Once you’ve selected something as the focus of your attention, you take that information and structure it into a coherent pattern inside your mind, a phase of the perception process known as organization (Fiske & Taylor, 1991). For example, imagine that a cousin is telling you about a recent visit to your hometown. As she speaks, you select certain bits of her narrative on which to focus your attention based on salience, such as a mutual friend she visited or a favorite old hangout she saw. You then organize your own representation of her story inside your head.
During organization, you engage in punctuation, structuring the information you’ve selected into a chronological sequence that matches how you experienced the order of events (Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967). To illustrate punctuation, think about how you might punctuate the sequence of events in our housemate example. You hear a noise, open your eyes, see your housemate in your room, and then hear her yelling at you. But two people involved in the same interpersonal encounter may punctuate it in very different ways. Your housemate might punctuate the same incident by noting that your ringing cell phone in the common area was disrupting her studying and, despite her efforts to get your attention, you never responded.
If you and another person organize and punctuate information from an encounter differently, the two of you may well feel frustrated with one another. Disagreements about punctuation, and especially disputes about who “started” unpleasant encounters, are a common source of interpersonal conflict (Watzlawick et al., 1967). For example, your housemate may contend that “you started it” because she told you to get your phone but you ignored her. You may believe that “she started it” because she barged into your room without knocking.
Recall a conflict in which you and a friend disagreed about “who started it.” How did you punctuate the encounter? How did your friend punctuate it? If each of you punctuated differently, how did those differences contribute to the conflict? If you could revisit the situation, what might you say or do differently to resolve the dispute?
We can avoid perceptual misunderstandings that lead to conflict by understanding how our organization and punctuation of information differ from those of other people. One helpful way to forestall such conflicts is to practice asking others to share their views of encounters. You might say, “Here’s what I saw, but that’s just my perspective. What do you think happened?”