My first memory of a serious discussion involving
self- referencing occurred during my freshman year of college when I was
taking the calculus course for science majors. The professor would present
us with some very difficult problems and would occasionally present one
impossible to solve. He told us the he would not accept a student's conclusion
that "I can't do it and so it can't be done." We had to explain why the
problem cannot be solved, with explicit explanations of what assumptions
are being violated, what additional information is necessary, and so forth.
Self-referencing involves people's decisions
based solely on their personal experiences, values, attitudes, and opinions.
When making decisions based on self-referencing, people do not integrate
other information beyond their own experiences, such as the opinions of
others or survey research that presents a wide range of viewpoints. There
is an irony in my presentation of this topic. I have to make decisions
concerning what will be interesting to readers, and what I can communicate
in a limited amount of space, based on my own self-referenced judgments.
Sometimes people can catch themselves in a
self- referencing error. I was speaking to a group of college professors
on interpersonal relationship research and tried to introduce the importance
of social status. I pointed out research showing that university professors
have more status in the United States than lawyers. A woman who was both
a lawyer and a teacher at a small regional college argued that the law
profession gave her more status. But she caught herself. She said, "You
are using the term university professor and I am thinking of college teacher.
Plus, I tell my students that they must move beyond their own experiences
when reading their texts and becoming exposed to various sources of information."
One of my colleagues, Dr. Julie Lee, has a
classroom demonstration in her consumer behavior course that encourages
students to move beyond self-referencing. She asks American students to
taste Vegemite, a popular spread for crackers and bread in Australia. To
many Americans, Vegemite tastes like fermented yeast paste. Dr. Lee's goal
is to move students beyond the conclusion, "I don't like it and so there
is no market for it."
In my own field of study, intercultural interactions
and the preparation of people for overseas assignments, self- referencing
has to be dealt with since it is the basis of ethnocentric judgments. If
businesspeople take assignments in other countries and make decisions based
on their prior job experience in the United States, they will make errors
that can decrease their work effectiveness. For instance, they might be
familiar with the advantages of very direct communication with subordinates
regarding work plans and timetables. Overseas, they may have to expand
their views of "interactions with subordinates in the workplace" to incorporate
the benefits of indirect communications. These include showing respect,
helping subordinates save face, and avoiding the reputation of a "know-it-all
outsider."
Research on moving beyond self-referencing
could deal with successful attempts to widen perspectives beyond personal
experiences. Who does this, under what circumstances, with what goals,
and can these efforts be part of organizational strategy? For example,
companies that market products for teenagers often employ focus groups
of young people who are 13-16 years old. Company executives who are in
their 40's and 50's admit that their knowledge of what teenagers want is
imperfect and so they expand their thinking by paying attention to the
views expressed by teenagers.
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