Intro to Communication Artifact

Morgan Tondreault
COM101
Johnson
March 14, 2013
Perceptions

First impressions tend to taint future interactions, for better or worse. Although I am an
advocate for not judging a book by its cover, I fall prey to the action from time to time.
Judgment is something we all become a victim of, but it is important to not h old onto those
judgments when building a relationship. I may think someone is a certain way, but I will not
believe it to be true until I have actually interacted with them and seen it myself. With a new
semester came new people, and with new people come n ew judgments.

Fortunately for me, the people I passed initial judgments have also been some of the
people I have to work with for group projects. But before I was able to get to know them better, I
was using perceptual filters to make my decisions about them. Physiological influences are
biological or neurological influences such as the senses, age, health, fatigue, hunger, or biological
cycles. Both the classes I made heavy judgments in were at times in which I was likely to be very
tired. One was an 8 AM class (and I am not a morning person), and the other was a once -a-week
night class. When I am tired, I tend to be grumpy and tough on people. I also had psychological
sets, expectations or predispositions which affect what I perceive, about s orority girls. There are
multiple sorority girls in my night class, and I have always thought them to be a bit shallow.

I also employed the Implicit Personality Theory, which states that we select and organize
information about others on the basis of what behaviors go together. So because I thought the

people I have class with were shallow, I also thought them to be arrogant and over it, because
those are things I put together. It was very similar the Horn Effect in which I assigned
accompanying negative traits to some of my classmates.

However as I said earlier, I was eventually assigned to work with some of these students in
semester long projects. By spending time with them and collaborating with them, I have learned
that they are not so stuck-up as they seemed. I have realized that they have quite a lot of
charisma, or a personal magnetism that enables an individual to attract and influence people.
Halfway through the semester, we have become somewhat of friends and enjoy tal king about
things unrelated to our projects. There are some people whom I have held my perceptions of
however, because of how I have seen them act in class throughout the semester so far.

As for peoples perceptions about me, I think they originally thought I was a quiet
individual, and I think most of my group for my PR class thought I was older. Just recently they
learned that I was only nineteen, and now Im known as the baby of the group, but
affectionately so. Using the idea of the looking glass self, how I perceive myself based on how I
think others perceive me, I see myself as less experienced in life, as well as a little more innocent
compared to the girls in my group. Neither of these things are necessarily negative, due to the
fact that I am younger so I have not had some of the same experiences. Although they now see
me as younger, this has not caused them to discredit my ideas, which I am thankful for. If
anything, theyre perceptions have caused me to act more responsibly, and thi nk in a different
way when looking and working on our project. I have gone about changing this by being better at
scheduling my time and putting more effort into it.

We all use perception, if we didnt we wouldnt be able to function in this w orld. However
it is what we do with our initial perceptions that speak for us. Even though I passed judgment on
people at the beginning of this semester, I have not let that judgment consume me into believing

all my judgments are true. I understand that I need to get to know someone before assuming I
know them.