ISS 210 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Selective Perception, Ethnocentrism, Nonverbal Communication

• School: MSU
• Department: Integrative Studies Social Sci
• Course: ISS 210
• Professor: J. Yelinek

Document Summary

Perception: an active process in which humans use sensory organs to identify selectively the existence of stimuli and then subject them to evaluation and interpretation. 3 stages of perception process: selection, categorization & interpretation. It is impossible to meaningfully process all available stimuli from our environment, so we engage in selective perception. 3 steps of selective perception: selective exposure, selective attention, selective retention. In this stage, we group people, objects and events on the basis of similarities. Serves a number of functions : reducing uncertainty, delineating distinctions between ingroups and outgroups. Sometimes not so positive /// categorization can also lead us to overlook individual differences and over generalize about others. In this stage, meaning is: attached to the sensory data we have filtered and received. When interpreting stimuli, we try to apply elements of familiarity to it, drawing upon contexts and knowledge we already have in order to help us understand.