Example Of Research Paper On Comprehension And Perception

A man was having a conversation with a close friend who was depressed because he had a fight with his girlfriend. The first few minutes of the conversation was dominated by the close friend as he was telling the man what went on with the fight, which was motivated by his desire to have someone sympathize with him. The man listened attentively as indicated by the occasional nods. The close friend was blaming his girlfriend’s being immature and indecisive that caused the argument. This is an example of fundamental attribution error wherein more emphasis was given to the personality traits of a person rather than the situation that influenced the conflict. The close friend ended his tirade by saying, “Women. They’re all the same.” This is an example of stereotyping, a case wherein generalizations are formed based on a few perceived characteristics.
A group of friends was having lunch at a fast food chain. They were giggling most of the time which told that they were rather close to one another. Their conversation was stimulated by the spaghetti ordered by one of them. One friend commented that the spaghetti in the said food chain tastes similar to the spaghetti she tried at another restaurant. In this example, the girl organized her perception of the taste of the spaghetti based on the similarity it bore to the spaghetti served at another restaurant. Another girl agreed while the other two argued that the spaghetti served at another restaurant was the most delicious. This scenario showed that all the girls in the group are familiar with the stimuli, which was spaghetti, and made every one of them contribute to the conversation, thereby making it balanced.
In a grocery store, an employee was complaining to the other about her headache. It was apparent that they were good friends based on the concern on the other employee’s voice when she asked the sick employee if she has taken medicine. The sick employee said she’s been having headaches on and off since the winter started. The sick employee was stacking boxes of detergents when the other employee she was talking to asked her why she’s putting them beside the cartons of milk. That’s when the sick employee realized that she was working on the wrong alley. This scenario explains how perception is formed based on the similarities of the stimuli. In this case, since both the milk and detergent were in boxes, the sick employee thought the detergent was also milk. It is also possible that the employee’s headache, a physiological factor, affected her perception.
In a tutorial session between a Korean student and a Korean teacher, the teacher was obviously dominating the conversation with the student asking questions and giving opinion now and then. They were having a discussion about an article they read together. The article was about how Korean students spend the longest time studying compared to students in other countries. Because they belong to the same culture, they both agreed that studying longer is a definite must for their country to be more progressive. However, the student argued that the time Korean students like him spend on studying is too much. The teacher, having several years of experience teaching students explained that, despite the long hours, many Korean students don’t learn well because they don’t take their lessons seriously. According to culture context, the student and the teacher’s recognition of the importance of education in relation to the advancement of their country was influenced by their country’s emphasis on collectivism. Their discord, on the other hand, regarding the length of time Korean students spend on studying can be attributed to their occupational roles, with the teacher agreeing to the prevailing amount of time while the student opposing it.
In a situation somewhat lifted from the movie Mean Girls, a group of four teenage girls were talking animatedly in Starbucks. They were friends who knew one another well based on the drift of their conversation. One of their classmates passed by and started chatting with them. The newcomer, who was a boy, started talking about the upcoming concert of a famous rock band and asked if they, the girls, would also go and watch. The girls looked uninterested and dismissed the subject altogether. One started talking about a romantic TV show she watched last night which made the other three girls excited. They were talking at the same time with the occassional squeals, completely excluding their boy classmate until he just stood up and said goodbye. It was a clear case of prejudice, with the girls rejecting their boy classmate’s stimulus which was about a rock band’s upcoming concert. The context of gender could also explain the difference in interest, with the boy’s inclination towards rock bands while the girls preferring romantic TV shows.
On a funny note, Sheldon Cooper in the sitcom The Big Bang Theory has always believed that he is smarter than his friends. When one of his friends went to outer space, he and his two other friends were talking about how great it was for their friend to be out there. Sheldon, to the surprise of his friends, said he somehow envied their friend as he could see the majestic beauty of the world from out there. His friends were dismayed when he continued by saying “his dark, uncomprehending eyes.”, which was an insult to their friend’s ability to understand beauty. This situation shows how Sheldon’s self-concept of being the smartest among them all influenced his belief that the others are incapable of understanding things.