The process of perceiving others is rarely translated (to ourselves or others) into cold, objective terms. "She was 5 feet 8 inches tall, had fair hair, and wore a colored skirt. " More often, we try to get inside the other person to pinpoint (强调 ) his or her attitudes, emotions, motivations, abilities, ideas, and characters. Furthermore, we sometimes behave as if we can accomplish this difficult job very quickly—perhaps with a two-second glance.
ways. Berger suggests several methods for reducing uncertainties about others; who are known to you so you can compare the observed person's behavior with the known others' behavior, observing a person in a situation where social behavior is relatively unrestrained or where a wide variety of behavioral responses are called for, deliberately structuring the physical or social environment so as to observe the person's responses to specific stimuli (刺激因素) , asking people who have had or have frequent contact with the person about him or her, and using various strategies in face-to-face interaction to uncover information about another person—question, self-disclosures, and so on.
Getting to know someone is a never-ending task, largely because people are constantly changing and the methods we use to obtain information are often imprecise. You may have known someone for ten years and still know very little about him. If we accept the idea that we won't ever fully know another person, it enables us to deal more easily with those things that get in the way of accurate knowledge such as secrets and deceptions. It will also keep us from being too surprised or shocked by seemingly inconsistent behavior. Ironically, those things that keep us from knowing another person too well(e. g. secrets and deceptions) may be just as important to the development of a satisfying relationship as those things that enable us to obtain accurate knowledge about a person (e. g. disclosures and truthful statement).
1. According to the passage, if we perceive a person, we are likely to be interested in
A. what he wears B. how tall he is
C. how happy he is D. what color he dyes his hair
2. Some people are often surprised by what other people do. According to Berger, that is mainly because_______.
A. some people are more emotional than others
B. some people are not aware of the fact that we will never completely know another person
C. some people are sensitive enough to sense the change of other people's attitudes
D. some people choose to keep to themselves
3. We may have known someone for ten years and still know very little about him because_______.
A. we don't accept the idea that we might never fully know another person
B. we often get information in a casual and inexact way
C. we pay more attention to other people's motivations and emotions • 62 •
D. we often have face-to-face conversation with him
4. There are things that we find preventing us from knowing others. These things are
A. disclosures B. deceptions
C. stimuli D. interactions
5. This passage mainly concerns_______.
A. the relationship between people B. the perception of other people
C. secrets and deceptions of people D. people's attitudes and characters
1. C 2. B 3. B 4. B 5. B
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