Perception is important in communication because perception affects the way we understand events, others, and ourselves.
Our perceptions are unique because of physiological factors, past experiences, culture and co-culture, and present feelings and circumstances.
During perception, three separate activities are occurring: selection, organization, and interpretation.
Through selection you neglect some stimuli in your environment and focus on others. Four types of selectivity are selective exposure, selective attention, selective perception, and selective retention.
The stimuli you focus on are organized in a number of ways—through figure and ground, closure, proximity, and similarity.
We often make errors in our perceptions of others.
We make attributional errors, including the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias.
We engage in perceptual errors such as stereotyping and first impressions.
How you perceive yourself plays a central role in communication.
Understanding yourself includes understanding your attitudes, values, beliefs, strengths, and weaknesses.
Symbolic interactionism, self-fulfilling prophecy, and self-actualization are all related to understanding yourself.
A person’s evaluation of him- or herself consists of self-image and self-esteem.
Self-image is the picture you have of yourself and involves how others see you.
Three types of feedback from others indicate how they see you: confirmation, rejection, and disconfirmation.
Self-esteem is how you feel about yourself.
You can improve your self-concept.
Identity management is the control (or lack of control) of the communication of information through a performance.
People who are high self-monitors are well aware of their identity management behavior, whereas people who are low self-monitors communicate with others with little attention to the responses to their messages.
Face is the socially approved identity an individual presents.
Facework includes the verbal and nonverbal strategies people use to present their own varying images to others and to help them maintain their own images.
Our positive face is the desire to be liked and respected; our negative face is our desire to be free from constraint and imposition. Politeness is defined as our efforts to save face for others.
