Selective Perception: Ignorance is Bliss

Derek Cassiol
660-55-9843
April 26, 2011
 On December 7th of 1941 the Empire of Japan implemented a surprise attack on a

United States naval base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The purpose of the attack was to disable the

United States Pacific Fleet from interfering with Japanese expansion into Pacific Southeast

territories. This included many under control by the British, who were already at war with

Japanese ally Germany, and United States, who up until then had remained neutral, even

though they had been supplying Allied nations in the war for years prior to the incident. Looking

at the short-term impact, the attack on Pearl Harbor was an unequivocal success for the

Japanese.

The base was attacked by 353 Japanese fighters, bombers and torpedo planes in
two waves, launched from six aircraft carriers. Four U.S. Navy battleships were sunk
(two of which were raised and returned to service later in the war) and the four others
present were damaged. The Japanese also sank or damaged three cruisers, three
destroyers, an anti-aircraft training ship, and one minelayer. 188 U.S. aircraft were
destroyed; 2,402 men were killed and 1,282 wounded. The power station, shipyard,
maintenance, and fuel and torpedo storage facilities, as well as the submarine piers and
headquarters building (also home of the intelligence section) were not attacked.
Japanese losses were light: 29 aircraft and five midget submarines lost, and 65
servicemen killed or wounded. One Japanese sailor was captured. [1]

The attack came at a complete surprise to the United States, who not only had remained

officially neutral to the conflict and staunchly isolationist but at the same time were negotiating

with the Japan to avoid any sort of armed conflict, something the United States thought had

been going well up until then. However, it was now safe to say that negotiations were over. The

next day President Franklin D. Roosevelt gave a rousing speech to a Joint Session of Congress

calling this attack “a date which will live in infamy” and urging the country to come out of its

isolationism and rebuke this threat. Within an hour of the speech the resolutely isolationist

Congress formally declared war on Japan, which in return caused Germany and Italy to declare
war on the United States three days later, which was reciprocated by the United States the very

same day. Overnight, strong support for isolationism had disappeared and the United States

rallied together for what eventually turned into a long and bloody struggle. [1]

With most other Allied and Axis countries dedicating the majority of their resources

towards the European, or Western, Front of World War II, the vast majority of the fighting in

the Pacific, or Eastern, Front came between Japan and the United States. The United States’

military might and heavy bombing campaigns combined with the Japanese unwillingness to

surrender a single inch of ground resulted in over three long years of fighting. The death toll

climbed into the tens of millions as the Empire of Japan killed millions of Chinese and other

Eastern Pacific citizens while often resorting to suicide missions against its enemies, and

meanwhile the United States was slowly taking out any Japanese occupiers outside of mainland

Japan and while initiating constant bombing runs of major Japanese cities that left hundreds of

thousands dead. It wasn’t until the invasion of Manchuria by the Soviet Union combined with

the dual atomic attacks by the United States, which left over 240,000 dead, that the Japanese

finally surrendered on August 15, 1945. [5]

So what is the purpose of telling you all this? This merely gives you sufficient

background information to understand a different tragedy I’m about to describe and the official

reasoning behind it, as well as its true cause. You see, the Empire of Japan was not the only

country in the Pacific Conflict that committed horrible crimes against innocent civilians, they

just did it on a much more massive and murderous level.

In the first half of the 20th century, California experienced a wave of anti-
Japanese prejudice, in part because of the concentration of new immigrants. This was
 distinct from the Japanese American experience in the broader United States. Over 90%
of Japanese immigrants to the USA settled in California, where labor and farm
competition fed into general anti-Japanese sentiment. In 1905, California's anti-
miscegenation law outlawed marriages between Caucasians and "Mongolians", an
umbrella term that was used to refer to the Japanese and other ethnicities of East Asian
ancestry. In October 1906, the San Francisco Board of Education separated Japanese
students from Caucasian students. It ordered 93 Japanese students in the district to
attend a segregated school in Chinatown. Twenty-five of the students were American
citizens. In 1924, the "Oriental Exclusion Law" blocked Japanese immigrants from
attaining citizenship.

In 1939 through 1941, the FBI compiled the Custodial Detention Index ("CDI") on
citizens, enemy aliens and foreign nationals, citing national security. On June 28, 1940,
the Alien Registration Act was passed. Among many other loyalty regulations, Section 31
required the registration and fingerprinting of all aliens older than 14, and Section 35
required aliens to report any change of address within five days. In the subsequent
months, nearly five million foreign nationals registered at post offices around the
country.

Of 127,000 Japanese Americans living in the continental United States at the

time of the Pearl Harbor attack, 112,000 resided on the West Coast. About 80,000 were
nisei (Japanese born in the United States and holding American citizenship) and sansei
(the sons or daughters of nisei). The rest were issei (immigrants born in Japan who were
ineligible for U.S. citizenship). [4]

To put it nicely, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the ensuing war gave Japanese

Americans no good will from the rest of the American public. To put it more bluntly, for a large

majority of Japanese Americans, especially living in the Western United States, the events that

happened to them during their war made their lives hell. It was believed that after Pearl Harbor

the Japanese Empire was planning a full-scale invasion of the Western United States, which was

reasonable considering the countries rapid expansion into Southeast Asia. However another

sentiment that soon became common was also completely unreasonable, which was that many

Japanese Americans were working for Japan within the United States and must be stopped.

Major Karl Bendetsen and Lieutenant General John L. DeWitt, head of the
Western Command, each questioned Japanese American loyalty. DeWitt, who
administered the internment program, repeatedly told newspapers that "A Jap's a Jap"
 and testified to Congress, “I don't want any of them (persons of Japanese ancestry)
here. They are a dangerous element. There is no way to determine their loyalty... It
makes no difference whether he is an American citizen, he is still a Japanese. American
citizenship does not necessarily determine loyalty... But we must worry about the
Japanese all the time until he is wiped off the map.”

DeWitt also sought approval to conduct search and seizure operations aimed at
preventing alien Japanese from making radio transmissions to Japanese ships. The
Justice Department declined, stating that there was no probable cause to support
DeWitt's assertion, as the FBI concluded that there was no security threat. On January 2,
the Joint Immigration Committee of the California Legislature sent a manifesto to
California newspapers which attacked "the ethnic Japanese," whom it alleged were
"totally unassimilable." This manifesto further argued that all people of Japanese
heritage were loyal subjects of the Emperor of Japan; Japanese language schools,
furthermore, according to the manifesto, were bastions of racism which advanced
doctrines of Japanese racial superiority. [4]

The problem with these claims is not only were the extremely racist and chock full of fear

mongering, but also that there was no evidence or research done to back them up. Still,

support for General DeWitt’s misguided views was high throughout the United States and

quickly began affecting all levels of the United States Government.

Beginning early the next year Earl Warren, the Attorney General for California, began to

implement a strategy to remove all people of Japanese heritage from the West Coast. “Those

that were as little as 1/16 Japanese could be placed in internment camps. There is evidence

supporting the argument that the measures were racially motivated, rather than a military

necessity. For example, orphaned infants with ‘one drop of Japanese blood’ (as explained in a

letter by one official) were included in the program.” [4] Soon after Presidential Proclamations

2525, 2526 and 2527 were issued which declared all German, Italian, and Japanese nationals

(not citizens) to be considered enemy aliens. These people had to report any changes they

made to their location, name, or area of work and were not allowed to enter certain restricted
zones designated by the United States Government. [4] However, the biggest changes were still

soon to come.

On February 19, 1942 President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066,

which allowed authorized military commanders to designate military zones where they best

saw fit, where anyone could be excluded if they met or failed to meet certain requirements.

While these plans were primarily focused on people of German and Italian heritage, anyone of

Japanese descent was much more likely to be affected.

[4]
  March 2, 1942: General John L. DeWitt issued Public Proclamation No. 1,
declaring that "such person or classes of persons as the situation may require"
would, at some later point, be subject to exclusion orders from "Military Area
No. 1" (essentially, the entire Pacific coast to about 100 miles (160.9 km) inland),
and requiring anyone who had "enemy" ancestry to file a Change of Residence
Notice if they planned to move. A second exclusion zone was designated several
months later, which included the areas chosen by most of the Japanese.
Americans who had managed to leave the first zone. This is how it all played out:
 March 11, 1942: Executive Order 9095 created the Office of the Alien Property
Custodian, and gave it discretionary, plenary authority over all alien property
interests. Many assets were frozen, creating immediate financial difficulty for the
affected aliens, preventing most from moving out of the exclusion zones.
 March 24, 1942: Public Proclamation No. 3 declares an 8:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m.
curfew for "all enemy aliens and all persons of Japanese ancestry" within the
military areas.
 March 24, 1942: General DeWitt began to issue Civilian Exclusion Orders for
specific areas within "Military Area No. 1."
 March 27, 1942: General DeWitt's Proclamation No. 4 prohibited all those of
Japanese ancestry from leaving "Military Area No. 1" for "any purpose until and
to the extent that a future proclamation or order of this headquarters shall so
permit or direct."
 May 3, 1942: General DeWitt issued Civilian Exclusion Order No. 34, ordering all
people of Japanese ancestry, whether citizens or non-citizens, who were still
living in "Military Area No. 1" to report to assembly centers, where they would
live until being moved to permanent "Relocation Centers."

These edicts included persons of part-Japanese ancestry as well. Anyone with at least
one-sixteenth Japanese ancestry was eligible. Korean-Americans, considered to have
Japanese nationality (since Korea was occupied by Japan during World War II), were also
included. [4]

When all was said and done between 110,000 and 120,000 people of Japanese descent

along the Western United States were removed from their homes and forcefully moved to

temporary and then permanent relocation centers in the single largest forced migration in

United States history and the most infamous since quite possibly the Trail of Tears. Even more

shocking was that around two-thirds of these people were American citizens, while “the

remaining one-third were non-citizens subject to internment under the Alien Enemies Act;

many of these ‘resident aliens’ had long been inhabitants of the United States, but had been
deprived the opportunity to attain citizenship by laws that blocked Asian-born nationals from

ever achieving citizenship.” [4]

Within the camps people were forced to follow strict curfews and other rigid rules,

while to avoid internment the only options were to leave the military zone completely, which

was not only a long relocation but also at full expense of the Japanese, or to get approval to

leave for college, which only worked for a couple thousand people. Inside the camps the

conditions ranged from below par to awful, as they were hastily put together and overcrowded.

To describe the conditions in more detail, the Heart Mountain War Relocation
Center in northwestern Wyoming was a barbed-wire-surrounded enclave with
unpartitioned toilets, cots for beds, and a budget of 45 cents daily per capita for food
rations. Because most internees were evacuated from their West Coast homes on short
notice and not told of their assigned destinations, many failed to pack appropriate
clothing for Wyoming winters which often reached temperatures below zero
Fahrenheit. Many families were forced to simply take the "clothes on their backs."

Armed guards were posted at the camps, which were all in remote, desolate
areas far from population centers. Internees were typically allowed to stay with their
families, and were treated well unless they violated the rules. [4]

The internment had the overlying goal of suppressing any uprising or invasion from within, and

while it is impossible to prove if anything was indeed prevented, an unintended consequence

was a substantial loss of support by Japanese Americans and then a rise in anti-American

thinking by them, unfortunately in this case justified. Many people died due to the harsh

conditions of the camps, while almost everyone placed in the camps faced some degree of

depression and financial loss.

On December 18, 1944 the entire process of exclusion was deemed unconstitutional by

the Supreme Court in the case Korematsu v. United States and those kept at the camps were
allowed to return home, if they had a home left to return to. “The freed internees were given

$25 and a train ticket to their former homes. While the majority returned to their former lives,

some of the Japanese Americans emigrated to Japan.” [4] It took from years to lifetimes for

loyal Japanese Americans to regain everything they lost due to the interment, if it ever

happened at all.

In 1988, U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act of 1988,
which had been sponsored by Representative Norman Mineta and Senator Alan K.
Simpson — the two had met while Mineta was interned at a camp in Wyoming — which
provided redress of $20,000 for each surviving detainee, totaling $1.2 billion dollars. The
question of to whom reparations should be given, how much, and even whether
monetary reparations were appropriate were subjects of sometimes contentious
debate.

On September 27, 1992, the Civil Liberties Act Amendments of 1992,

appropriating an additional $400 million to ensure all remaining internees received their
$20,000 redress payments, was signed into law by President George H. W. Bush, who
also issued another formal apology from the U.S. government.

Some Japanese and Japanese Americans who were relocated during World War
II received compensation for property losses, according to a 1948 law. Congress
appropriated $38 million to meet $131 million of claims from among 23,000 claimants.
These payments were disbursed very slowly, the final disbursal occurring in 1965. In
1988, following lobbying efforts by Japanese Americans, $20,000 per internee was paid
out to individuals who had been interned or relocated, including those who chose to
return to Japan. These payments were awarded to 82,210 Japanese Americans or their
heirs at a cost of $1.6 billion; the program's final disbursement occurred in 1999. [4]

So what caused all this? What lies at the root of this problem? To comprehend how

something like this could have happened we need to understand selective perception, a major

factor behind the problem just described. Selective perception refers to the ignorance of

objective facts by a person in favor of cognitive biases based on subjective opinions. Selective

perception begins as an ideology, “a systematic body of concepts especially about human life or

culture.” [3] An ideology can be as simple as one concept or as complex as a political platform
or an entire way of life. While ideologies can be based off of facts, they are at the same time

often filled with opinions or beliefs that have no objective truth behind them. These ideologies

reinforce cognitive biases that lead to selective perception, where we pick and choose facts

that best suit our interests and are predisposed to our biases.

Selective perception is exactly what happened during the Japanese interment during

World War II, and a quick analysis of the facts surrounding the issue reveals the full extent of

the damage it can cause. Anti-Japanese sentiment prior to World War II was already high, due

to both ethnocentric ideologies and the fact that Japanese farmers had begun taking away part

of the market for “more established” American families. [4] The attack on Pearl Harbor only

solidified these beliefs, even though it is commonly accepted that only a few thousand

Japanese Americans held sympathy towards the Empire of Japan and far less would actually aid

the Empire against the United States. [4] Politicians with an already held bias against Japanese

Americans took over from here and within a few months internment camps started with little

to no outcry around the country against them, as the public was too busy caught in their own

selective perception against Japanese Americans started by politicians and the mass media,

both of which are to this day still powerful influences on public opinion.

This selective perception can lead to stronger divides between rival political factions,

known as partisanship, as both sides attempt to cater towards the extreme and not towards

cooperation and compromise. In turn partisanship leads to even more selective perception, as

vicious cycle as differing factions drift further and further apart from compromise. This can still

be seen to this day, a popular phrase first uttered by President George W. Bush during the
beginning of the War on Terror was “You're either with us or against us.” [7] Both Democrats

and Republicans could claim this as the current unofficial motto for, who both major parties

(and several minor ones) preach bipartisanship then do everything in their power to get

everything they want or nothing at all.

As you can see selective perception can have a highly damaging effect whenever it

comes into play, however selective perception is not only used in such extreme cases. To better

demonstrate this, let’s run through my day yesterday and see if we can find some instances of

selective perception. Every Tuesday morning I wake up at 10 AM to my alarm clock, which is

playing “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire, one of my favorite bands. I’ve always liked indie rock and I

consider Arcade Fire one of the best bands currently playing in my opinion. Is Arcade Fire

objectively one of the best bands? This is impossible to determine due to the subjective nature

of music, but don’t you dare start an argument contrary to my opinion, regardless of the fact

that I don’t listen to every band or even every genre for that matter. Selective perception has

already been the start of my day. To make matters worse I woke up in a bad mood due to the

events of the previous night, where my favorite hockey team, the Buffalo Sabres, lost a playoff

game to the Philadelphia Flyers. It was in my opinion that the Sabres were unfairly ripped of a

chance to win due to poor officiating, as to me it seemed they were called for too many

penalties that helped give the Flyers an advantage, and to make matters worse they were

penalties the Flyers got away with without any call against them. Now really the only reason I’m

a fan of the Sabres is I grew up just a few miles outside of the city of Buffalo, and I know I’m

biased towards the team I support and against whatever team they happen to be playing, so
that could definitely alter my perception of the game. I haven’t even eaten breakfast yet and

I’ve already encountered two instances of selective perception.

I get ready to leave for my college campus, where I also work, possibly encountering a

number of cases of selective perception, such as what I’m wearing, eating, and getting ready

with. Yet the next obvious case of selective perception happens right when I leave. I could take

the public bus to school, which is a lot easier than walking uphill the entire way, but I decide to

walk anyways since it seems the bus can never arrive on time. In my opinion the bus is always

very late or really early, even though that is most likely not always the case. Objectively it

wouldn’t make sense for the bus to constantly not be on time since it has a schedule to keep

and little room for delays, plus the schedule shouldn’t be thrown off so much that early in the

day. Still I always walk to school, even in the snow or rain, just because I can’t bring myself to

trust the bus schedule.

When I get to the campus I work at the computer store for two hours before heading to

class. At work I’m in charge of delivering orders to different departments around the school and

when that’s done assisting customers in the store. Delivering items is pretty straightforward,

but I know that when it comes to helping customers there are certain brands I’m biased either

for or against. There really isn’t much evidence as to why I should be biased towards these

brands, as it isn’t a case where one company is clearly better than the other, or even sometimes

the case where I’ve personally had a bad experience with an otherwise well like product. It’s

more that there some brands I simply like or trust, while others that I feel the exact opposite

about, even if I’ve never actually used it.

 After work I head right to class, the subject of which is the war in the Middle-East. Now

I’m planning on going on to graduate school for Political Science to become a political analyst,

where I’ll probably be engaging in my own selective perception (hopefully as little as possible

though) and this class features its own plethora of selective perception as well. A significant

time in the class is amounted to debate over the war and its various aspects, and while the

point of the class is to sift through opinions and biases to find the best objective solution for

various factors in the Middle East, I’m still subjected to a heavy portion of selective perception

from both other students and even some of the sources we use. Some of the students are

ardently against any sort of involvement in the Middle East while others are the exact opposite,

arguing that increased involvement is the only real way to solve the problem, and this is but

one example. While compromise is often reached, there are times where it must be ended with

an “agree to disagree” philosophy in order to move on to the next topic and the real objective

truth on the issue is never reached.

After class I head home after stopping to get something to eat. I am part of the school’s

meal plan, allowing me to get 10 meals a week plus money to be spent throughout the

semester on various on-campus restaurants. I was told that this was the best, cheapest, and

easiest option for food based on my schedule; however I never did much research into that

myself and merely went by the opinions of the people who told me this, not actually searching

for the facts to back up their claims. Was it the right choice? It’s hard to say, as it’s definitely

easier to get food while on campus but with 3 weeks left before the plan expires I need to

figure out how to spend around $200 in “bonus bucks,” which I lose if they are not spent.
 After I get back, of course not taking the bus again, I take a nap for a little while before

working on my homework, then I move on to watching television and playing video games

before going to bed. My roommate wanted me to try watching a television series that he really

likes and thought I would enjoy, but I knew it got a few bad reviews so I declined and watched

something else that I knew I would like. I started watching the series my friend recommended

the next day and ended up really liking it though. After watching television I played a new game

I got until I went to bed. There was another game that just came out that I was really interested

in but it got lower reviews than I expected so I decided to avoid trying it. The game I played I

really enjoyed, but I don’t know what I would truly have thought of the other game without

playing it for myself. At around midnight I go to bed and thus end my day, filled with more

selective perception than I would have thought and that’s ignoring the fact that I all be certainly

missed some other instances throughout the day.

So now we both have a prime example of how selective perception can be used on both

a catastrophic level involving millions of people as well as in the mundane exercises of an

average day. However, even though we know for a fact what selective perception is and both of

these examples fit the description perfectly, we are still relying on speculation that selective

perception is behind this. With that said, I will analyze two research papers with two questions

in mind, those being: Is selective perception a real phenomenon and does it have as wide a

range of influence as the prior examples have attempted to illustrate? The first research paper

deals with selective perception on a lower impact level while the second one examines the

problem on a much more potent and far reaching scale. My hypothesis is that these papers will

undoubtedly prove my earlier examples to be prime cases of selective perception.

 The first research paper I will go over covers a nice middle ground between the

mundane selective perception of an average day and the life-altering selective perception of

something like the internment of the Japanese. This 1958 study done by the Carnegie Institute

of Technology was one of the earliest attempts to verify the reality of selective perception

through the use of various corporate executives within a single company. [2]

The hypothesis of the experiment is that executives of different branches of the same

company will perceive only the aspects of a situation that are important to their department

and goals.

The proposition we are considering is not peculiarly organizational. It is simply an

application to organizational phenomena of a generalization that is central to any
explanation of selective perception: Presented with a complex stimulus, the subject
perceives in it what he is "ready" to perceive; the more complex or ambiguous the
stimulus, the more the perception is determined by what is already "in" the subject and
the less by what is in the stimulus. [2]

It was the researchers’ belief that “selective attention to a part of a stimulus reflects a

deliberate ignoring of the remainder as irrelevant to the subject's goals and motives” or

“selective attention is a learned response stemming from some past history of reinforcement.”

[2] However, the researchers knew that most of the evidence for claims of selective perception

had little scientific basis to back them up, so they made it their job to attempt to prove or

disprove this research strongly enough that it would push for more advanced and in-depth

studies in the future.

To accomplish this study the researchers tested 23 executives from different branches

of a single company by asking them to read “a standard case that is widely used in instruction in

business policy in business schools.” [2]

 The case, Castengo Steel Company, described the organization and activities of a
company of moderate size specializing in the manufacture of seamless steel tubes, as of
the end of World War II. The case, which is about 10,000 words in length, contains a
wealth of descriptive material about the company and its industry and the recent
history of both (up to 1945), but little evaluation. It is deliberately written to hold closely
to concrete facts and to leave as much as possible of the burden of interpretation to the
reader. [2]

When the executives were done they were asked to write a brief summary about the most

important problem facing the company, one which its president should address before all

others. “Prior to this session, the group had discussed other cases, being reminded from time to

time by the instructor that they were to assume the role of the top executive of the company in

considering its problems.” [2]

The executives were purposefully picked to have as many similarities as possible, all

falling into the category of middle management and representing about equal levels of power

within the company. However, they were specifically chosen to fit into one of four categories:

Sales (6): Five product managers or assistant product managers, and one field sales
supervisor.

Production (5): Three department superintendents, one assistant factory manager, and
one construction engineer.

Accounting (4): An assistant chief accountant, and three accounting supervisors--for a

budget division and two factory departments.

Miscellaneous (8): Two members of the legal department, two in research and
development, and one each from public relations, industrial relations, medical and
purchasing. [2]

These categories were of utmost importance since the researchers used them to determine the

extent of selective perception taking place. If there was a significant relationship between the

most major problem pointed out by the executives and the department they worked for it

would show a distinct case of selective perception.

 In the cases of executives who mentioned more than one problem, we counted all those
they mentioned. We compared (1) the executives who mentioned "'sales," "marketing,"
or "distribution" with those who did not; (2) the executives who mentioned "clarifying
the organization" or some equivalent with those who did not; (3) the executives who
mentioned "human relations," "employee relations" or "teamwork" with those who did
not. [2]

What the researchers found conclusively proved that selective perception had indeed taken

place.

[2]

The results found that while 83% of sales executives mentioned sales as the most

important problem other executives only mentioned it 29% of the time, which is statistically

significant with less than a 5% margin of error. “If we combine sales and accounting executives,

we find that 8 out of 10 of these mentioned sales as the most important problem; while only 2

of the remaining 13 executives did.” [2]

Organization problems (other than marketing organization) were mentioned by four out
of five production executives, the two executives in research and development, and the
factory physician, but by only one sales executive and no accounting executives. The
difference between the percentage for production executives (80%) and other
executives (22%) is also significant at the 5 per cent level. Examination of the Castengo
case shows that the main issue discussed in the case that relates to manufacturing is the
problem of poorly defined relations among the factory manager, the metallurgist, and
the company president. The presence of the metallurgist in the situation may help to
 explain the sensitivity of the two research and development executives (both of whom
were concerned with metallurgy) to this particular problem area. [2]

In the end, this study was one of the first to conclusively prove that on at least some

level selective perception was capable of influencing people’s judgment. The study and results

met the criteria to prove that this was not a fluke by being statistically significant in the

differences between the 4 groups of executives. In the words of the researchers that worked on

the experiment:

We have presented data on the selective perceptions of industrial executives exposed to

case material that support the hypothesis that each executive will perceive those
aspects of a situation that relate specifically to the activities and goals of his
department. Since the situation is one in which the executives were motivated to look at
the problem from a company-wide rather than a departmental viewpoint, the data
indicate further that the criteria of selection have become internalized. Finally, the
method for obtaining data that we have used holds considerable promise as a projective
device for eliciting the attitudes and perceptions of executives. [2]

However, this is not “the be-all and the end-all” for research into selective perception,

nor was this experiment entirely perfect. The researchers did not release how they analyzed

their statistics, so one can only hope that they properly discovered the results to be statistically

significant. While the results remained important and considered valid, a larger test group

would have been able to give a better picture of if selective perception works on a broader

spectrum or only happened to be supported in a small scenario like this one. Still, this

experiment proved that selective perception can be a factor in people’s judgment and should

be looked into with more detail on a wider scope, which brings us to the next research paper.

A study done by an Assistant Professor at Kirkland College published in 1971 looked to

investigate selective perception on a much broader, further reaching, and quite possibly more

important scale.
 This study investigates voters' selective perception of political candidates' positions as a
means of maintaining cognitive consistency between their own position on issues and
their candidate preferences. The results indicate that, under certain conditions, voters
preferring a particular candidate do selectively perceive that candidate's position on an
issue in such a way as to make it consistent with their own. [6]

The political arena is quite possibly more drenched in selective perception than any other area

in the United States, so it works as a perfect testing ground to find out if selective perception

can take place on a much larger scale compared to the relatively small one of the previous

study.

The researcher, Professor Drury Sherrod, believes there is an A-B-X or balanced model,

also called the triad, for the three areas that make up a voter’s perception of a candidate: the

“voter's opinion of a candidate, the voter's position on a particular issue, and his perception of

the candidate's position on the same issue.” [6] Professor Sherrod knows that people generally

seek to find politicians who align mostly with their own views, but this research attempts to

explain what happens when some of their own personal views clash with the candidate they

support.

How can people resolve the resulting inconsistency? There are several
alternatives. First, and perhaps most "rationally," voters can deter- mine how a
candidate stands on a particular issue and then shift their own position on the candidate
or the issue accordingly. Second, if voters determine that they disagree with a candidate
but are unwilling to shift their position on either the candidate or the issue, they can
resolve to tolerate the disagreement or they can rationalize by reducing the importance
of the candidate's position with which they disagree. Finally, voters who continue to
support a candidate regardless of his position may actually come to believe that their
candidate's position is the same as their own, selectively misperceiving or rejecting
information which would indicate otherwise and thereby maintaining cognitive
consistency. [6]

It is this last method that Professor Sherrod attempts to understand through the following

study as up until this point in time there had been some conflicting reports, even though there
was a general consensus that selective perception was a real issue and could take place. Some

research stated that voters were more likely to change the person they support while other

research showed that voters were more willing to change their own perception, yet neither of

these was researched as in-depth as Professor Sherrod would have liked. [6]

The following study was set up to test Professor Sherrod’s initial hypothesis that

selective perception of candidates' positions is used to resolve inconsistent political attitudes.

Professor Sherrod measured the dependent variable of perceived-candidate-position (PCP)

along with voter attitudes on candidates and issues. “PCPs for various subgroups of voters were

then compared with PCPs for the total sample of voters… If the distribution of PCPs in each of

the various subgroups differed from the over-all distribution of PCPs in a direction consistent

with subgroup attitudes on the candidate and the issue – and if the distribution was

significantly different from the distribution expected on the basis of sample proportions – then

it was possible to infer that selective perception accounted for the differences.” [6] However, if

the results showed an insignificant difference from the sample portion it would prove Professor

Sherrod’s hypothesis to be wrong.

The hypothesis was tested through a mail questionnaire administered during the
course of the 1968 presidential campaign to subjects selected at random from a
systematic sample of residents in San Mateo County, California. The questionnaire
contained items which measured respondents' attitude toward candidates and issues as
well as their perception of the candidates' position on the same issues. Seven possible
presidential candidates were included in the study, which began with the California
primary election campaigns and ended after the national nominating conventions.
Respondents indicated their candidate preferences as "definitely for," "not sure," and
"definitely against." Two statements of possible government policy were also included
on which respondents rated their own position as well as their perception of the
candidates' position in terms of "tend to agree," "no opinion," and "tend to disagree. [6]
The seven candidates and two issues resulted in 14 different possible combinations to analyze,

“each comprised of a respondent's position on a candidate, his position on an issue, and his

perception of the candidate's position on the same issue-in effect, 14 separate tests for

selective perception.” The number of participants, or respondents of the survey, ranged from

125 to 513, as not every participant to all three elements within each triad. [6]

Two steps were used for analysis for selective perception, first a “multiple contingency

analysis was applied to each combination of three variables… The technique parallels the

analysis of variance and provides a general method for partitioning a total chi-square and

degrees of freedom into independent additive components due to given sources of variation.”

[6] This tested if there was a statistically significant change between the observed and expected

frequencies of PCP distribution of the triad of variables. If the results showed a significant

change then one could infer a three-way interaction of the variables. “In other words, it was

possible to infer that the observed PCP distribution could not have been predicted from the

distribution on any one of the variables by itself or any two of the variables taken together; that

is, neither the main effects nor the two-way interactions could have accounted for the observed

results. The results could have been predicted, however, when all three factors are considered

together.” [6]

This analysis also allowed “the specification of contingency coefficients as a measure of

the degree of association or relationship among the three variables. Contingency coefficients

were computed from the partitioned chi-squares and shared the significance levels of the chi-

squares themselves.” [6] Four relationships yielded coefficients:

 1. The direct relationship between a voter's position on an issue (V-I) and his liking for
a candidate (V-C)
2. The direct relationship between a voter's position on an issue (V-I) and his
perception of the candidate's position on the issue (V-Ic);
3. The direct relationship between a voter's liking for a candidate (V-C) and his
perception of the candidate's position on an issue (V-Ic)
4. The joint relationship between a voter's position on an issue (V-I) and his liking for a
candidate (V-C), taken together, and his perception of the candidate's position on
the issue (V-Ic).

The joint relationship in (4) above, like interaction in the analysis of variance, pertains
only to the additional or "leftover" variance in the dependent variable (V-I c) which the
two direct relationships (V- I:V-Ic and V-C:V-Ic) cannot account for. [6]

A significant difference in the three-way interaction of variables cannot by itself infer selective

perception; it only shows that the distribution of PCPs in the subgroups is significantly different

from expectations, but not why they were different. “The second step in the analysis therefore

involved a comparison between PCPs in the various subgroups with PCPs in the total sample in

order to determine whether deviations in the subgroups were in a direction consistent with

subgroup attitudes.” [6]

The analysis used in the second step confirmed Professor Sherrod’s initial hypothesis.

“On the first issue – ‘The United States has an obligation to its black citizens and other minority

groups to guarantee an adequate standard of living’ – the three-way interaction was significant

(p < .01) for six of the seven candidates. On the second issue – ‘The Viet Cong should be

allowed to participate in the future government of South Vietnam’ – the three-way interaction

was significant (p < .01) for two of the seven candidates.” [6] The fewer instances of selective

perception were directly related to the fact that analysis showed that the respondents were

less polarized on that issue. This also proves my own personal hypothesis mentioned earlier
that strong partisanship leads directly to selective perception. “There is less need for selective

perception for the sake of cognitive consistency.” [6]

More evidence for selective perception can be seen when comparing subgroup PCPs

and the PCPs for the total sample. For each candidate-issue combination, respondents are split

into nine different subgroups, one for each configuration of candidate preference “(‘definitely

for,’ ‘not sure,’ and ‘definitely against’) and issue orientation (‘tend to agree,’ ‘no opinion,’ and

‘tend to disagree’).” [6] However, since for groups including neutral responses the degree of

inconsistency is uncertain, we can only find selective perception in subgroups which exclude

neutral responses. Therefore the nine subgroups can be reduced to four possible ones, as

selective perception requires some sort of a personal bias to begin with. These four remaining

subgroups are:

1. Pro candidate, pro issue (+C, +I);

2. Pro candidate, con issue (+C, -I);
3. Con candidate, pro issue (-C, +I);
4. Con candidate, con issue (-C, -I).

If the selective perception hypothesis is correct, the following results should be

expected in the four groups above:

1. The +C, +I group should perceive a greater proportion of +I positions for the
candidate and fewer -I positions than the over- all sample;
2. The +C, -I group should perceive a greater proportion of -I positions for the
candidate and fewer +I positions than the over-all sample;
3. The -C, +I group should perceive a greater proportion of -I positions for the
candidate and fewer +I positions than the over- all sample;
4. The -C, -I group should perceive a greater proportion of +I positions for the
candidate and fewer -I positions than the over- all sample. [6]

When all analysis was taken into consideration, 3 of the 4 subgroup PCPs deviated from

the total sample PCPs in a direction consistent with the subgroups attitudes for a majority of
the candidates. However, these deviations differed significantly from chance (p < .01) only in

subgroup 1.

Specifically, the pro-candidate, pro-issue (+C, +I) subgroup perceived a greater

proportion of pro-issue (+I) positions and fewer con-issue (-I) positions than the total
sample for a majority of candidates on both issues. The +C, -I subgroup perceived a
greater proportion of -I positions and fewer +I positions than the total sample for a
majority of candidates on both issues. The -C, +I sub- group perceived a greater
proportion of -I positions than the total sample for a majority of candidates on both
issues and fewer +I positions for a majority of candidates on the first issue but not the
second. And, finally, the -C, -I subgroup perceived a greater proportion of +I positions
than the total sample for a majority of candidates on the second issue but not the first
and fewer -I positions for a majority of candidates on both issues. [6]

Professor Sherrod was able to prove that his findings showed that “significant three-way

interactions in the multiple contingency analysis, combined with the significant pattern of

deviations in the +C, +I subgroup and the general trend of deviations in the remaining three

subgroups, support our hypothesis that inconsistent attitudes toward candidates and issues

may be resolved through selective perception of candidates' position.” [6] All figures used by

Professor Sherrod can be seen and analyzed in the tables below:

 [6]

Unlike the previous experiment, the research done by Professor Sherrod is much more

detailed with a vastly larger pool of data to work with, thus allowing the experiment a much

smaller probability of the results happening by chance when compared to the other study. Still,

Professor Sherrod believes that “this hypothesis could be more firmly established if a future

study gathered data on a sample of respondents at several points in time and noted shifts in

perceptions of candidates' position. The implication is clear in the present study, however, that

voters are likely to see their preferred candidates' position as fairly similar to their own

position, regardless of how the candidates' positions are seen in the total population.” With

that in mind this study, as well as similar ones that took place after this one with the same

conclusion, proves that selective perception can absolutely happen. Much like nationwide
Japanese internment or the localized “day in the life” these studies also show that selective

perception can take place on various levels, from one person to millions, with a good chance of

being effective.

So what can we do with this knowledge? Now that it is known that selective perception

can and does happen, one would think a stronger focus would be put on education on how this

can happen as well as future prevention to make sure it happens as little as possible. Yet

selective perception is still going strong to this day, especially in areas such as the political

arena, where one would like to believe that the strongest possible focus would be taken to

prevent selective perception, due to both its size and importance. There seems to be rarely a

day where one can open a newspaper or read online about some form of selective perception

that has happened recently.

So why does this continue to exist? The answer is unfortunately quite simple, as

selective perception is simply too useful to those that employ it over the people most

susceptible to it, and that can be just about anyone. As a whole people unavoidably think

subjectively so we by and large look for confirmation biases of our own personal beliefs, and as

these studies have shown when the facts don’t match up to our own personal reality we too

often simply distort the information given to us to make it fit. It won’t be until we are brought

up being taught to rely on facts over beliefs and knowledge over faith that we will be able to

slowly stamp out selective perception. It is an all too widely excepted belief to state that

“ignorance is bliss,” however this line of thinking only empowers those that have the power and

capability to use selective perception on people that rely on them for information. Not only that
but this type of thinking also allows us to trick ourselves into selective perception, something

often done on a daily basis without even realizing it. I don’t see a near future where selective

perception cannot have a strong influence over people, as my solutions would take generations

to weaken the problem, let alone get it to the point where cases can be easily identified and

fixed. However, before I am finished I want to leave you with a small piece of information that

will hopefully start setting us on the right path. Ignorance is not true bliss and will never lead to

it.
 Works Cited
[1] - "Attack on Pearl Harbor." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2011.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor>.

[2] - Dearborn, DeWitt C, and Herbert A. Simon. "Selective Perception: A Note on the

Departmental Identifications of Executives." Sociometry 21.2 (1958): 140-144.

American Sociological Association via JSTOR. Web. 17 Apr. 2011.

[3] - "Ideology." Dictionary and Thesaurus. Merriam-Webster Online, n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2011.

<http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ideology>.

[4] - "Japanese-American internment." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr.

2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese-American_internment>.

[5] - "Pacific War." Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Apr. 2011.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_War>.

[6] - Sherrod, Drury R. "Perception of Political Candidates." The Public Opinion Quarterly 35.4

(1971): 554-562. Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Association for

Public Opinion Research via JSTOR. Web. 17 Apr. 2011.

[7] - "You are either with us or against us." CNN.com International. CNN, 6 Nov. 2001. Web. 19

Apr. 2011. <http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/11/06/gen.attack.on.terror/>.

For another interesting study on selective perception feel free to check out:

http://www.all-about-psychology.com/selective-perception.html