Perceptions
Students compare their views of themselves to one another
All Photos By Jordan Hammerberg
Senior Grace Schniers expresses her admiration for her boyfriend of three years, senior Chandler Hendrickson after the perceptions activity. In reviewing their answers for one another, Schniers said “I figured my [answers] would be pretty close to his and his would be really close to mine, because we pretty much are together all the time but it was still interesting to see the slightly different answers we had.”
You get to know a person so much, it’s just easier to describe them than it is yourself. You’re honest with yourself about them but not yourself.
— junior Taylir Butterworth
Imagine two people cloud gazing. One person sees a sheep, while another sees an atomic explosion. No one is right or wrong, but rather their perceptions are simply different. People are the same way. Your view of yourself may be the polar opposite of the perception that your loved one has of you.
“We have a fairly stable view of ourselves,” said Bella DePaulo, professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara in Psychology Today. “We expect other people to see that same view immediately.”
Inspired by a video created by Dove, Uncaged illustrated the difference in perceptions people have of themselves versus the perceptions of those they love.
The Experiment:
We gave each of our two subjects a large pool of adjectives anywhere from “cowardly” and “insensitive” to “amazing” and “beautiful.” We asked them to choose words that described themselves before asking each to describe the person they are close with or in a romantic relationship with. After describing each other, each person got to see how the other would describe them.
