Solution manual for Interpersonal

Communication Relating to Others Canadian

7th Edition Beebe 0134276647
9780134276649
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communication-relating-to-others-canadian-7th-edition-beebe-0134276647-
9780134276649/

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Part 1
Chapter 3
Interpersonal Communication
and Perception
CHAPTER 3 LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After studying this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Define perception explain the three stages of interpersonal perception.

2. List and describe the strategies we use to form impressions and interpret the behaviour
of others.

3. Identify the factors that distort the accuracy of our interpersonal perceptions.

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4. Identify and apply suggestions for improving interpersonal perceptions.

CHAPTER 3 OUTLINE

(All key terms appear in bold)

UNDERSTANDING INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION

1. Interpersonal Perception Process
a. Perception is the process of experiencing your world and making sense out of
what you experience.
b. Interpersonal perception is the process of selecting, organizing, and
interpreting your observations of other people.

2. Stage One: Selecting

Principles of Selection:
a. Selective perception. Process of seeing, hearing, or making sense of the world
around us based on such factors as our personality, beliefs, attitudes, hopes, fears,
and culture, as well as what we like and don’t like.
b. Selective attention. Focusing on specific stimuli, locking on to some things in
the environment and ignoring others.
c. Selective exposure. Tendency to put ourselves in situations that reinforce our
attitudes, beliefs, values, or behaviours.
d. Selective recall. Process that occurs when we remember things we want to
remember and forget or repress things that are unpleasant, uncomfortable, or
unimportant to us.
Thin Slicing: Making a Judgment Based on a Small Sample of Behaviour
i. You sample a small bit of a person’s behaviour and then generalize what the
person may be like based on the observable behaviour.

3. Stage Two: Organizing

a. We Create Categories. After we select stimuli to attend to, we start to
organize or chunk them into convenient, understandable, and efficient patterns
that allow us to make sense of what we have observed.
i. We superimpose when we use a familiar structure to start to make sense on
stimuli.
b. We Link Categories. Categories are linked as a way of further making sense
of what has been experienced.
i. Punctuation is the way that we link categories to make sense out of stimuli by
grouping, dividing, organizing, separating, and categorizing information.
ii. When it comes to punctuating relational events and behaviours, we each
develop our own separate set of standards.
c. We Seek Closure. Closure is the process we use to fill in missing information
and impose a pattern or structure for classification.

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 4. Stage Three: Interpreting
a. We attempt to make sense of the verbal and nonverbal cues we experience.
b. We interpret based on socialization and our own recurring experiences.

FORMING IMPRESSIONS AND INTERPRETING THE BEHAVIOUR

OF OTHERS
1. How do we form impressions of others?
a. Impressions are collections of perceptions about others that we maintain and
use to interpret their behaviours.
b. Impression formation theory explains how we develop perceptions about
people and how we maintain and use those perceptions to interpret their
behaviours.
c. We select, organize, and interpret all of these perceptions to create a general
impression.
d. We tend to form these impressions readily and part with them reluctantly.

2. Perception can be either a passive or an active process.

a. Passive perception occurs simply because our senses are in operation.
b. Active perception occurs when we are motivated to select particular
information.
c. Implicit personality theory is your unique set of beliefs and hypotheses about
what people are like.
d. A Construct is a bipolar quality used to classify people.
e. Uncertainty reduction theory claims people seek information in order to
reduce uncertainty, thus achieving control and predictability.

3. We Form Impressions of Others Online: The Social Media Effect

a. People evaluate others based on what has been posted on their Facebook page.
Too few or too many friends is likely to lower social attractiveness as perceived
by others.

4. We Emphasize What Comes First: The Primacy Effect

The primacy effect is when we place heavy emphasis on the first pieces of
information that we observe about another to form an impression.

5. We Emphasize What Comes Last: The Recency Effect

When we place heavy emphasis to the most recent information we observe, the
recency effect has occurred.

6. We Generalize Positive Qualities: The Halo Effect

The halo effect involves attributing a variety of positive attributes to someone we
like without confirming the existence of these qualities.

7. We Generalize Negative Qualities: The Horn Effect

The horn effect involves attributing a variety of negative qualities to people
simply because we do not like them.

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INTERPRETING THE BEHAVIOUR OF OTHERS

1. Attribution Theory: We Attribute Motive to Others’ Behaviour

a. Attribution theory explains how we ascribe specific motives and causes to the
behaviours of others. We attempt to apply common sense to our observations to
understand what others do. We attempt to explain people’s motives for their
actions.
b. Causal attribution theory identifies three potential causes for any person’s
action: circumstance, a stimulus, or the person herself or himself.
(1) Attributing the behaviour to circumstance means you believe the person acted
a certain way because the situation leaves no choice.
(2) Attributing the behaviour to the stimulus means you believe the person acted
in response to an incentive.
(3) Attributing the behaviour to the person means you believe there is a quality
about the person that caused the behaviour.

2. Standpoint Theory: We Use Our Own Point of Reference About Power

a. Standpoint theory explains that a person’s social position, power, or cultural
background influences how the person perceives the behaviour of others; where
you stand influences what you see.
b. A number of factors affect the accuracy of our attributions.
i. Our ability to make effective and complete observations.
ii. The degree to which we are able to directly observe the cause and effect.
iii. The completeness of our information.
iv. Our ability to rule out other causes.

3. Intercultural Communication Theory: We Draw on Our Own Cultural

Background
a. Culture. Learned system of knowledge, behaviours, attitudes, beliefs, values,
and norms shared by a group of people.
b. Power of Perspective is enacted through cultural standpoint.
c. Cultural elements include: material culture, social institutions, belief systems,
aesthetics and language.
d. Your awareness of your own perceived place in society changes your
perspective.
e. Be sensitive to cultural differences and the many ways that cultural can affect
your perception of others.

IDENTIFYING BARRIERS TO ACCURATE PERCEPTION

Numerous barriers exist:

1. We Stereotype: To stereotype is to attribute a set of qualities to a person because

of a person’s membership in some category. We allow our pre-existing rigid
explanations about others to influence our perceptions.

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 2. We Ignore Information: We don’t focus on important information because we
give too much weight to obvious and superficial information.

3. We Overgeneralize: We treat small amounts of information as if they were

highly representative.

4. We Oversimplify: We prefer simple explanations to complex ones.

5. We Impose Consistency: We overestimate the consistency and constancy of

others’ behaviours, ignoring fluctuations.

6. We Focus on the Negative: We focus on the negative giving more weight to

negative information than to positive information.

7. In the online environments we are susceptible to the social identity model of

deindividuation effects (SIDE). The theory where people are more likely to
stereotype others with whom they interact online, because such interactions
provide fewer relationship cues and the cues take longer to emerge than they
would in face-to-face interactions.

8. We Blame Others, Assuming They Have Control. Making a fundamental

attribution error: We are more likely to believe that others are to blame when
things go wrong than assume that the cause of the problem was beyond their
control.

9. We Avoid Responsibility: When we avoid taking responsibility for our own

errors we are exhibiting self-serving bias: We save face by believing other
people, not ourselves, are the cause of the problems; when things go right it’s
because of our own skills and abilities rather than help from others.

IMPROVING YOUR PERCEPTUAL SKILLS

1. Link Details with the Big Picture
a. Look and listen for other cues about situations that can help you develop a more
accurate understanding of who the other person is.
b. Try not to use the early information to cast a quick or rigid judgment that may
be inaccurate.

2. Become Aware of Others’ Perceptions of You

a. It is difficult to be objective about our own behaviour, so feedback from others
can help us with our self-perceptions.
b. The strongest relationships are those in which the partners are willing to share
and to be receptive to each other’s perceptions.

3. Check Your Perceptions

This allows you to see if what you are perceiving is accurate.
a. Indirect perception checking involves seeking additional information through

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 passive perception to either confirm or refute your interpretations.
b. Direct perception checking involves asking straight out if your interpretations
of a perception are correct. Asking someone to confirm a perception shows that
you are committed to understanding his or her behavior.

4. Become Other-Oriented
Effective interpersonal perception depends on seeing things from others’
perspectives in a two-step process.
a. Social decentring; consciously thinking about another’s thoughts and feelings.
i. Gather as much information about the circumstances affecting the person
ii. Gather as much information about the person.
b. Empathizing; responding emotionally to another’s feelings.

5. Be Sensitive to Cultural Differences

Cultures can influence perception in many ways. By realizing that cultures differ
in what is considered as acceptable or unacceptable behaviour, there is less
likelihood of perceptual errors.

CHAPTER 3 ACTIVITIES AND ASSIGNMENTS

ACTIVITY 3.0: DISCUSSION/JOURNAL QUESTIONS
Use the following ideas and questions to help students enhance their understanding.

How do we come to know what we know? When we select stimuli to focus on, is this
beneficial or detrimental? Can we be too focused on specific stimuli?

When we focus on one thing, it means that we exclude others. How does this work in
your everyday life? What are the consequences? Benefits?

Why do we focus on some things and not on others? (Needs and interests) See if your
students can add to this list.

ACTIVITY 3.1: PERCEPTIONS OF OUR ENVIRONMENT

Before students enter the classroom, consider making some sensory changes to the room
rearrange the configuration of the desks; play background music; bring plants or flowers
into the room; adjust lighting if it is available.

Later, ask students what changes they noticed and what affects these had.

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ACTIVITY 3.2: GETTING TO KNOW YOU

Have students form pairs, introduce themselves, and greet one another in a variety of
ways (shake hands, bow, etc.)

• Next, ask them to turn around so that they cannot see one another.
• Instruct them to silently make three changes in their appearance.
• Have them turn face to face and identify the changes made by their partners.
• Repeat this exercise with three additional changes.

Have students discuss their observational acuity following the exercise.

Objective 1: Define perception and explain the three stages of interpersonal perception.

ACTIVITY 3.3: “WALK A MILE IN MY SHOES”

Suggest that students adopt a new role for a day. This can be brainstormed in class to
identify characteristics of others that they can emulate to help with this exercise. This
might include the adoption of clothes, practice of mannerisms, and use of tools (crutches,
wheelchair, gloves, etc.) to experience the world from this new perspective. Examples
include: an elderly person, a street person, other-abled, language, etc.

After completing the activity ask students to consider the following questions and to
write a brief paper responding to them.

• What did you notice about how other people treated you?
• How did you feel about yourself?
• What did you notice about what you could or could not do in this role?
• Compare your perspective on life before and after this exercise.

ACTIVITY 3.4: WHY AND HOW DO WE SELECT, ORGANIZE, AND

INTERPRET INFORMATION?
Have students pair with a classmate they don’t know well. Ask each student to exchange
two personal items that represent something significant. (Students will return these items
following the exercise.) Do not allow them to discuss the items.

Ask each student to write a paragraph describing his or her partner’s goals, interests, and
talents based on this evidence.

Following this, ensure that students return the items and exchange their paragraphs.
Check for accuracy.

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Objective 2: List and describe the strategies we use to form impressions and
interpret the behaviour of others.

ACTIVITY 3.5: IMPRESSION FORMATION IN THE CLASSROOM

This activity illustrates the pervasiveness of impressions based upon general physical
qualities, behaviours, and disclosed information.

Divide the class into pairs. Instruct students to spend a few minutes getting to know their
partners. Provide copies of the following variables for all students.

Variable Impression Stimuli for This Impression

Age

Marital Status

Occupation

Income level

Socioeconomic status

Religion

Political beliefs

Hobbies or interests

Personality type

• Ask students to record their impressions of each other, according to these

variables.

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 • Ask them also to record the stimuli that gave rise to their impressions.
• Carefully instruct students to refrain from speaking while recording their
impressions.

When everyone has finished recording, have the pairs share their impressions and their
biases with each other.

As a class, discuss the accuracy of impressions formed. Question the speed and
confidence with which we form them.

ACTIVITY 3.6: SELECTING STIMULI

Use a three to five minute guided awareness exercise to assist students in tuning in to
sensory input.

Ask them to sit comfortably, close their eyes, and focus on the feeling of how they are
sitting, or their shoes and clothing on their bodies. What can you hear? What can you
smell?

Following this, ask students what they noticed. Discuss what they could focus on at a
given time and could they focus on everything at once? (Note that perception is
selective.)

ACTIVITY 3.7: HOW OUR SENSES INFLUENCE OUR

PERCEPTIONS
Have students check out McGill University’s web site for “What Optical Illusions Show
Us About Visual Perception” at:
http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/flash/a/a_02/a_02_p/a_02_p_vis/a_02_p_vis.html

This site includes some useful illusions and explanations for the importance and influence
of our perceptions.

Objective 3: Identify the factors that distort the accuracy of our interpersonal
perceptions.

ACTIVITY 3.8: BARRIERS TO INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION

BEGIN WITH SELECTED STIMULI
Stereotyping, ignoring information, overgeneralizing, and oversimplifying are all barriers
to accurate interpersonal perceptions. We can also try to impose consistency, focus on the
negative, blame others, and avoid personal responsibility.

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Students will first talk to a partner about examples that they have seen in the news
recently. Then they will explore any ways that they see themselves doing these types of
behaviours and how these barriers effect their own perceptions.

The class will share some experiences and discuss how this distorts their perceptions of
others. Debrief in the larger group and discuss strategies to avoid these barriers.

ACTIVITY 3.9: EDITORIAL BIASES

Bring some newspaper editorial clippings to class. Also look at several news websites
such as CNN, Fox News, NY Times, and other more sensational sites that deal with the
same topic.

Divide students into small groups and ask each group to analyze an editorial based on any
barriers to accurate perception illustrated in it.

Have the groups report their analysis to the class.

Discuss any barriers that are illustrated in the group’s perceptions of the editorials.

ACTIVITY 3.10: HOW WOULD YOU REACT?

Would you stop and talk to a homeless person? Some people do.

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 “Homeless” man pays next month's rent for strangers
Random acts of kindness performed by stranger disguised as homeless man
A mysterious benefactor on the streets of Vancouver is rewarding random acts of
kindness towards those in need this holiday season.

A man disguised as a homeless person has been writing cheques for hundreds of
dollars to people who offer him help.

Yogi Omar offered to help a derelict-looking man sitting on the street corner when he
asked him for change. As the two men talked, the apparently homeless man revealed he
wasn't homeless at all.

"I'm like, 'What?'" Omar recalled.

Omar said the man told him that he and his family participate in an annual so-called
random act of kindness project. They help people who are kind to the homeless.

After that, the man asked Omar how much he paid in rent.

"And I'm like, what? $469 exactly. And then he just whipped out cash and gave me
$469 in exact change," said Omar.

The money couldn't have come at a better time for him. Several weeks ago, Omar
learned he would need to plan a trip to China to visit his father, who is suffering from
terminal cancer.

With no way to figure out who this wonderful stranger is, Omar simply has one thing
to say: "thank you."

Retrieved from : http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/homeless-man-pays-

next-month-s-rent-for-strangers-1.2471275

Discuss the criteria you use when you assess someone that you meet?

ACTIVITY 3.11: WHAT DO YOU SEE?

Have someone that they do not normally see walk through the class (perhaps deliver a
piece of paper to you and then leave).

After they have left the room, give the students five minutes to write about the
appearance of this person.

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After three minutes have them compare their description with a partner.

Have the pairs read their descriptions aloud.

Emphasize the different perceptions, attributes, and impressions students noted.

Restate the principle that meanings are in people.

ACTIVITY 3.12: STANDPOINT THEORY

Explore the cultural beliefs and customs of another culture or subculture by asking
students to research and learn about beliefs and traditions.

Use the scenario of presenting and accepting a gift as a discussion starter to have students
examine how this tradition might be examined from a variety of standpoints.

ACTIVITY 3.13: THE HALO AND HORN EFFECTS

Discuss with students the difficulty jurors may have in listening objectively to high
profile cases. Pick something current in the news.

What influence might the generalizing of positive and negative qualities (halo or horn
effects) have in these cases? Do celebrities and the homeless receive equal justice in
court?

Objective 4: Identify and apply suggestions for improving interpersonal

perceptions.

ACTIVITY 3.14: DIRECT PERCEPTION-CHECKING PRACTISE4

Ask for several pairs of volunteers or divide the entire class into pairs.

Give each pair of students one of the following pairs of perception-checking scenarios.

Ask students to create several lines of dialogue to enact their scenarios.

Have the pairs perform their scenarios for the class; have the class provide comments and
suggestions on the handling of each type of scenario.

Scenarios:
1. This morning, your boss told you that he or she wants to speak with you this
afternoon and that you need to arrive at his or her office on time. You have been

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 wondering what your boss meant by this and now you see an opportunity to ask your
boss, before the afternoon meeting.
2. You found a bouquet of flowers at your doorstep this morning. The flowers came
with no note. You have been crazed with curiosity about the flowers. Now you run
into a colleague who, you believe, has a crush on you.
3. Your significant other said that they would telephone you last night, but you received
no calls. Now you have an opportunity to speak with them, face to face.
4. Yesterday was your birthday and you heard nothing from one of your closest friends.
Now you encounter this friend.
5. Your instructor insisted that you promptly turn in an assignment. Moreover, they had
been unwilling to allow you the one extra workday you had requested. It has been two
weeks since you turned in the assignment and you have not received it back. You see
your instructor in the hall.
6. You just heard the end of a group conversation in which one of the participants
concluded loudly, “That sounds like some people I know,” and then looked quickly at
you. Now that person is walking away from the group, toward you.
7. This morning, one of your acquaintances looked straight at you, but did not respond
when you said “Hello.” Now you see this person again.
8. Lately, you have noticed a change in the appearance of one of your friends. He or she
looks thinner, is constantly perspiring, and trembles most of the time. What do you
say to your friend?
9. A classmate of yours is looking at you every time you look in their direction. The
classmate does not look away, even if you stare at him or her for a long time. Now
you encounter each other outside of class.

OTHER ACTIVITIES: DEMONSTRATING CONCEPTS THROUGH

MOVIES AND OTHER MEDIA
Consider showing a scene from the film Guess Who (2005) a remake of Guess Who’s
Coming to Dinner (1967), in which the two families discuss their perceptions of the
engagement between their children.

Show clips from Vantage Point (2008) which focuses on an assassination attempt on the
President of the United States as seen from eight different points of view. Also use The
Eye of the Beholder (1999) to illustrate how perceptions affect our communication
behaviours. Both films point out the need for an other-orientation to communication.

Shrek is a popular animated movie series, with the first one released in 2001. It features
the voices of Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz, and John Lithgow as the major
characters. Shrek should be available to students as an economical download. Use or
assign Shrek to ask students to develop an understanding of symbolic interactionism and
to recognize potential flaws in our own interaction with other individuals and small
groups.

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In the movie Babe (1995), tells the story of a pig who wants to be a sheepdog, where
Babe learns to not to judge the wolves/dogs based solely on what Maa tells him.

The Pursuit of Happyness is a 2006 American biographical drama film based on

entrepreneur Chris Gardner's nearly one-year struggle being homeless. Directed by
Gabriele Muccino, the film features Will Smith as Gardner, a homeless salesman. Smith's
son Jaden Smith co-stars, making his film debut as Gardner's son, Christopher Jr.

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