Perception and Communication Blog 6

Perception and Communication

A person’s initial impression does not always truly represent them. An initial impression is often based upon appearance and so this can be very wrong.

This can be seen in the example of the channel four television show “The Secret Millionaire”. Where a millionaire goes to live in a small house, and dresses is normal clothes, they give the impression while they are there that they have no money They volunteer in the community and say they are being recorded for a TV show about volunteering . People then interpret them to be that way. At the end of the show they admit that they are actually secret millionaires, and they give some money away. This shows a fundamental reason as to why and how interpretations matter. If the millionaire had gone and straight away admitted to being millionaires, then the charities would have acted differently around them; and thus altered their initial interpretation. (channel4, 2012)

Initial perception of people can also follow a wide spread familiarity. The colour of a person hair is a very common assumption to go by (Expert, 2010). The idea that Blonds are stupid, brunettes have more fun, and red heads are angry is something that many people adopt when talking to people.  This is why phrases such as “having a blond moment” has come around for a situation where you have forgotten something, or done something embarrassing. However this is clearly very wrong, Brunettes can be sad and boring and blonds can be very intelligent, along with red heads being very calm. Showing another example of how peoples initial interpretations can be wrong.

Many people who make bad initial interpretations, and create poor judgments often regret them. As people often act upon their judgment; treating people in different ways to adapt to who they think the person is. This for example could be talking slower to someone who you think is less intelligent.

An example of when I personally had wrongly perceived someone was with my cousin.  She was allot younger then me at the age of 7 or 8. And so when I spoke to her when they visited I tried to avoid using long words and not talking about certain subjects, and then as the conversation progressed I came to the conclusion that she was actually mature enough and old enough to understand the words as she was using them in conversation. This made me feel a bit embarrassed that I had been talking to her in that way, and that it was pointless for me to have tried to “dumb down” the convocation. If I could have done it again, I would not of adapted the way a had the conversation with her.

Can the university can improve communication with the students? (Clake, 2010)

Communication comes in many ways, below is an example of the formal and informal, internal and external forms of communication. 

In my opinion, the university communicates very well with the students.

By having a student representative system, it allows students and lectures to meet and discuss issues or successes regarding the courses. This therefore allows lectures to take on this advice and to act upon it, making sure that everyone is filling the same shared purposes of an improved end result.

The main form of communication between staff and student is through the blackboard system. This allows different departments and different modal lectures to contact students on a large scale or individual scale via e-mail. This means that there is a recordable two way communication system available for the behalf of both the staff and the students.

People can be engaged well within the university. The student union is an open advice centre, which can be contacted about issues, and they can take forward your request and let you know information.  By having someone available to physically see about an issue or an information request it mean that the chain of communication has expanded further than impersonal dissuasions over e-mail or phone.

Positions within the university such as “head of student experience” mean that people get to know the people who have control over them. This means that there is a more personal influence that people value. This is communicated strongly through the university newspaper, where in each issue there is a statement from certain people of importance, including the student editor. The newspaper is therefore another channel of communication that the university takes advantage of, by advertising events through this.

Communication between staff and students is therefore very important, not only to express students issues but staff as well. It is also crucial not only to communicate the initial problems with others, but to use the communication to measure the results of the actions taken. By the result being communicated to the public it means that they will feel satisfied that the communication that has taken place is having a result, this happen in the university by the student union questionnaires that can be filled out and acted upon.

Communication is very important and a collapse in a communication system can cause many issues. The most important form of communication is face to face, if one day there is a power cut, or you don’t have phone signal, the only way of communication if through speech. Therefore by keeping the fundamental basis of communication as speech, and by then aiding it by phone, or internet access, this means that there is a very well developed channel of communication.

Bibliography

channel4 (2012) The Secret Millionaire [online]. Channel Four. Available from: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/the-secret-millionaire [Accessed: 3rd Jan 2012].

Clake, R. (2010) How to imporve staff communication [online]. People Management. Available from: http://www.peoplemanagement.co.uk/pm/articles/2010/07/how-to-improve-staff-communication.htm [Accessed: 6th Jan 2012].

Expert, L.P.H. (2010) Yahoo answers [online]. Does your hair colour influence your personality. Available from: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091019161801AAElO51 [Accessed: 10th Dec 2012].