Journal Reflection Chapter 3 - Perception

Perception plays an important role in interpersonal communication. The way we perceive someone will directly influence communication with said individual. According to the textbook, several processes occur when perceiving someone: selection, organization, response, and interpretation (McCornack & Morrison, 2019, p.64). These processes occur naturally but it improves interpersonal communication competence when you understand the processes and how they influence your communication with others. Personally, I think it is valuable to understand how you interpret information. The process of interpretation is how you make sense of the communication event. This can be broken down into internal attribution and external attribution. 

For example, if you are someone like me who typically uses external attributions in explanation for others' comments or behaviors then you are likely to presume that the reason why a friend is late for your lunch date is because of traffic. Whereas someone who is likely to use internal attributions would likely think their friend doesn't care about their lunch date because of something they did. Lastly, a fundamental attribution error is when you blame their personality for the way an event transpired without taking into consideration those external attributions. It is important to think internally and externally before judging someone's character.