Have you ever had anybody approach you to talk and you felt the uncontrollable urge to take a step backward to put more distance between you and them? Or, have you ever reached out to touch someone during a conversation and they seemed very uncomfortable and withdrew? These are common occurrences, especially when people from different cultures interact with one another, or when people of different ages, genders, races, or social classes interact. Each of us surrounds ourselves with an invisible bubble that constitutes what we consider our personal space, an area around our body that we reserve for ourselves, intimate acquaintances, and close friends. On occasion, we must allow others to invade this personal space, for example, when a doctor examines us, or perhaps when we are standing on line, or in a crowded elevator. These situations often make us uneasy, however, and many call for defensive strategies such as folding our arms across our chest, placing an obstacle (an umbrella, a briefcase, or a backpack) between us and the other person, or at the very least, avoiding eye contact and very communication. #RyanPhillippe 1 of 5

When your personal space is respected, one becomes less anxious and emotionally reactive and less aggressive or withdrawn; they get along better and their school or work performance improves; their attention deficit, hyperactivity, and oppositional defiant problems decrease; and they even sleep better at night. Terrible things still happen to them and around the, but they are now able to talk about these events; they have built up the trust and resources to seek they help they require. Interventions are successful if they draw on our natural wellsprings of cooperation and on our inborn responses to safety, reciprocity, and imagination. In addition to defining a situation, we must decide who we have encountered before we activate what we believe to be the appropriate self. Social perception is a process by which we from impressions of others and ourselves. In everyday life, we both give off and receiver cues bout the kinds of persons we are. We do this in almost every situation: when we enter a class, during a stroll across the office, while shopping at the mall, or when we are trying to flag down a taxi. #RyanPhillippe 2 of 5

How we perceive others and how we are perceived by them depend on such symbolic elements as physical appearance, clothing, gestures, tone of voice, facial expressions, posture, and other elements that reveal our various statuses, attitudes, and expectations. Trauma constantly confronts u with our fragility and with man’s inhumanity to man, but also with our extraordinary resilience. Many people see their symptoms as part of their strength—the ways they learned to survive. And despite all the suffering many have gone on to become loving people, exemplary teachers, have great careers, an experience joy in life. Trauma is not our most urgent public health issue, and we have the knowledge necessary to respond effectively. The choice is ours to act on what we know. Social perception depends in part on our impressions of other people’s personal characteristics, such as whether they are attractive, good, bad, strong or weak. At the beginning of an encounter, people appear to devote considerable energy to discovering with whom they are dealing. Once people feel they have enough information, their attention to this assessment wanes, and early impressions continue to dominate their thinking and behavior. #RyanPhillippe 3 of 5

Our initial impressions of others also depend on our perceptions of people’s social identities. When we encounter others, we mentally make a checklist of their various statuses, such as gender, age, and race, as well as search for clues to their less obvious identities. We scan clothing, hair style, body posture, and hand and eye behaviors for clues to occupational identity, social class, group membership, and other social statuses. Since we cannot know everything about everyone we meet, we get to know them with less than the appropriate amount of care by fitting them into ready-made categories, known as stereotypes. In everyday life, we use a variety of stereotypes, which are static and oversimplified ideas about a group or social category, that strongly influences our expectations and behaviors. Where do these generalized perceptions and stereotypes of other groups and individuals come from? Many are formed spontaneously as we interact in specific social situations. Yet that experience alone cannot account for some of the powerful perceptions and stereotypes that many people hold toward certain groups and categories of people—some of whom they have never actually encountered personally. #RyanPhillippe 4 of 5

Many of these assumptions about other people, we have been taught or learned through the process of socialization, and that helps to shape and influence our social acts. In American society, there are stereotypes of women, men, jocks, the elderly, racial and ethnic members of the population, college students, and countless other groups and social categories. Cynical people can debate and say that there is no true altruism because every benevolent act involves potential benefit towards oneself, even if that benefit is merely feeling good about helping others. Helping seems to go with the natural need to inter act with others. Empathy is a deep emotional concern whose absence can indicate psychopathy (a person suffering from chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violence social behavior). Empathy involves feeling sympathy, compassion, or even distress in line with the way others feel. It entails knowing and understanding how others feel, whether that means taking the perspective of real people or identifying with functional character. Feeling and knowing pave the way for the actions we call altruistic. Good people endeavor to do good things. (www.thedeedle.com) #RyanPhillippe 5 of 5