Perception - mechanisms and effects. Basic properties of perception

Introduction

Social psychology is a science that studies the mechanisms and patterns of people's behavior and activities, due to their inclusion in social groups and communities, as well as psychological features these groups and communities

Psychology is usually understood as the science of human behavior, and social psychology as the branch of that science dealing with human interaction. The paramount task of science is to establish general laws through systematic observation. Social psychologists develop such general laws to describe and explain human interaction.

The very combination of the words "social psychology" indicates the specific place that this discipline occupies in the system scientific knowledge. Having arisen at the intersection of sciences - psychology and sociology, social psychology still retains its special status, which leads to the fact that each of the "parent" disciplines quite willingly includes it as an integral part. This ambiguity in the position of the scientific discipline has many different reasons. Chief among them is the objective existence of such a class of facts of social life, which in themselves can be investigated only with the help of the combined efforts of two sciences: psychology and sociology. On the one hand, any social phenomenon has its own "psychological" aspect, since social patterns are manifested only through the activities of people, and people act, being endowed with consciousness and will.

On the other hand, in situations of joint activity of people, very special types of connections arise between them, connections of communication and interaction, and their analysis is impossible outside the system of psychological knowledge.

The relevance of the topic is due to the fact that the process of perception by one person of another acts as an obligatory component of communication and can conditionally be called the perceptual side of communication.

The object of the study is the interaction of people with each other through the perceptual side of communication.

Subject of study - social perception as a socio-psychological aspect of interaction.

The aim of the work is to study the structure and mechanisms of social perception.

The concept of social perception

social perception facial expressions openness

Emergence and successful development interpersonal communication is possible only if there is mutual understanding between its participants. The extent to which people reflect the traits and feelings of each other, perceive and understand others, and through them themselves, largely determines the process of communication, the relationship that develops between partners, and the ways in which they carry out joint activities. Thus, the process of cognition and understanding by one person of another acts as an obligatory component of communication; conditionally, it can be called the perceptual side of communication.

Social perception is one of the most complex and important concepts of social psychology. It can even be argued that it is one of the most significant contributions of social psychology to modern and promising human psychology.

Its proximity to the general psychological concept of "perception" is limited by the name, the most common everyday meanings and the fact that both are related to the mechanisms and phenomena of human perception of various phenomena. This is where the similarities end. Perception is a theoretical concept that characterizes an artificially isolated fragment of a holistic process of cognition and subjective understanding of the World by a person. Social perception is a complex, multi-component concept that tries to explain unique phenomenon knowledge and understanding of each other.

The concept of social perception was first introduced by J. Bruner in 1947, when he developed A New Look on the perception of man by man.

Social perception is a process that occurs when people relate to each other and includes the perception, study, understanding and evaluation of social objects by people: other people, themselves, groups or social communities.

The concept of “social perception” includes everything that in the general psychological approach is usually denoted by various terms and studied separately, then trying to piece together a complete picture of the human mental world:

- own process of perception of the observed behavior;

– interpretation of perceived in terms of the causes of behavior and the expected consequences;

- emotional evaluation;

- building a strategy of their own behavior.

perceptual process

The process of social perception is a complex and branched system of formation in the mind of a person of images of social objects as a result of such methods of understanding each other by people as perception, knowledge, understanding and study. The term "perception" is not the most accurate in defining the formation of the observer's idea of his interlocutor, as this is a more specific process. In social psychology, such a formulation as “knowledge of another person” (A.A. Bodalev) is sometimes used as a more accurate concept to characterize the process of perceiving a person by a person.

The process includes the relationship between the subject of perception and the object of perception.

The subject of perception is an individual or a group that carries out the cognition and transformation of reality. When the subject of perception is an individual, he can perceive and cognize his own group, an outside group, another individual who is a member of either his or another group. When the group is the subject of perception, then the process of social perception becomes even more intricate and complex, since the group carries out knowledge of both itself and its members, and can also evaluate members of another group and the other group itself as a whole.

The specificity of a person’s knowledge of another person lies in the fact that the subject and object of perception perceive not only the physical characteristics of each other, but also behavioral, and in the process of interaction, judgments are formed about the intentions, abilities, emotions and thoughts of the interlocutor. In addition, an idea is created about the relationships that connect the subject and the object of perception. This gives even more significant meaning to the sequence of additional factors that do not play such an important role in the perception of physical objects. If the subject of perception actively participates in communication, then this means the intention of the person to establish coordinated actions with a partner, taking into account his desires, intentions, expectations and past experience. Thus, social perception depends on emotions, intentions, opinions, attitudes, preferences and prejudices.

Social perception is defined as the perception of external signs of a person, comparing them with his personal characteristics, interpretation and prediction on this basis of his actions and deeds. Thus, in social perception there is certainly an assessment of another person, and the development, depending on this assessment and the impression made by the object, of a certain attitude in the emotional and behavioral aspect. This process of cognition by one person of another, its evaluation and the formation of a certain attitude is an integral part of human communication and can be conditionally called the perceptual side of communication.

Functions of social perception

There are basic functions of social perception, namely: self-knowledge, knowledge of a communication partner, organization of joint activities based on mutual understanding and the establishment of certain emotional relationships. Mutual understanding is a social - mental phenomenon, the center of which is empathy.

Empathy is the ability to empathize, the desire to put yourself in the place of another person and accurately determine his emotional state based on actions, facial reactions, gestures.

Empathy is based on the ability to correctly imagine what is happening in the soul of another person, what he experiences, how he evaluates the world around him. It is known that empathy is higher than better man able to imagine how the same event would be perceived different people, and to what extent he admits the right to the existence of these points of view. It is also of great importance personal experience various spiritual experiences, because it is difficult to imagine the feeling of another, which you yourself have never experienced. Thus, in a certain sense, empathy is the ability to draw a conclusion by analogy, although similar definition does not give an exhaustive answer to the question of the nature of this phenomenon.

Conclusion

Thus, in this work, we found out that social perception is the perception, understanding and evaluation of social objects by people, primarily themselves, other people, social groups. The term was introduced by the American psychologist J. Bruner to denote the fact of social conditioning of perception, its dependence not only on the characteristics of the object, but also on the past experience of the subject, his goals, intentions, and the significance of the situation.

In the structure of social perception, the observer, the observed and the social situation of communication are distinguished; each of the structural components affects the success of the social-perceptual process.

Among the most important, from the point of view of success, characteristics of the observer stand out: age, profession, state of self-esteem and the content of the "I-image", socially perceptual skills and abilities.

In accordance with the social situation of communication, for the implementation of social perception by the observer, various mechanisms of social cognition can be used.

Social psychologists have established that the perception of social objects is qualitatively different from the perception of the material world. This happens because, firstly, the social object is not passive and indifferent in relation to the perceiving subject. Influencing the subject of perception, the perceived person strives to transform the idea of himself in a direction favorable for his goals.

Secondly, the attention of the subject of social perception is primarily focused not on the moments of generating an image as a result of reflecting the perceived reality, but on semantic and evaluative interpretations of the perceived object, including causal ones. Thirdly, the perception of social subjects is characterized by a greater fusion of cognitive components with emotional (affective) components, greater dependence on the motivational-semantic structure of the perceiving subject's activity.

We found out that the area of research related to the elucidation of the mechanisms of formation of various emotional relationships to a perceived person is the study of attraction. And attraction as a mechanism of social perception is considered in three aspects: the process of forming the attractiveness of another person, the result of this process, the quality of relationships. And the result of this mechanism is a special kind social attitude on another person, in which the emotional component predominates.

Perception (this word means "perception" in Latin) is cognitive process active direct display by a person of various objects, phenomena, events and situations. If such knowledge is aimed at social facilities and effects, this phenomenon is called social perception. Various mechanisms of social perception can be observed daily in everyday life.

Description

Mentions of such psychological phenomenon, as a perception, met in ancient world. A great contribution to the development of this concept was made by philosophers, physicists, physiologists and even artists. But highest value This concept is given in psychology.

Perception is the most important mental function cognition, which manifests itself in the form of a complex process of obtaining and transforming sensory information. Thanks to perception, the individual makes up an integral image of the object that affects the analyzers. In other words, perception is a form of sensory display. This phenomenon includes such characteristics as the identification of individual features, the correct extraction of information, the formation and accuracy of a sensory image.

Perception is always associated with attention, logical thinking, memory. It always depends on motivation and has a certain emotional coloring. The properties of any kind of perception include structure, objectivity, apperception, contextuality and meaningfulness.

The study of this phenomenon is intensively carried out not only by representatives of various branches of psychology, but also by physiologists, cybernetics, and other scientists. In their differential studies, they widely use methods such as experiment, modeling, observation, and empirical analysis.

The understanding of what the functions, structure, and mechanisms of social perception represent is not only common for psychology, but also practical value. This phenomenon plays an important role in the creation information systems, in artistic design, in sports, pedagogical activity and many other areas of human activity.

Factors

Perceptual factors are both internal and external. To external factors include intensity, size, novelty, contrast, repetition, movement, and recognizability.

Internal factors include:

Interaction with society through perception

Another concept widely used in psychology and related sciences is such a variety of our perception as social perception. This is the name given to the evaluation and understanding by a person of other people and himself, as well as other social objects. Such objects may include various groups, social communities. This term appeared in 1947, and was introduced by psychologist D. Bruner. The appearance of this concept in psychology allowed scientists to look at the tasks and problems of human perception in a completely different way.

People are social beings. Throughout life, any person contacts with other people a huge number of times, forming a variety of interpersonal relationships. Separate groups people also form close relations. Therefore, each person is subject huge amount a wide variety of relationships.

Positive either negative attitude to other people directly depends on our perception, as well as on how we evaluate our communication partners. Usually, during communication, we first evaluate the appearance, and then the behavior of the partner. As a result of this assessment, we form a certain attitude, make preliminary assumptions about psychological qualities interlocutor.

Social perception can manifest itself in several forms. So, in most cases, social perception is called the perception by the person himself. Any individual perceives himself, as well as his or someone else's grouping. There is also perception by group members. This includes perception within the boundaries of one's community or members of a foreign group. The third type of social perception is group perception. The group can perceive both its own person and members of a foreign community. last view social perception considers the perception of one group of another group.

The very process of such perception can be represented as an evaluation activity. We evaluate the psychological characteristics of a person, his appearance, actions and deeds. As a result, we form a certain opinion about the observed, form a clear idea of its possible behavioral reactions.

Mechanisms

Perception is always a process of predicting the feelings and actions of people around. For a complete understanding of this process, knowledge of the features of the functioning of its mechanisms is required.

The mechanisms of social perception are shown in the following table:

Name	Definition	Examples
Stereotyping	A persistent image or idea of people, phenomena, which is characteristic of all representatives of one social group	Many believe that the Germans are terrible pedants, the military are straightforward, and beautiful people are often narcissistic
Identification	Intuitive identification and cognition of a person or group in situations of direct or indirect communication. In this case, a comparison or comparison occurs internal states partners	People make assumptions about the state of the psyche of a partner, trying to mentally become him
empathy	Emotional empathy with others, the ability to understand another person through the provision of emotional support and getting used to his experiences	This mechanism is considered necessary condition for successful work psychotherapists, doctors and teachers
Reflection	Self-knowledge through interaction with another person. It becomes possible due to the ability of the individual to imagine how the communication partner sees him.	Imagine a dialogue between hypothetical Sasha and Petya. At least 6 "roles" participate in such communication: Sasha, as he is; Sasha, as he sees himself; Sasha as Petya sees him. And these same roles from Petya
attraction	Knowledge of another person, based on a persistent positive feeling. Thanks to attraction, people not only learn to understand a communication partner, but also form rich emotional relationships.	Psychologists distinguish such types of this perceptual mechanism: love, sympathy and friendship.
Causal attribution	This is the process of predicting the actions and feelings of the people around. Without understanding something, a person begins to attribute his behavior,	Not understanding something, a person begins to attribute his behavior, feelings, personality traits, motives to other people.

The peculiarity of interpersonal cognition is that it takes into account not only various physical features but also behavioral patterns. If the subject of such perception actively participates in communication, then he establishes a coordinated interaction with the partner. Therefore, social perception is highly dependent on the motives, emotions, opinions, prejudices, attitudes and preferences of both partners. Social perception necessarily also contains subjective assessment another person.

Does our perception depend on society?

AT interpersonal perception there are various gender, class, age, professional, individual differences. It is known that young children perceive a person by appearance, paying special attention to his clothes, as well as to the presence of special paraphernalia. Students also first rate teachers on their appearance, but teachers perceive students according to their inner qualities. Similar differences are found between leaders and subordinates.

Professional affiliation is also important for perception. For example, teachers perceive people by their ability to conduct a conversation, but, say, a coach pays attention to a person’s anatomy, as well as how he moves.

Social perception is highly dependent on the previous assessment of our object of perception. In an interesting experiment, the teaching grades of 2 groups of students were recorded. The first group consisted of "favorite", and the second - of "unloved" students. Moreover, the “favorite” children deliberately made mistakes when completing the task, while the “unloved” children solved it correctly. However, the teacher, despite this, positively assessed the "favorite" and negatively - "unloved" children. The attribution of any characteristics is always carried out according to this model: negative actions are attributed to people with a negative characteristic, and positive people- good ones.

First impression

Psychologists have found out which factors make the strongest impression in the process of the emergence of social perception. It turned out that usually people pay attention first to the hairstyle, then to the eyes, and then to the facial expression of a stranger. Therefore, if you smile cordially at your interlocutors when meeting, they will perceive you in a friendly way and will be more positively disposed.

There are 3 main factors influencing how the first opinion of each person is formed: they are attitude, attractiveness and superiority.

"Superiority" is observed when a person who is superior in some way specific person, is rated much higher in terms of other characteristics. There is a global revision of the assessed personality. Moreover, this factor has the strongest influence insecure behavior observer. Therefore, in extreme
almost all people are able to trust those whom they would not have come close to before.

"Attractiveness" explains the features of perception for a partner who is attractive in terms of his external data. The error of perception here is that the externally attractive personality is often greatly overestimated by the surrounding people in terms of its social and psychological properties.

“Attitude” considers the perception of a partner depending on our attitude towards him. The perceptual error in this case is that we tend to overestimate those who treat us well or share our opinion.

How to develop perceptual skills

D. Carnegie believes that mutual strong sympathy and effective friendly communication arise due to an ordinary smile. Therefore, for the development of perceptual skills, he suggests, first of all, to learn how to smile correctly. To do this, you need to perform daily exercises specially developed by this psychologist in front of the mirror. Mimicry gives us real information about the experiences of a person, therefore, having learned to control our facial expressions, we improve the skills of social perception.

To learn to distinguish emotional manifestations and develop social perception skills, you can also use the Ekman technique. This method consists in isolating human face 3 zones (nose with area around it, forehead with eyes, mouth with chin). The manifestation of 6 leading emotional states (they include joy, anger, surprise, fear, disgust and sadness) is noted in these zones, which allows each person to recognize and decipher the facial manifestations of another person. This perceptual technique received wide use not only in ordinary situations of communication, but also in the psychotherapeutic practice of interaction with pathological personalities.

So, perception is the most complex mechanism psychological interaction person and the object they perceive. This interaction occurs under the influence of a huge number of factors. The characteristics of perception are age features, life experience human, specific effects, and a variety of personality traits.

Perception is a kind of reflection of things and situations of reality. Here important role plays the age of the perceiving individual. Perception helps to form a holistic image of the subject. In psychology, this phenomenon allows you to find out how a person sees the situation and what conclusions he draws from communication with the outside world.

What is perception?

Perception is cognitive function which helps in the formation of individual perception of the world. Perception is a reflection of a phenomenon or object, it is a core biological process. Such a function is acquired through the sense organs involved in the formation of a personalized holistic image of an object. It affects the analyzers through a whole series of sensations caused by perception.

Perception = it's a popular subject psychological research. In simple words such a reflection of reality means understanding, cognition, formation in the mind of a holistic image of some phenomenon. Perception cannot exist without separate sensations, but it is an essentially different process. For example, you can just hear sounds, or listen carefully, you can just see or purposefully look, observe.

Types of perception

Depending on the organs of perception, perception is:

visual. The movement of a person's eyes is spasmodic, this is how a person processes the information received. But when it stops, the process begins visual perception. This type of perception is influenced by a previously developed stereotype. For example, if a person is accustomed to skimming through the text all the time with his eyes, it will be difficult for him in the future to learn how to work through the material in depth. He may not notice large paragraphs of text, and then, when questioned, answer that they were not in the book at all.
tactile. This function is responsible for the regulation, control and correction of the working movements of the hands. This type of perception is based on tactile, temperature and kinetic sensations. But the organ of perception in this case is the hand, which, with the help of feeling, helps to recognize the individual features of the object.
Auditory. In human hearing important place occupied by phonemic and rhythmic-melodic systems. The human ear, unlike the animal, is much more complex, richer and more mobile. Such an understanding actively involves the motor component, but such a component is singled out as a special separate system. For example, singing with a voice for musical hearing and pronunciation for speech hearing.

In addition to the above types of perception, there are two more, in which information is reflected not through the senses, but through understanding:

Spaces, distances, distances, directions of objects located from us and from each other.
Time is the duration, speed and sequence of events. Each person has their own internal clock, which rarely coincide with the daily rhythm. And so that a person can perceive this rhythm, he uses additional external signs and analyzers.

Law of Perception

Perception is a sensory representation of an object or phenomenon. Communication as perception is a mechanism for its beginning, since any process of communication begins with the perception of people by each other. And the process of perception, according to the laws of social perception, is built in the form of a judgment about the object. famous psychologist N.N. Lange developed a special law of perception, according to which perception is a quick change of a certain generalized perception of an object by a more concrete one.

Perception in philosophy

Perception in philosophy is a sensual understanding, a reflection of things in the mind through the senses. This concept has several categories:

Internal perception by which a person is aware of where his limbs are, whether he is sitting or standing, whether he is depressed, hungry or tired.
External perception, for which sight, hearing, touch, smell, taste are used.
Mixed perception, which is manifested through emotion or whim.

What is perception in psychology?

Perception in psychology is knowledge. With the help of such perception, a person can mentally form an integral image of an object. In other words, such a reflection of reality is a unique sensory display, which is formed by:

motivation;
installations;
experience;
personal characteristics of the perceiver;
knowledge of the world through the prism of understanding one's own "I".

social perception

Social perception is a holistic understanding of social objects. It studies the manners of behavior between people with different levels of development. In order to be able to know and understand another person, there are certain mechanisms of social perception, they are presented:

identification, when a person begins to behave in a way that, according to his opinion, his interlocutor could behave;
when a person copies emotional mood interlocutor;
attraction, which manifests itself in the form of love or friendship;
reflection, when a person begins to see himself through the eyes of the interlocutor;
stereotyping, when a person perceives his interlocutor as part of any social group, community;
causal attribution, when a person is endowed with certain qualities in accordance with his actions.

- (lat. perceptio). 1) receiving, collecting, raising duties. 2) unconscious perception, a sensation related to the cause that produced it (psych. t.). Vocabulary foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. PERCEPTION [lat. ... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

- (lat. perceptio representation, perception, from percipio I feel, I perceive), in modern. psychology is the same as perception. Leibniz used the term "P." to denote the vague and the unconscious. perceptions ("impressions") as opposed to ... ... Philosophical Encyclopedia

PERCEPTION- (from Latin percipio I perceive), perception (see). Environment influences us in the process of our activity, and we perceive it, perceive it. Organ P., as well as the psyche in general, is our brain. P. is not an isolated process, but ... ... Big Medical Encyclopedia

Perception, perception Dictionary of Russian synonyms. perception noun, number of synonyms: 2 perception (5) ... Synonym dictionary

perception- (from Latin perceptio perception) the process of direct active reflection by the human cognitive sphere of external and internal objects (objects), situations, events, phenomena, etc. (see perception). Brief psychological dictionary. R … Big psychological encyclopedia

- (from the Latin perceptio representation, perception), the same as perception ... Modern Encyclopedia

- (from lat. perceptio representation perception), the same as perception. G. W. Leibniz has a vague and unconscious perception, as opposed to a clear awareness of apperception ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

See PERCEPTION. Antinazi. Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2009 ... Encyclopedia of Sociology

PERCEPTION- (from lat perceptio - perception). Sensory perception, the reflection of things in the mind through the senses ... New dictionary methodological terms and concepts (theory and practice of teaching languages)

Perception- (from the Latin perceptio representation, perception), the same as perception. … Illustrated encyclopedic Dictionary

Books

Anthology of colloquial speech. Some aspects of the theory. Litota - perception. Volume 2, Kharchenko V.K. Each volume of the five-volume contains theoretical information general, and as the main array - records of colloquial remarks personally collected by the author, systematized by aspects ...
Anthology of colloquial speech. Some aspects of the theory. In 5 volumes. Volume 2. Litota - Perception, V. K. Kharchenko. Each volume of the five-volume book contains theoretical information of a general nature, and as the main array - records of colloquial remarks personally collected by the author, systematized by aspects ...