Learning And Perception Word.docx

There are numerous theories of intelligence, many of which view intelligence as the ability to learn or use the cognitive process. For all purposes we will say that intelligence is the level of ones capacity for new learning, problem solving, and decision making. Today, it is generally agreed that intelligence is a product of both genetics and the environment. Most scientists today believe that there are two or perhaps as many as 7 or more different components or kinds of intelligence. People often perform in different levels for different tasks. As you know, you are good in doing some things, maybe math or tennis and not as good at doing others. Therefore, people have multiple intelligences. Intelligence is a strong predictor of many important outcomes in life such as educational and occupational attainment. An offshoot of IQ of Intelligence is EQ which is emotional quotient or emotional intelligence known as EI which is clearly related to the adjustment of big 5 personality dimension. EI is all about working well with people. And up to 90% of the difference between star performers and average performers is emotional intelligence. The good news is that EI is a learned competence so you can improve your emotional intelligence by working at it. There are 5 components of EI/EQ 1. Self-awareness – being conscious of your emotions within you, your gut feelings. 2. Managing emotions – not letting your emotions get in the way of getting a job done. 3. Motivating yourself – being optimistic despite obstacles, setbacks and failure 4. Empathy – putting yourself in someone else’s situation and understanding that person’s emotions 5. Social Skills – to build relationships, respond to emotions, and influence others.

PERCEPTION The term perception refers to a person’s interpretation of reality. In the perception process, an individual will select, organize and interpret stimuli through their own senses. Your perception is influenced by heredity, environment and more specifically by your personality. Intelligence needs self-concept, attitudes, and values. In human relations, perception is just as important as reality. People often encounter the same thing and perceive it differently. We tend to believe that our perception is reality and the other person’s perception is not reality. Remember, people will behave according to their perception not yours. Plus, it is important to realize that people often see things differently than you do. So we need to look at things from the other persons’ perspective. Some of the biases affecting perception are: Stereotypes, frame of reference, expectations, selective exposure, interest and projections. Let’s take a look..

Stereotyping - Consider the bias of stereotyping, which is the process of generalizing the behavior of all members of the group. Stereotypes are drawn among all kinds of lines including race, religion, nationality and sex. Most of us stereotype people as a way of quickly perceiving a person’s behavior. Women in minority are often stereotyped as organizers. Women managers have been stereotyped as being ineffective leaders. Researches shown that stereotype is incorrect as there are no real differences in leadership styles. We have to avoid stereotypes. Consciously attempt to get to know people as individuals rather than stereotyping. Frame of reference - A frame of reference is our tendency to see things only as they affect us. It is common for employees and management to perceive the same situation from different frames of reference. For example, if managers want to make change to increase productivity, they perceive the change as positive while the employees perceive the change as negative, ignoring managers’ perception. Parents and their children often have frame of reference perception differences. To be effective on our human relations, we should try to perceive things from the other person’s frame of reference and be willing to work together to benefit all parties to create a win-win situation. Expectations - What we expect often influences our perception of what we see and experience. We perceive, select, organize and interpret information as we expect it to appear. Often people, especially those who know each other well do not really listen to each other, they simply hear what they expect to hear. We have expectations of others in relationships, when they do things we don’t expect or like, we have human relations problems. So, our frequency of notions and labels can undermine accurate perceptions and affect judgment and decision making. To improve human relations, we must be careful to understand people’s realities rather than what we expect the reality to be. Selective exposure – We tend to see in here what we want to see in here. People sometimes selectively pick information they want to hear and ignore information that they don’t want to hear. Sometimes, when a manager delegates a task with a specific deadline, the employees selectively does not hear and therefore misses the deadline. To ensure effective human relations, we should listen to the entire message rather than use selective exposure. Interest – what interests you also affects how you perceive and approach things. Have you ever taken a course and do not like it? While other courses you thought were great? The difference in perception maybe do the different levels of interests in subject. Interest influences job satisfaction. Projection – to avoid psychological threats, people use defense mechanisms known as projection. Projection means attributing ones’ attitude or shortcomings to others. People who steal and cheat may make statements like “Everyone steals from the company” or “All students cheat in college”. Projection, may be an effective defense mechanism but it generally does not help human relations.