The Difficulty of Perception, Essay Example

The chosen situation for this assignment is related to my friend and the issue we had for a while. As it often happened, my friend Sarah promised to work together on one of my assignments and afterwards we would go to see a movie. However, the last time when we made plans she cancelled everything a few hours before out appointment. She said she was busy with family matters, which I though was nothing major. On the other hand, the next time I asked whether everything was ok with her family she was surprised that I was inquiring and that she stayed in bed all evening, not feeling well. Finally, one of our common friends said that he saw her with another friend in the shopping mall that night. So the reason, I wanted to apply perception checking process was because I wanted to find out the truth and whether Sarah was actually my friend.

When I met my friend, I followed all three steps of the perception checking process. In my interpretation, Sarah lied to me, and instead of spending time with me she went to the shopping mall with another friend. I was trying not to be confronting in my statements, but I think she could see that I was upset. As it was required by the assignment, I did not describe Sarah’s behaviour to her; I started with the description of the context. I said that we all had many friends we spend time with, and it was normal.  Then, I said there were a few things in our recent interactions that I could not understand. I told her that “when we were meant to study together, first, you told me that it was a family business, then that you were unwell, and then you were seen with another friend in the shopping mall.” I have also mentioned that the fact that she could not recall mentioning the family business excuse was confusing for me and that I wanted to know what was actually happening. I said that “as friends, there is no necessity of making up excuses for not seeing each other” and “you could just tell me that you changed your plans.”

On the second step I explained two interpretations of my friend’s behaviour to her. I told her that my first interpretation was “you did not tell the truth because you thought that you could hurt my feelings and that I only want you to spend all your free time with me.” I thought that this interpretation demonstrated her to be a good friend. I told her: “in this case, you care about me and do not want me to feel uncomfortable and alone.” However, I told her that no matter what her intention was, in fact, she lied to me and betrayed my trust. So, I told her that in that case “I feel more hurt, because you violated my trust and the next time I will not be able to treat your words with the same trust I did before.”  In this case, my interpretation of her behaviour was as an act of betrayal, mainly because she lied to me.

On the other hand, I also suggested a second interpretation of her behaviour, although I mentioned that I think it is less likely to be true. I said that “probably, you really had some problems you could not share with me, and it was easier to talk to our common friend.” In that case, her behaviour was excusable, but still I did not see the point of being untruthful with me. She could easily tell me that “I have other plans with a friend.” It would be would be perfectly fine with me if she told she was spending time with other people. Finally, I asked Sarah for explanations. I said: “I am sorry for confronting you with all these assumptions, but I need to know what is actually going on, and which explanation is the right one.” I also mentioned that I was tired of being worried about what was actually going on and what was the reason for her behaviour.

In terms of the outcome, Sarah was first surprised with my questions and interpretations of her behaviour. She stayed silent for some time and then began explaining the situation. In fact, both of my interpretations were partly right, yet none of them entirely corresponded to Sarah’s behaviour. She said: “that evening I had to cancel our meeting all of a sudden because Elisabeth told me about sales on the gift I wanted to buy for your birthday.” She said that sales lasted only for a few days, and that was the last day. So she decided to take the last chance to get me that gift. She did not think that I would make such a scene from all of this. However, she said that she understood why interpreted her behaviour as being a betrayal and that she actually felt uncomfortable about keeping secrets from me. Then she told me what gift it was, and I was absolutely convinced that this was the true story, since I wanted that gift for a while, and she knew it. Then, she apologised for not telling me the truth and that she made me feel so uncomfortable about the entire situation. In my turn, I apologised for the assumptions I made. Thus, the application of the perception checking process really helped to clarify the situation. In fact, after Sarah’s explanation I felt a bit foolish for making all of these assumptions and not talking to her right away. I think that constructive communication without accusations but just the suggestion of various interpretations of one’s behaviour helps in building more functional inter-personal relations rather than confrontation and accusing a person in the act of wrongdoing.

Overall, from my understanding of Sarah’s communication, she did not think that her actions could be interpreted in such a way and that my perception was mainly based on the worst case scenario of our friendship being threatened somehow. I think that one of the main factors in the interpretation of behaviour and understanding of one’s communication is the ability to separate fears and the worst expectations from the logical analysis of the events and one’s behaviour. Still, as this experiment showed, the attitudes in interpersonal relationships tend to make logical interpretation of the behaviour more difficult. Thus, I think that communication is the best way to clarify any situation, since it is the only way to know for sure the position of another person like in my case with Sarah.