Important for what? Are oranges better than pumpkins?
maybe intentions behind the action rather than the perception of the action itself.
An extreme example would be in the latest episode of My Adventures with Superman (great show, slight spoilers), Superman saves an invisible man from getting hit from a truck by stopping the truck and causing a traffic accident.
The intention was to save a guy, the perception of the people was that he caused an accident for no reason (because the guy he saved was invisible).
Right, gotcha. I thought OP meant as personal traits, which didn’t make sense as I don’t see how someone’s abilities or skills to perceive the world can be compared to what they want to do.
To answer, in your case, I’d say intention is more important
The fact that you misinterpreted what OP meant leans toward perception though.
I also found the misunderstanding funny in context, however note there was a productive conversation out of it in which I managed to understand their intention.
If intention had no importance I don’t think I would have bothered.
Yes, this is what I meant.
oh, it says in the sidebar the question has to be open ended so I didn’t think I could explain it further? I also kind of assumed it had to fit in the title only.
But I meant socially. I often see rhetoric stating that its more important how people perceive what you’re saying, as opposed to how you intended to have it sound.
The person who responded to you gave a great example too.
Ohh a totally different spin then, thoughts are not the same as actions. For me intention wins, however it falls flat it nobody can understand you. So I can see why the counterargument has weight.
Yeah, how I often see it described is that, even if you didn’t intend for something to sound bad - if someone else perceives it as bad, then you just messed up.
I’ve seen this in a few different places online and it made me think but then I was at work and saw it mentioned in an anti-sexual harassment training video. That kind of made me realize this is like, the new ideology being pushed. At least where I am anyway.
I agree with you, I think it’s dangerously stupid to push that idea if you don’t also make an emphasis on trying to understand the other person. Empathy goes both ways, saying perception is the only thing that matters sounds like a cheap and selfish way to avoid a real conversation.
It’s like when people don’t speak your language and accuse you of insulting them even though they have no idea - and worse yet no intention on their part- of ever finding out what you were saying.
Empathy goes both ways, saying perception is the only thing that matters sounds like a cheap and selfish way to avoid a real conversation
Yes! It seemed very one sided to me. Especially after seeing it in a training video, where I get it and it made sense but I couldn’t help but think, doesn’t this mean someone can just misinterpret something and then run wild with that because that’s how they perceived it?
That does happen too… I guess it boils down to the common sense of those involved, more reasonable people would work out their differences whilst unbalanced ones not so much.
You also have the extra complexity legal loopholes and cultural differences in a work environment so I can understand why a company would be pushing for interpretation/perception more than intention.
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In such a scenario perception is important.
If I say something that makes you sad, it doesn’t matter that I didn’t mean to make you sad, I still hurt you.
It does matter though. I’d much rather hang with someone who unintentionally said something that hurt my feelings than one who intended to do so. Even if their behaviour is perceived as being good but on the inside they’re full of shit then I still want nothing to do with them - I probably just don’t know.
Yeah see I don’t think either is unimportant or more important than another.
I’ve had people like you describe in my life, it’s not fun to find out that people you thought you get along really well with actually can’t stand you. Conversely, I also don’t want anyone in my life that treats me like crap even though they don’t intend to do so. Obviously there’s a nuance, if someone says something off to me once, or does something that hurts me once that’s something you can work through.
I’ve friends that are chronically bad at keeping times, and frequently turn up late when we plan things. I stop hanging out with them because when we talk about it and I express that keeping time is something I find very important, and they keep being late over and over again despite saying that they’ll do better, I feel like my time and feelings on the matter are unimportant to them. They might not intend to waste 5 hours of my time every time we make plans, but eventually I’m bound to get fed up, no?
Well yeah obviously both are important. Ideally you have good intentions which leads one to act in a way that is perceived as good too.
However my point is that intentions is what tells more about what you’re like as a person. An autist may be socially akward and they might act in a way an asshole would too but if you know they don’t intend to treat you badly then you also wont judge them the same as someone who does it with the purpose to hurt you. You might still not want to be with them because it’s emotionally taxing but you shouldn’t think of them as an evil person.
If a someone bumps into you on the street by accident and you spill your coffee the end result is exactly the same as when someone does that intentionally but the intentions matter here a lot.
Perception is everything in communication. But of course you can further communicate your intention (via their perception) if you missed the mark.
Sometimes you can. There have been numerous times when someone misunderstood something I had said, became offended, and then refused to even consider the possibility that I didn’t mean what they thought I said. I’ve even had people accuse me of doubling down on what they thought I meant when I tried to explain what I actually meant.
For me it is definitely perception. There is a German saying which goes:
Gut gemeint ist nicht gut gemacht.
Which literally translates to „well intended is not well done“ and I agree
ohh you even have a saying for it!
So does English - the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I’ve heard this before but I didn’t think it had to do with perception until now.
It doesn’t, it’s just a commentary on intention not being worth anything without a good result.
The Germans have a saying for everything!
Honestly, intent. The issue is that another person’s intent can’t ever truly be known. All you have is your perception of their intent.
But I weigh my perception of someone’s intent more than I weigh their outcomes
My immediate thought when I read the post title was of the old subreddit, r/thedonald. The intent was to be a place to sarcastically post “pro Trump” memes to make fun of him and his supporters. The outcome was that it was removed by reddit for being filled with Nazis and hate speech when actual Trump supporters just took over, flooded it with hate and racism.
I don’t think one can ever really actually know intent, really, but knowing what a person states as their intent can be interesting. I just don’t think it actually matters very much. Outcomes are what actually change things and affect other people.
It’s an art not to be judgmental. I always try to see beyond the reception, and give people the benefit of doubt. My reasoning is that most people inherently wants to do good, but sometimes makes mistakes or misjudge the situation. .
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I think intention is more important, but perception of your intentions can have just as drastic consequences.
And of course just because you have good intentions doesn’t mean you’re doing the right thing.
The question is flawed.
When dealing with others, there is only perception. Even if I really try to understand their intention and they really try to communicate their intention, all I will ever have is my perception based on my understanding of what they tried to convey.
Only you know what your true intention is, perception is how the world sees you.
Sounds like we’re talking about a speech act.
If the question is intention vs. perception, intention all the way. Perception of a speech act should track the intent of the speaker, otherwise the perception has failed.
There are of course ways a person can make their intention clearer, particularly by following rules/norms of communication, and a person receiving or processing that communication should also utilize understanding of those rules to interpret (to properly perceive) the information.
But if both parties are doing their level best to clearly encode and decode the information, but the perceived message varies from the intended one, which one is closer to the truth? Intention. And over the long term truth wins out.
With this argument it puts the burden of understanding on the listener. That’s like saying it’s little kids fault for not understanding the teacher.
Not quite saying that.
What I’m saying is that communication is a burden upon the speaker and the listener, or the writer and the reader. The encoder and the decoder. But any way you look at it, the goal is to communicate (on the part of the encoder) and discern (on the part of the decoder) the intent of the communication act. It’s not about fault or responsibility when communication fails, but what’s more important in understanding a communication act.
See, I don’t disagree with that - because that shifts the statement to be ‘encoder and decoder share responsibility for intention and perception’ - which is more reasonable, but does not marry up with your original statement of intention all the way.
Well the question which it was trying to answer was “Which is more important?” without further context. We’ve all had to fill the blanks around “more important for what?” The intent is somewhat unclear, ironically enough.
I’ve interpreted as a question about communication, or specifically about which of these two factors is more important in determining how communication ought to be interpreted. A way to rephrase the question as I interpreted it could be “When a communication fails, when the interpretation varies from the intent, which merits greater consideration in determining the final disposition of the communication? Do we circle back to the intent of the statement, or does meaning imbued in the new interpretation take precedence?”
So it’s to that question that I say it’s intention all the way, and that if we iteratively communicate with the goal of making intent and interpretation match, the goal should be to arrive at the intent of the initial communicator and not to convince the intial communicator that the interpreter’s initial interpretation was correct.
Of course I might have misunderstood what OP was asking, idk.
I agree that the goal would be for perception to match intent. But the acknowledgement that in order to do so we must iterate on a poor first communication highlights the fact that the perception is the important aspect as intent is static and unchanged by further iteration.
If perception wasn’t at least as important as intent, then you could make a well intentioned communication and not worry if it was received correctly.
I did write some more but managed to fat-finger delete it and now I can’t remember what I was trying to say. I’m hoping my point has still come across clearly? Sorry!
To the ends of coherent communication, intent always has to have priority over perception. That’s not to absolve speakers of responsibility for failures of communication, just to define the ends of communication.
Consider a discorse you may have heard before, in some variation:
A: How’re you? B: I’m terrible. I was trying to mow the lawn today, and the mower just wouldn’t start. I think the gas I used was too old. Did you know gasoline can actually expire? (etc for a couple of minutes). A: I’m so sorry to hear that. Your total is $57.48. Will that be cash or card?
B misinterprets A’s perfunctory greeting as a literal inquiry. What’s more important? That A’s original intent be understood (I.e. A simple salutation and transaction)? Or that B’s interpretation be recognized and explored? I believe it’s A’s intent.
Or maybe: C: Nice shirt! D: What? C: I said that’s a nice shirt man. It looks good on you. D: I’m not gay. C: What?
D’s perception of C’s compliment as a sexual advance is incorrect. What’s more important here: C’s intent, or D’s interpretation? I believe it’s again C’s intent. Maybe it’s easier to empathize with C here, but I think the principle holds broadly. C gives a compliment, and D replies with a general inquiry as to the intent. C mistakenly believes that he was not heard clearly, and repeats the statement with greater detail. D, believing that C is clarifying that he is making a pass at him, expresses that he is not interested. C is confused D’s seemingly random declaration of his sexual orientation, and asks why he said that.
And on it goes when people talk past each other. But the way people stop talking past each other is by understanding the intent behind each other’s words. Understanding a perception, or more particularly a misperception, only gets you part of the way there. It helps you determine whether or not communication was successful, but it is a measure of the success of communication only by the degree to which it conforms to the intent of the speaker.
Perception is subjective, intention less so, intention takes priority for me
totally agree that perception is subjective.
They are both equally important. However, we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior. Considering this, I think it’s important to continually try and understand the intentions of others, and consider how our actions might be interpreted by others.
Very well said.
Perception.
All we can go on really is how we perceive others actions (or what they say) and the intent that we can gather from what they do (or say).
And all of this runs through our filters of past experience and what we’ve perceived others intents to be in relation to the things they’ve done (or said).
For example: I’m really quick to pick up on people using emotionally abusive/manipulative language or acting in abusive/manipulative ways, this is because I’ve (unfortunately) had so much experience with abusive/manipulative people. I’ve spotted it incredibly early in relationships, not only my own but the relationships of others. People don’t like getting called out on it, and people really don’t like it getting called out when they don’t see it in their friends or partners.
“They’re not like that with me.”
“They’re only like this sometimes.”
“Well I did kinda deserve it.”
I call it out when I see it, because abusive and manipulative behavior left unchecked will only fester.
I call it out when I see it, because abusive and manipulative behavior left unchecked will only fester
I also try to call it out when I see it but no one seems to listen to me.
Perception. Everyone knows what they think they heard you say. Very few people are privy to why you said it. The perception of what you did has a far greater reach than the intention, and is therefore the more important thing to control. This was as true in antiquity history as it is today – although the Internet certainly amplifies this effect.
Did Nero really fiddle while Rome burned? Did Marie Antoinette really say “Let them eat cake”? All that matters is public perception.
Machiavelli covers a lot of things like this very well, I feel he’s unfairly maligned – most of The Prince is ethically-neutral and practical leadership advice.
Intention tells everything about you and perception tells basically nothing
How do you arrive at someone’s intention other than by perception?
I answered this question below:
It shouldn’t matter. Even if you don’t know why someone does something there’s still an intention behind that behaviour and it matters.
Ofcourse that doesn’t mean you’re going to be fine as long as your intentions are pure even if your actions are perceived to be malicious because you might suffer the consequences from the misunderstanding but you’re still not a bad person.
The reverse of this would be a high functioning charming psychopath that’s great at manipulating people and is well liked but his intentions are to take advantage of you so they’re a truly bad person despite not being perceived as such
what if someone’s intentions aren’t clear?
It shouldn’t matter. Even if you don’t know why someone does something there’s still an intention behind that behaviour and it matters.
Ofcourse that doesn’t mean you’re going to be fine as long as your intentions are pure even if your actions are perceived to be malicious because you might suffer the consequences from the misunderstanding but you’re still not a bad person.
The reverse of this would be a high functioning charming psychopath that’s great at manipulating people and is well liked but his intentions are to take advantage of you so they’re a truly bad person despite not being perceived as such
The reverse of this would be a high functioning charming psychopath that’s great at manipulating people and is well liked but his intentions are to take advantage of you so they’re a truly bad person despite not being perceived as such
Oh I have definitely encountered this type of guy before.
I used to live with one. We called her the smiling assassin.
Well that’s your perception, isn’t it?
lol that means my perceptions all messed up
Better if you can achieve consistency in both.
What’s your context? Is this a theological question? A legal question? A political question?
a social question. I often hear that it is more important how people perceive what is being said, as opposed to what the intention of what was being said.
In that sense, I think it would be difficult to have consistency in both. Where I live, a lot of people think that how something is perceived is more important.
All I can say is that the greater the gap between what is intended and what others perceive, the more difficult things can become.
Politics (even family politics) is full of this stuff.
In some legal contexts intent really matters.
But intention can only ever be inferred (unless bluntly stated) you could argue that if people generally aren’t willing or able to examine things too closely, then perception becomes everything.
In some legal contexts intent really matters.
Someone else brought this up too which is why I originally was asking. I had to watch one of those anti-sexual harassment training videos at work. If I remember correctly, the dialog they used was “Remember, regardless of what you intended, the perception of what you said matters more” and they were talking about saying lewd things to coworkers.
So the person saying it doesn’t find it to be sexual harassment to just say something lewd to someone, but someone else could hear it and perceive it as sexual harassment and the intent would just go out the window because it was perceived to be harassment.
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The key word is “some”.
You’ll find bullying is treated in a similar way - the perception of the person who heard or experienced something is significant, the intent of the person who said or did something much less so.
On the other hand, one could be misleading and mistaken by giving out incorrect information, but one could be lying if they are knowingly giving out incorrect information… (intent)
Maybe ask Paul Watzlawick. Or since he died in 2007, you can read one of his very entertaining books.
