Com. 1030

Perception Paper

Perception

In these two stories you see both women being stereotyped. Christa Kilvington being stereotyped for being on government well fare. I can see why people would use that stereotype on her. A lot of the people see using the well fare system are dead beats so to speak, people that are too lazy or on drugs to go find a decent job. With Carol Paik she keeps getting the Asian stereotype where people think she looks like other Asians. I also can understand how people can make this mistake; I think every single one of us will admit that all Asian people look kind of similar and that we’ve each made the same mistake as the people in this story are making with Carol. I personally have made this mistake, even carol made it and she used to complain about people doing the same thing to her. The major factors that affect the selection of information by the people who see Christa are that she is on the welfare system and that she’s a 4.0 student. The people at grocery stores or the welfare office see her as a lazy person who wont go get a job and make her own money. Her classmates see her as the hardworking dedicated 4.0 student. The two are very different after reading the story I see Christa more on the side of hardworking and dedicated. The major factor affecting Carol is her race. The fact that she’s Asian is the biggest reason people perceive her as someone else. The people who meet Christa organize the information they are given into two different groups. People out in public see her as the single mom that is on government welfare, from that they assume that she is a worthless, lazy woman who is coasting on government funds. People who meet Christa around college see her as the exceptional student. It would be interesting to see what her classmates would say if they knew about her being on welfare and if people out in public knew that she is a 4.0 student. People who meet Carol organize her into one category. People who meet carol confuse her with other women because the general stereotype is that all Asians look alike. The cultural views are big in theses two stories. Generally in our, or American culture, we don’t usually see 4.0 students on government welfare, we’re just not used to seeing that combination of traits from somebody. We also see in our culture that we mix up Asian people with each other. I don’t believe it’s because we are racist I think it’s that we are not raised around a lot of Asians usually so its kind of hard for us to distinguish between them sometimes. To minimize the perception problems people could use perception checking. “Perception checking is a tool for helping you understand others accurately instead of assuming that your first interpretation is correct. Because its goal is mutual understanding, perception checking is a cooperative approach to communication (Alder/Proctor II, 105).” Perception checking has three parts, description, interpretations, and a request of clarification. In this situation a request for clarification would help out both these women greatly. Works Cited
Adler, Ronald B., and Russell F. Proctor. Looking Out/looking in. Australia: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2005. 104. Print.