Social Psychology

Details changed for privacy purpose. Get out of the kitchen if you can't take the heat, i don't want to have to deal with people with low self-esteem. THANKS!




In this journal, I will be recounting how the “Self-fulfilling Prophecy” and “Recency” has influenced my perceptions of two classmates in two separate encounters respectively.
Self-fulfilling Prophecy suggests that preconceived ideas and expectations of a person influence the way we interact with him/her, and these “interactions” spark a conforming “counter-reaction” which results in events concluding according to preceding forecasts. This process could be of a positive or negative nature. Meanwhile, the Recency effect occurs when an assessment of a person is swayed by a prevailing event, and precipitates in a prejudiced judgment.

Despite having only spent an infinitesimal amount of time within class T108, cliques have nevertheless developed and enmity fashioned. Sophie, a girl from my class, unfortunately, became ostracized for her unconventional behavior.

She was overtly condemned for her “loud” print shirts and mannerism, which I confess, irked me on several occasions. I perceived her to be a weird girl who simply tried too hard to fit in. Although she possessed pleasant facial features, this was obscured by her drab pastel-colored shoes and mismatched ensembles that screamed “Bin Lady”. It certainly did not help when she voraciously proclaimed in a self-introduction that her goal in life was to obtain a “beer belly”. Consequently, she became a barely tolerated presence that no one wanted to be associated with unnecessarily. Her boisterous ways of “back slaps” in place of conventional greetings did nothing to ingratiate her to the class either. As a result, I came to perceive Sophie as a crass and obtuse lady.

Perceiving her to be nothing more then a loud nuisance with dim-witted views, I treated her disdainfully throughout our interactions. Her greetings were met with cold indifference and hostile glares. On many occasions, during group work in tutorials such as contemporary issues, I shunned her opinions and expressed contempt for her ideas. The fact that her ideas were bizarre only affirmed my belief that she was quite literally the empty vessel that was capable of emitting the loudest noises. On her part, bewildered by such open hostility, she reacted with physical violence. It seemed apparent to me that Sophie’s behavior was crude, unrefined and unintelligent. This coincided with my prior predictions, and Self-fulfilling Prophecy took place.
However, it turned out that open-minded interaction was the key to shattering all the misconceptions I had of her. During a make-up Radio Production tutorial, in which I was coerced by circumstance into pairing up with her, I discovered that Sophie was in actual fact an exceedingly hardworking girl with an extraordinary streak of creativity. However, all these had become buried beneath the onslaught of negative remarks and gestures. She professes an absolute lack of fashion sense and intimates that growing up with a twin brother has made her an eccentric girl to say the least. Most astonishing, was the startling revelation that she possessed a docile nature, and was misconstrued as “loud” because she was going out of her way to make more friends in Polytechnic.

Meanwhile, having experienced Orientation camp in the faction “Super Ugly” together with Isabel, I observed her to be a reserved girl. Her minimal participation in the camp activities convinced me that she preferred being alone. However, during our class excursion to Sakae Sushi, Isabel was animated, vivacious and kept the conversation flowing with her jokes. That, coupled with her propensity to break out in song and dance in the middle of the streets, revealed that she was a self-confident and bubbly girl, who could not care less about how others might perceive her.

Due to this occurrence, I consequently modified my behavior towards her from the “Leave her Alone” mentality I previously possessed. Instead, I took more initiative in communicating with her, and invited her along for other outings. In this way, the Recency effect altered my subsequent interactions with her because I recalled the other side there was to Isabel.
Such false impressions would not have developed had I steered clear of making premature and one-cue conclusions. Instead, Perceptual Checking, which proposes that one should reflect on a message to derive other possible inflections and meanings, and then seek further clarifications, should have been applied. Had I utilized perceptual checking, I would have engaged more proactive means to gather a variety of cues before forming an impression. This would have eliminated unnecessary distress in the relationship on both my part and on the other party.
In Sophie’s case, I could have made known the fact that I was repelled by the violence she exhibited, and offer several interpretations such as “Perhaps that is your method of expressing friendliness” and “Does your violence indicate your dislike for me”. Ultimately, I should have brought up the myriad possible explanations for her behavior, and then requested for clarification. In this way, I would not have made the inaccurate perception that she was a “crude boar”.

Perception and communication are indubitably inter-linked. Perception involves assigning qualities to people, and this process is both subconscious and biased. Conversely, communication consists of both verbal and non-verbal speech, and is influenced by perception. This case in point is illustrated when a person who judges another to possess pleasant attributes goes on to communicate with said person in a positive manner and vice-versa. Because it is so easy to be deceived by false perceptions, we must exercise caution not to make snap-judgments without first understanding a person via effective communication.