Across the walkway from us was another father and child combo, this one with a girl, and dad, to Chris' astonishment, was enjoying a cigarette. Chris tugged at my hand and whispered as nonchalantly as alarmed six year-olds can, "Dad! Dad! That guy is SMOKING!"
He sure was, non-filtered to boot. PallMalls, my dad's brand. Cigarette in one hand, his little girl's hand in his other, and she was as nonplussed about her smoking father as Chris was shocked. See, save for his earliest years in North Carolina, Chris spent the rest of his formative seasons in St. George, Utah, a mono-theistic, mono-cultural small town by California standards and Chris had not seen a smoking man or woman up to that very impressionable point in his life, though he'd been warned against them, and not just by the rather negative stereotype perpetuated by the cigarette smoking man on X-Files.
His strained whisper, "Let's get out of here!" He was truly afraid.
"Why, Chris?"
"'Cause he's SMOKING!" Big emphasis, Forrest Gump style, on the i-n-g ending.
"What's the big deal?"
"He smokING!"
"So what?" I said.
"Smoking people are bad."
"Really? And where'd you learn that, Buddy?"
"Primary."
Primary is a youth organization for kids under twelve years of age in the Latter-day Saint Church, kind of a Mormon catechism.
"Okay," I said, not moving. One thing Chris liked as much as Legos was spying, so I suggested we watch the smoking man for few moments. Chris kept his eyes both peeled and glued on his unsuspecting cancer stick sucker.
People walked by, his little girl still held his hand, he tapped the ashes from his cigarette into the planter upon which he was leaning.
"Did you see that guy trip anybody?" I whispered.
"No." Whispered back.
"Didn't he just boost that guy's wallet?"
"No, dad."
"Did you see him smack around his little girl?"
Of course he didn't, but he watched him even closer, reluctantly shaking his head.
"Then what's so bad about this guy?"
And as if I still didn't understand the precariousness of our proximity, he said it again, "He's smokIIINNNGGuh."
At the time Chris loved Chips A-Hoy! Chocolate Chip Cookies. So much so that once or twice he ate too many resulting in A-Hoy! puke. We were both hungry, having yet to eat lunch and I said, "Would you like some Chips A-Hoy! Chocolate Chip Cookies?"
"Sure!"
"Like a whole bag of 'em?"
"Really?"
"Yeah, as many as you could eat, and all the milk you could drink."
And then he recalls.
"Oh, well maybe not."
"Why not, Chris?"
"'Cause they'd make me sick."
"Yessir, Buddy, and that makes you a bad boy."
Totally incredulous, "Nah huh."
"Yah huh."
"I'm not a bad boy, dad."
I just looked at him, my precious good boy.
And at that moment when the light goes on and his defending gaze shifts in slow motion from my eyes to the cigarette smoking man and his daughter, I realize I actually did something right that day as a father.
His face returns to mine, totally changed. Gone is the judgement replaced by giddy realization, "He's not a bad guy, Dad!"
"He's not, Chris. He's just smoking."
And Chris is nodding his head, "He's just smoking."
The Perceptual Process
Chris' epiphany was in his perceptual process, toward the end of it where he realized his evaluation.
The process, the way we perceive others goes through a routine like this:
The process, the way we perceive others goes through a routine like this:
- Sensation - Gathering data through our sensory channels.
- Organization - Sorting data based on our own frame of reference.
- Interpreation - Adding meaning to the data.
- Evaluation - Adding value or discounting based on our added meaning of the data.
Chris, in his brand new colorful context of Legoland saw a man smoking a cigarette - sensation. He probably smelled it, as well, something foreign to him. He sorted the sensory input through his little schemata, his frame-of-reference where he makes sense of his surroundings - organization. The only criteria he had for smoking was what he had learned in church, that smoking was not only bad for you, it was a sin to boot, adding meaning to man's action of smoking a cigarette - interpretation. Then, based on the meaning, Chris judged the man - evaluation.
It's a pretty slick process, one that protects us from the ilk and ills of the world regardless of its inherent fallibility. It works because it's so easy to default to, especially when our own schemata are well-fed with a diet of extrinsic influences, instead of our own discernment.
Perceptual Influences
The process is enhanced, especially in the interpretation and evaluation stages, by these influences:
Implicit Personality Theory
If someone shows characteristics in some areas, it's assumed they have similar characteristics as well. For the cigarette smoking man, he was evaluated as bad because of his habit. Finish this sentence - People who smoke also_______________. Chances are the verbs to follow are as negative as the behavior of smoking. If you don't view that behavior as negative, the implication may go neutral or positive.
Implicit Personality Theory
If someone shows characteristics in some areas, it's assumed they have similar characteristics as well. For the cigarette smoking man, he was evaluated as bad because of his habit. Finish this sentence - People who smoke also_______________. Chances are the verbs to follow are as negative as the behavior of smoking. If you don't view that behavior as negative, the implication may go neutral or positive.
If we perceive someone as witty, charming, and smart, according to the theory, we may also see them trustworthy. Assumptions are created based on a little or limited information. It's the impetus of the barrier of Allness. Ted Bundy was witty, charming and smart.
Primacy-Recency Effect
This is an influence based on first or last impressions. We don't give the benefit of the doubt that the person has somehow changed since the impression. This is an influence that plays out in the temporal context and results in the barrier of Static Evaluation.
Attribution
This is an influence of assigning motive to action. The cigarette smoking man's action was standing with his daughter waiting for someone. He smoked while doing so. No one knows the motive, perhaps he was just enjoying a cigarette. Chris assigned the motive of "bad" to his action. I assigned the motive of "bad" to Chris' over-consumption of cookies.
Primacy-Recency Effect
This is an influence based on first or last impressions. We don't give the benefit of the doubt that the person has somehow changed since the impression. This is an influence that plays out in the temporal context and results in the barrier of Static Evaluation.
Attribution
This is an influence of assigning motive to action. The cigarette smoking man's action was standing with his daughter waiting for someone. He smoked while doing so. No one knows the motive, perhaps he was just enjoying a cigarette. Chris assigned the motive of "bad" to his action. I assigned the motive of "bad" to Chris' over-consumption of cookies.
Keeping these influences in check means developing a psychological noise that recognizes the process and deals with the influences, making the evaluation more valid. Keeping our own judgements at bay is imperative when assessing what may be a threat. The temporal context permitting, the more information we gather without preconception or prejudice, the more apt we are in finding meaning in non-verbal manifestations that speak contrary to existing contexts. Remember, the idea here is to recognize and engage threatening behavior before it may escalate to violence.