What concept illustrates how people's backgrounds affect message interpretation?

The concept that illustrates how people's backgrounds affect message interpretation is known as selective perception. This phenomenon occurs when individuals interpret messages based on their own experiences, beliefs, and cultural backgrounds. Essentially, it highlights how personal biases and pre-existing knowledge can shape the way someone perceives and understands a communicated message.

For example, two people receiving the same message may interpret it differently based on their unique life experiences, cultural contexts, or emotional states. Therefore, selective perception plays a critical role in communication as it demonstrates the subjective nature of interpreting messages, leading to variations in understanding among individuals.

In contrast, the other concepts are part of the communication process but do not directly address how background impacts interpretation. Encoding refers to the creation of a message by the sender, thus focusing on the formulation rather than the interpretation. Decoding involves the receiver's process of interpreting the message, but it does not specifically account for the influence of background. Feedback is the response given back to the sender, which can provide insight into the effectiveness of communication rather than how backgrounds shape interpretation.