Explain why it is important to develop accurate perceptions of ourselves and others? Provide examples

What will be an ideal response?

Good communication often depends on our developing accurate perceptions of ourselves and others. First of all,
we all play a variety of roles (parent, spouse, child, employee, friend, tax payer...). We should not perceive the rolls
we ?ll as equal to one another, nor should we feel that we have to excel at each one. We need to acknowledge that
we have strengths and weaknesses. For example, Kerin has dif?culty with math and she allows this weakness to
affect how she feels about her herself. Since our self-concept and our self-esteem effect how we present ourselves
to others, it is important for Kerin to realize that her weakness in math is not a re?ection of her overall intelligence.
Next, accurate perceptions of others are sometimes hindered by clinging to ?rst impressions and stereotyping. For
example, Amy is a server at a restaurant. Last Tuesday, she served a table of eight older women. Although Amy felt
she gave outstanding customer service, she only received an eight percent tip. This made her angry. Today, she
waited on another table of older women. Although these were not the same women, she knew ahead of time that
they would give her a bad tip so she did not give them good service. In order to foster positive communication, we
should be open to altering our perceptions when new information about a person or group of people warrant such
a change.