Ryan Behling's CAPS blog post #2

Interpreting Different Views of Perception

            To start off perception is defined by the process by which individuals select, organize and interpret external and internal stimuli to create their own view on the world (Martin & Nakayama, 2009).  This relates to what we think about other things and how we actually view this in our minds.  Sometimes these perceptions are acquired through different groups we are involved in such as family and friends who have the same perceptions.  Perception and cognitive thinking has long been a part of history.  After the 1950’s this became very well known and was called the era of cognitive revolution because scientists were beginning to study why we think and perceive things the way we do (Online Psychology Degree, 2008).  We as individuals tend to see the world in different ways based on culture groups that we are a part of like ethnicity, age, or gender.  These perceptions strengthen our assumptions about other things in the world like human nature and different spiritualities (Martin & Nakayama, 2009).  A lot of these perceptions stem from places that we frequented a lot as children like school and church.  I personally saw how others perceived spiritual things such as the bible and I have a lot of the same views today based on the way I was raised.

            This concept of perception can easily be tied to an intercultural communication example because there are so many different individual culture groups in today’s society.  If a friend and I were doing a research study on women over the age of 45 there would be a strong possibility that our perceptions on this specific group would be different for one reason or another.  This could be due to a previous experience, a family perception, or something we learned when we were younger as I explained earlier.  The book explains that there is almost no possible way for everybody in the world to see something “as it is” because the world has so many different people that view things in a different light and this is all due to our sensory receptors (Martin & Nakayama).

This will extremely influence my future experience with my perceptions on different culture groups outside of my own.  When my perception towards something is different than someone else’s I need to realize that this is normal because we all have our own views on these things.  Sometimes I have thought why my views are so different than somebody else’s especially when we are viewing the same thing.  I just need to realize that every individual has their own perspective on different issues because nobody can see the world in the same light as everybody else.

Reference Page

Martin, Judith N. & Nakayama, Thomas K. (2009).  Intercultural Communication in Contexts:        

 Fifth Edition. McGraw Hill Companies. pp. 164-165

Online Psychology Degree. (2008). An Introduction to Cognitive Psychology. Retrieved from:

http://www.psychologydegree.net/resources/an-introduction-to-cognitive-psychology/

Here is a short video I wanted to share about how power and different people in powerful positions can shape our perception of them through different channels of communication.