1.      Assumptions, Perceptions, and Things Taken for Granted

            Before we can communicate anything, we have to look at what assumptions either our audiences or we might have that impact on our thinking. What does our audience really know, or think they know, about the subject? What do we know? What knowledge, information, or attitudes do we share with our audience? Where do our knowledge and views, and our audience’s knowledge and views, diverge?

            We also have to realize that past information—history—shapes current perception. That perception must be taken into account when shaping a message designed to either reinforce or dispel the ideas or attitudes people already have.

            For all practical purposes, when it comes to what others think about things, about us and about what we do, about everything for that matter, perception is reality—even when the perception is wrong.

            Thus, it is necessary to see how others perceive the person, place, or thing—the issue—that we are communicating about.

            Sometimes we have to change how people perceive us.

            We cannot change their reality, until we change their perception.

            The obvious starting point, then, is to determine what people think, what they look at and identify as reality. To do this we have to know a bit about their history and the information their perceptions are based on. This involves understanding their culture, or subculture, their nonverbal communication, their goals, attitudes and how they think, live, work, and play.

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2.      Communication vs. Perception

            Communication is the two-way exchange of ideas. You say something to me and I understand what you mean. I then say something to you and you understand what I mean. We continue talking—communicating—with one another until we are done, until whatever messages or information needed to be transmitted or exchanged are exchanged and understood.

            One of the ways we make sure that we are actually communicating is by giving and looking for feedback. I make sure that I show you that I understand what you are telling me, and vice versa. This feedback shows our understanding—our perception.

            Perception problems can develop when one—or both—sides “assume” that the other understands what they mean.

            In December of 1999, the American Mars Polar Lander, a multimillion planetary probe launched by NASA, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration, crashed during its landing on the Red Planet.

            The reason for the crash turned out to be an embarrassing failure to have converted inches into metric units during one key phase of the descent.

            Everyone involved “assumed” that they—and everyone else—understood what was expected of them, what they needed to do, and what measurement system to use. 

            They were wrong, expensively wrong, because there was a failure in perception—poor communication. The group that should have converted the inches into centimeters didn’t understand—didn’t perceive—exactly what was expected of them. The group that needed the information in centimeters assumed that the conversion had taken place.

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5.       But Does It Mean The Same Thing Here?

            We look at intercultural communication elsewhere in this course, but it needs to be mentioned briefly here as well. You cannot assume that even the people within your own organization all share the same beliefs, goals, ideas, and dreams. Such assumptions become even more problematical, even dangerous, when you go outside you own organization, country or culture.

            Ideas about proper dress, behavior, and conduct vary from place to place. A symbol or gesture that means one thing in one country can mean something else—sometimes something obscene—in another.

            The purpose of this section is not to explain how to act. It is to point out that the way you normally act—and assume everyone else acts—may not be appropriate in all situations. Here a simple example.

            Introducing yourself can cause problems if you assume that they do it the same way you do. When you meet someone, should you shake hands or bow?

            If you shake hands should it be gently, or with a organization grip? Should you hold their hands in both of yours? Do you shake hands differently with a woman than you do with a man? How long do you hold the other person’s hand?

            If you bow, do you bow together? Do you bow first or second? If there are three people, do you bow to all three at once? Or to each one, individually? How deeply do you bow? Is the bow to a person of your own age, sex and position the same as it would be to someone older than you? Of greater or lesser status? Of a different sex?

            When you question your assumptions, make sure you question all of them.

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6.      Half Full? Or Half Empty?

            If you have a two-liter wine bottle that contains one liter of wine, there are a number of ways to look at it.

            The bottle is half full.

            The bottle is half empty.

            The bottle is too big.

            None of the above observations are more accurate or “true” than any other. Each one, however, shows a different attitude, a different perception of the situation.

            The “half full” statement implies that the person making it is happy to have that much wine while the “half empty” statement implies that the speaker wishes that there were more wine. The “bottle is too big” speaker, however, appears to be more concerned with the size of the bottle—and the fact that all that space, and glass, is being wasted—than with its contents.

            Effective communicators spend time learning to understand the attitudes and perceptions of the people they are dealing with before they get down to “project/programme purpose.” In fact, you can usually trace their success to the way they acted before the actual “project/programme purpose” session began.

            They do their homework—research—to get a better idea of who they will be talking to. They use the clues they pick up during the “casual conversation” before the meeting began to help them shape the way they approached the task, problem, situation, and people they had been called on to deal with.

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7.      Are You What You Appear To Be?

            Appearance, or image, is looked at in detail elsewhere in the course. It needs to be mentioned here as well, however, because the way you perceive others, and they perceive you, will have a major impact on how well you communicate.

            Would you take advice on how to dress for a project/programme purpose meeting from a person with green hair, wearing a blue and orange polka dot sweater, red and purple striped pants, orange earmuffs, plus one brown shoe and one yellow one?

            Would you take advice from a doctor talking about heart and lung diseases who smoked—and coughed—constantly during the lecture?

            Would you take advice about investing in the stock market from a stockbroker who had to borrow money from you to pay for the taxi he took to see you, and who keeps research material, forms, and files in a grocery bag?

            These are outlandish and extreme examples. They are still effective if you tone them down. Would you take wardrobe advice from a person whose sox don’t match, or whose colors clash? What about medical advice from a doctor with smoke-yellowed teeth and nicotine-stained fingers? How about investment advice from someone who can’t afford cab fare to go to see you?

            We expect people to look and act as if they really are qualified to do what they are paid to do—or want to be paid to do.

            People expect the same from us.

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8.      The Gestalt of Perception

            Psychologists define “gestalt” as being a structure, configuration, or pattern of physical, biological, or psychological phenomena that is so completely integrated that it becomes a functional unit with properties greater than the sum of its parts. It is also referred to as “the big picture.” Sometimes that “big picture” can be recognized by its parts.

            Austrian philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels coined the term in 1890, and used a simple melody to explain it. If you play a 12-tone melody based on the eight notes in the key of C, and then transpose it to the key of A, all of the notes could very well be different, but most people will still be able to recognize the tune. They can recognize it because they recognize the relationships between the notes. It is the relationship between the notes—the half and full steps—that tells us what the tune is, not the notes themselves.

            When you meet people there is a natural tendency to try to figure out where they fit; what their place is in the gestalt, in the big picture.

            The mistake we sometimes make is assuming that their “big picture” is identical to ours. It’s like trying to fit an 8-note “melody” based on the 12-tone Western musical system into the five-tone Chinese musical system. It just won’t work. Even though some of the notes or sounds may be the same, the relationships are different, as is the basis for those relationships.

            If you stick your hand into a bag filled with buttons and pull out a green one, do not assume that the rest of them are also green. You will have to look at all the buttons, or at least at a larger sample of buttons.                

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9.      The Gestalt of Perception (Continued)

            Dr. C. George Boeree, a psychologist and professor at Shippensburg University, in Pennsylvania, explains one of the common “laws” of gestalt this way:   

            “The most general version is called the law of pragnanz.  Pragnanz is German for pregnant, but in the sense of pregnant with meaning, rather than pregnant with child. This law says that we are innately driven to experience things in as good a gestalt as possible. ‘Good’ can mean many things here, such a regular, orderly, simplicity, symmetry, and so on, which then refer to specific gestalt laws. For example, a set of dots outlining the shape of a star is likely to be perceived as a star, not as a set of dots. We tend to complete the figure, make it the way it ‘should’ be, finish it.”

            As a result, we tend to look at the action of the people we deal with in terms of what we consider to be “normal” patterns of behavior, and interpret them in a “good” or “orderly” light—the way we think of as “good” or “orderly.”

            Our assumptions, then, are based on our experiences. At times we forget, however, that the assumptions of others are based on their experiences. Their behavior makes sense to them because what they are doing is “good” and “orderly” to them.

            The only way to break out of our assumptions is to open ourselves to at least recognizing the fact that other people have other assumptions—based on their own cultures and experiences—and that those assumptions may be just as “good” and “orderly” as our own.

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10.  Pick A Reality, Any Reality

            If you talk to police detectives, you will learn that when they interview three different eyewitnesses to a crime they often get three different stories and descriptions of three different criminals—all for the same crime—committed by only one person.

            Ask different family members to recount exactly “what happened” at a specific family event a few years ago, and you’ll probably get a collection of different stories.

            Have five different employees each write out what they think the department’s top five objectives should be, and you’ll probably get more than just the same five objectives.

            What, then, is reality? The dictionary defines reality as:

“actual fact,” and “the quality or state of being real.”

            According to scholar and author Howard Bloom:

“Reality is a shared hallucination.”

            Comedian Lily Tomlin says:

“Reality is a collective hunch.”

            Bloom and Tomlin are closer to the truth than the dictionary is because both of them realize that in terms of the way we do project/programme purpose and live our lives, reality is what we say it is. If everyone agrees that the proper dress code for a meeting is bathing suits, cowboy hats and neckties, then that is the dress code.

            We run into problems when we try to impose our view of reality on others when we assume that just because we like to wear bathing suits, cowboy hats and neckties to meetings, they do, too.

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Assignments

Multiple Choice (3)

1.                  Which time period shapes our current perception?

a.      Past

b.      Present

c.       Future 

d.      All of the above

2.                  Assumptions are largely based on what?

a.       Job 

b.      Culture

c.       Experiences

d.      All of the above

3.                  Who spends time trying to understand attitudes and perceptions of others?

a.      Effective communicators

b.      Poor communicators

c.       Non-communicators

d.      None of the above

4.                  Assumptions can be

a.       Problematic 

b.      Dangerous

c.       Questionable

d.      All of the above

5.                  From a communication perspective                    are followed by lawyers in courts when they are discussing points of law.

a.      Ground rules

b.      Assumptions

c.       Legal books 

d.      All of these

6.                                           can help us make sure we are actually communicating.

a.       Hearing

b.      Talking 

c.       Feedback 

d.      All of the above

7.                  Communication is what type of process

a.       Configured

b.      Two-way

c.       Simplistic

d.      All of these

8.                  To understand someone else’s reality, we must understand what about that person?

a.       Their culture 

b.      Their nonverbal messages

c.       Their attitudes 

d.      All of the above

9.                  Until we change someone’s perception, we cannot change their ______?

a.      Reality

b.      Ideas 

c.       Goals 

d.      All of the above

10.              Reality is:

a.       A collective hunch

b.      A shared hallucination

c.       What we say it is

d.      All of the above

11.              Assuming that someone else’s “big picture” is identical to ours is

a.       Correct 

b.      A mistake

c.       Pointless 

d.      All of these

12.              Our perceptions of someone else may best be based on their

a.      Appearance 

b.      Pets

c.       Family 

d.      All of these

Test

1. ______        Even when our perception may be wrong, it is our reality.

2. ______        We cannot change our perceptions, until we change our reality.

3. ______        We can assume that people within our same organization share the same beliefs.

4. ______        Prior research can give us a better idea of who we will be talking to.

5. ______        It is alright to assume that someone has the same idea as you do.

6. ______        As symbols change, our perceptions stay the same.

7. ______        Our assumptions are based on our experiences.

8. ______        Feedback can help us know if we are actually communicating.

9. ______        Reality is a what we say it is.

10.______       History shapes our present perceptions.

Answers:

1.         T

2.         F – We cannot change our reality until we change our perceptions.

3.         F – We cannot make assumptions.

4.         T

5.         F – Do not make assumptions.

6.         F – Symbols do not change, but our perceptions do.

7.         T

8.         T

9.         T

10.       T

Bibliography

Brilhart, J.K., Galanes, G.J., & Adams, K. (2001). Effective group discussion (10^th ed.). New York: McGraw- Hill.

Filley, A. (1988). Interpersonal conflict resolution (2^nd ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman.

McKinney, B.C., Kelly, L., & Duran, R.L. (1997). The relationship between conflict message styles and dimensions of communication competence. Communication Reports, 10, 185-196.