Perfection: Psychology and Cognitive Perception Theory Essay

Submitted By John-Bendo
Words: 676
Pages: 3

We may form an impression of others partly based on inferences from their appearance. Explain problems of error in perception in relation to this.

Perception can be seen as “The cognitive decision-making process through which goal- directed behaviour is initiated, energized, directed, and maintained” (Buchanan, Huczynski (2010) p267) Perception is the unconscious intake of sensory data which effects how one re acts to a situation. Our perception could be hindered through our past experience, morals and beliefs or the values we were brought up with.
“Stereotyping is the tendency to assign attributes to someone solely on the basis of a category of people, of which that person is a member” (Hellriegal, Slocum, Woodman, 1998) Stereotyping stems the preconceived ideas people have which are linked to someone or something which derives from a specific group. Stereotyping isn’t the problem, perception and stereotyping isn’t wrong, it is when perception and stereotyping provokes people to act or react in a certain way that causes the problem. In recent years, due to negative press coverage and a lack of education on the topic. A select few of today society relate terrorism to religion, this has lead a 10% rise in Racial Motivated attacks in Scotland (BBC News, 2012) This depicts how a person’s stereotype of a certain section of society can lead to hostility and violence. Even though there are occasions where a stereotype can be accurate, mostly they are wrong and can lead to errors in perception.
Attribution is the process humans go through in order for them to produce a reasoning behind behavioural issues or an event. “Attribution theory deals with how the social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanations for events” (Fiske, Taylor, 1991) When Kelley published his Attribution Theory, he identified that when humans observe others over a period of time, they try to establish whether the outcome of their findings is linked to the person themselves (internal) or to the surroundings they are working in (external). And whether or not they attribute their success or failure internally or externally. (Furnham, (2005) p264) This makes it clear that human can attribute problems especially, to their surrounding and themselves in order to get away from the original source of the issue. This is when problems arise as it consequently results in the issue not be resolved and carrying on to continue even more disputes, leading to a domino effect. ]
The Halo Effect was cognitive perception theory studied by Edward Thorndike, the theory exposed that a person’s first impressions of someone could be tainted due to a specific characteristic or trait that they either are drawn to (halo) or they disapprove or dislike (horn) (Goodman, Fandt, Michlitsch, (2007) p355) As human’s we subconsciously attribute traits such as smiling to happiness