Perceptual side of communication
At least two people participate in communication. Each of them is active, each strives to convey their goals, intentions, moods to the other, while simultaneously trying to understand him. This process of perception and evaluation by interlocutors of each other is called perception or the perceptual component of communication, and it is extremely important for successful contact between people.
Characteristics of the perceptual side of communication
Perception, or perception of one’s interlocutor, occurs as observation and analysis of a person’s external characteristics, his behavior and gestures, intonation and manner of speaking. By tracking these manifestations, each communication partner forms a general impression of the other, delves into his motives, changes and adjusts his behavior to suit him. It turns out that thanks to the perceptual side of communication, people can understand each other, reach agreement and the ability to take any joint actions.
The perceptual aspect of communication is different in my eyes and “I” in the eyes of others
This mutual perception is not limited to just observing the other person. An important characteristic of the perceptual side of communication can be considered the fact that when evaluating a partner, a person simultaneously monitors how he treats himself: how pleasant his communication is to him, whether he shares values and attitudes, whether he agrees with the conclusions.
Therefore, during every conversation or interaction, people not only evaluate each other, but analyze the interlocutor’s reaction to their behavior and the situation as a whole - using identification and reflection techniques.
Identification is a fairly common way of perceiving others. Everyone uses it when they try to understand someone and put themselves in his place, transferring their own states and characteristics to others.
And reflection helps us find out how others treat us. Do they perceive us as worthy people, kind, smart and interesting interlocutors, or do they evaluate us negatively?
The opinion that interlocutors have about each other significantly affects the effectiveness of their interaction and future relationships. And it may turn out to be wrong.
What prevents an objective assessment?
There are several factors that can distort impressions of other people; they are called phenomena (or effects) of interpersonal perception.
Halo effect –
This is the predominance of one strong impression about a person, which is transferred to his entire personality. For example, all shortcomings may be justified or, conversely, a general unfavorable opinion will force one to perceive a person’s merits as pretense and hypocrisy.
Primacy effect –
similar to the halo effect. Only in this case, the first information about a person becomes the most memorable and important, it determines the attitude towards all his actions and is practically not subject to changes in the future.
Latest Information Effect –
gives the same result, only the most recent information about the person is taken as a basis. They can cross out the previous attitude towards him, change it to the opposite.
Projection effect –
manifests itself in the tendency of people to attribute to others their own attitudes, emotions, opinions or habits, in other words, to judge them by themselves. And if someone thinks that everyone around them is stingy, stubborn or dishonest, it’s worth thinking about why he thinks so?
Considering these phenomena and the importance of the perceptual aspect of communication, one must be attentive to both oneself and others. After all, to successfully establish contact with other people, it is important not to be mistaken in your assessments. Change them if your partner’s behavior changes, and change yourself if mutual understanding is lost.
Perceptual component
This component allows you to correctly interpret the appearance and behavior of your interlocutor .
Based on the information received, a conclusion is drawn about the personality characteristics and reasons for actions.
Without perception, communications would be quite superficial and ineffective. A person would perceive only the “external picture”, the image of the opponent and his words.
Real thoughts, motives of behavior, hidden experiences and much more would escape attention. It is thanks to social perception that it becomes possible to accurately perceive surrounding objects and build effective interaction with them .
This component is fully manifested when a person is free from stereotypes, predetermined attitudes and beliefs. They interfere with an objective assessment of a partner and in advance form a certain image in the mind, which is often far from reality.
It is also important not to rush to a conclusion and give yourself time to form a reliable assessment . Often people make erroneous conclusions about an interlocutor with whom they have communicated for a fairly short time.
A person’s personality can be correctly assessed only by obtaining comprehensive information about him and observing him in different life situations.
The perceptual component allows you to change an already established opinion about an individual .
Sometimes people meet a person they knew well in the past and are surprised to discover significant changes in his character.
Such an opportunity to abandon the primary assessment that was formed earlier appears as a result of understanding and accepting those characteristics of the interlocutor that are observed in him at the current moment in time.
Perceptual side of communication
The perceptual side of communication (from the Latin “perceptio” - perception) is a process that arises during human interaction on the basis of natural communication and occurs in the form of perception and understanding of a person by a person.
The process of perception depends on emotions, opinions, attitudes, preferences and prejudices.
At least two people are involved in the process of perception, and each of them is an active subject. In the course of perceiving an interlocutor, several processes are simultaneously carried out: an emotional assessment, an attempt to understand the motives of actions, a strategy for changing behavior based on this, building a strategy for one’s own behavior, etc. Consequently, comparison of oneself with another is carried out, as it were, from two sides: each of the partners likens itself to the other. This means that when building an interaction strategy, everyone has to take into account not only the needs, motives, and attitudes of the other, but also how this other understands the needs, motives, and attitudes of his interlocutor. In other words, the perception of a person by a person involves special processes: identification, reflection and attribution.
In all group activities, participants act simultaneously in two capacities: as performers of conventional roles and as unique human individuals.
When conventional roles are played, people act as units of social structure.
There is agreement on the contribution that each role holder must make.
The behavior of each participant is limited by expectations determined by cultural norms.
By engaging in such enterprises, people remain unique living beings.
The reactions of each of them turn out to be dependent on certain qualities of those with whom they come into contact.
The nature of mutual attraction or repulsion is different in each case.
The pattern of interpersonal relationships that develop between people involved in a joint action creates another matrix that places further restrictions on what each person can or cannot do.
Even in the most fleeting interactions, interpersonal reactions occur.
In most of the contacts that occur, such reactions are of little significance and are soon forgotten.
As people continue to communicate with each other, more stable orientations emerge.
The nature of these relationships in each case will depend on the personality traits included in the interaction of individuals.
Since a person expects special attention from his closest friends and is not inclined to expect good treatment from those whom he does not like, each party in the system of interpersonal relations is bound by a number of special rights and responsibilities.
Conventional roles are standardized and impersonal.
But the rights and responsibilities that are established in interpersonal roles depend entirely on the individual characteristics of the participants and their preferences.
Unlike conventional roles, most interpersonal roles are not specifically taught.
Everyone develops their own type of appeal.
Although no systems of interpersonal relationships are exactly alike, there are repeated situations and similar individuals react in the same way to the same type of treatment.
Typical patterns of interpersonal relationships are observed and typical interpersonal roles can be named.
Interpersonal roles that arise when people compete over similar interests include rival, enemy, conspirator, and ally.
In every organized group there is a common understanding of how members are supposed to feel towards each other.
In a family, for example, the relationship between mother and sons is conventionally defined.
People participating in a coordinated action simultaneously interact in the language of two sign systems.
As performers of conventional roles, they use conventional symbols, which are the object of social control.
At the same time, the special personal orientation of each character is manifested in the style of his performance, in what he does when the situation is not sufficiently defined and he has some freedom of choice.
The manifestation of personality traits, in turn, causes responses, often unconscious.
These two forms of interaction imperceptibly transform into one another.
Communication is a process of interrelation and interaction of social subjects (individuals, groups), characterized by the exchange of activities, information, experience, abilities, abilities and skills, as well as the results of activities, which is one of the necessary and universal conditions for the formation and development of society and the individual.
At the social level, communication is a necessary condition for the transmission of social experience and cultural heritage from one generation to another.
In a psychological sense, communication is understood as the process and result of establishing contacts between people or the interaction of subjects through various sign systems.
There are three aspects of communication, such as the transfer of information ( communicative aspect of communication ); interaction ( interactive aspect of communication ); understanding and knowledge by people of each other ( perceptual aspect of communication ).
The key words in understanding the essence of communication are: contact, communication, interaction, exchange, method of unification.
There are various types of communication, which are most often determined by the specifics of feedback.
Communication can be direct and indirect, interpersonal and mass.
Direct communication is direct natural face-to-face communication, when the subjects of interaction are nearby and not only verbal communication occurs, but also communication using non-verbal means.
Direct communication is the most complete type of interaction because individuals receive maximum information.
Direct communication can be formal and interpersonal .
It can also be carried out between subjects and simultaneously between several subjects in a group.
However, direct communication is only possible for a small group, i.e., one in which all subjects of interaction personally know each other.
Direct face-to-face communication is two-way and characterized by complete and immediate feedback.
Indirect or indirect communication occurs in situations where individuals are separated from each other by time or distance, for example, if subjects talk on the phone or write letters to each other.
A special type of communication is mass communication , which determines social communicative processes.
Mass communication represents multiple contacts of strangers, as well as communication mediated by various types of media.
Mass communication can be direct and indirect.
Direct mass communication occurs at various rallies, in all large social groups: crowd, public, audience.
Indirect mass communication is most often one-way in nature and is associated with mass culture and the means of mass communication.
Since many media communicate information to large numbers of people at the same time, feedback is very difficult, but it does exist.
People, under the influence of the content of information transmitted by such sources, form motives and attitudes that subsequently determine their social actions.
Levels of communication are determined by the general culture of interacting subjects, their individual and personal characteristics, characteristics of the situation, social control and many other factors.
The dominant ones are the value orientations of those communicating and their attitude towards each other.
The most primitive level of communication is phatic (from the Latin fatuus - “stupid”), which involves a simple exchange of remarks to maintain a conversation in conditions where those communicating are not particularly interested in interaction, but are forced to communicate.
Its primitiveness lies not in the fact that the remarks are simple, but in the fact that there is no deep meaning or content behind them.
Sometimes this level is designated as conventional (convention - “agreement”).
The next level of communication is informational .
There is an exchange of information that is interesting to the interlocutors, which is the source of some type of human activity (mental, emotional, behavioral).
The information level of communication is usually stimulating in nature and prevails in conditions of joint activities or when old friends meet.
The personal level of communication characterizes such interaction in which subjects are capable of the deepest self-disclosure and comprehension of the essence of another person.
The personal, or spiritual, level characterizes only such communication that is aimed at activating the positive attitude of the subjects of interaction themselves towards themselves, other people and the world around them as a whole.
The functions of communication are determined by various criteria: emotional, informational, socializing, connecting, self-knowledge ( A.V. Mudrik ); establishing community, instrumental, awareness, self-determination ( A. B. Dobrovich ); cohesion, instrumental, translational, self-expression ( A. A. Brudny ); contact, information, incentive, coordination, understanding, emotive, establishing relationships, exerting influence ( L. A. Karpenko ), etc.
If we consider communication in a certain system of relations, we can identify a set of groups of functions.
1. Psychological functions determine the development of a person as an individual and personality.
In conditions of communication, many mental processes proceed differently than in conditions of isolated individual activity.
Communication stimulates the development of thought processes (cognitive activity), volitional processes (activity), and emotional processes (efficiency).
2. Social functions determine the development of society as a social system and the development of groups as constituent units of this system.
Integration of society is possible only if there is communication in all its types, types and forms.
3. Instrumental functions determine numerous connections between a person and the world in the broadest sense of the word; between different social groups.
The conceptual idea of such a division of functions lies in the idea of the relationship between man and society and the world in accordance with a simple model of relations: man – activity – society.
Date added: 2016-07-27; ; ORDER A WORK WRITING
Perceptual side of communication: psychological content
The perceptual side of communication implies that there must be mutual understanding between the participants. We are talking about awareness of the attitudes, motives and goals of your partner, as well as their acceptance and sharing. Only in this case does the perception of one person by another appear and we can talk about the presence of interpersonal understanding.
The perceptual side of communication has the following functions:
- forms the content of interpersonal perception;
- promotes mutual understanding;
- ensures communication partners influence each other.
All this is possible thanks to the “work” of specific mechanisms. These include the following.
- Firstly, attraction, empathy and identification, which contribute to people's knowledge and understanding of each other.
- Secondly, reflection, which helps to know oneself in communication.
- Thirdly, causal attribution, which will help predict the behavior in the communication process of each partner.
The perceptual side of communication must necessarily include the work of all these mechanisms. Let us dwell in more detail on their characteristics.
Identification is a mechanism for people to get to know each other, when an opinion about the internal state of another person will be built on the basis of an attempt to put oneself in the place of a partner.
Empathy implies having emotional empathy for him.
Attraction or attraction is a form of cognition of an interlocutor, which is based on the formation of a positive, stable feeling towards him.
The perceptual side of communication will depend largely on how well these mechanisms are developed to help understand the other person. In addition, reflection and causal attribution are necessary.
Reflection is a mechanism through which self-knowledge occurs in communication. It is based on the ability to imagine how he is perceived by his partner.
Causal attribution involves interpreting the actions and feelings of another person when there is an intention to find out the reasons for his behavior.
When scientists studied the perceptual side of communication, interesting patterns were identified:
- people always attribute the reason for success to themselves, but for failure - to circumstances or other people;
- a person who has a negative attitude towards his interlocutor will always be characterized by the latter more negatively;
- a communication partner is usually perceived through the prism of the “first impression” and his mistakes.
Let's look at the last pattern in more detail.
Usually, when assessing a stranger, fifty percent of the opinion will be correct, and the remaining fifty percent will be wrong. This is due to three factors that were identified when the perceptual side of communication was studied. Human psychology says that, regardless of experience, gender and age, he will always be influenced by:
- The fallacy of superiority. We will always evaluate a person who is superior to us in some respect as smarter and more talented. Otherwise, it's the other way around.
- Error in attitude towards us. A person who treats us kindly and respectfully will always be attributed positive character traits.
- The attractiveness bug. A person whom we like externally or based on individual qualities will be perceived completely differently. Even non-existent personality traits will be attributed to him.
So, to summarize what has been said: the perceptual side of communication is a necessary component. It should include:
- self-knowledge in the process of communication;
- understanding and knowledge of the interlocutor;
- predicting your partner's behavior.
Functions of social perception
Social perception is a complex process during which people understand and evaluate the social objects around them (people, groups, communities).
As a result of such a process, certain stable images .
Briefly about the main functions of perception:
- Knowing yourself . Awareness of oneself through other objects. It is during social interaction that a person receives information about himself and food for thought. Often, the perception of the personality of the interlocutor helps to determine those inherent aspects of him that resonate in his own mind. As a result, a person reveals his hidden needs, desires, and doubts.
- Knowing your partner. You can get to know a person, understand his views and beliefs only through communication at the perceptual level. This is the only way to get reliable information about someone.
Gaining trust, establishing and effectively developing contact is possible only as a result of perceiving the opponent’s personality.Human activity is impossible without communication. Comradely, friendly, friendly, love relationships are impossible without communication.
- Organization of joint activities . Understanding or acceptance by subjects of each other’s social relations is the basis for the further construction of joint activities. A clear understanding of the motives, attitudes and values of a partner allows you to develop a model of effective interaction with him. If we are talking not about the interaction of individuals with each other, but about relationships in a group, then the role of social perception only increases. The joint activities of group members become effective only when they are all able to accept or understand each other’s attitudes.
- Building mutual understanding. In the process of communication, people achieve mutual understanding, which is the cementing factor of any social relationship (family, romantic, business, etc.).
Finding common points of interests, identifying common views and beliefs allows you to find a compromise and enjoy joint activities. - Establishing emotional relationships. Man is an emotional being, so any social interaction evokes certain emotions in him. When people come into contact, they form certain emotional relationships: sympathy, hostility, rejection, joy, etc.
