Interpersonal Communication 210

Define self-concept and discuss how we develop our self-concept.

Our self-concept is the overall idea of who we think we are. It is developed through our interactions with others and through social comparison that allows us to compare our beliefs and behaviors to others.

Define self-esteem and discuss how we develop self-esteem.

Our self-esteem is based on the evaluations and judgments we make about various characteristics of our self-concept. It is developed through an assessment and evaluation of our various skills and abilities, known as self-efficacy, and through a comparison and evaluation of who we are, who we would like to be, and who we should be (self-discrepancy theory)

Recognize the roles that culture and personality play in the perception of others

Cultural identities such as race, gender, sexual orientation, class, ability, nationality, and age all affect the perceptions that we make about basic sensory info such as sounds and smells as well as larger concepts such as marriage and privacy. despite the fact that much popular knowledge claims that women and men communicate very differently, communication processes for each gender are more similar than different

Discuss how the primacy and recency effects relate to first and last impressions.

First and last impressions are powerful forces in the perceptiion process. The primacy effect is a perceptual tendency to place more importance on initioal impressions than later impressions, the recency effect is the perceptual tendency to place more importance on the most recent impressions over earlier impressions.

Explain two common perceptual errors: The fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias.

Fundamental attribution error refers to our tendency to overattribute other peoples behaviors to internal rather than external causes Self-serving bias refers to our tendency to overattribute our successes to internal factors and overattribute our failures to ecternal factors.

Discuss how salience influences the selection of perceptual information

Given the massive amounts of stimuli taken in by our senses, we only selsect a portion of the incoming information to organize and interpret. we select info. based on salience. We tend to find salient things that are visually or aurally stimulating and things that meet our needs and interests. Expectations also influence what info we select.

Personality

Personality affects perception in many ways. our personality traits which are our underlying and enduring morivations for thinking and behaving the way we do, affect how we see others and ourselves. we use observed and implied personality traits to from impressions of others, which then influence how we act toward them.

discuss how physical and environmental factors influence perception

Physical and enviornmental cues such as clothing, grooming, attractiveness, and material objects influence the impressions that we form of people.

Define self-presentation and discuss common self-presentation strategies.

Self-presentation refers to the process of strategically concealing and/or revealing personal information in order to influence others' perceptions. Prosocial self-presentation is intended to benefit others and selfserving self-presentation is intended to benefit the self at the expense of others. People also engage in selfenhancement, which is a self-presentation strategy by which people intentionally seek out positive evaluations.

Discuss how social norms, family, culture, and media influence self-perception

Social comparison theory and self-discrepancy theory affect our self-concept and self-esteem because through comparison with others and comparison of our actual, ideal, and ought selves we make judgments Interpersonal Communications Textbook 77 about who we are and our self-worth. These judgments then affect how we communicate and behave

Explain how social comparison theory and self-discrepancy theory influence self-perception

Social comparison theory and self-discrepancy theory affect our self-concept and self-esteem because through comparison with others and comparison of our actual, ideal, and ought selves we make judgments Interpersonal Communications Textbook 77 about who we are and our self-worth. These judgments then affect how we communicate and behave

Discuss how social norms, family, culture, and media influence self-perception.

Socializing forces like family, culture, and media affect our self-perception because they give us feedback on who we are. This feedback can be evaluated positively or negatively and can lead to positive or negative patterns that influence our self-perception and then our communication

Increasing self perception and of others

We can improve self-perception by avoiding reliance on rigid schemata, thinking critically about socializing institutions, intervening in self-fulfilling prophecies, finding supportive interpersonal networks, and becoming aware of cycles of thinking that distort our self-perception. We can improve our perceptions of others by developing empathetic listening skills, becoming aware of stereotypes and prejudice, and engaging in self-reflection. Perception checking is a strategy that allows us to monitor our perceptions of and reactions to others and communication.

Discuss the role of schemata in the interpretation of perceptual information

We interpret info using schemata, which allows us to assign meaning to info based on accumulated knowledge and previous experience.

Explain the ways in which we organize perceptual information

We organize info that we select into patterns based on proximity, similarity, and difference

Differentiate between internal and external attributions

We use attributions to interpret perceptual info specifically, peoples behavior. Internal attributions connect behavior to internal characteristics such as personality traits. External attributions connect behavior to external characteristics such as situational factors.

Explain the halo and the horn effect.

the halo effect describes a perceptual effect that occurs when intitial positive impressions lead us to view later interactions as positive. the horn effect describes a perceptual effet that occurs when initial negative impressions lead us to view later interactions as negative.

Define Perception

the process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting information. This process affects our communication becasue we respond to stimuli differently, whether they are objects or persons, based on how we perceive them.