are the cause of countless disputes. Memory is a human construct, an amalgam of what we experience, read, piece together, and want to be true. A number of reasons account for our misremembering events: Memories are transient and tend to fade over time; we remember aspects of an event but are likely to misattribute them; and our biases distort our recollections.
When has memory influenced your perception of an event? Our memories, like perception, are fallible, something we need to remember.10
We Organize Our Perceptions
How do we make sense of our world? How do we process the stimuli that compete for our attention? Just as we use an array of strategies to select those impressions we notice, so we employ a number of strategies to facilitate meaningful organization of these impressions.
The Figure–Ground Principle
During the perception process, we are active participants. We do not simply sit back and absorb the stimuli available to us the way a sponge absorbs liquid. We select, organize, and evaluate the multitude of stimuli that bombard us, so that what we are focusing on becomes figure and the rest of what we experience becomes ground.11 This is how the figure–ground principle functions.
To experience the concept of figure and ground, examine Figure 3.2. What do you see? At first glance, you likely see a vase—or you may see two people facing each other. When stimuli compete for our attention, we can focus only on one, because it is simply impossible to perceive something in two ways at once. Although we may be able to switch our focus rapidly, we still will perceive only one stimulus at any given time.
Figure 3.2 Face Vase Illusion
Perceptual Constancy
Perceptual constancy is the tendency we have to maintain the same perception of something or someone over time. As a consequence of perceptual constancy, we see people not as they are, but as we have been conditioned to see them. This helps explain why it is hard for us to alter a perception once we form it.
Perceptual Schemata
We also use perceptual schemata to organize our perceptions. For example, we’ll categorize people using physical constructs, which describe people’s appearance to classify them, such as whether one is overweight or slender, beautiful or ugly; role constructs, which describe social position, including wife, daughter, teacher; interaction constructs, which are descriptive of people’s social behavior, like caring, ingratiating, or approachable; and psychological constructs, which emphasize people’s state of mind, such as whether one is secure, sad, or self-obsessed.12
Closure
The tendency to fill in missing perceptual pieces is called closure. Look at the stimuli pictured in Figure 3.3. What do you see? Most see a dog rather than a collection of inkblots, and a rectangle, triangle, and circle rather than some lines and an arc. Because we seek to fill in gaps, we mentally complete the incomplete figures. We fill them in on the basis of our previous experiences and our needs. We make sense of ourselves, people, and events in much the same way. We fill in what is not there by making assumptions or inferences, some of which are more accurate and valid than others. We should remember this when we explore how we perceive the self.
Figure 3.3
Perceiving the “I” Affects Perception of You
How we perceive and communicate with ourselves, and how others perceive and communicate with us, builds in us a sense of self. Our sense of self evolves as we interact with different people, experience new situations, and form new relationships.
Looking at the Self
It is important to spend time considering who you think you are.
If someone asked you to answer the question “Who are you?” 10 separate times—and if each time you had to supply a fresh response—what responses would you offer? Would you be able to group your answers into categories? For example, do you see yourself in reference to your gender (male, female, trans), your religion (Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim, Christian), your race (African, Hispanic, Caucasian, Asian), your nationality (U.S. citizen, Turkish, German), your physical attributes (heavy, slim), your roles (wife, son, student, employee), your attitudes and emotions (hopeful, pessimistic, personable), your mental abilities (sharp, slow), and your talents (musically or artistically gifted)? The words you use to describe yourself are revealing both to yourself and to others.
iStock/Goami
The Importance of Self-Awareness
The self is a social product—a composite of who we think we are, who other people think we are, and who we think others think we are. Some of us are more self-aware than others; this developed self-awareness (the ability to reflect on and monitor one’s own behavior) facilitates a fuller understanding of the self, including our attitudes, beliefs, and values, as well as our strengths and weaknesses.13
The Nature of Self-Concept
How we think about ourselves, or our self-concept (the consistent and organized image you form of yourself) is composed of two parts—self-image and self-esteem.
Self-image is your mental picture of yourself. It is the kind of person you perceive yourself to be. Self-image includes the roles you see yourself performing, the categories you place yourself within, the words you use to describe or identify yourself, and your understanding of how others see you.
Self-esteem, on the other hand, is a self-assessment of yourself. It is your evaluation of your ability and worth and indicates how well you like and value yourself. Self-esteem usually derives from your successes and failures, coloring your self-image with a predominantly positive or negative hue. By age 5, many of us already have developed a sense of our self-worth.14
According to researcher Chris Mruk, self-esteem has five dimensions that affect your feelings about yourself and your communication with others:
Competence (your beliefs about your ability to be effective)
Worthiness (your beliefs about the degree to which others value you)
Cognition (your beliefs about your character and personality)
Affect (your evaluation of yourself and the feelings generated by your evaluation)
Stability (your assessment of how much beliefs about yourself change)15
Self-concept significantly affects behavior, including what we think is possible,
