Perception In Interpersonal Communication

Perception is vital to interpersonal communication, however, biases and distortions can often impact the accuracy of the interpreted message. Fritz Heider (as cited in Crisp, 2015) claims that “human behaviour is driven by the need to predict and control” (p.11), social information and interactions. This need for prediction and control manifests itself in perceptual distortions, inevitably leading to miscommunication and issues in a relationship, as it did in the issues I experienced between myself and my best friend. Discrepancies between primacy and recency, self-serving bias and selectivity played a significant role in the breakdown of my friendship, however a knowledge of the way these social conditions work may have allowed us to avoid

This bias describes the way in which we claim our positive behaviour and characteristics are because of our personal disposition, while blaming negative traits and behaviours on situational factors (Knapp & Vangelisti, 2009; Solomon & Theiss, 2012). In a communication context, this can lead to the blame for miscommunication being placed on the other party, despite the potential for this to be an incorrect judgement. In reality, there are often two people who succumb to perceptual distortions who are subsequently both at fault for the miscommunication that occurs. My busy schedule lead me to suffer the self-serving bias in my communications with Jess. I used situational factors, such as having little free time, to explain my short-comings in taking the necessary steps to maintain a relationship with Jess, which included not contacting her regularly or taking other actions to show I still cared. Moreover, I justified my actions by telling myself that physical distance would inevitably lead to emotional distance, and that if Jess sincerely wanted to talk to me she would contact me first, about a subject that we are mutually interested in. When I began to realise the distance in our relationship, I acted as Knapp and Vangelisti (2009) described, “when we are distressed or unhappy with a relationship, we will use situational factors to explain positive behaviours and

A knowledge of the way this can be distorted can be beneficial in a person’s approach to everyday conversations, as I have realised upon reviewing my actions after gaining an understanding of primacy and recency, self-serving bias, and selectivity. Had I been more aware of the way these distortions could shape my behaviour, or simply made an effort to employ critical thinking and perception checking in the majority of my interpersonal interactions, I would have been able to minimise the damage caused to my