perception of global reality

perception of global reality

Perception is described as how people see things or situations around them. In terms of global reality, it is accepted that what happens around the world has the potential to influence our lives. The world is greatly interconnected and political events across the world have an influence on our day to day lives. For this reason, it is widely accepted that every nation on the globe has its role to play in ensuring that there are peace and positive coexistence globally. Taking cognizance to this reality, institutions such as the United Nations have been tasked to ensure that all players in the global village take up their role in making earth a better place for people of all races and creed.

Some of the situations in which the perception of global reality becomes very vivid are during times of international conflict. For citizens of any country the decision on whether to become part of a conflict is particularly heart wrenching especially when the lives of their citizens hang in the balance. For instance, the decision by any leader whether to engage or pull ground troops who could either in active combat or part of the United Nations peace keeping missions is subject to vibrant political significance. It is during times of conflict that the perception of the global image becomes clear since war situation that may be deemed to be very from a particular country have an impact on even those far from the frontline.

Perception of the global image is also very important in influencing activities such as international trade as well as the relations between different countries. The modern world has become extrinsically linked which has led to the development of global cultures that have been fueled by world travel, international trade and advances in technology which have converged the world into one global village where individuals from all countries are seen as equal players in the vibrant melting pot that is today’s world. Mirror imaging is a technique which is designed to enable people to see how their method of handling conflict looks to others. The term originates from the fact that mirrors are devices which allow people to visualize themselves the way other people see them.

The technique is quite simple since it does not require individuals or parties to follow complicated procedures or tricks. It only requires that the parties put aside their stereotypes and prejudices at least temporarily and take a look at the world from the perspective of other people. Mirror imaging helps by enabling people to understand why ideas that may seem reasonable to them may be viewed as unacceptable or even selfish by others. Furthermore, it helps people to understand why some strategies which they think are reasonable and moderated may be viewed by others as being inflammatory and provocative.

It is a requirement of mirror imaging that parties temporarily suspend judgment and look at others especially their opponents in a sympathetic way. Suspending judgment allows parties to engage in direct dialogue or other processes that allow them to communicate with one another. This kind of introspection mostly teaches people new things about themselves that they would otherwise wish were not true.  Mirror imaging helps countries as well as individuals to obtain feedback on what the rest of the world perceives them to be.  It brings out both the positive and negative attributes of an individual or nation and tells the situation as it is without adding or removing from the totality of the image seen in the mirror. It is advisable for individuals, institutions as well as countries to regularly look at themselves and critic various aspects of their existence as seen through the eyes of others. Mirror imaging enables human beings to cultivate empathy by looking at themselves through the eyes of others which helps us to put ourselves in the shoes of others. In this way we are able to better understand how certain actions, behaviors or attitudes that we possess can have a positive or negative impact on the lives of other people. Without this kind of introspection, we as human beings would have an extremely one sided view of the world which has the potential to fuel animosity and conflict among individuals and even nations.

Mirror imaging as a technique has been widely used in different areas of study such as psychology, political science and sociology. It has also been applied in research by enabling scientist to provide people with insights about themselves that they would normally see. By making use of mirror imaging individuals as well as nations are able to make the world a better place by seeing themselves as seen by other and in the process they are able to make adjustments not only to their image and character.

Cognitive dissonance can be described as the feeling of tension that makes one uncomfortable by having two conflicting thoughts simultaneously. The level of dissonance increases with our inability to explain and rationalize away the conflicting thoughts, the importance of the subject and how strong the conflict of the dissonant thought is. Often dissonance is strong when we believe something about and the go ahead to do something that conflicts that belief. This form of dissonance enables people to positively adjust conflicting beliefs and actions. The discomfort often feels like the tension created when a chord is pulled as a result of having two opposing thoughts. In order to release the tension people often take either of these actions; change their behavior or thoughts.

Dissonance is often very powerful when the self-image is involved. Feelings such as immorality, foolishness among others are dissonant in action. The level of cognitive dissonance experienced by an individual depends on a few factors which include how highly the individual values a particular belief and the degree to which the individual’s beliefs are inconsistent. The strength of the cognitive dissonance is also influenced by other factors such as cognitions that are very personal which include beliefs that a person has about themselves which tend to produce greater amount of dissonance. The degree of the cognition is also very important whereby beliefs that are highly valued by an individual usually produce much stronger dissonance. Furthermore, the relationship between dissonant thoughts and consonant thoughts is very important in determining how strong the dissonance feelings are.

There are three key strategies to minimize cognitive dissonance. First, one has to focus more on supportive beliefs which outweigh the dissonant behavior or belief. For instance, a person who has learnt that greenhouse gases result in global warming might experience dissonant thoughts if they drive luxurious gas-guzzling cars. So as to reduce the dissonance, such individuals might look for new information that disputes the relationship between global warming and greenhouse gases. The new information might help to reduce the discomfort associated with the dissonant beliefs. Secondly, one has to reduce the importance of the conflicting belief. For instance, someone who knows that sitting for long periods is not healthy, but at the same time they are required to sit all day due to the nature of their work. Such a person may instead find other healthy habits so as to make up for the largely sedentary way of life. Third, one may change the conflicting belief to make it consistent with other behaviors and beliefs. This one of the most effective ways of dealing with dissonance but at the same time it is one of the most difficult. Particularly when has deeply held values and beliefs, changing them is increasingly difficult.

Cognitive dissonance can take many forms in our everyday lives but they are particularly evident in situations where the behavior of the individual conflicts with integral beliefs to self-identity. A good example is when a person buys their dream car only to realize that the car is not economically friendly since it has poor gas mileage. There is a conflict between our thoughts of preserving the environment and the thoughts of having achieved a remarkable feat in being able to purchase a dream car. These are cognitive maps that we carry around in our minds in order to help us make sense of the geographical world that surrounds us. The maps help us make some sense of the world in terms of the places we have been and places we have never seen before. They are a way of combining an individual’s objective knowledge of places in addition to their subjective perceptions or options of different locations around the world. People mostly are able to roughly estimate the time taken to get from one city to another or find their approximate locations of unfamiliar places on a map since they have been exposed to such information about the place previous from elsewhere.

Mental maps are often tricky to decipher since each person has a different set of perceptions in their minds about the same world that we all live in. It is common to find that what one person associated with a place or city could be exactly opposite to the person standing right next to them. Most people have an internalized representation of the world in their minds which is brought about by teachings in school, interacting with diverse populations of people in addition to their personal travelling as well as images of the global image broadcasted in media. Studying of mental maps as well as perceptions that people have about the world brings together different aspects of study such as geography, sociology, psychology as well as cultural studies. Each of these fields of study make use of the data obtained from the use of mental maps in order to understand how the human minds sees the world around us and how the information is processed internally as well as externally.

Recently there has been a lot of research on mental mapping which has provided geographers in several ways by not only enabling researches study ways in which people interact with the world around them, but also enabling researchers to analyze the feelings of people towards certain parts of the city and make a connection between certain places with crime, environment, ethnic populations among others. Scientists are now able to look at the physical geography of a place and see what people’s thoughts are about those regions and even delve deep into human as behavioral aspects of the mental maps to track down certain human emotions such as fear, excitement and stress in regards to different locations worldwide. The media also has a huge impact on how people see the world around them. While watching local and international news, the images and articles we see in films and other news sources all have a big impact on how we see different nations and people from around the world.

There are three levels of global analysis namely. The system level-this includes attributes of the international system as well as supranational actors. A good example of analysis at this level is the imbalance between the wealthy nations and the less financially secure nations. The state or domestic level-this includes elements such as political parties. An example of this level is either the parliamentary system or the presidential system. The individual level-this focuses on the perceptions, choices, and personalities of individuals. An example is the decisions made by individuals in power such as presidents or prime ministers. In terms of politics, continuity is the preservation of systematic stability whereby leaders and government systems are continually changed without dramatic shifts to the political system itself. This is a kind of homeostasis whereby the necessary actions are made in order to maintain proper functioning of the system. Change, on the other hand, involves shifting of political or government systems which are brought about.