Rover-Thinking

A personal blog in where I will share random thoughts

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Selective perception

“The tendency to selectively interpret what we see on the basis of our own interests, background, experience and attitudes. Any characteristic that makes a person, object, or event stand out will increase the probability that it will be perceived.”

Long story short, we only focus on the things we are interested in.

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How we judge others, pt.2

Fundamental attribution error

It is the tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgements about the behaviour of others.

Self-serving bias

The tendency for individuals to attribute their own success to internal factors and blame external factors for failure

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How we judge others

In psychology, the attempt to determine whether a behaviour is internally or externally caused is called Attribution Theory. We refer to “internally caused” when we consider the behaviour caused by under the control of the individual performing it. Instead, we refer to “externally caused” those behaviours that we believe to be caused by reasons out of the control of the individual. 

The determination depends on:

distinctiveness, that is the extent to which an individual shows different behaviours in different times. When the behaviour is highly unusual, we tend to judge it as externally caused, when it’s usual, we judge it as internally caused;

consensus, that is the extent to which a behaviour is shown in the same way by different people in the same situation. When many people show the same behaviour in the same situation, we judge it as externally caused, when there are different behaviours for the same situation, then we classify it as internally caused;

Consistency, that is the extent to which an individual shows the same behaviour for the same situation over time in different situation. When the behaviour is the same, we say it’s internally caused, otherwise externally caused.

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Perception

One of my favourite Italian witers, Luigi Pirandello, once wrote:

“We all have a world of things inside ourselves and each one of us has his own private world. How can we understand each other if the words I use have the sense and the value that I expect them to have, but whoever is listening to me inevitably thinks that those same words have a different sense and value, because of the private world he has inside himself, too.” 

Perception is a means by which people organize and clarify what they see, taste, hear, smell or feel in order to give meaning to the environment they are in. Consequently, they base their behaviours on what they think reality is, and not on what it’s truly real.

Many factors influence perception. We can find three different components that take place in perception: the perceiver, the object or target of perception, and the situation in which the perception is made. For each component, there are different factors that may influence perception:

Factors in the perceiver:

Attitudes

Motives

interests

Experience

Expectations

Factors in the target:

Novelty

motion

sounds

size

background

proximity

similarity

Factors in the situation

time 

work setting

social setting

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My top-4 pet peeves about people

People who don’t finish what they start

Those people who start a conversation, but aren’t bold enough to get through it. The “nevermind” type of people, that give up to go on with the conversation as soon as it gets uncomfortable.

People who are always late

I’m not talking about occasionally being late. I specifically refer to those people who are chronically late. It’s like they think their time is more important than yours. They always find excuses for being late and they expect you to be understanding, otherwise they have the courage to get mad at you.

People who think they are right no-matter-what

People who have strong opinions are great, but if you think to be god, and your opinion is incontestable, no dear! There are certain people who think to know it all, and if you bring evidence that proves them wrong, certainly your 1000 peer-reviewed articles are just fake news, the outcome of conspiracy ideas

People who let you wait long when they meet their friends

Imagine to be out with a friend of yours, when she/he meets a person who’s only his/her friend. It’s ok to greet them, but if you let me hang in there for 45 minutes for talking with them about something I could not be part of, then I’m not ok with this. Rather, schedule a meeting with them.