Social perception
Social perceptionOur own beliefs and principles that are cultivated by our culture, in which we were brought up, govern our perceptions of others. These ideologies or theories are often not shared by others and in most of the time, not plausible or even untrue. These inaccurate interpretations and conclusions of others have dire consequences such as, not being able to recognise the unique characteristics or qualities the individual possesses and may also perceive certain qualities to be present while they, in fact, do not. The self-fulfilling prophecy may also affect the other party into conforming to our prophecies, which in most cases are negative. Several misunderstandings may arise from these misperceptions.
My physical appearance, having long hair, often denotes extroversion and other mostly negative qualities. But in reality, I am more of an introvert than the opposite. I do not drink, neither do I smoke.
Despite my academic achievements and fluency in the English language, several people still stereotype me as an "Ah-Beng", which is basically the Hokkien translation of a punk. From my feedback, some people actually consider me quite a benevolent person. I'm amiable by nature, even I do not realise it. Even so, I sometimes, am still discriminated because I have long hair. Many young people out there have similar hairstyles as I do, but my relatives and parents don't seem to understand that a person's characteristics, personality or academic capabilities, has no relation, whatsoever, with an individual's outward demeanour. I guess its human nature to stereotype people. No matter how conscious we are to the fact that stereotyping may not conclude who an individual really is, we still do so.
Attribution is basically mind reading and mind reading is basically inaccurate. Many are aware that their mind reading of another person could most probably be wrong judgements, but why do we still make these attribution errors? When I reflected the theory of attribution to myself, I realized that the less time I spend with the person, the more I mind-read their personalities. The "we-knew-it-all-along" mentality does not help too, because it further concludes that our mind reading can be accurate, which in a way encourages several more instances of misattributions. A way to prevent misattribution, since mind reading is seemingly unavoidable, is to consult others on their opinion about the situation and evaluating our own conclusions with several others. We must also try to think of reasons why our...
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