3.4.4 Checking Your Perception

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Checking Your Perception

The final way to improve your perception is, as Malcolm X put it, to “rearrange your thought-patterns” and “toss aside previous conclusions” when they prove to be wrong. This is accomplished through perception-checking, a five-step process in which you apply all that you’ve learned in this chapter to your perception of others.

  1. Check your punctuation. People punctuate encounters in different ways, often disagreeing on “who/what started it” or “who/what ended it.” This kind of disagreement is common during interpersonal conflicts. When you experience a conflict, be aware of your own punctuation and keep in mind that other people may see things differently. Remember to ask others to share their punctuation with you.
  2. Check your knowledge. Your perception of others is only as accurate as the information you have in your schemata. Never presume that you know the “truth” about what others “really” mean or what they’re “really” like. When in doubt, ask others to explain their meaning to you.
  3. Check your attributions. Avoid the common temptation to attribute others’ communication and behavior exclusively to internal causes such as character or personality. Question any internal attributions you make. Remember that all behavior—including interpersonal communication—stems from a complex combination of internal and external forces.
  4. Check perceptual influences. Reflect on how culture, gender, and personality are shaping your perception of others. Are you perceiving others as ingroupers or outgroupers? If so, on what basis? How is this perception affecting your communication? Your relationships?
  5. Check your impressions. Reflect on your impressions as you’re forming them. If you find yourself making Gestalts, realize that your Gestalts may bias your perception of subsequent information you learn about a person. Resist stereotyping but also realize that it’s difficult to avoid, given the natural human tendency to categorize people into groups upon first meeting. Strive to create flexible impressions, thoughtfully weighing new information you learn about a person and reshaping your overall impression based on new data.

Perception-checking is an intense mental exercise. Mastering it takes time and effort, but the ability to critically check your own perception goes, as Malcolm X wrote, “hand in hand with every form of intelligent search for truth,” whether the truth is personal, interpersonal, or universal. When you routinely perception-check, errors are corrected and perception becomes more accurate, balanced, and objective. As a result, you will make fewer communication blunders, and you will be able to tailor your communication to people as they really are, making your messages more sensitive and effective. The ultimate result will also be perceptual: others seeing you as a competent communicator.