Judgements and Perceptions

Yesterday I was reading through Chapter 2 in my speech book, and it was talking about how we all have different perceptions of the same situation and how we judge people. I was forced to think about how I see things and judge people. Judge is such a harsh word-it makes me sound like a mean person. But judging people is just human nature, whether we really realize it or not, we do it. Think about all the different ways we judge people in today's society. After September 11, we stereotype agaist most people of Middle Eastern descent. Some people may not mean to do that, but it still happens. And we judge based on how people dress and look. I was watching America's Next Top Model the other day and it just made me wonder who decides what beautiful is? We as a society care so much about looks and material things. Being skinny and thin in today's society is almost a "must." Who decided that was beauty? I'll never quite figure that one out. Everyday we judge people on things like that, but why? Who are we to judge? There are nine perceptual errors we engage in, sometimes without even realizing it most of the time. First impressions was one of those errors, and that's probably the one that I'm most guilty of. Why are first impressions so important to us? I can't explain it but for some reason they just are. Can't we give people a second chance? For some reason, first impressions are hard to change, no matter how hard we try. I know for me sometimes they can be, anyway. Maybe we feel the need to "categorize" people right away, for lack of a better phrase. Everyone knows certain kinds of people, and maybe we feel the need to put people into those groups. Maybe it makes us feel better about ourselves. If we see someone in a less-than-ideal situation, we take comfort in the fact that we would never be seen "like that." Or maybe we just simply do it without even realizing it. I think that could be the most likely reason. We grow up with all of these ideas and ideals and sometimes new people we meet don't match those ideas and we just judge them without realizing it. Its a type of predjudice, I suppose. We don't acknowledge that we're judging them, because, really, who wants to think that they judge people harshly? But on occasion it happens without us even being aware of it. First impressions aren't really very fair, because people have bad days all the time and aren't always presented to new aquaintences at our best, and they judge us. It's not necessarily right or fair, but that's the way it goes. On the flip side of occasionally harsh first impressions is leniency, and I think I'm pretty guilty of that too. Sometimes we just can't see the bad aspects in people and keep giving them more and more and they keep taking it and walking all over us. In a perfect world, everyone would stick up for themselves and no one would get walked all over, but newsflash: this isn't a perfect world and we do it. Again, I'm not sure why...error in human nature, I suppose. We all have different ways of seeing things, though, which makes us unique. I don't really understand why we judge others, and ourselves for that matter, but as humans we do and I really don't know why. I'm beginning to discover that there's a lot of things that I really don't understand if I take the time to stop and think about them.