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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 didnât make sense as I donât see how someoneâs abilities or skills to perceive the world can be compared to what they want to do.
To answer, in your case, Iâd 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 donât think I would have bothered.
oh, it says in the sidebar the question has to be open ended so I didnât 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 youâre saying, as opposed to how you intended to have it sound.
The person who responded to you gave a great example too.
Questions have to be open ended in the sense that thereâs room for people to individually have their own responses to leave and contribute to discussion. Basically, this isnât a forum for questions that have a specific answer. Donât ask how to change a tire or what temperature to cook pizza rolls at.
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 didnât intend for something to sound bad - if someone else perceives it as bad, then you just messed up.
Iâve 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 itâs dangerously stupid to push that idea if you donât 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.
Itâs like when people donât 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.
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 couldnât help but think, doesnât this mean someone can just misinterpret something and then run wild with that because thatâs 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.
Honestly, intent. The issue is that another personâs intent canât ever truly be known. All you have is your perception of their intent.
But I weigh my perception of someoneâs 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 âpro Trumpâ 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 donât think one can ever really actually know intent, really, but knowing what a person states as their intent can be interesting. I just donât think it actually matters very much. Outcomes are what actually change things and affect other people.
Itâs 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. .
For me it is definitely perception. There is a German saying which goes:
Gut gemeint ist nicht gut gemacht.
Which literally translates to âwell intended is not well doneâ and I agree
ohh you even have a saying for it!
So does English - the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Iâve heard this before but I didnât think it had to do with perception until now.
It doesnât, itâs just a commentary on intention not being worth anything without a good result.
The Germans have a saying for everything!
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 doesnât mean youâre doing the right thing.
Only you know what your true intention is, perception is how the world sees you.
They are both equally important. However, we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and others by their behavior. Considering this, I think itâs 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 weâve perceived others intents to be in relation to the things theyâve done (or said).
For example: Iâm really quick to pick up on people using emotionally abusive/manipulative language or acting in abusive/manipulative ways, this is because Iâve (unfortunately) had so much experience with abusive/manipulative people. Iâve spotted it incredibly early in relationships, not only my own but the relationships of others. People donât like getting called out on it, and people really donât like it getting called out when they donât see it in their friends or partners.
âTheyâre not like that with me.â
âTheyâre only like this sometimes.â
âWell I did kinda deserve it.â
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.
Sounds like weâre 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. Thatâs like saying itâs little kids fault for not understanding the teacher.
Not quite saying that.
What Iâm 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. Itâs not about fault or responsibility when communication fails, but whatâs more important in understanding a communication act.
See, I donât disagree with that - because that shifts the statement to be âencoder and decoder share responsibility for intention and perceptionâ - 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 âWhich is more important?â without further context. Weâve all had to fill the blanks around âmore important for what?â The intent is somewhat unclear, ironically enough.
Iâve 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 âWhen 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?â
So itâs to that question that I say itâs 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 interpreterâs 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 wasnât 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 canât remember what I was trying to say. Iâm hoping my point has still come across clearly? Sorry!
It really depends on what the context of the judgement is. For instance, if a politician accidentally makes a racist statement, the intent ends up mattering very little in terms of reputation compared to perception, while on the other hand, intent is often weighed pretty highly in criminal cases, where the intent of the individual is significant in determining an appropriate punishment.
Better if you can achieve consistency in both.
Whatâs 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 arenât willing or able to examine things too closely, then perception becomes everything.
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 âRemember, regardless of what you intended, the perception of what you said matters moreâ and they were talking about saying lewd things to coworkers.
So the person saying it doesnât 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.
The key word is âsomeâ.
Youâll 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.
I know this is a few days old, but thinking about it again, Iâm reminded of this clip I saw from Orange is the New Black. To summarize, the clip is a flashback to explain how Suzanne (âCrazy Eyesâ) wound up in prison. Sheâs an autistic woman whose sister/caretaker leaves her alone for a weekend, without arranging alternative care, to go on a vacation. She befriends a child, who she seems to connect with easily as they are on a similar mental level, and the kid follows her home to hang out and play video games. After the child says itâs time for him to go home, she becomes upset, blocking the front door to prevent him leaving. He attempts to call 911 and she grabs the phone and hangs up, confused, telling him that he should only call 911 for emergencies. Panicked, the child attempts to crawl out a window to escape, accidentally falling to his death.
What would you say is more important here, intention or perception? I think it depends on who you are. For the childâs parents, perception matters more. Their child is dead. That Suzanne didnât intend for it to happen is of little consolation. For Suzanne, maybe intention matters the most. For the courts, both matter; sheâs proven herself unsafe to be around to the public, yet the fact she didnât intend to cause harm is supposed to be taken into account too, perhaps for lighter sentencing. In a better world, she would be given help instead of incarcerated because of her intention, and perhaps her caretaker would be held partially responsible.
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.
Intention tells everything about you and perception tells basically nothing
How do you arrive at someoneâs intention other than by perception?
I answered this question below:
what if someoneâs intentions arenât clear?
It shouldnât matter. Even if you donât know why someone does something thereâs still an intention behind that behaviour and it matters.
Ofcourse that doesnât mean youâre 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 youâre still not a bad person.
The reverse of this would be a high functioning charming psychopath thatâs great at manipulating people and is well liked but his intentions are to take advantage of you so theyâre 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 thatâs your perception, isnât it?
lol that means my perceptions all messed up
The most important things in life always have some element of intent.
Take marriage for example. Itâs the most important decision of your life, youâre choosing who would amount as a co-proxy with you. Are you really going to let perception have power over validation? Imagine living in a culture that doesnât allow interracial marriage and youâre discovered to be living with someone of another race. Would you accept societyâs rejection of the notion you enjoy their company?
Take last wills and testaments as another example. Imagine dying, giving your last commands while on your deathbed, and some kid in the family is like âIâm going to run this by the whole neighborhoodâ.
Or Iâll put it another way: if perception is good, there wouldnât be so many people here who say they dislike/denounce Wikipedia in arguments like this since Wikipedia is built on unspecific mass perception.
Holy fuck thatâs one hell of a comment section. Iâve seen my fair share of tankies but thatâs insane.
My thoughts exactly. That just about explains Lemmyâs first two million new members in its first month.