How perception, personality, and individual differences shape human behavior

Perception, Personality and Individual Differences and Ethics

The following pages focus on analyzing three articles on perception, personality, and individual differences and ethics. These issues were selected because of their importance to human interrelationships, influence on human behavior, and importance on communication. In order to understand how these concepts can be efficiently used, it is important to study articles that explain the processes behind these concepts, how they work, and how they can be improved.

The articles presented in this paper represent the point-of-view of specialists in the field. Their opinion can be considered subjective. This is because their opinion was formed based on their individual knowledge and experiences. It is important to understand the motivation used by the authors of these articles in their attempt to provide a point-of-view on these issues.

The issue of perception is of great importance to all target audiences. This is because everyone should have information on how perception is developed, and on how their perception can be altered by external factors. This knowledge is intended to help individuals make a difference between perception and reality, but also to help them defend against the perception created by others. This mostly refers to companies that in order to sell their products must alter the perception of their customers.

The issue of personality should interest individuals that want to know more about themselves, and that want to improve their relationships with others, and actions. Therefore, it is important that people learn theories about personality, and understand how they can apply these theories to themselves and others. However, this is a large topic and it is not necessary to go a lot in depth in order to understand some of the important facts.

Individual differences play an important role in our relationship with others, and in our daily activity. By understanding these differences, we can improve these relationships, and learn new issues that can help us in improving certain aspects. It is important that individuals also focus on ethics when addressing individual differences.

Perception

Perception is represented by the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information in order to represent and understand what individuals see, hear, and feel. In other words, perception helps give meaning to the information we are exposed to. We create our own meaning based on the perception that we make of things. This perception helps us translate our experiences into meanings that we can make us of in order to provide a psychological benefit to us.

The perceptual process refers to the recognition of environmental stimuli, but also to the actions through which we respond to these stimuli. This process allows us to gain information from our environment that is necessary to our survival. The perceptual process also refers to cognitive processes that are required by processing information.

There are numerous articles on perception. Some of them refer to explaining perception from a neurological point-of-view, some of them refer to how we use perception in order to sell something to other people, and others refer to explaining how perception can be used in order to improve our everyday life. Each of these articles provide important information for readers that want to learn more about using their senses.

One of the most interesting articles on perception was written by Michael Hall, Ph.D., and is titled "Perception is not Reality." In this article, the author is trying to challenge the statement that perception is only projection. In the writer's opinion, perception is also partly detection. The importance of the article relies on the fact that is describes several types of perception identified by modern science. These types of perception are represented by neurological perception, representational perception, and conceptual perception.

Neurological perception is the level of perception where we perceived sensory-based things (Hall, 2010). This refers to how individuals neurologically identify visual, auditory, kinesthetic tactile, propreceptic, olfactory, and gustatory information. If some of the receptors through which we pick up this information is damaged, the entire perception can be affected.

Representational perception refers to the strategy we use in order to make sense of the information we pick up neurologically. This refers to the representations that we make in our minds regarding our experiences. Based on these representations, we assimilate other experiences that have something in common with other experiences.

Conceptual perception refers to the manner in which we perceive our existence. This refers to the entire existence, and the perception is not limited to isolated experiences. In other words, it refers to how we make sense of our existence.

The objective of this article is to challenge a statement that a peer had made about perception. The author is successful is detailing his point-of-view and challenging the statement in case. The article provides important information that can be used in order to understand the perceptual process. The targeted audience of this article is represented by individuals that already have a psychological basis, and that are aware of theories on perception.

The article is related to the topic of perception through the fact that it addresses a statement made by specialists in the field on perception, in the attempt of enlarging knowledge levels on the perceptual process. Therefore, the article is related to perception through the information it provides. In addition to this, the article determines readers to tdo their own research on this issue.

Personality

Personality refers to differences in patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving. In other words, personality is represented by the emotional, attitudinal, and behavioral response patterns of individuals. The issue of personality seems to be of great importance to individuals. Everyone talks about the importance of having a strong, nice personality, everyone takes online tests in order to determine their personality type, companies analyze the personality of their candidates in order to determine if they fit within their organization.

An important article on personality was published in the Chicago Tribune by Humberto Cruz, and is titled "Personality Could Affect Bottom Line." The article focuses on identifying the relationship between personality types and savings and spending strategy. The article is based on the results of a survey that has revealed the fact that individuals fall in five personality traits: planners, savers, strugglers, impulsive, and deniers.

It seems that the type personality of the individual significantly influences their financial management strategy (Cruz, 2002). This refers also to the balance of their credit cards. Therefore, if certain individuals are more impulsive, it is likely that they will spend more, and they will spend without thinking about the consequences on their credit card balance. Basically, they do not make plans on what they intend to buy. They purchase things based on impulsive feelings. In such cases, it is frequent that impulsive individuals max out their credit cards.

The personality of planers is revealed in the planning they make for each activity. They do not purchase on impulse. The make analyses on each purchase they intend to make in order to determine whether there are risks associated with it, or it is possible to make that purchase. Planners do not max out their credit cards, as they are able to maintain a balance of their credit score.

Savers focus more on saving instead of spending. Their financial strategy is based on reducing the value of purchases they make. Savers are also somewhat planners. This is because they have to plan their spending and savings in order to determine how much they are required to save, and how much they can spend in order to reach their objectives.

Strugglers are not impulsive shoppers, but they have to deal with certain financial setbacks. This mostly refers to low incomes individuals. Because they have such low incomes, unplanned events that require spending somewhat throw them off track. Therefore, they cannot follow their retirement saving plan as established.

Deniers are individuals that do not like financial planning, and that do not plan ahead. They are not interested in building a safe retirement for themselves. They only plan short-term financial actions.

The relationship between this article and personality is that it analyzes certain personality types and their behavior in certain actions, like planning their retirement. The importance of the article relies on the fact that it provides information that readers can use in order to analyze themselves, to determine their personality type, and to identify how they can improve their financial planning strategy. The targeted audience of the article is represented by individuals that are interested in their personality type, and that want to learn more about this issue.

Conclusions

The issues of personality, perception, and individual differences and ethics have important influences on our thoughts, emotions, behaviors, relationship with others, daily activity, and decisions we make. Therefore, it is important to have information and knowledge on these topics. This is because an increased level of information contributes to the control individuals can exert on their lives. In situations where such information is reduced, individuals are easily controlled by others with more information in comparison with them.

This information can be easily accessed on the Internet, in certain newspapers and magazines, and from other sources. The interest of individuals on these issues determines their level of knowledge. This is information that should interest all individuals that want to make improvements about themselves. It is important to use such information in order to improve the situation of other people.

Reference list:

1. Hall, M. (2010). Perception is not Reality. International Society of Neuro Semantics. Retrieved May 25, 2013 from http://www.neurosemantics.com/nlp-critiques/perception-is-not-reality.

2. Cruz, H. (2002). Personality Could Affect Bottom Line. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved May 25, 2013 from http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2002-03-19/business/0203190214_1_american-savings-education-council-retirement-planning-Matthew-greenwald-associates.

3. Beaver, J. (2006). Individual Differences in Reward Drive Predict Neural Responses to Images of Food. The Journal of Neuroscience. Retrieved May 25, 2013 from http://www.jneurosci.org/content/26/19/5160.