After reading Chapter 3, I have come to the conclusion that listening and interpreting are much more complex processes than I had imagined. Perception of others seems to always have a judgmental or categorizing element attached. Whether judgment is intended or not, schemata is working in the background to shape our perception of the interaction or experience. If our past experiences and interpretations are always used to understand current situations, then I don't think that it is possible to not judge or categorize others when you speak or see them. "Person prototypes" described on page 51 makes me think about how I would judge a person if they walked into a room wearing a football uniform compared to how I would judge someone walking into a room wearing all black. Because of my past experience and my "personal constructs" (pg 51) I would automatically expect certain behavior or personality.
I am not saying that that my judgment or categorization of the football player or the person in all black would be correct, all I am saying is that are certain assumptions I would have about them because of my own personal constructs. In order to make my judgments of these two people more fair, myself or others who judge like me, would have to become more mindful. Instead of relying automatically on "old routines and mental habits", I would need to create a new understanding of these people by maybe sitting and actually getting to know who they are while putting their "person prototype" aside. The chapter talks a lot about how we cannot just rely on scripts or our own schemata to interpret situations correctly and fairly. In order to not categorizeand judge, people need to be more conscious of their automated system of perception, and open up their minds to other possibilities or meanings of a given person, situation, or interaction.
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Being open minded is a great way to be more fair when it comes to judging others. Perhaps people are just too lazy to give up on their own judgments and try to challenge their cemented mindset. Once others are willing to unglue themselves from their own judgments of others it could be a lot more acceptance and even friendships around us today.
ReplyDeleteThe quote you had in the blog from chapter three was really a good quote. This quote did not stand out to be while i was reading, but now i see how much of a good line it is. Ill have to go back and read it now because I feel like it was a great quote and it really explained how individuals develop judgments and why.