Chapter 4

           When I walk to and from class, I am not with any friends or acquaintances. Due to this, I often look down while walking or text or play a game on my phone. I do not acknowledge others around me, except to avoid running into them (which still happens from time to time). I don't act this way because I don't respect the other hundreds of students around me also walking across campus, I just simply need to get to class on time and therefore my primary focus is walking by an efficient route. 

           The more I reflect, however, the more I realize that I perceive other students acting the same way I do while walking across campus as stand-offish, grumpy, and rude. Even more so, when I do happen to make eye contact with someone or smile at them and they look down instead of acknowledging my ever-so-thoughtful notion of kindness, I feel hurt. I have discovered that while I expect others to perceive that I am a student just like them simply trying to get to class, and understand that I'm not ignoring them because I have any negative feelings about those around me, my perceptions of my peers contradict my own expectations of others. 

          Relating my recent discovery of myself to the textbook chapter 4 reading, titled Perceiving Others, I am organizing my perception of other students by their interaction constructs. Interaction constructs focus on social behavior, so in this case, behavior such as acting reserved and quiet. 

           As an overall summary of chapter 4, the authors dive in to the concept that we perceive others based on a set of traits and categories. Our perceptions of others can be influenced by a variety of physiological factors that we ourselves are experiencing or social factors. The authors suggest that one solution or suggestion to decrease the amount of mis-perceptions that take place in communication is to use perception checking and adjust our own attitudes to enhance empathy with communication partners. 

          While I do think that this idea of misperceiving others could be discussed in even greater detail and solutions could continue to be explored and examined within the text, this is only a portion of the authors textbook and therefore that would take up much too much space. The most valuable piece of information I took from this text was the idea of perception checking, and more specifically, thinking about how to frame a question so as to not either offend or communicate a possible misperception in a harmful way. By beginning with offering another's behavior, and following it with multiple interpretations of that behavior, and then requesting for clarification, one has limited the possibility of misperceptions and gives the other room to clear up any confusion with their behavior. By including this method of perception checking, the authors are better equipping students for future situations, regardless of the scenario, and are providing an applicable tool for both inside and outside the classroom.