October 23, 2015•Update: November 06, 2015
By Yuksel Serdar Oguz
ANKARA
Turkish experts are engaged in pioneering work in the new field of understanding social perception.
Their aim: To consider how social perceptions, the views that our community imparts to us, affect our motivations and actions.
At an Oct. 17 event sponsored by the TED organization, a non-profit group dedicated to the discussion of new ideas, the experts talked about exploring and changing social perception.
"Perceptions are the starting point to change ourselves and the world around us," said behavioral economist Baris Urhan. For Urhan, understanding social perception involves the evaluation of common images, prejudices, and ideas which lead to the construction of ideas, feelings, and behavior in society.
"It is important that we have forums like this one, where people can really think about what it means to communicate," U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass said in his opening speech at the event. The embassy was one of the sponsors of the event, along with local companies including Anadolu Jet and the Global Shapers network in Turkey.
"We all perceive each other differently; particularly when language and culture come into play that is even more challenging."
Laughter in the prisons
One of the experts presenting her work was Eser Mutlu, a yoga instructor and therapist who uses laughter to change social perception.
Mutlu isn't afraid of a challenge, and so she has, since 2011, visited prisons in Turkey with the view of changing perceptions for the inmates and those who work there.
"Prisons have a grim atmosphere, in which people rarely feel good about themselves or experience any joy," Mutlu told the audience at the event. "So it was the best place to test how laughter therapy can help change negative perceptions and bad feeling."
At the beginning, prisoners and guards did not respond to Mutlu's laughter therapy.
"So I asked them to fake it, even if they didn't feel like laughing," Mutlu said. "Pretending is the first step to changing perceptions."
It worked, and attitudes started to change. Therapy sessions brightened up the mood, and their grim feelings started to dissolve, Mutlu said. "They began to smile sincerely, and that led to their taking a more positive view of daily life."
Mutlu uses the same kind of laughter therapy with cancer patients and at the Foundation for Children With Leukemia.
Painting without sight
Artist Esref Armagan has a unique authority to discuss perception.
Born unsighted, he has been painting and drawing as a professional artist for 35 years. His work has been exhibited around Turkey and in several countries in Europe.
"You need to change your perceptions about yourself," Armagan said. "If I can do it, so can you." At the event, Armagan shared how re-exploring one's perceptions can provide new potentials.
Armagan said that it is hard for him to stop drawing and painting. "Because I can feel the colors," he said. "When I draw an apple, people ask me whether I have done it, then I understand that I have succeeded," he said.
With the inspirational motto "Ideas worth spreading," TED began in 1984 as an organization in which Technology, Entertainment and Design converged, and today covers almost all topics -- from science to business to global issues -- in more than 100 languages. It has hosted and broadcast 13,000 live talks so far in 130 countries.
