63A Study Tool
Now that you have finished reading this chapter, you can:Describe how our personal perspective on the world
influences our communication:
c Perception is the cognitive process that helps us
make sense of the world (p. 36).
c Communication processing is how we gather, orga-
nize, and evaluate the information we receive (p. 37).
c Because we are constantly bombarded with infor-
mation we must sift through it to determine what
is important and what to remember (p. 37).Explain how we use and misuse schemas when com-
municating with others:
c Schemas are mental structures we use to connect
bits of information together (p. 37).
c Schemas function to help us understand how
things work and decide how to act.
c Schemas evolve as we select new information and
situations (p. 37).
c Interaction appearance theory explains how
people change their perception of someone else as
they spend more time together (p. 37).
c Schemas present four challenges that derail good
communication. Mindlessness is a passive
response to information. This can be corrected
by mindfulness, which helps us focus on the
task at hand. The challenge selective perception
presents is that it allows bias to influence our
thoughts. Undue influence allows other sources
too much say (pp. 38–39).
Define the attributions we use to explain behavior:
c When we need to explain why someone says or
does something in a manner that does not fit our
schemas, we look to attributions (pp. 39–40).
c The fundamental attribution error explains our
tendency to assume that another person’s wrong
behavior stems from an internal flaw, whereas the
self-serving bias attributes our own failures to
external causes (p. 40).
c Improve your perceptions by verifying them, being
thoughtful looking beyond first impressions, and
questioning your assumptions (pp. 40–41).Describe cultural differences that influence perception:
c Effective communication depends on under-
standing how diversity, the variables that make us
unique, affects perception (p. 41).c The failure to see beyond our own beliefs and
circumstances, or cultural myopia, blinds us to
alternative points of view (pp. 43–44).
c Stereotyping, or generalizing about people, limits
our ability to see the individual and can lead to
prejudice, ill will toward a particular group and a
sense of one’s own superiority (pp. 44–45).Identify how our self-concept—who we think we
are—influences communication:
c We receive both direct and indirect evidence about
the self.
c We are more willing to interact in situations
where we feel we have strengths and where our
self-concept is confirmed by others (p. 47).
c We compare ourselves to others, even idealized
images in the media, according to social
comparison theory—often to our own
disadvantage (pp. 47–48).
c Self-esteem is how we feel about ourselves in a
particular situation (pp. 48–49).
c Self-efficacy is the ability to predict our effec-
tiveness in a communication situation. Inac-
curate self-efficacy may lead to a self-fulfilling
prophecy, whereby we change our behavior in
ways that make our prediction more likely to
come true (pp. 49–51).
c We assess our communication effectiveness through
the lenses of self-actualization (high performance),
self-adequacy (adequate performance), and self-
denigration (poor performance) (pp. 53–54).Describe how our cognitions about ourselves and
our behavior affect our communication with others:
c Self-presentation is intentional communication
designed to let others know about ourselves
(pp. 55–57).
c The tendency to watch our environment and
others in it for cues as to how to present ourselves
is called self-monitoring (pp. 56–57).
c Sharing important information about ourselves is
self-disclosure (pp. 57–58).
c We can more easily control presentation of self
online than in face-to-face encounters but that
doesn’t mean that everyone does it effectively
(pp. 58–60).✁
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