“Perception is the process by which individuals select and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.
There are many factors affecting perception. These factors can be found in the perceiver, target or situation” Langton, N. and Robbins, S.P., (2006)
Describe a situation from your own experience where your initial perception of someone was incorrect. What led you to make that initial judgement and what did you discover later which indicated that this perception was incorrect? What would you do differently to avoid making this judgement again?
I can remember one situation, when my perception of someone was incorrect. The person of whom my perception was faulty was the Chief Executive of the company I used to work for. When I applied for the job in the company as a sales assistant, I had to go through two interviews, one with the Human Resource Manager and another with the Store Manager. When I first stared working there, I would only see the Chief Executive when she was coming to and from work. My first impression of her were not very good, she seemed to be very haughty and conceited. I never saw her smiling, but always very serious. I had an impression that she looked down at everyone, she reminded me of Editor-In-Chief Miranda Priestly played by Meryl Streep in the movie “Devil wears Prada.” After a few weeks I had some training sessions at my workplace. Most of them were run in a very humorous and stress-free way, but one of them was due to be run by my Chief Executive. I really was not looking forward to it as I thought it was going to be boring and stressful, however, the training session completely changed my opinion about her. During the training, she turned out to be a very nice and funny person with an impressive sense of humour, she was well-prepared and everyone appeared to be enjoying the session.
I believe my initial perception about her was incorrect and I made my judgement too quickly. I should not have made my opinion about her without getting to know her a little bit better.
That is why, to avoid making incorrect judgements about someone, I always try to get to know that person better.
(picture taken from www.lush.co.uk)
Communication with children is very hard as they do not have the same points of reference as adults, with this in mind, some people may become frustrated when trying to explain something to a child. Another issue, which does not help communication with children is that they can become bored when listening to people teaching them.As soon as they stop understanding a topic they will get bored, they stop listening and start trying to find other things t do that are more fun. To explain something to children, adults need to try and translate it in a way that is interesting and understandable to children.
The organisation I am familiar with is Lush, Fresh Homemade Cosmetics.
If I wanted to explain to explain to 12 year old, that Lush is against Animal Testing, I would say: We love animals, so we sell products which do not hurt them. The organisation believes in making effective products from only fresh, organic fruits and vegetables. I would translate it for kids as: We love Mother Nature, so all our products come from her. Lush also supports projects that take care of animals and gives money to campaigning organisations. I would explain this as: We love animals and we try to help them by fighting for their rights. They also support those groups who protect and campaign for the rights of others in those countries where human rights abuse are both common and at times, life threatening. I would explain it as: All of the people create a big family that is why we should help each other.
References:
- Langton, N. and Robins, S.P., (2006) Fundamentals of Organizational Behaviour. Third Edition. Ontario: Pearson Education Canada.
-Lush Fresh Homemade Cosmetics (2011) [Online] Available at: http://www.lush.co.uk/articles/we-believe/a-lush-life_105-10054_10.html [Accessed: 9th April 2011]
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