Blog Assignment

Group Members:
Alex Cannady
Dalton Riehl
Kirsti Davis

In Chapter 3 of Jandt's book on pages 63-70 he talks about perception. Perception has three parts to it: selection, organization and interpretation. I chose perception as one of my concepts because it is a big part of communication. Selection is one of the parts of perception that deals with focusing our attention to only certain things we are focusing on. This means that we are not always using the maximum amount of our senses if we are just focusing on one specific thing. When trying to communicate with someone this can be a major factor that creates tension if one person feels the other is not giving them their full attention. I have always tried to be a good listener, but have not always been the best at it.

In this image at first glance you may see a vase,

but when you look again you may see two faces

looking at one another. This image is a great example

of our perception and what we may see at first glance

versus what we see when we take our time and really

look at the situation or image. 



Organization is another part in perception which

is a way for people to plan out the way in which

we think and how we physically see images, and

how those images are categorized in our minds.

For instance if you look at an object your mind

with categorize it in a certain part of the brain as

a desk or a piano or a chair. We can then

communicate to each other by each knowing

what these objects are and what they do. We

don't focus on the details of the draws of the desk

or the keys on the piano, we see the object in its entirety. This can also be shown by not seeing the whole picture when looking at certain situations, or not judging too quickly. I also have tried to never judge people before I know everything there is to know. Finally interpretations is the last part of perception, where we attach meaning to the information we perceive in the world. We interpret things on a daily basis even if we don't realize it at the time. We are constantly receiving information, processing it, categorizing it, and finally interpreting  into what we think it means. This can be interpreting pictures of art or the meaning of a persons tone of voice. I am bad at assuming things too quickly and not fully thinking things through before I interpret things in the wrong way. 

Another interesting concept is also in Chapter 3 of Jandt's book from page 75. Talking about the Chinese culture and the belief of yin-and-yang. I have always looked at the symbols as having a sense of harmony and meaning of peace. The Chinese meaning for this symbol is a little more detailed. First the symbol was meant as he yin meaning the shady side of a hill and a yang meaning the sunny side of a hill. Their are many other meanings of the symbol such as yin is dark part of the cosmos and the yang is bright and dry. Woman are compared to the yin. And men are compared to the yang. This is interesting to think that men and woman have always been seen as complete opposites, never sharing anything in common or having anything similar to one another. Never allowing the two genders to related to one another. Also yin-and-yang represents certain types of food in the Chinese culture. Yin is usually a symbol for cooling foods such as beans. Yang is a symbol for fried or oily foods. It is interesting to look at the difference in the way we, as Americans, look at the Chinese interpretation of yin-and-yang and don't see all the same meanings the way they do. Looking at other cultures is a great way to learn their ideas and thoughts of common objects in order to relate and understand each others point of views and beliefs. This will make communication with one another much easier.

   

The yin is the dark side while

the yang is the light side.

This is the typical symbol

 that is shown to represent the

idea of yin-and-yang.



This is one example of the

yin-and-yang symbol

 showing the idea of night

and day, or dark and bright.

  Another interesting concept is Nonverbal Communication from Jandt's Chapter 5 pages 105-106. When dealing with nonverbal communication people don't realize how much is said with body language or facial expressions. There are 5 parts to nonverbal communication: proxemics (which deals with personal space), kinesics (which deals with body language: facial expressions, body movement, gestures, etc.), chronemics (which is the study of our use of time), haptics (which is touch as a way to communicate) and clothing and appearance (first impressions and first judgements). A great part of our communication comes from the things we don't say to one another. For example if you are having a conversation with one of your friends and they are telling you a very important story but you are sitting on your phone, then your friend will fill ignored or not cared for or unimportant. Also nonverbal communication can be seen in the work place. I work in a restaurant and you can tell when you go to greet a table if they are having a good or bad day just by the way they say hello to you and by their mannerisms and gestures toward you. The same goes for you, if a guest can see you are not smiling and not acting like you are wanting to be at work, then they will feel awkward or uncomfortable around you since they can tell you really don't want to be giving them your attention. Nonverbal communication is a big deal when to comes to making business deals and working with others. If you are working on a big presentation for work that will hopefully get you a promotion you would be expected to "put your best foot forward" and do a good job on the presentation in order to get the best feedback possible.

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/0TW-18jUlf0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
In this video you will see the 5 parts of nonverbal communication. Each type of nonverbal communication it represented by a video and it helps us to understand the meanings of the different areas we are talking about here. 

Another interesting concept from the Jandt's book is from Chapter 4 pages 86-93. In this chapter it is interesting to look at the terms stereotype and prejudice. Stereotypes are made everyday in our conversations to one another. They are ideas that we as  whole have made up as to what we think each group, gender, culture or ethnicity is likely to do. Stereotypes are sometimes true and sometimes aren't true, but saying that all Americans do this or all Asians do that is not accurate at all. But this doesn't seem to stop the idea of stereotyping people. Overall stereotype tend to be pretty harmless. While on the other hand prejudice is a more serious matter. Prejudice behavior is an irrational perception of another culture, race, gender, etc. I feel that have prejudice is unacceptable, especially now a days. It is a type of behavior that needs to be corrected, but of course I know this will never happen. There will always be someone who has a prejudice idea about someone else, this fact is sad but true. I understand peoples inability to completely connect with others that are 100% different than they are, but the idea is to have respect for one another regardless if you have the same beliefs, or are the same race, or gender.



This is a cartoon of prejudice behavior and showing
how silly it really is to be prejudice.




This is a cartoon of a typical stereotype about how nurses can only be female.



A final concept that I found to be interesting was the idea of individualism versus collectivism. Individualism is when an individual does things for themselves by themselves in order to get what they may want or need. While collectivism is when each person does things together to benefit the group. This idea of collectivism is mostly seen in other cultures, and not so much in the American culture. In other cultures collectivism is a way of life, the entire family has to help with projects and making money in order for everyone to live and have food on the table. In an individualist society, like in the U.S. we are all use to getting out and doing things for our selves by ourselves because no one else is going to help us get what we want. An individualist society could be seen as a little cold or unwilling to help. While the collectivist society is more of a united way of living. There are pros and cons to both sides. Since collectivist societies are more united there would seem to be less freedom to be able to go out and do things you want to do on your own, but you would always have each other no matter what. In an individualist society you get the freedom to do what you want, but may not always have a good support system behind you. I personally was raised to be an individualist but I always knew if I needed that support I would always have it, so I got the best of both worlds when I was growing up. 



This is an example of collectivism, and how all these little
girls are working as a group to do a performance and
if one of them decided to be different, then their show would
be ruined.


 

This is an image of individualism,
its shows how one person is
breaking out of the crowd to be
themselves.