Perceptions: James Estep On Clark College

Walking down the halls of a college you see a variety of different people whom are all making quick perceptions subconsciously of each other. Regardless of the relationship we hold with other people, perception is something that is unique to each individual in the relationship. In this communication exercise I chose a new acquaintance, a casual friend, and a significant other to be a part of this exercise. Through this paper I will be exploring the difference in perception accuracy of the different relationship levels with three people I communicated with.

First impressions are known to be extremely important in many aspects of our lives, especially in communication. I had the opportunity to meet a man named James Estep on Clark College’s campus

James and Brittany both perceived that I deal with conflict by trying to solve it peacefully, while Danika perceived that I deal with conflict by avoiding it. Regardless of who knew me longer, I deal with conflict by trying to solve it peacefully. This most likely occurred because I disclose things happening in my life to Danika more often than everyone else and she took that as me avoiding my conflicts when in reality I was just trying to increase our relationship. The second section that seemed similar would be the adjectives describing myself and them. They are all relatively positive, which most likely occurred because of my projected public image. While looking at all of the adjectives they chose for themselves, they all seemed to have simultaneously thrown in a negative adjective amongst positive ones. Brittany threw in erratic, Danika threw in controlling, and James threw in ignorant. I even threw in clumsy for my own adjectives. This could have occurred because we have surrounded ourselves with people who validate those adjectives that are part of our self-concept. Learning what other people see you as is always a relationship building

Someone I have known my entire life could have perceived me as someone entirely different than I am. It appears to come down to experience, knowledge, and the relationship level. While James did not have previous experience with me, knowledge, nor relationship level, he did not perceive me as well as Brittany. Even though Danika has experience, knowledge, and a high relationship level, she still was not accurate with her perception as Brittany was. Many factors could have obscured Danika’s perception, such as her physiological state and the context of the situation. An alternative cognitive complexity is that Danika might not hold our friendship as highly as I do, and that is why she was not accurate. There are a ton of reasons as to why someone with a high relationship level is perceiving inaccurately about someone in the