The Interpersonal Communication Book

Joseph A. Devito

Perception, Attitude &

Behaviour
Chapter 3
Chapter Objectives
3.1 Compare between perception and
Interpersonal perception
3.2 Interpersonal perception and interpersonal
communication
3.3 Forming impressions of others and
interpreting others’ behavior.
3.4 Factors that influence interpersonal
perception
 What you see and what you hear depends a good
deal on where you are standing. It also depends
on what sort of person you are.

C.S. Lewis

Copyright © 2014, 2011, 2008 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
Understanding Interpersonal Perception
LO 3.1 Compare between percertion and interpersonal communication

Perception-the process by which you become

aware of objects, events in the external world
and especially people through your sences:
sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing.
Interpersonal perception-continuous series of
processes that blend into one another. We can
sparate interpersonal perception into five
stages:stimulation, organization, interpretation-
evaluation, Memory and recall

Copyright © 2014, 2011, 2008 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights

reserved.
Perception In Interpersonal
Communication
LO 3.2 Interpersonal perception and of interpersonal communication

Stage One: Stimulation-you perceive

selectively.
Stage Two: Organization-you organize the
information your senses pick up
Organization By Rules (proximity / similarity/ contrast)
Organization By Schemata – through schemas seems
to be used in many texts.
Organization By Scripts- organized body of
information about some action, event, or procedure
Perception In Interpersonal Communication
Stage Three: Interpretation–Evaluation –
influenced by your rules, schemata and scripts
as well as by your gender. Ex., women have
been found to view others more positively than
men.
Stage Four: Memory – your perceptions and
interpretation-evaluation are put into memory.
Stage Five: Recall- stage involves accessing
the information you have stored in memory
Impression Formation
LO 3.3 Formation impressions of others and interpreting others’
behaviour

Impression Formation Processes-the way in which you

perceive another person, and ultimately come to some kind of evaluation
or interpretation of this person. Your perceptions seem to be influenced
by a variety of processes.
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Personality Theory
Perceptual Accentuation
Primacy-Recency
Consistency
Attribution Of Control
Self-fulfilling prophecy—a prediction that comes true because you
act on it as if it were true, e.g., the Pygmalion effect. The four basic
steps are:
Make a prediction or formulate a belief about a person or situation.
Act toward that person or situation as if that prediction or belief were true.
Because you act as if the belief were true, it becomes true.
Observe the effect, and what you see strengthens your beliefs.
Personality theory—the system of rules that tells you which person’s
characteristics go with which other characteristics.
Halo effect—a function of the implicit personality theory. Believing a person
has some positive qualities means you’re more likely to infer that she or he
possess other positive qualities.
Reverse halo effect—if you believe a person has some negative qualities,
you’re more likely to believe they have other negative qualities.
Perceptual accentuation—you see what you expect or want to see,
or it can lead you to perceive what you need or want to perceive.
Primacy-recency
Primacy effect—what comes first exerts more influence (for
example, a first impression).
Recency effect—what comes last exerts the most influence.
Consistency—the tendency to maintain balance among
perceptions or attitudes.
Attribution of control —we tend to dislike people if
they were in control of negative behaviors. If they weren’t
in control, we tend to sympathize with them. There are
three potential attribution errors we can make when trying
to decide the motive behind behavior:
The self-serving bias—you take credit for the positive and deny
responsibility for the negative.
Overattribution—focusing on one or two characteristics of a
person and attributing everything he does to these attributes. You
almost always make a mistake when you select one factor and
attribute everything to it.
The fundamental attribution error—the tendency to overvalue the
contribution of internal factors and undervalue the contribution of
external factors.
VIEWPOINTS
Perception of the Self and Others in
Interpersonal Communication
VIEWPOINTS
Seeking Advice
Impression Formation
LO 3.4 Formation impressions of others and interpreting others’
behaviour

Increasing Accuracy in Impression Formation

Analyze Impressions
Check Perceptions
Reduce Uncertainty
Increase Cultural Sensitivity - educate yourself,
reduce uncertainty, recognize differences, confront
stereotypes, and adjust communication.
Impression Management: Goals and
Strategies
LO 3.4 Explain the impression management strategies that may help you
to be liked, to be believed, to excuse failure, to secure help, to
hide faults, to be followed, and to confirm your self-image.

To Be Liked: Affinity-Seeking and Politeness

Strategies
Affinity-Seeking Strategies
Politeness Strategies
Impression management refers to the processes we go through to
communicate the image you want others to have of you.
To Be Liked: Affinity-Seeking and Politeness Strategies
Affinity-seeking strategies increase your chance of
being liked. Strategies include being of help,
appearing enthusiastic and dynamic, listening
attentively, showing respect, and so on. This strategy,
along with any of the others can backfire and leave a
negative impression.
Politeness strategies are used to make ourselves
appear likeable, in terms of positive and negative
types. We have the need for both positive and
negative face.
a. Positive face—the desire to be viewed positively by
others, to be thought favorable.
b. Negative face—the desire to be autonomous, to have
the right to do as we wish.
VIEWPOINTS
Impression Accuracy
Impression Management: Goals and
Strategies
To Be Believed: Credibility Strategies
To Excuse Failure: Self-Handicapping
Strategies
To Secure Help: Self-Deprecating Strategies
C. To Be Believed: Credibility Strategies -
Credibility strategies seek to establish your
competence, character, and charisma without
being perceived as too eager.

To Excuse Failure: Self-Handicapping

Strategies
E. To Secure Help: Self-Deprecating
Strategies - Self-deprecating strategies—
confessions of incompetence and inability often
bring assistance, but can backfire and others
may see you as incompetent or lazy.
VIEWPOINT
Self-
Deprecating
Humor
Impression Management: Goals and
Strategies
To Hide Faults: Self-Monitoring Strategies
To Be Followed: Influencing Strategies
To Confirm Self-Image: Image-Confirming
Strategies
F. To Hide Faults: Self-Monitoring Strategies -
Self-monitoring strategies are used to suppress
the negative about ourselves, while striving to
present a positive image.
G. To Be Followed: Influencing Strategies -
Influencing strategies are used when you want
people to see you as a leader.
H. To Confirm Self-Image: Imaging
Confirming Strategies - Use image-confirming
strategies to communicate to confirm your self-
image.
VIEWPOINTS
Accents
Improving Interpersonal Perception
Skills

Be aware of your personal perception barriers

Be mindful of the behaviors that create meaning for
you
Link details with the big picture
Become aware of others’ perceptions of you
Check your perceptions
Indirect perception checking
Direct perception checking
Become other-oriented

Copyright © 2014, 2011, 2008 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights

reserved.
UTM, Mac / April 2017, Bhg A, No. 3
Identify four (4) factors that distort the accuracy
of our interpersonal perceptions.
(4 markah)

UTM, Mac/April 2017, bhg. A , no. 6

Difine a self-fulfilling prophecy. In what ways
might a self-filfilling prophecy be positive or
negative?
(10 markah)