorted Patterns of Thinking and Acting

You already know from our discussion of attribution errors that we all have perceptual biases that distort our thinking. Many of these are common, and we often engage in distorted thinking without being conscious of it. Learning about some of the typical negative patterns of thinking and acting may help us acknowledge them and intervene. One such pattern involves self-esteem and overcompensation.

People with low self-esteem may act in ways that overcompensate for their feelings of low self-worth and other insecurities. Whether it’s the businessman buying his midlife crisis Corvette, the “country boy” adding monster tires to his truck, or the community leader who wears several carats of diamonds everywhere she goes, people often turn to material possessions to try to boost self-esteem. Although these purchases may make people feel better in the short term, they may have negative financial effects that can exacerbate negative self-perception and lead to interpersonal conflict. People also compensate for self-esteem with their relational choices. People who are anxious about their career success may surround themselves with individuals who they deem less successful than themselves. In this case, being a big fish in a small pond helps some people feel better about themselves when they engage in social comparison.

People can also get into a negative thought-and-action cycle by setting unrealistic goals and consistently not meeting them. Similar to a self-fulfilling prophecy, people who set unrealistic goals can end up with negative feelings of self-efficacy, which we learned earlier can negatively affect self-esteem and self-concept. The goals we set should be challenging but progressive, meaning that we should work to meet a realistic goal, then increase our expectations and set another goal, and so on.

Some people develop low self-esteem because they lack accurate information about themselves, which can be either intentional or unintentional. A person may intentionally try to maintain high self-esteem by ignoring or downplaying negative comments and beliefs and focusing on positive evaluations. Although this can be a good thing, it can also lead to a distorted self-concept. There is a middle ground between beating yourself up or dwelling on the negative and ignoring potentially constructive feedback about weaknesses and missing opportunities to grow as a person. Conversely, people who have low self-esteem or negative self-concepts may discount or ignore positive feedback.

Overcoming Barriers to Perceiving Others

There are many barriers that prevent us from competently perceiving others. Although some are more difficult to overcome than others, they can all be addressed by raising our awareness of the influences around us and committing to monitoring, reflecting on, and changing some of our communication habits. Whether it is our lazy listening skills, our lack of empathy, or our stereotypes and prejudice, various filters and blinders influence how we perceive and respond to others.

Develop Empathetic Listening Skills

Effective listening is not easy, and most of us do not make a concerted effort to overcome common barriers to listening. This is a skill we will discuss more in a later chapter of this book. Our fast-paced lives and cultural values that emphasize speaking over listening sometimes make listening feel like a chore. But we shouldn’t underestimate the power of listening to make someone else feel better and to open our perceptual field to new sources of information.

Empathetic listening can help us expand our self- and social awareness by helping us learn from other people’s experiences and taking on different perspectives. Empathetic listening is challenging because it requires a cognitive and emotional investment that goes beyond the learning of a skillset.

For example, to be a good teacher, a person must become a better listener. As a result, the individual will also gain more empathy skills and become a lot more patient. A valuable lesson you might learn during the process might be best stated as “Everyone’s biggest problem is their biggest problem.” If one person’s biggest problem is getting enough money together to buy a new smartphone, and another person’s biggest problem is saving enough money to purchase much needed medication, each of these people is likely experiencing a similar amount of stress. As an outsider, we might look at this example and think about how a smartphone isn’t necessary to live, but the medication is. But everyone’s reality is their own, and when you can concede that someone’s reality isn’t like yours and you are okay with that, then you have overcome a significant barrier to becoming more aware of the perception process.

Empathy versus Sympathy

Empathy and sympathy are concepts that are often confused, but the difference between the two is very important. Empathy is the ability to share someone else’s feelings, experiences, or emotions (Psychiatric Medical Care Communications Team, 2023). Empathy is not easy and involves a high level of vulnerability to listen without judging others (Psychiatric Medical Care Communications Team, 2023).

Sympathy is different in that it separates you from the other person. Sympathy involves the feeling that you are sorry and care about the trouble and misfortune of another person, but it places the person struggling in a place of judgement more than understanding (Psychiatric Medical Care Communications Team, 2023). The video below by Brené Brown helps to explains the difference between these two important concepts.

(Brown, 2013)

Beware of Stereotypes and Prejudice

Stereotypes are sets of beliefs that we develop about groups, which we then apply to individuals from that group. They are schemata that are taken too far because they reduce and ignore a person’s individuality and the diversity present within a larger group of people. Stereotypes can be based on cultural identities, physical appearance, behaviour, speech, beliefs, and values, among other things, and are often caused by a lack of information about the target person or group (Schaedig, 2020). Stereotypes can be positive, negative, or neutral, but they all run the risk of lowering the quality of our communication.

While the negative effects of stereotypes are pretty straightforward in that they devalue people and prevent us from adapting and revising our schemata, positive stereotypes can also have negative consequences. For example, the “model minority” stereotype has been applied to some Asian cultures in the United States. Seemingly positive stereotypes of Asian Americans as hardworking, intelligent, and willing to adapt to “mainstream” culture are not always received as positive and can lead some people within these communities to feel objectified, ignored, or overlooked.

Stereotypes can also lead to double standards that point to larger cultural and social inequalities. There are many more words to describe a sexually active female than a male, and the words used for females are disproportionately negative, while those used for males are more positive. Since stereotypes are generally based on a lack of information, we must take it upon ourselves to gain exposure to new kinds of information and people, which will likely require us to move out of our comfort zones. When we do meet people, we should base the impressions we make on describable behaviour rather than inferred or second-hand information. When stereotypes negatively influence our overall feelings and attitudes about a person or group, prejudiced thinking results.

Prejudice is negative feelings or attitudes toward people based on their identity or identities. Prejudice can have individual or widespread negative effects. At the individual level, a hiring manager may not hire a young person with a physical disability (even though that would be illegal if it were the only reason), which negatively affects that one individual. However, if pervasive cultural thinking that people with physical disabilities are unsuitable to be employees leads hiring managers all over the country to make similar decisions, then the prejudice has become a social injustice.

Engage in Self-Reflection

A good way to improve your perceptions and increase your communication competence in general is to engage in self-reflection. If a communication encounter doesn’t go well and you want to know why, your self-reflection will be much more useful if you are aware of and can recount your thoughts and actions.

Self-reflection can also help us increase our cultural awareness. Our thought process regarding culture is often “other focused,” meaning that the culture of the other person or group is what stands out in our perception. However, the old adage “Know thyself” is appropriate, as we become more aware of our own culture by better understanding other cultures and perspectives. Developing cultural self-awareness can take us out of our comfort zones, and listening to people who are different from us is a key component in developing self-knowledge. This may be uncomfortable because our taken-for-granted or deeply held beliefs and values may become less certain when we see the multiple perspectives that exist.

We can also become more aware of how our self-concepts influence how we perceive others. We often hold other people to the same standards we hold ourselves to, or we assume that their self-concept should be consistent with our own. For example, if you consider yourself a neat, well-groomed person and think that sloppiness in your personal appearance would show that you are unmotivated, rude, and lazy, then you are likely to judge a person who doesn’t have a tidy appearance the same way. So asking questions like “Is my impression based on how this person wants to be, or how I think this person should want to be?” can lead to enlightening moments of self-reflection.

Being able to see situations from a variety of perspectives increases your cognitive complexity. Cognitive complexity involves being able to construct different frameworks and perspectives for  seeing an issue (Medvene et al., 2006). This will also help improve our empathy for others because it increases our understanding of others’ actions (Medvene et al., 2006). Asking questions about the perceptions you are making is an integral part of perception checking, which we will discuss next.

Perception checking is a strategy to help us monitor our reactions to and perceptions about people and communication. There are some internal and external strategies we can use to engage in perception checking. In terms of internal strategies, review the various influences on perception that we have learned about in this chapter and always be willing to ask yourself “What is influencing the perceptions I am making right now?” Even being aware of what influences are acting on our perceptions makes us more aware of what is happening in the perception process. In terms of external strategies, we can use other people to help verify our perceptions.

Perception checking helps us slow down the perception and communication processes and allows us to have more control over both (Interpersonal communication, 2012). Perception checking involves being able to describe what is happening in a given situation, providing multiple interpretations of events or behaviours, and asking yourself and others questions for clarification (Interpersonal communication, 2012). Some of this process happens inside our heads, and some happens through interaction. The video below summarizes the process of perception checking and provides real-world examples of its use.

(Barton Blueprint for Emotional Intelligence, 2021)

Pillow Method

The pillow method was initially developed by a group of Japanese school children and was discussed by Alders et al. (2021) in their book Look: Looking Out, Looking In. This method is beneficial when the situation is too complex for perception checking and also works to increase cognitive complexity. This tool is used to help build empathy and understanding of others and their point of view. It involves viewing a situation from five positions (four sides and a middle), similar to a pillow, and enables you to gain understanding of an issue from various perspectives:

Position 1: “I’m right, you’re wrong” – This involves seeing the benefits of your position and the faults in the other position.

Position 2: “You’re right, I’m wrong” – You find the best possible arguments for the other side’s point of view and the faults in your own position.

Position 3: “Both right, both wrong” – From this position, you find the merits and issues with both sides of the argument.

Position 4: “The issue isn’t as important as it seems” – Many issues are not as important as we feel they are. Although it may be difficult, consider how time will change how you feel about the issue and that you have possibly made the issue larger than it is.

Position 5: “There is truth in all four perspectives” – Consider the situation and the other four positions we have discussed above. At this point, it is common for people to realize that each position has some merit.

After viewing the issue or situation from all positions and perspectives, you will likely gain some insight and empathy into the situation.

(Adler et al., 2021)

As we have learned in this chapter, the perceptions that we make of others and ourselves and that others make of us affects how we communicate and act. We have had a chance to learn about the perception process, how we perceive others, and how we perceive and present ourselves. The strategies discussed above are ways we can improve our perceptions and ultimately make ourselves more competent communicators.

References

Adler, R. B., Rolls, J. A., & Proctor II, R. F., (2021). LOOK: Looking out, looking in. (4th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Armenta, B. E., & Hunt, J. S. (2009). Responding to societal devaluation: Effects of perceived personal and group discrimination on the ethnic group identification and personal self-esteem of Latino/Latina adolescents. Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, 12(1), 11–12.

Barton Blueprint for Emotional Intelligence. (2021, July 3). How to perception cCheck. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WiPreTRuWDw

Brown, B. (2013, December 10). Brene Brown on empathy [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Evwgu369Jw

Interpersonal communication. (2012). Whatcom Community College. https://textbooks.whatcom.edu/dutton210/, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0, except where otherwise noted.

Medvene, L., Grosch, K., & Swink, N. (2006). Interpersonal complexity: A cognitive component of person-centered care. The Gerontologist, 46(2), 220–226, https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/46.2.220

Psychiatric Medical Care Communications Team. (2023). The difference between empathy and sympathy. https://www.psychmc.com/blogs/empathy-vs-sympathy#:~:text=The%20Differences%20Between%20Empathy%20and%20Sympathy,-Now%20that%20we&text=Empathy%20is%20shown%20in%20how,not%20having%20the%20same%20problems

Schaedig, D. (2020). Self-fulfilling prophecy and the Pygmalion effect. https://www.simplypsychology.org/self-fulfilling-prophecy.html#:~:text=There%20are%20two%20types%20of,value%20can%20cause%20this%20prophecy

Image Credits (images are listed in order of appearance)

Driving on the road moscow russia by Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0

Science Lab LIS by TCchengdu, CC BY-SA 4.0