Perception is a cognitive function of the psyche that forms an individual perception of the world. This function is a reflection of a phenomenon or object as a whole with its direct influence on the receptor surface parts of the sense organs. One of the core biological processes of the psyche, which determines the complex operation of receiving and transforming information acquired through the senses, which form a personalized holistic image of an object that influences analyzers through a complex of sensations caused by this object, is considered the function of perception or perception.
Perception in psychology is the process of direct active reflection by the cognitive sphere of the subject of internal objects and external objects or phenomena. As a form of sensory representation of an object, perception combines the identification of an object as inseparable, the distinction of individual qualities in it, the detection of informative content in it corresponding to the purpose of the action, and the development of a sensory image. Perception is the process of becoming aware of the stimulation of sensory receptors.
Social perception
The origin and further successful development of interpersonal communicative interaction is possible only on the condition that there is mutual understanding between the parties involved in this process. The extent to which subjects reflect each other’s feelings and qualities, understand and perceive others, and with their help, their own personality, largely determines the communication process, the relationships formed between the participants, and the methods by which they implement joint activities. Therefore, the process of cognition and comprehension by one subject of another acts as a mandatory component of communication. This component can roughly be called the perceptual aspect of communication.
Social perception is one of the most serious and most important phenomena of social psychology. The definition of social perception was first introduced by D. Bruner after the formation of a qualitatively different view of the subject’s perception of the subject.
Perception in psychology is an action that arises during the interaction of individuals with each other and combines the perception, passage, understanding and evaluation of social objects by individuals.
The concept of perception combines:
- individual process of perception of observed actions;
- interpretation of perceived causes of actions and expected consequences;
- building a personal behavior strategy;
- emotional assessment.
Social perception is the process of perceiving social objects in the social sense. This is a process that arises from personal interaction, is based on natural communications and occurs in the form of perception and comprehension of an individual by an individual.
Interpersonal perception is characterized by dependence on emotional reactions, views, attitudes, ideas, hobbies and prejudices. The nature of interpersonal relationships differs significantly from the essence of social relationships. Since a specific feature of interpersonal interaction is the presence of an emotional basis. Therefore, interaction of an interpersonal nature should be considered as the cause of the psychological “microclimate” of the team. The emotional foundation of interpersonal relationships combines all types of emotional reactions of the individual, such as feelings, affects, emotions.
There are certain mechanisms of social perception. First of all, these include identification, attraction and empathy.
The processes of social perception have a significant difference in the perception of objects of a non-social nature. This difference is that objects of a social nature do not have passive and indifferent traits in relation to the person of perception. In addition, social models are always characterized by the presence of evaluative interpretations and semantic judgments. In a sense, perception is interpretation. However, the interpretation of another person or group of persons always depends on the past social experience of the perceiving subject, the behavioral reactions of the object of perception at a particular moment, the system of value guidelines of the perceiving person and other factors.
There are fundamental functions of perception, which include: knowing oneself, a communication partner, organizing collective activities based on mutual understanding and establishing the necessary emotional relationship.
The functions of perception are necessary for a better understanding of the essence of perception. In the course of communicative actions, mutual understanding is necessary in order to effectively assimilate information. The perception of a communication participant is called the perceptual side of communicative interaction. This process can be represented as the internal foundation of the communication process, which has reached a fairly high level of development.
The phenomenon of social perception is based on the mutual understanding of subjects. Therefore, it should be noted that there are several levels of mutual understanding. The first level occurs when the system of social meanings and individual meanings of communicating individuals coincide, and there are no coincidences in the degree of mutual assessment of personal qualities.
An example of this level of perception is professional communicative interaction. The next level is observed when not only semantic systems coincide, but also the degree of mutual assessment of personal qualities. It is observed when subjects are mutually satisfied with their own emotions, which arise in relation to one person to another. The third level is when there is a high degree of mutually directed trust of individuals and their openness. Communication at this level presupposes the absence of secrets from each other, which significantly affect the interests of the partner.
Like any other mental process, perception is characterized by its properties.
Properties of perception include objectivity (the perception of objects not as an incoherent set of sensations, but as images that make up certain objects), structure (the object is perceived by consciousness as a simulated structure, abstracted from sensations), apperceptivity (the content of the psyche is affected), constancy (the immutability of perception object when the stimulus changes), meaningfulness (the object is perceived through consciousness, then mentally named and belongs to the class) and selectivity (singling out some objects over others). The properties of perception develop depending on the age period of the individual.
Methodology for the development of perceptual perception
Perceptual factors are divided into two categories: external and internal influences. Among external factors, criteria such as movement, number of repetitions, contrast, size and depth of manifestation should be highlighted. Among the internal factors, experts identify the following:
- Incentive is the motivation to achieve goals that are of high importance to the individual.
- The individual’s perception setting – when finding himself in certain life situations, a person is based on previously gained experience.
- Experience - various life difficulties experienced, influence the perception of the world around us.
- Individual characteristics of perception - depending on the type of personality (optimism or pessimism), a person perceives the same life difficulties in a positive or unfavorable light.
- Perception of one’s own “I” - all events occurring in a person’s life are assessed based on the personal prism of perception.
Social perception in psychology is a term used to describe the process of an individual's evaluation and understanding of people around him, his own personality, or social objects. Such objects consist of social societies and various groups. The term in question began to be used in psychology in the forties of the last century.
Every person has inherent sociality. Throughout his life's journey, a person builds communicative connections with the people around him. The formation of interpersonal relationships leads to the formation of separate groups that are connected by the same worldview or similar interests. Based on this, we can say that a person as an individual participates in various types of relationships between people.
The nature of the attitude towards society depends on the degree of personal perception and how a person evaluates the people around him. At the initial stage of building a communicative connection, external qualities are assessed. Following appearance, the interlocutor’s behavior model is assessed, which allows the formation of a certain level of relationship.
It is on the basis of the above qualities that the image of perception of the people around us is formed. Social perception has many forms of manifestation. In most cases, this term is used to characterize personal perception. Each person perceives not only his own personality, but also the social group to which he belongs.
In addition, there is a form of perception that is characteristic only of participants in such groups. It is perception, based on the framework of a social group, that is the second form of manifestation of perception. The last form of perception is group perception. Each group perceives both its own members and members of other groups.
Behavioral reactions are formed on the basis of social stereotypes, knowledge of which explains communication patterns
The function of social perception is to evaluate the activities of surrounding people. Each individual carefully analyzes the individual characteristics of the temperament of those around him, their external attractiveness, lifestyle and actions. Based on this analysis, an idea of the people around you and their behavior is formed.
According to the famous psychologist Dale Carnegie, a simple smile is enough to evoke sympathy from others. That is why, if you want to build a strong communication connection with others, you should learn how to smile correctly. Today, there are many psychological techniques for developing facial gestures that help enhance the transmission of experienced emotions. Managing your own facial expressions allows you not only to improve the quality of social perception, but also to gain the opportunity to better understand others.
One of the most effective methods for developing social perception skills is the Ekman practice. The basis of this method is to focus on three zones of the human face. These areas include the forehead, chin and nose. It is these zones that best reflect emotional states such as feelings of anger, fear, disgust or sadness.
The ability to analyze facial gestures allows you to decipher the feelings that the interlocutor experiences. This practice has become widespread in the field of psychology, thanks to which a specialist has the opportunity to build a communicative relationship with persons with mental disorders.
Perception is a complex mechanism of human mental perception. The quality of operation of this system depends on many different external and internal factors. Such factors include age, experience and individual personality traits.
Mechanisms of social perception
An individual always enters into communicative interaction as a person, and in the same way he is perceived by his fellow communicator as a person.
Communication as perception presupposes the presence of interpersonal perception - the development of an initial impression and interpersonal perception in general. Therefore, it is possible to identify mechanisms of social perception, which are specific ways that determine an individual’s interpretation, understanding and evaluation of a partner in communicative interaction. The most common mechanisms include causal attribution, identification, empathy, attraction, and social reflection. Below is a more detailed description of these mechanisms.
Causal attribution is the attribution of reasons for a behavioral response to a subject. Each individual unintentionally makes his own assumptions about the reasons for the actions of the perceived individual, why exactly he behaves in this way. Attributing various reasons for behavior to a partner, the observer does this based on the similarity of his behavioral reactions with either a person known to him or a known personality image, or based on an analysis of his own motives that could manifest itself in an individual in a similar situation.
Casual attribution operates on the principle of analogy and depends on some aspects of the self-perception of the individual who perceives and evaluates another.
A way of comprehending another, in which a hypothesis about his state of mind is built based on attempts to put himself in the place of a fellow communicator, is called identification. In other words, there is a comparison of oneself with a second individual. During identification, the partner’s norms, his values, behavioral reactions, habits and tastes are learned. Identification has a special personally significant meaning at a specific age stage, approximately during the transition period and adolescence. Since at this stage, identification largely determines the nature of the relationship between the young person and his significant environment.
Communication as perception consists in the understanding of each other by communicating persons and is mediated not only solely by the presence of a common system for encoding or decoding information and jointly directed action, but also by the specific features of the individual’s perception of the individual.
Empathy is emotional empathy with another individual. Through emotional responses, the individual comprehends the internal state of the partner. Empathy is based on the ability to correctly imagine and understand what is happening inside another individual, how he evaluates the environment, and what he is experiencing. Empathy in interaction with the second participant in communication is often considered as one of the most necessary professional traits of a psychologist, social worker and teacher.
Attraction is translated as attraction, and can be expressed as a special form of comprehension of another subject, based on the development of a stable positive feeling in relation to him. In this case, understanding of the interaction partner arises as a result of the formation of attachment, friendship or a deeper relationship of an intimate-personal nature towards him.
Through perception and subsequent interpretation of the environment and social environment, the subject also perceives and then interprets his own personality, actions and motives.
Social reflection refers to the process and consequence of an individual’s self-perception in a social context. By social reflection as a tool of social perception we mean a person’s understanding of his own individual characteristics and how they are expressed in external response, as well as comprehension of how he is perceived by the environment.
Interpersonal perception is typically governed by all of the above mechanisms.
