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Chapter 6 |
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Who? An Exercise in Interpersonal Perception
The purpose of this exercise is to explore some of the cues that people give and that others perceive and use in formulating inferences about the knowledge, abilities, and personality of these others. The exercise should serve as a useful summary of the concepts and principles of perception.
The entire class should form a circle so that each member may see each other member without straining. If members do not know all the names of their classmates, name tags should be used.
Each student should examine the following list of phrases and should write the name of one student to whom he or she feels each statement applies in the column marked "Who." Be certain to respond to all statements. Although one name may be used more than once, the experience will prove more effective if a wide variety of names are chosen. Unless the class is very small, no name should be used more than two times. Write in the names before reading any further.
Thinking Critically about Person Perception
After the names have been written for each statement by each student, the following procedure might prove useful. The instructor selects a statement (there is no need to tackle the statements in the order they are given here), and asks someone specifically, or the class generally, what names were put down. Before the person whose name was put down is asked if the phrase is correctly or incorrectly attributed to him or her, some or all of the following questions may be considered.
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