Perception Checking Research Paper

Words: 671
Pages: 3

It worked, kind of. I tried to use perception checking on some of the people closest to me. Perception checking’s purpose is to try to understand another person’s point of view, or perception. To perception check, you first state the action of the other person. Then you list two possible reasons why they might have acted this way. The last step is to ask the person a clarifying question. I decided to try perception checking with my grandmother and my best friend. The first time I tried this was with my grandmother. I live with my grandparents, and every morning she comes downstairs to see if I am awake. This bothered me because when I lived with my parents, I always was responsible for waking up and getting ready. It felt like an invasion of privacy. It sounded very awkward, but this is how our conversation went:
“Grandma, when you come downstairs to wake me up every morning, I’m not sure if it’s because you are just being nice by getting me up, or if you feel like I wouldn’t be awake up if you didn’t wake me up. Why have you been waking me up every morning?”
My grandmother said that it was because it seemed like I had a hard time getting up in the morning. Then she said,
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It’s a great way to let the other person see your point of view as well as to try to see theirs. My grandma was able to understand how I felt about her waking me up every morning. I was able to understand her reason for waking me up, and to be more understanding when she continued to wake me up. My friend never told me his reason for why he said what he did, but he was able to understand my feelings about it. Through his actions, I can infer that he wasn’t trying to blame his unhappiness on me, he just didn’t think through what he was saying. Perception Checking is powerful and useful, but it is not always the best choice for communicating with