Reality is created in the mind through perception and interpretation of external data. Perception involves selecting, sorting, and interpreting environmental stimuli using the five senses. It is influenced by psychological and physical conditions, language, experiences, expectations, and other factors. Sharing perceptions with others through empathic and deliberative listening allows for reality testing and reduction of distortions between individual realities. People generally desire to maintain stasis or absence of change in their realities for comfort.

1. Discovering Our
Realities
Chapter Five

2. Reality is everything that exists.
It’s the degree of agreement reached by
two ends of a communication line.
• “Reality” is created in
the mind.
• Reality is not what is real
-- it’s what we think is
real.
• It’s an interpretation of
our environment.

3. Perception
• Perception is the
selecting, sorting, and
interpreting of data
from an external
environment.
• It is an individual
event.

4. Selecting
• Uses our five
senses: sight, smell,
hearing, feeling, and
taste.
• Works as a filtering process of
what stimuli we take in or
ignore.

5. Sorting
• How we organize
and prioritize
information and data
we become aware of.
• Certain information
stands out over others.

6. Interpreting
• We manipulate data to assign it meaning,
by searching our memory for similar
experiences.

7. Selecting and Sorting
Filters
• Psychological Condition -
how we recognize
incoming data
• Physical Condition - data
we recognize; Influences
include the senses, health,
fatigue, hunger, and
biological cues.

8. Selecting and Sorting
Filters cont.
• Language - Organizational system that
allows us to understand messages from
environment. The more limited our
vocabulary, the more limited our reality.
• Formal Learning - shapes our socially
correct view of environment; teaches
people to be good citizens

9. Selecting and Sorting
Filters cont.
• Experiences -
first-hand informal
learning. Tends to
be layered.
• Expectations - perceptions
that we expect to conform
to what we already believe
the actual event is

10. Factors that influence
how we interpret data
• Closure - how to make sense out of
environment; “fill in the blanks”
• Selective Perception - takes place when we
narrow available cognitions to make an
interpretation of the environment
• Patterning - attempt to keep new or
current perceptions in line with past ones

11. Reality Testing
• 1. Interpretations - no two
realities are identical.
• Sharing and comparing our
realities with those of
others can help reduce
distortions and differences
among the many realities
you have created.

12. Reality Testing
• 2. Listening Skills - psychological process
controlled by the mind
• a. Empathic Listening - empathy as the
basis for understanding the positions of
others.
• b. Deliberative Listening - definite,
deliberate attempt to hear information,
analyze, draw conclusions, and recall it at
a later time. Requires little effort or
energy.

13. Stasis
• Absence of change in
one or more of our
realities for some
extended period of
time.
• We desire to maintain
stasis because it’s a
personal comfort zone.