Interpretation of the Surroundings - Assignment Example

Behavioural studies Defining Perception Considering scientific psychology, perception is the procedure of obtaining, understanding, selecting and then arranging the sensory input (Perception, 2007). Perception produces consequential understanding of the happenings that are taking place around us and assists in reacting to such events. There are a number of Philosophers who argue on the fact that perception contains one's interpretation of the surroundings. It consists of the complete analysis and understanding of the environmental stimuli - something that influences an action, along with the responses that take place to those stimuli (Perception, 2007). Perception comprised of four determinants. Firstly, the sensory data, that includes the past recollections and knowledge along with the present situations and surroundings. Secondly, neural mechanisms of the senses, that are genetically produced. Thirdly, the unfinished and unclear information; and lastly, the motivational conditions of a person, his needs and wants that have an influence on the concentration levels. Basically perception is to extort the sensory data and information from the environment and arrange it into steady, organized percept. A percept is what we experience as a result of perceiving. Consider a situation in which you are walking in a garden and as you move you feel and notice that your surrounding images are continuously changing, in such circumstances you know that the objects around you are in a state of rest and only you are moving. Difference between Sensation and Perception Sensation involves judgement. It is the process in which sensory receptors create neural impulses that helps in identifying different feelings in the eyes, nose, ears, tongue and other parts of the body. Perception deals with the processing of the sensory information that is gained by experiencing the outside world. It is impossible to separate sensation with perception because both are the elements of a continuous perception process (Lindsay et al, 1977, p.1). The process of perception is break up into three phases; first being sensation, second is perceptual process and the third is detection and identification of different objects. The whole of this procedure acts in such a way that in our every day lives it seems to be a single process, even when the stages differ a lot. "The role of perception is to make sense of sensation", (Zimbardo et al., 1997, p. 177). Basically it organizes sensation into meaningful patterns. Moreover, it also helps in knowing and analyzing the world where we live in and a place where we experience a lot of different situations in our routine lives. Dimensions of Social Perception Social Perception is the sequence of related processes in which a person interprets and understands the world and people around with the help of available information. We see people making variety of judgments for different things but they are unaware that these conclusions are not true for all situations even the experts are at times unable to identify what is right and what is wrong. In our society, when we make perceptions about people around us, we remain unsure of the reality and such false perceptions persist and prevail for a long time. In social perception, the behaviour of a person is taken into consideration and on that, based the inference and supposition for his intentions and motives. People make important decisions on the basis of social perception which is very biased in for every field. Whether we consider the population of a country or students in a particular school, using social perception and its dimensions is an incorrect method of analysis and testing (Social Perception, 2007, p.1). Attribution Attribution is the methodology of connecting behaviour to its effects and causes which are purposes, characteristics, nature and actions that depict the reasons for people behaving in such a way. It tells and explains us the ways everyone acts and performs their tasks in various conditions. Basically the developed understanding and sensing of different activities is not 100 percent accurate because one can not simply judge completely what the other is trying to do or act. Such thoughts and considerations are at times very biased, still they are systematic and in a perceived order. We can consider the fact that majority of us overrate the personal characteristics like ability, ethics and principles and under estimate the conditional causes like type of job, compensation packages, country's economy, employment, literacy etc. These situations get more complicated when an individual's nature is involved. The understanding of a person varies significantly. When a person acts in a way which is not acceptable and expected of him, then others think and consider that act, to be an intentional one, to irritate the other person and to make him unhappy. Basically the analysis of a situation for everyone remains same, but the causes and purposes change drastically. Halo effect Halo effect is an effect that explains the results of perceived behaviour, in which positive attributes in a particular thing are perceived as attributes for all the concerned things. We can simply say that halo effect is mainly a biasness caused by observer effect. With this I mean to say, that when a person considers and concentrates on a specific trait and develops a particular understanding for that, then the related traits which are apparently different becomes similar. This halo effect is also included in Kelley's implicit personality theory. In this theory one personality characteristic is considered and identified in a person and then the perception and judgment for that characteristic influences others. Usually when we see good looking and attractive people we perceive mostly positive traits and attributes of their personality which is not always true and when we notice dull faces we think of traits depending on the understanding that we have developed, in accordance with their appearance (Halo effect, 2007, p.1). Stereotyping Stereotyping is the process of interpreting similar traits for a group of people. When we need to cut down the workload or simplify some tasks, we divide the people into teams and groups for simplification of the job. We usually do this by stereotyping people of the same traits and attributes. This process helps us in grouping people according to their characteristics but often the judgments are wrong and negative. In addition to it, stereotyping can be done on the basis of ethnicity, gender, age, location etc. Study revealed that Americans are considered as intelligent people, Italians are perceived as artistic, and similarly Jews are termed as shrewd and clever. Moreover, we notice that people often stereotype according to sex. Males are treated as more independent and strong character of our society as compared to women who are considered as sensitive, independent and highly emotional (Social Perception, 2007). Bibliography Halo effect. 2007. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_effect 16th March 2007. Lindsay, P. & Norman, Donald A. 1977. Human Information Processing: An Introduction to Psychology. http://www1.sapdesignguild.org/resources/optical_illusions/intro_definition.html 16th March 2007. Perception. 2007. Wilipedia: The Free Encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perception 17th March 2007. Social Perception. 2007. Psychology Portal. http://www.sesd.sk.ca/psychology/Psych20/Topics/social_perception.htm 16th March 2007. Zimbardo, Philip G. & Weber, Ann L. 1997. Psychology. Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Read More