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How we attach meaning to our experiences is the key to understanding the perception process. There are four steps described: selection, organization, interpretation, and negotiation. How we select, organize, interpret, and negotiate information about others is influenced by a variety of factors. Some perceptual judgments are affected by access to information, physiological, psychological, social, and cultural factors.
Access to information refers to what we know about others. Physiological influences on perception include differences in our senses, age, health, fatigue, hunger, biological cycles, and neurological differences. Psychological influences include our mood and self-concept. Social influences include differences in sex and gender roles as well as occupational and relational roles. Cultural influences include differences in how we view talk and silence, social obligations, thinking and logic, distribution of power, uncertainty avoidance, and achievement and nurturing.
Social scientists use the term attribution to describe the process of attaching meaning to behaviour. We attribute meaning to both our own actions and to the actions of others, but we often use different yardsticks. There are several perceptual tendencies that we use when attributing behaviour that may lead to inaccurate perceptions about ourselves and others. These include the tendencies to make snap judgments, to cling to first impressions, to judge ourselves more charitably than others, to be influenced by our expectations and the obvious, and to assume others are similar to us.
The fundamental attribution error explains the way we often blame a problem or negative aspect of someone else’s behaviour on their personal qualities, and we underestimate the impact of the situation. The self-serving bias explains the way we often blame a problem or a negative aspect of our own behaviour on the situation and underestimate the impact of our personal qualities. These biased perceptions often cause problems in communication because they restrict us from seeing other reasons for our own and others’ behaviour.
In order to perceive others more accurately we can use perception checking, which allows us to share our interpretations about others’ behaviour. It involves providing a description of the behaviour you noticed, providing two or more possible interpretations of the behaviour, and requesting clarification about how to interpret the behaviour. We can also build empathy to better judge others’ behaviour. Empathy is the ability to recreate another person’s perspective, to experience the world from his or her point of view. The three dimensions of empathy—perspective-taking, emotional contagion, and genuine concern for the well-being of others—help us to connect more meaningfully with others and withhold initial impressions.
Being empathetic towards others has been shown to increase self-esteem, offer comfort, and enable trust. In order to achieve true empathy, the following requirements are needed: open-mindedness, imagination, and commitment.