Personality perception and orientation. basics of general psychology

Selectivity is an individual’s acquired or developed ability for directed perception. This quality implies control of one’s own thinking, attention, perception and consciousness in general, thanks to which the psyche is able to distinguish a certain object or event from a number of ongoing external changes.

Selectivity is a property of perception that allows you to highlight the main thing and leave minor points on the periphery in a blurred background. This is an important personality quality for maintaining mental balance and overall success of activity, since the psyche becomes exhausted quite quickly when it processes a lot of material at the same time, and there is a need to concentrate on the main thing and move away from less vital details. It is selectivity that allows a person to make a choice regarding his location and group of people for communication, the food he eats and the direction of his life’s path - categories are completely different in nature and the scale of influence on the further course of events, but they are all carried out using choice.

Levels and types of perception

Definition 1
Perception is the process through which images of the surrounding world are formed, reality is reflected in the psyche.

A synonym for the word perception is the word perception, which translated from Latin means subjective, sensory knowledge of the environment. There are other words with equivalent meaning - acceptance, contemplation, appreciation, etc.

In the course of his life, a person constantly learns about the world around him; taking this or that thing in his hands, he can determine its color, density, weight, smell, etc. All these characteristics cause different sensations, which together give rise to the image of the object. This process of cognition will be the perception on the basis of which the subjective image of the object is formed.

Perception is the result of the activity of a system of analyzers. In psychology, perception is not only the sum of sensations, but also the individual knowledge of a person, his ideas about the world.

Note 1

The phenomenon of perception has a close connection with memory, thinking, attention, motivational sphere, and speech. Perception has four levels - detection, for example, a person’s ear perceives a signal, discrimination - a person understands that this signal is a sound, identification - a person determines what this sound is like from sounds familiar to him, recognition - assigning an image to a specific category , for example, this is the booming children's laughter outside the window

Perception has four levels - detection, for example, a person’s ear perceives a signal, discrimination - a person understands that this signal is a sound, identification - a person determines what this sound is like from sounds familiar to him, recognition - assigning an image to a specific category , for example, is the booming children's laughter outside the window.

Each object or phenomenon of a huge and diverse world is perceived through different analyzers, but among them there is always one leader.

Perception is classified into several types: -

Perception is distinguished by modality:
- visual,
tactile,
olfactory,
taste.
According to the leading analyzer, the following simple types of perception are distinguished:
- kinesthetic type - sensations, movements with the help of which a person reads information.
a visual view in which the leading receiver is the eyes.

If you listen to how a person speaks, you can determine his individual type of simple perception

Each person sees the world differently, based on their abilities, and this is important for understanding each other

A complex type of perception combines two or more types of perception in different combinations - it can be visual-auditory, visual-motor-auditory, etc.

A special type of perception is a specific perception depending on the perceived object.

According to the method of actualization, perception can be voluntary or involuntary. If voluntary perception has its goal, then involuntary perception is caused not by a goal, but by the environment, for example, a neurologist taps a hammer on the leg to test a physiological response.

about the author

Scott Plouse is an assistant professor of psychology at Wesleyan University. He graduated from the University of Minnesota and received a PhD in psychology from Stanford University, where he then spent two years studying political psychology. For two years, Plouse lectured at the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana campus).

Scott Plouse is the recipient of various awards and honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship, the Allport Prize, and the Slusser Peace Essay Prize. He teaches courses in judgment and decision making, social psychology, statistics, and research methods. He has published more than 20 articles in such periodicals as Psychology Today, Psychological Science, Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Journal of Conflict Resolution

and
Journal of Applied Social Psychology.
However, Plouse is best known for his studies of the psychology of the nuclear arms race, as well as for his work centered on ethical debates about the treatment of animals and the environment. In 1991, he published his first major work, a review of the ideas of animal rights activists interested in issues related to the role of animals in human society. In addition to his scientific work, Plaus is a political and business consultant in numerous projects, the knowledge gained formed the basis of this work.

P.J.Z. and K.M., who believed when others did not believe

Meaningfulness

The essence of this property is to give a perceived phenomenon or object a certain meaning, designate it with a word, and also assign it to a certain language group, based on the subject’s knowledge and past experience. One of the simplest forms of understanding phenomena and objects is recognition.

Swiss psychologist Hermann Rorschach discovered that even random ink spots are perceived by a person as something meaningful (lake, cloud, flowers, etc.), and only people with mental disorders tend to perceive them simply as abstract spots. It follows from this that the perception of meaningfulness occurs as a process of searching for answers to the question: “What is this?”

People may have different reactions to the same stimulus due to selective perception, selective distortion, and selective memory.
[p.200] Thirdly, the consumer tends to create a set of beliefs about brands, when each individual brand is characterized by the degree to which each individual property is present in it. A set of beliefs about a particular branded product is known as brand image. Consumer beliefs can range from knowledge of true properties from personal experience to knowledge resulting from selective perception, selective distortion, and selective remembering. [p.209]

The consumer develops a certain set of beliefs about brands, in which each of them is characterized by some property. A set of beliefs about a particular brand develops a brand image. The image of a brand in the consumer’s mind depends on his accumulated experience and is the result of selective perception, selective distortion and selective memorization. [p.258]

Selective remembering. Much of what a person perceives, even if such perception is selective, he forgets. The consumer tends to remember only that information that supports his beliefs and currently dominant needs. In this case, it is the significance that matters, and not the number of repetitions (which, if the information is indifferent, can have the opposite—annoying—effect). [p.180]

Our perception is selective. And our memory is highly selective. We are limited by psychological limits, due to which we are not able to process an infinite amount of information. This means that in a crowded category, your distinctive feature will not be enough unless that feature fundamentally distinguishes you from others. [p.30]

Selective perception. Every day people face a huge number of irritants. Thus, the average person can come into contact with more than 1,500 advertisements in one way or another during the day. The individual is simply not able to respond to all these stimuli. He weeds out most of them. The main difficulty lies in explaining exactly which stimuli will be noticed. [p.200]

People are more likely to notice stimuli that differ sharply in some of their meanings from the usual ones. And Betty Smith is more likely to notice an ad offering a Nikon camera $100 off list price than an ad offering a $5 discount.16 The selective nature of perception means that marketers must make special efforts to attract consumers' attention. After all, their appeal will pass by the majority of those who are not currently looking for this advertising item on the market. But even seekers may not notice the appeal if it does not stand out from the surrounding sea of stimuli. Advertisements are more likely to be noticed if they are larger in size, if they are in color, while most others are black and white, if they are presented in a new way and contrast with the rest. [p.201]

The presence of these three features—selectivity of perception, distortion, and memorization—means that market actors need to make a lot of effort to convey their message to the recipients. This explains why firms resort so widely to dramatization and repetition when sending their messages to markets. [p.202]

The discrepancy between the bases of judgment can cause selective perception of information depending on the range of interests, needs, emotional state and external environment of people. This characteristic is extremely important for information exchange. It follows from this that in many cases people perceive only part of the message they receive in the physical sense. Organizations' difficulties in communicating information are attributed to differences in how people interpret the messages they receive. As a result, the ideas encoded by the sender may be distorted and not fully understood. [p.176]

The key word in the definition of perception is individual. Linda Brown perceives a talkative computer salesman as insincere and aggressive. To another buyer, the same seller will seem smart, always ready to help. Why people perceive the same situation differently This is because perception processes occur in the form of selective attention, selective distortion and selective memory. As a result, the consumer does not always see or hear the signals that manufacturers send to him. Therefore, when designing a marketing campaign, it is necessary to take into account all three perceptual processes. [p.247]

Selectivity of perception leads to the fact that marketers have to make special efforts to ensure that buyers distinguish their brand from a number of similar products. Manufacturers' appeals to customers will pass by those who are not currently interested in this product. And those who desperately need it may not notice the appeal if it does not stand out in the sea of irritants surrounding the person. People will notice quicker bright, large, original advertisements that differ from other standard advertisements. [p.248]

Even with introductory preliminary training, it is quite possible for a person to form the simplest mechanisms of specific selective self-control over the “strange” behavior of his colleagues and “perception” of some unusual industrial collisions. The centralized security service is not able to monitor

We live in our environment, or on our territory, selectively perceiving information through our senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Our senses, or receivers, receive more than two million pieces of information every moment, and in order to make sense of it all, we have to decide which pieces of information we will pay attention to. To decide what is important and what is unimportant, we use filters—values, beliefs, memories, speech, perception of time, and so-called [p.52]

Selective perception, distortion, memorization are a kind of “individual information filter” that interferes with understanding the meaning of the new technique. [p.157]

Selective distortion occurs when consumers distort the information they receive to suit their existing opinions and views. We may distort information that does not correspond to our views. This happens in the following way: we either misperceive the message or simply ignore the source of the message. Therefore, it is important to present clear messages without the possibility of ambiguity and to use highly credible sources. The classic experiment on such distortion consisted of the following: [p.79]

The presence of the effect of selective perception is taken into account when working to attract the attention of buyers, for example, when carrying out advertising activities. The fact that a situation is perceived selectively is important for marketing for other reasons. For example, it is necessary to realize that over time a person gets used to changes in the environment. This is one of the reasons that companies change their advertising slogans from time to time. What touches our feelings and attracts our attention today may not be effective tomorrow. But when the stimulus is changed to one that is sufficiently different from the previous one, it can again attract attention. [p.149]

The key word in the definition of perception is individual. One customer perceives a talkative computer salesman as insincere and aggressive. To another visitor, the same store employee will seem smart, always ready to help. Why people perceive the same situation differently This is because perception processes occur in the form of selective attention, selective distortion and selective memory. [p.194]

Radio Mass reach high degree of selectivity based on geographic and demographic characteristics low cost Sound perception only low level of attention compared to TV messages lack of standard tariffs short duration of exposure [p.596]

PR is sometimes also defined as strategic communications, so it is understandable that PR specialists pay special attention to the results of communication research, as well as sciences such as propaganda and counter-propaganda, which are heavily based on the results of communication theory. On the main issues of this science, we refer to our book “Theory of Communication” (Kyiv, 1996). And here we note only a number of its provisions. These are opinion leaders, this is the construction of messages taking into account opinions “for” and “against” and this is the selectivity of perception. [p.189]

A possible explanation for this phenomenon may be the fact of selective perception, when supporters of one or another candidate or one or another direction actually take from the stream of mass media only opinions that confirm their point of view. For example, programs about tolerant attitudes towards minorities are watched by representatives of these minorities. These processes are also supported by the phenomenon of selective memorization, when individuals better remember those messages that correspond to their ideas. The phenomenon of selective perception makes it difficult to influence any other information campaigns, not just political ones. For example, in one experiment that tested the impact of articles linking smoking to lung cancer, the results found that 54% of non-smokers agreed with the argument, but only 28% of smokers agreed. As we see, a person protects himself from a radical change in his picture of the world that contradictory information brings to him. [p.486]

Each advertising distribution channel has advantages and disadvantages. For example, radio, which provides mass coverage and low cost, is at the same time inferior to television in terms of completeness of perception and duration of impact on the respondent. Direct mail advertising, with a high degree of selectivity of the target audience, only provides a 20-25% chance of the advertising message hitting the target, etc. [p.202]

Selective perception. Several distorting elements work together to promote such selective perception. People tend to structure new problems in light of their past experiences (for example, marketing specialists interpret a general management problem as a marketing problem). Another reason for deviation from the norm is that people's expectations distort what they see. Because of this, evidence that contradicts this is overlooked or not given the weight it deserves. [p.439]

Certain media target more specific and narrow target groups. They sometimes use regional publications with selective coverage, for example, advertising trial launches of products to the market. But highly selective media concentrate on their small audiences, promoting a certain perception among them. Professional media target various industries such as petrochemical industry, agricultural wholesale, food retail. At the consumer level, there are similar media covering areas such as water sports, skiing, home economics and the like. Direct mail advertising should also be mentioned as a highly selective advertising medium in cases where regions, groups and even individuals can be targeted. Needless to say, selective advertising media is what SMEs are looking for and the more specialized the media, the better. They allow SMEs to avoid spreading advertising to groups that are not related to the advertised products. Ad placement fees can be quite low, allowing SMEs to run a continuous, long-term campaign. [p.227]

The selectivity of perception characteristic of a person, due to his psychophysiological characteristics and life experience (according to K. Marx - various predispositions), is also manifested in his judgments about other people. [p.18]

Modeling skill undoubtedly presupposes sensitivity and selectivity in the perception of management situations. This in turn depends on the type of conceptual structures available to the researcher with the help of which he can bring some order to the chaos of perceptions. Models, as it were, organize our experience, so the study of models helps in preparing a trained observer. However, it is rarely possible to find a model that is fully applicable to a given management situation, [p.252]

Litigation is just one element that determines our behavior. Don't forget about other elements. Everything changes and you can rarely say with certainty that such and such an answer to a question is the best or the only possible one. Time makes its own adjustments to decisions, the course of the trial and the demands of the parties. We have to evaluate the situation again and again, look for additional information and endlessly analyze it. Try to understand, you, like others, look from your bell tower and your approach is subjective. For each participant, the problem has its own special meaning. Even the perception is different for everyone. It happens that a real estate agent considers the job completed - he is about to be paid a commission. However, the audit shows that he acted selectively, took into account only those facts that were in his interests (for example, they allowed him to quickly report on the completion of the transaction), and excluded from his perception everything that did not fit into his idea of a successful outcome. If you are confident in your objectivity, try to remember how many people were in the elevator with you this morning. Exclude from this number your acquaintances, then those who seemed attractive to you, and those who for some reason gave you anxiety. How much is left [p.258]

To have a certain impact on consumer behavior, you must first attract his attention. Attracting attention is the first link in the chain of the mechanism of psychological impact of advertising. It is attention that accompanies such mental processes as the perception by the recipient (receiver) of advertising information and its processing in consciousness. At the same time, attention serves as a kind of filter that filters out unnecessary messages. The selective nature of attention prevents mental overload from the flow of information. [p.45]

Advertising in the press also has its own perception characteristics. Thus, one issue of a newspaper can contain advertising messages that are diverse in subject, genre and style. Since such diversity makes it difficult to perceive them, it is necessary to achieve rhythmic and accentual division of advertising information, stylistic correspondence of form to content. Attracting attention to individual advertising messages is achieved not only by means of graphics, but also by targeting various social groups of readers (youth, retired housewives, radio amateurs, students, etc.). Here, a specific property of perception is taken into account - its selectivity, due to which a person selects some advertising messages from a newspaper page, while others form only a background for him. [p.54]

A person consciously cultivates a number of barriers within himself that block the introduction of information flows into him. Shiffman and Kanyuk call these three barriers selective attention, selective perception, and selectivity of appeal. In the case of selective attention, the consumer selects only those messages that correspond to his interests and discards others. It's as if he only wants to hear what he wants. Him and just physically [p.193]

This summary probably exaggerates the ability of a business to create or stimulate demand. Under normal social conditions, people are faced with a number of conflicting ways of life and choose one of them for themselves. In addition, people have natural defensive reactions against the influence of the media on them - selectivity of attention, perception, distortion and retention [p.667]

The way out of this seemingly dead-end situation is through alternative ways of encoding the past behavior of a series. It is intuitively clear that the further into the past the history of a series goes, the less details of its behavior affect the result of predictions. This is justified by the psychology of the subjective perception of the past by bidders, who, in fact, shape the future. Consequently, it is necessary to find a representation of the dynamics of the series that would have selective accuracy the further into the past - the fewer details, while maintaining the general appearance of the curve. A very promising tool here may be the so-called. wavelet decomposition. It is equivalent in information content to lagged immersion, but more easily allows for information compression that describes the past with selective accuracy. [p.154]

Perception. It is a complex process by which people select, organize, and interpret sensory signals into a meaningful picture of the world [28]. The amount of information coming from a huge mass of stimuli, which can be further comprehended, is limited. Therefore, this information is subject to selection using three types of filtering: selective attention, selective distortion and selective memory. Selective attention is the process by which stimuli that are not of interest are filtered out. Selection is based on experience and opinions. When visiting a supermarket, you have to deal with thousands of stimuli (product brands, price tags, cash registers, etc.) that you can pay attention to. However, this would require too much time and incredible effort. As a result, we pay attention to all these “messages” selectively. Selective attention is of great importance for advertising, since it should be taken into account that consumers perceive only 5 to 25% of the advertising they see [11]. Many factors can attract buyers' attention. We pay more attention to those stimuli that stand out from the general background than to those that merge with it. The company name Apple computers can be seen as a brand name that attracts attention because it stands out from the technology-oriented names typically associated with computers. The size, color and movement of an object can also attract attention. The location of objects is of great importance. It is likely that objects located closer to the center of the visual field are more likely to be noticed. Therefore, companies compete fiercely with each other for the right to place their products in supermarkets at eye level. In addition, we tend to flag messages that are related to our needs, as well as those that contain a surprise (for example, a large price discount). [p.79]

At the same time, performances can be aimed at completely different tasks. In some cases, they can be aimed at creating an image of a “family,” as was the case during the 1992 election campaign in the United States. By the way, this example showed the ambiguity of the perception of family in the modern world. Thus, Peggy Fellan writes: “The 1992 campaign revealed a crisis in the field of showing the family - it itself reflected a crisis in the image of the state. Everywhere in the world it has become very noticeable that the traditional family and the traditional state are no longer safe, happy [p.224]

The above examples show how corporations attempt to implement their political strategies in multiple arenas. o a-ola has fought desperately to maintain its good position given the negative events that have occurred, the corresponding public perception of them, and to satisfy the demands of individual national legislatures. Microsoft is fighting a battle in the court of public opinion while trying to defend itself against formal Justice Department charges in a regular court. Satellite TV companies have been aggressively lobbying congressional committees to change existing laws while they are aggressively trying to promote the benefits to viewers of having a more level playing field similar to that of cable TV service providers. In other words, political strategy can be carried out in formal government and informal arenas. Formal government arenas include election campaigns, legislative, executive and legal systems; informal ones include public opinion, media actions, informal relations with local groups, as well as activities on a local and regional scale. [p.236]

III. Additional properties:

– apperception – the dependence of perception on past experience, on the general content of a person’s mental activity and his individual characteristics;

– activity of perception – attitude towards perception,

– selectivity (preferential allocation of some items over others).

The most important properties of the image of perception

are: objectivity, structure, mobility and controllability, integrity, constancy, selectivity.

Let us dwell in more detail on the objectivity of the image of perception. The objectivity of the image of perception means:

Reality - a person believes in the existence of the object that is given to him in the image, i.e. he is convinced of the objective existence of this object. The presence of an image is called objectivity. Objectivity – a person experiences the image as externalized. With inadequate stimulation of one or another sense organ, images may appear that lack objectivity. In these cases they say “there is a ringing in the ear”, “sparks fell from the eyes”, etc. Perceptual systems work in such a way that they divide the world into separate objects.
Significance – images of perception devoid of meaning, when a person can describe in detail the object he is looking at, but is not able to identify it.
Polymodality is the organic unity of data of different modalities received from the senses.

The properties listed above do not exhaust the objectivity of the image. A person lives in an objective world, which differs from the world, the description of which can be found in physics textbooks. This is facilitated by the identity of the object and its image directly given in consciousness.

In the known world there are phenomena that cannot be perceived without special instruments. On the other hand, a huge variety of phenomena (such as smiling, aggressiveness) are easily and clearly perceived by us.

Basic properties of perception with examples

The mental process under consideration has the following properties:

Integrity is a characteristic of the final image that arises as a result of a combination of sensations. The final image is always complete. For example, a fly is perceived by a frog as an object of hunting only when the fly moves. If the fly is motionless, the frog does not try to catch it, since it does not perceive it as an insect.
Constancy - once acquired characteristics of a particular object, a person tends to correlate it with this particular object for a long time, accurately forming the final image. Minor changes in the characteristics of an item do not lead to difficulties with its classification. So, for example, a young man dates a tall girl who has blue eyes and blond hair. One day his girlfriend dyed her hair brunette. But he still perceives her as his partner; she has not become a stranger to him.
Subjectness - the ability to combine an object with a generic group according to key characteristics. For example, green, round, sweet - this is an apple. Green, long, with paws and a tail - this is a crocodile. The process of classifying items into generic groups may take some time. Sometimes, for a correct correlation, a person needs to come up and take a closer look at the object or pick it up.

Objectivity of perception

Structurality is reflected in the complexity of the perception process, which cannot be reduced simply to the sum of sensations from different senses. Replacing one of the key characteristics leads to the formation of a completely new image. So, for example, something large, iron and capable of floating is a ship. However, a large, iron one, capable of moving along railroad tracks is a train, not a ship.
Selectivity – selection of 1 object from the background. The scope of perception is limited. A child cannot play with many toys at the same time. First of all, he will take the brightest or largest toy. This turns on selectivity: the baby chooses the most eye-catching object by color or size. Having chosen his favorite toy from a variety, the child loses interest in the others for a while; only the best one is in his field of perception.
Apperception is the dependence of image formation on the individual characteristics of a person’s analytical systems and his life experience. The same object can be perceived differently by different people. So, for example, the Bible for believers is one of the main books of life, which sets out the rules of life and the foundations of society, but for an atheist it seems to be just a book that is no different from any other work of art.
Perception activity is a person’s ability to be aware of the surrounding reality and accumulate experience in using objects. For example, initially the baby does not know what function the spoon performs. He can knock on the wall with it, look at it like in a mirror, dig sand with it. One day his mother shows him that he can eat with a spoon. Having learned this, the baby understands that a spoon is a cutlery, and not a hammer, a mirror or a spatula.

Exaggeration of sharp corners

Many illusions are explained by the ability of our vision to exaggerate the sharp angles we see on flat figures. Perhaps this kind of illusion arises due to the phenomenon of irradiation, since the light space we see expands near the dark lines delimiting the acute angle. The direction of eye movement and their mobility in general are of great importance for these illusions. If there is a break in the lines, then our gaze first falls on the acute angle.

Sharp corners always seem larger than they actually are, which is why certain distortions appear in the relationship between the parts of the visible figure. In Fig. 15 parallel straight lines, due to the influence of the background, appear non-parallel and curved.

Rice. 15. Illusions of non-parallelism of parallel lines

Illusion of distortion of right angle and circle

Sometimes a change in the direction of lines and distortion of the shape of a figure occurs due to the fact that the eye follows the directions of other lines in the field of vision. In Fig. 16a, the sides of the square look slightly convex against the background of concentric circles, but in Fig. 16b, the circle appears somewhat distorted against the background of diverging rays.

Rice. 16. Illusions of distortion of right angles and circles

The most common perceptual errors in psychology

From psychological practice, several common situations can be identified that cause difficulties in perception. Here are the most common perception errors:

The illusion of control. If a person is interested in the outcome of a particular situation, he tends to overestimate his influence on it. This phenomenon was discovered by the American psychologist Langer, who studied the behavior of people playing the lottery. One group bought tickets themselves, and the second received them as a gift. The former categorically refused the offer to exchange tickets, as they believed that their personal choice affected the likelihood of winning. Zero risk preference. If a person is offered to reduce a minor risk to zero or significantly reduce a significant one, he is most likely to choose the first option. Although, it is much wiser to give preference to the second. Selective perception. For example, you have developed an opinion on a specific issue. You are looking for information and are becoming more and more convinced that you are right.

But the catch is that you pay attention only to the information that confirms that you are right, and leave the rest without attention. The illusion of transparency

This error of social perception occurs when a person finds himself in a situation in which it is necessary to lie. At the moment, it seems to him that everyone sees right through him, that everyone sees his insincerity. Attribution error. It consists in the fact that a person explains his own mistakes by objective circumstances, and the mistakes of others by their personal qualities. This approach impedes the individual's ability to take responsibility for his actions. The effect of moral trust. If a person has a strong positive reputation in society, others begin to think that he has neither vices nor bad intentions, which is often not true. Cascade of available information. If some information appears frequently in sources that reach a large audience, it is considered true. The older generation is influenced by television and the press, and the younger generation is influenced by social networks. Stockholm buyer syndrome. This is the name of the error of perception when a person justifies an expensive purchase, attributing all sorts of advantages to it and turning a blind eye to the shortcomings. Purchases made unnecessarily are justified in the same way. Belief in a just world. Since people are afraid to realize the injustice and chaos of the world around them, they tend to find logic even in the most terrible and absurd situations. Distorted perception of distortions. If you don’t find any vices or shortcomings in yourself, then you definitely have them. But you perceive them in a positive way, that is, distorted.

What it is

The personality quality of selectivity appeared in the course of evolution and initially concerned basic vital issues - a person chose what to eat so as not to get poisoned, where to sleep so as not to be in danger, where to move in order to improve his life. Physiological data still remains as an example of selective behavior, however, rational control of the mind over what is happening has also been added to this. So selectivity in terms of nutrition now comes down not only to the instinctive choice of food without poisons, but also to controlling the number of calories in it or the method of preparation and its harmfulness.

Selectivity concerns the choice of place of work and residence, as well as the model of building relationships with others.

A person physically cannot be present everywhere and pay equal attention to all external stimuli, which is why there is a need to choose the direction of his attention and the main vector of energy. Only in this way can you get any tangible results, and not rush between the most striking stimuli.

Spontaneously constructing one's activities and making elections based on the first internal impulses is a sign of a lack of selectivity. Such behavior can lead to rather disastrous consequences, despite the fact that in the process of following events in this way, quite vivid feelings are experienced, often characterized as a feeling of fullness of life and maximum emotions. However, succumbing to impulse, a person is able to suffer material collapse, miss serious and trusting relationships, and waste his life energy.

It is this quality that helps you achieve your goals in the shortest way; it is the basis for planning your future, where things that require special attention are laid out in advance.

Selectivity schedules our days to suit the priorities set, automatically leaving areas without energy that drain energy or interfere with implementation. But it helps not only to go towards something in the future, but also preserves existing life choices. Thus, a person who has given up drinking will not have a party in a bar, a girl who has decided to preserve her virginity will not live in a brothel, and a person with arachnophobia will not go to work in an entomology museum. All this speaks of our choices to maintain the picture of the world that is most pleasant and inspiring to us, but if such choices are violated, a complete distortion of life values and loss of our inner uniqueness is possible.

Selectivity is always a little more complex in its mechanism than simple decision-making based on desires or necessity. This quality allows you to calculate the possible consequences of a choice several steps ahead, so that desires and needs can change places. This is how an activity that is not the most pleasant is chosen, one that can lead to the fulfillment of a larger-scale desire than receiving pleasure in the present. In the same way, the choice can be made in favor of the current moment, when an assessment of internal resources will show almost complete depletion and the need for immediate replenishment, before a depressive disorder develops. That is, selectivity helps to choose the good in the long term and the integrity of the body and psyche.

This concept is closely connected with freedom and the manifestation of internal responsibility, since it represents a moment of choice. Any turn on the path of life implies certain consequences that follow, and then a person’s readiness to accept these changes, to be responsible for his actions and choices comes to the fore. Freedom has the character of an internal meaning, because even understanding what should be done does not always lead to action. Internal paralysis, focus on the opinions of others, takes away from a person his personal free manifestations of his choices, leaving selectivity exclusively as a theoretical quality.

Thanks to the quality of selectivity, one can judge a person’s taste in relation to any issues - from food to art, preferences for communication or pastime. This is a kind of marker of personality development and its needs, a reflection of opportunities and internal readiness to realize these opportunities. Every time people interact, selectivity allows you to assess how close and in the same circle a person is without asking unnecessary questions. In the effective space of elections, a person demonstrates as much as possible what he is focused on - developing or maintaining stability, luxury and self-indulgence, or asceticism for the sake of knowledge.

Constancy of form

Distortions in the perception of the shape of objects can be encountered when the orientation of objects or the subject itself changes. This type is one of the important properties of the visual system, since correct recognition of the shape of objects is a necessary condition for adequate human interaction with the outside world. One of the first to identify the role of observer knowledge and signs of distance in the constancy of form was Robert Thouless.

In 1931, a psychologist conducted an experiment, the essence of which was as follows: he asked subjects to evaluate and draw or select from a certain set of squares or circles that would be similar in shape to the proposed objects lying on a horizontal surface at different distances from the observer. As a result of the experiment, the subjects chose a stimulus form that did not coincide with either the projection form or its real form, but lay between them.

Person's perception by person

The perception of a person by a person is a process of psychological cognition in conditions of direct communication between people. This process includes all levels of mental reflection, from sensation to thinking. When people first meet, they don’t really see each other as they really are and, of course, there are reasons for this.

Figure 1. Person's perception of a person. Author24 - online exchange of student work

Consciously or not, a person pays attention to gestures, posture, speech culture, manners, behavior, status, etc. In experimental conditions, psychologists A

A. Bodalev and V.N. Panferov were studying what makes the strongest impression when meeting someone, and it turned out that a person’s hairstyle is striking and memorable, which can change the face beyond recognition

Under experimental conditions, psychologists A.A. Bodalev and V.N. Panferov were studying what makes the strongest impression when meeting someone, and it turned out that a person’s hairstyle is striking and memorable, which can change the face beyond recognition.

Next, a person pays attention to the eyes, which can be different - kind, evil, prickly, cunning, radiant and set the person either in a trusting or wary and aggressive mood. Of course, the most attractive thing is a person’s smile, which can also be friendly, tense, kind, or angry.

If you want to please a person, D. Carnegie believed, then smile

Of course, the most attractive thing is a person’s smile, which can also be friendly, tense, kind, or angry. If you want to please a person, D. Carnegie believed, then smile.

The expression of a person’s face is formed by his facial expressions - some people have dynamic and varied facial expressions, while others have poor facial expressions, resulting in the impression of gloominess, secrecy and unfriendlyness.

Facial expressions and gestures carry a lot of information about a person. Facial expressions are regulated by the subconscious and are the most sincere informant about a person’s mental state.

Experts have noticed that a smoking partner, when solving a problem positively, releases smoke upward, and when solving a problem negatively, smoke is released downwards.

When a partner experiences tension, his shoulders rise; when relaxed, on the contrary, they fall.

A lowered head indicates isolation, and a raised head indicates intense self-control.

A head tilted to one side communicates curiosity and a desire to communicate.

Thus, in the perception of a person by a person, four methods of interpretation can be distinguished:

the emotional way is interpreted as sincere, good, beautiful;
analytical method - frowned eyebrows, sharp cheekbones characterize an angry person;
perceptual-associative method - the partner is similar to a harmful neighbor, therefore just as unpleasant;
the social-associative method ascribes social qualities to a person based on his appearance; if clothes are torn and dirty, then this shows the individual’s troubles and the desire to stay away from him.

Constancy of color and light perception

Color constancy refers to the ability of vision to correct the perception of the color of objects, for example, in natural light at any time of the day or when the spectrum of their illumination changes, for example, when leaving a dark room. Experts have come to the conclusion that the mechanism of perceptual constancy is acquired.

This is evidenced by a number of studies. In one experiment, scientists conducted a study on people permanently living in a dense forest. Their perception is of interest, since they have not previously encountered objects at long distances. When observers were shown objects that were at a great distance from them, these objects appeared to them not as distant, but as small.

Similar violations of constancy can be seen in plains dwellers when they look down at objects from a height. In addition, from the top floor of a high-rise building, cars or passing people seem tiny to us. It is worth noting that from the age of two, a child begins to develop such types of constancy as sizes, shapes and colors. In addition, they tend to improve up to the age of fourteen.

Patterns of perception

Various types of perception have their own specific properties. But in addition to these characteristics, there are patterns of perception. Let's take a closer look at the main ones:

Objectivity. Associated with mental images of objects, perceived not as images, but as real objects. More precisely, objectivity reflects the degree of adequacy of the perception of images in reality.

Selectivity. Reflects the isolation of one of the objects of the general background. Here it is a frame of reference that evaluates other qualities of the perceived object. Selective perception is accompanied by the quality of centralization - this is a subjective expansion of the focus of attention and at the same time a reduction in the peripheral zone. At the level of significance of an object, a person most often distinguishes the main object and a larger object.

Note 1

The integrity of perception is the reflection of objects in the overall quality of elements, even in the absence of similar qualities in its individual parts.

Constancy. Shows a reflection of the basic qualities of objects regardless of changed perception conditions. For example, the perception of the shape of an object under different illumination and or depending on the distance to the object. This indicator reflects the observed object, regardless of the observation point.

Structurality. Shows the integrity and stability of some components of perceptual images. This pattern means that perception is not the sum of sensations. For example, when a melody is played, a person hears various sounds of musical instruments, and not general indicators.

Categoricality. Perception is associated with meaningfulness and generality. Objects are not perceived as given, but correspond to certain classes of objects. Here the relationship between perception and thinking is revealed, and in the case of generalization, the relationship between thinking and memory is revealed. The simplest way to comprehend is recognition. This is how the relationship between perception and memory is manifested. The process of recognition means perceiving a given object and comparing it with previous experience. Recognition can be of a generalized type, when the object belongs to general categories, and of a differentiated level, when the object is correlated with a single object.

For such recognition, the presence of specific features, its unique characteristics, is important. In the process of recognition, a person cannot identify all the features of an object; he uses their characteristic properties. For material objects, contours or characteristic combinations of lines matter

Recognition becomes more difficult when there are a small number of characteristic features of an object.

Apperception. Perception is associated with a person’s dependence on his previous experience, on his knowledge, hobbies and passions. This is how constant apperception manifests itself. With temporary apperception, a person’s perception depends on his emotional states.

Development of perception in children

The foundations of perception as a mental process are laid in infancy. However, at an early age, the baby’s perception is still very imperfect. In the first years of life, a child develops visual-tactile and visual-motor connections that arise in the process of manipulative activities with objects. Later, the manipulation turns to “feeling” a new object with the gaze - this indicates a new stage in the development of perception.

In preschool and primary school age, perception is determined by the impressionability and emotionality of children: involuntary perception prevails over voluntary perception.

The most difficult for children to master are the spatial properties of objects that are associated with visual, kinesthetic and tactile sensations. During preschool childhood, children successfully master concepts such as shape, size and size of objects, learn to determine the distance and spatial arrangement of objects relative to each other.

The perception of time poses serious difficulties for children of primary preschool age. They do not always correctly use the words “tomorrow”, “yesterday”, “later”, “earlier”.

Children's perception of time

As the child masters the surrounding world, as well as systematic schooling, the child’s conditioned reflex connections improve, which is an impetus for the development of perception.

The key role in the development of children's perception belongs to adults

Thus, parents and teachers teach children how to operate with objects, guide the child’s development process, and draw his attention to the essential characteristics of objects and phenomena of reality. An adult’s detailed and complete answers to a child’s questions about certain objects and phenomena will mean a lot.

Attention! To develop a child’s perception, it is necessary to organize his play and practical activities with objects. During the game, children learn to distinguish the basic properties of objects: color, weight, shape, size

In order for a child to study an object and understand its purpose, he needs to touch it and try to perform various actions with it. During the game and practical activities, optimal conditions are created for the interaction of analyzers, which leads to the formation of a holistic view of the world.

Children's artistic activities have enormous potential for the development of perceptual skills. In drawing from a model and in the process of sculpting, children learn to feel proportions, convey the shape and size of an object, and distinguish between shades of a palette. Thus, by older preschool age, the child’s perception becomes controlled and arbitrary.

During the period of schooling, perception is improved due to the variety of academic disciplines and various types of activities of children under the guidance of a teacher. To develop perceptual skills, the teacher must use visual aids: firstly, this stimulates the work of several analyzers at once, and secondly, it contributes to better memorization of information. Independent search work of students is of great importance.

Thus, perception plays an important role in human life. Perceptual skills formed at a high level ensure successful learning, harmonious personal development, and the ability for scientific creativity.

It is important for adults to remember that this ability will not be formed by itself; it is necessary to create conditions for the child to play with different objects from an early age. It is important to give sensory standards and cognitive interest the opportunity to develop in early childhood.

If these conditions are met, during school the child will be active and independent in learning about the world around him.

Brief perception of reality

Notes on psychological experimentation

To a reader unfamiliar with psychology, some of the terms and experimental procedures discussed in this book may seem crude or insensitive. For example, participants in an experiment are designated impersonally as “subjects.” Some experimental procedures initially mislead participants about the real purpose of the study so that the final results demonstrate mainly bias or some degree of flaw in human decisions.

These factors are very important and deserve some comment.

First, the reason for using the term "subject" is that the word is often more precise than typical ones like "person" or "individual" and also less awkward than "participant" or "volunteer." The word “subject”—standard in psychology—does not mean that psychologists treat them as inanimate objects. In fact, the true “subject” of psychological research is not the participant in the experiment as such, but his behavior.

Second, there are several reasons why deception is sometimes present in psychological research. In many cases, subjects are given vague or false "main themes" and thus are not influenced by the true purpose of the experiment. For example, in studies of group dynamics, subjects may be told that a “learning and memory” experiment is being conducted to distract attention from dividing them into groups. In other cases, deception is used to simulate a situation that could not otherwise be created. For example, in a creativity experiment, volunteers might be randomly selected to receive positive or negative (17:) reactions in response to their problem solving. If they were informed in advance that they would receive random responses, then they would not look at them as meaningful.

Although there are strong arguments against the use of deception in research (Warwick, 1975, February), it is important to note that the American Psychological Association (1989) has established a number of ethical guidelines to protect subjects when deception is used. The rules provide that the subject must be told sufficiently about the experiment to enable him to give informed consent to participate in the research; deception should be used only when it cannot be avoided; subjects must be protected from harm and serious inconvenience; the subject can refuse to participate in the experiment at any time; information about his identity is considered confidential, and any information used for deception must be indicated after the end of the experiment. Most universities require researchers to strictly adhere to these rules.

Finally, there are several reasons why the study of deviations and shortcomings (there are many more of them in life) is more important than the study of successes (Kahneman, 1991). Academic journals prefer to publish research results that contradict conventional intuition. As a result, much more research has been published specifically on failures in the decision-making process. In this regard, professional publications follow the path of newspapers and magazines, striving to surprise and intrigue the reader. According to one estimate (Christensen-Shalansky and Beach, 1984), journal articles refer to studies of bad decisions six times more often than studies of good decisions. Because this book is written as an introduction to research in the psychology of judgment and decision making, it naturally reflects a broader range of research interests.

There is, however, a more important reason to focus on failure. Decision-making mistakes are often more instructive than successes, especially when the latter becomes the norm. This book's focus on failure and miscalculation does not mean that most people do not know how to make the right decisions, but mistakes show more clearly how this (18:) process occurs, just as car breakdowns force us to pay attention to the design of the engine. Following the explanation of Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross (1980, p. xii), this approach is based “on the same premise that guides our colleagues who study perceptual illusions or mental disorders—the belief that the nature of mental structures and processes can be revealed in deviations which they give rise to."

And, of course, focusing on errors has the added benefit of making the results easier to use. If you find out that a particular situation constantly leads to deviations and mistakes, you can avoid it or correct the situation in time. To facilitate this process, I have included examples from everyday life: medicine, law, business, education, nuclear arms control (my specialty), and other fields. In fact, most of the conclusions of this book are quite publicly available, which allows me to assure readers who are not yet very familiar with research on the psychology of assessment and decision-making: by judiciously using the results of the experiments described in this book, you will be able to more easily avoid mistakes, miscalculations and pitfalls , and also better understand the decisions made by other people.

Problems of perception

The occurrence of perceptual disturbances and errors is largely caused by certain key perceptual problems. Namely:

A person's ability to process information is not infinite. When forming an impression about a person or situation, a huge amount of data enters the brain. Not being able to process the entire stream, we sift through them, perceiving only those that are within the scope of our interests and contribute to the speedy achievement of our goals. Risk of false conclusions. When information is insufficient, we draw conclusions about a person or situation based on limited data, conjecturing non-existent parameters

And when an opinion has already been formed, we do not want to take into account additional information. Perception is a feedback system

Not only do we form impressions of people, but they also form impressions of us. By making guesses on this issue, we can draw incorrect conclusions, which leads to misunderstandings and conflict situations. Intentional distortion of information. Trying to make the best impression on others, a person gives deliberately false information about himself.

About this book

While cognitive psychologists have only outlined the boundaries of research, pointing out certain shortcomings of the traditional “rational” model of decision making, social psychologists have significantly enriched this field of knowledge, pushing its boundaries in many directions. Drawing on the insights of this new and original combination of disciplines, Scott Plouse shows that a social perspective on judgment and decision-making can provide practical advice for dealing with many of the mundane problems of everyday life. Plous not only provides an accessible overview of the research literature, his book offers a significant number of illustrative examples, new terms, and interesting findings.

What I think readers will find most compelling here is Plouse's combination of scholarship and interest in creating an effective set of communication guidelines for a wide range of audiences, from students to businessmen, doctors and national leaders. This book is full of pedagogical insights, new formulas that enrich old ideas, unique exercises in critical assessment that make learning fun, and it also presents provocative juxtapositions of seemingly unrelated situations. In short, it is rare to see the first book by a young scientist that offers so much and for so many on such pressing issues.

Philip Zimbardo

Properties of perception

Perceptual properties can be divided into two groups:

Volume of perception. How many objects can a person perceive during one fixation?
Accuracy of perception. To what extent does the emerging image correspond to the characteristics of the perceived object;
Completeness of perception. What is the degree of correspondence of the emerging image to the characteristics of the perceived object;
Speed of perception is the time required for adequate perception of an object or phenomenon.

The second group is characterized by properties inherent in all cognitive processes and characterizing the essence of the perception process. Among the “essential” properties of perception are:

Constancy of perception. It refers to the ability to perceive objects and see them in size, color, and shape as relatively constant in changing physical conditions of perception. Constancy of perception plays an important role in a person’s orientation in the surrounding world;
Meaningfulness of perception. This is the ability to attribute a certain meaning to a perceived object, designate it with a word, assign it to a certain linguistic category, etc. Meaningfulness of perception allows you to purposefully use objects and is achieved in the process of understanding their essence. To consciously perceive an object means to mentally name it, i.e. relate to a certain group, class, certain concept;
Structurality of perception. Human perception has the ability to combine influencing stimuli into holistic and relatively simple structures. Structurality is associated with the integrity of perception;
Integrity of perception. Mental completion of the perceived elements of an object into a complete image. A holistic form of an object arises on the basis of conditioned reflexes developed during life and stored in human experience;
Objectivity of perception. The possibility of relating a visual image of perception to certain objects of the external world. The ability to reflect real world objects in the form of individual objects. This is not an innate property of perception; its emergence and improvement occurs in the process of ontogenesis;
Generalization of perception. Reflection of individual objects as a special manifestation of the general;
Selectivity of perception. From the entire diversity of the environment, highlighting some objects in comparison with others. Attitudes, interests, and needs of the individual determine the selectivity of perception. Selectivity reveals the activity of the perception process as a manifestation of the meaningful side of human activity.

Errors in decision making

Errors in perceiving the situation when making decisions deserve special attention. Namely:

Pendulum solutions. This is a phenomenon in which, having realized the error of his decision, a person tries to return to his original state, believing that from the initial position he can influence the situation and correct it.
Duplicate solutions. Finding himself in new conditions, a person tries to adapt the decisions he makes to the established situation.
Conflicting decisions. Unlike the previous situation, a person in new conditions tries to make decisions that completely contradict the previously established and established way of life.
Adventurous solutions. Due to an incomplete perception of reality or an overestimation of one’s own capabilities, a person makes a decision that most likely will not be implemented or will fail.
Late decisions. Fearing making a mistake, a person thinks for a long time, missing the right time to act. As a result, when a decision is finally made, it can no longer affect anything and has no significant significance.
Demotivating decisions. Instead of lifting the spirits of those around him and his own spirit, the person takes a position that brings everyone down.
Template solutions. A person constantly acts according to a scheme developed over time, without analyzing its effectiveness.
Underestimation of risk. A person is aware of threats and risks, but prefers to think that this will not happen to him.

Gratitude

I would like to thank Joel Brockner, Baruch Fischhoff, Nancy Gallagher, Beth Loftus, Duncan Luce, Dave Myers, Heather Nash, Jim Plouse, Paul Slovic, Janet Snyzek, Mark Schneider, Amos Tversky, and Vilem Wagenaar for their early assistance in developing this book. , Elle Weber, Phil Zimbardo.

I am also grateful for library assistance from Tamra Williams, Heather Nash, and Steven Liebergott.

It was a pleasure to work with members of the McGraw -
Hill .
For the love, support and encouragement along the way, I thank Diana Ersepke.

Scott Plouse