Perceptions

Perception , in terms of human behavior, is essentially how we perceive, understand and process information about the other person. Our perception itself depends on multiple factors such as our past experiences, level of social interaction, cultural background, etc. All these factors can play an important role in how are our brain's neutral connections are wired.

In terms of how my past perceptions could have misled me, I would say that would depend on what particular context we look at. For example, from a stereotypes point of view, there have been incidents in my life where the stereotypes played a nonconstructive role in understanding other person's behavior or that in some cases those stereotypes were proven wrong. Similarly, from the point of view of just understanding a certain behavior of a person, my immediate perception of the other person have proven to be wrong multiple times because of coming to conclusion too fast or not interpreting the physical clues properly, among other factors. Also, I think there have been times when others have not perceived my actions or behavior properly because of miscommunication, lack of cultural understanding, and so forth.

If were to draw a graph between perception on vertical axis, with higher values showing better perception, and the duration of relationship (length of time persons have known each other) on a horizontal axis, I think what we would see is a line that goes from the lower left corner to the upper right corner, in other words, a direct proportional relationship. This means time is a very important element of removing barriers to misperception. Other important factor that could facilitate perception is level of communication; the more open and candid communication we have, the lower the chance of misperception.