An individual's imagination of an object or place can change the way they perceive the world around them. Karen Armstrong in her essay “Homo Religiosus” talks about how “a poem, a play, or even a great painting has the power to change our perception in ways that we may not be able to explain logically but which seem incontestably true” ( 25), implying that it is definitely possible to change our false and impractical perceptions into accurate and practical perceptions. Daniel Gilbert extends this idea by discussing how, for positive opinions to actually be valid, “they must be based on facts we believe we have honestly found” (135). To what extent does an individual need to experience various situations to gain different perspectives on a thing? How much do we have to change to get a different perspective than someone else? An individual's outcome from various events in his life leads him to create an optimistic or pessimistic response to the event by "unconsciously creating the facts and then consciously consuming them" (135). In the essays “Homo Religiosus” by Karen Armstrong and “Immune to Reality” by Daniel Gilbert, both authors discuss how the change in an individual's life through the psychological immune system, his emotions and his interpretations can provide him with different perceptions that it helps to have an abundance of knowledge. Having an abundance of knowledge that provides people with different perspectives can also cause a person to produce many different emotions. Emotions play an important role in how perception is viewed by individuals. How we as individuals perceive an event plays a role in how we let that event trigger a negative emotion or...... middle of paper ......your child's emotions allow him to be optimistic or pessimistic about the various experiences they may face. “People are unaware that their defenses are more likely to be activated by intense suffering than by mild suffering, so they incorrectly predict their own emotional reactions” (Gilbert 140) to different experiences, which prevents them from create better responses to a similar situation in the future. An individual not only has the ability to perceive the world, but also the ability to alter its perception. Simply put, an individual can change situations and outcomes based on how they look at them. Works Cited Armstrong, Karen. "Religious Homo". The new reader of human sciences. 4th ed., ed. Richard E. Miller and Kurt Spellmeyer. Boston: Wadsworth, 2012. 22-38. Print.Gilbert, Daniel. “Immune to reality”. Miller and Spellmeyer 132-150.