UNIT- 4
PERCEPTION
Perception may be defined as a cognitive process by which people attend to incoming stimuli, organize and interpret such stimuli into behaviour.
According to Stephen P. Robbins, perception is “a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.”
In simple words, perception means perceiving i.e. giving meaning to the environment around us. It is perceiving of objects what we are faced with.
Different individuals have different thinking styles, beliefs, feelings and objectives etc. and almost every individual behaves accordingly. Just because of these factors different people take different meaning for the same things. For some, a particular thing is right where as for some it is totally wrong. How we take things, what is our point of view, how we look at things is perception.
FEATURES OF PERCEPTION
1. Intellectual process through which a person selects the data from the environment, organizes it and obtains meaning from it is perception.
2. It is a basic cognitive or psychological process. People’s actions, emotions, thoughts or feelings are triggered by the perception of their surroundings.
3. It is a subjective process.
Key Takeaways
- Perception is one of the most important psychological factors affecting the human behavior because perception is the way an individual experiences the situation.
- People’s behavior is based on their perceptions of what reality is not on reality itself.
- Perception is a cognitive and subjective process.
4.2 Elements of perceptual process
1. Perceptual Inputs:
This is the first stage in the perception process where the perceiver comes across various factors which provide stimuli to the perceiver. When the perceiver interacts with a stimulus, sensation takes place which starts perception process. Stimuli may be in the form of objects, events and people.
2. Perceptual Mechanism:
Perceptual mechanism involves three elements:
(a) Selection of Stimuli:
Various forms of stimuli exist in the environment. As human being is also a part of the environment, he receives the stimuli from it. There are basically two types of factors in the environment. One is internal factor, which relates to the perceiver. Second is external factor which relates to stimuli. People selectively perceive objects or things which interest to them most in a particular situation and avoid those for which they are indifferent. This is also called ‘selective perception’.
The selective perception involves the following two psychological principles:
i. Figure Ground:
This is one of the principles of collecting information. This principle is known as figure ground principle. Here, while collecting information, two things are kept in mind, first is focus and second is background.
ii. Relevancy:
Relevancy is yet another principle involved in selective perception. In practice, people selectively perceive things that they consider relevant to meet their needs and desires.
(b) Organization of Stimuli:
Thus, organizing stimuli in some meaningful form is called organization. Various forms of organizing stimuli are-
i. Grouping: On the basis of the proximity and similarities various stimuli are grouped together into recognizable patterns. This grouping of stimuli helps the individuals in perceiving things in a proper manner or in a manner in which they want to perceive. Grouping is also done by them accordingly.
ii. Closure: The tendency to form a complete message from an incomplete one is known closure. When people face incomplete information, they tend to fill the gaps themselves on the basis of past experience, data or guess work.
iii. Simplification: Every person tries to decrease the burden whenever he is overloaded. Here we are talking about overload of information. In order to reduce this load, people try to simplify the process or contents of the matter by eliminating the less important or less required information and concentrating upon the important ones.
(c) Interpretation of Stimuli:
After selecting and organizing stimuli the next step is interpretation. Here the perceiver interprets things according to his thinking styles, state of mind, environment, circumstances, objectives, beliefs etc. This is done by making assumption about people, by using past experience etc.
(3) Perceptual Output:
These outputs may be in the form of covert action like development of attitudes, opinions, beliefs, impressions etc. about the stimuli. It may also result into overt action.
Key Takeaways
- The perception process is a screen or filter through which information passes before having an effect on people.
- The perception process is composed of various sub processes viz. receiving, selecting, organizing, interpreting, checking and reacting to stimuli.
- A person’s perceptual process organizes the incoming information into meaning whole.
Factors which affect perception relate to the perceiver, the perceived or target and situation. All these factors are of two kinds-
1. Internal (Endogenous) Factors
2. External (Exogenous) Factors.
Let us discuss these in details below:
1. Internal Factors
These are the personal characteristics of the individuals. These include the following-
(i) Needs and Desires: Individuals perception is basically determined by their inner needs and desires. Different needs result in different stimuli. Similarly people select different items to satisfy their needs.
(ii) Personality: Personality of the perceiver also affect what is intended or perceived in the given situation.
(iii) Belief: A person’s belief has direct impact on his perception. It is very difficult for an individual to think beyond his personal beliefs because most of the times people go as per their beliefs and they perceive in the same manner.
(iv) Past Experience: People’s perception is greatly influenced by their past experiences. A person, having good experience in past will perceive accordingly and vice versa.
(v) Current Psychological State: Current psychological or emotional state of people plays an important role in perception. Present position of the person defines how a person will perceive thing. Like, a person in a good mood will perceive in a different manner as compared to a person who is not in a good mood.
(vi) Expectations: Again expectations are major players in deciding how a person will perceive. Expectations are related with the state of anticipation of particular behaviour from a person. E.g. If a person thinks that Mr. X will never do anything good to him then even if Mr. X is right that person will always remain under an impression that Mr. X is wrong.
2. External Factors
The external factors relate to what is to be perceived and the situation. These are discussed below:
(i) Size- The bigger is the size of the perceived stimulus, the greater the possibility that it is perceived & vice versa. People tend to understand things better when it is explained in a clearer manner and they understand the same accordingly.
(ii) Intensity- More intense the external stimulus is, the more likely it is to be perceived e.g. a loud sound, bright colour etc. is more likely to attract attention than a soft sound or relatively dull colour.
(iii) Repetition: Repeated external stimulus is more attention getting than a single one.
(iv) Frequency- The greater the frequency of repetition of things, the greater will be the perceptual selectivity. This is also in accordance with the repetitive theory of learning.
(v) Status- Perception is also influenced by the status of the perceiver. High status people can have greater influence on perception of an employee as compared to low status people.
(vi) Contrast- The stimulus which is in contrast with the surrounding environment attracts more attention as compared to the stimuli that blends in.
Key Takeaways
- Various internal and external factors influence perception. It very much depends on the characteristics of stimuli, characteristics of the situation and some personality characteristics of the individual.
One of the concepts used in organizational behavior to help improve perception and attribution is attribution theory. Attribution is what happens when a person takes the information they perceived and determines a reason as to what happened. What you attribute to things like success depends on your own perception and behaviors, which may be wrong due to being unrealistic or having the incorrect information for the situation. Things like bias and misconceptions can cloud that reasoning, which can interfere with a person's proficiency in the workplace and may contribute to issues with diversity.
The theory was first brought forth by psychologist Fritz Heider in the 1950s and stated that people had a desire to explain the reasoning behind their actions and the actions of others. It was expanded upon over the years by fellow psychologists Bernard Weiner and Harold Kelley, both of whom looked at the factors in a person's life that can impact their perception and their validity. They also looked at what impact certain attributions can have when a person acts upon them. Today, the theory is used to help people explain the causes behind human behaviors and largely make sense of them.
In business, attribution theory is applicable to the members of a business' management team more so than it is to the standard employees. Managers are responsible for interpreting behavior and actions throughout the business to ensure that things are remaining as they should be and to keep an eye out for problems. If they make mistakes in their perceptions and attributions, or they are otherwise clouded by their own bias, then that can reflect throughout the company more so than if they were a regular employee. This is because it is the management staff that is the primary decision maker in the business' daily operations, and their power in the business gives them more control over it. Errors in their judgement and interpretation of things could end up wasting time and money for the business and could hurt the business' bottom line. It can also disrupt organizational behavior, as employees themselves could interpret management's response as hostile or incompetent. In some cases, an employee whose behavior is being misattributed by their supervisor and is being unjustly punished for it may feel like they are being singled out or victimized at work. As a result, their interactions with their supervisor and peers may become negative, especially if they do not feel like their co-workers are defending them or are even supporting the supervisor's views of them. Their work could undoubtedly suffer, as the punishments may infringe upon their allotted work time and decrease their production rate (which may result in more punishments). The same can occur if an employee is being unjustly rewarded for work or accomplishments that are not theirs to claim. The responsible party may feel like this is an ethics violation between co-workers, or they may receive some punishment when they come forward to claim their work because management doesn't believe them.
The effects that perception and attribution have on a business and its organizational behavior can be both positive and negative. The difference in outcome tends to rely on the people in the business and the responses towards their actions. There are also other additional factors again, the industry, size, and location of the business-that may influence the effect of perception and attribution in the work environment. However, there is some degree of control that a business has over the effects and uses them to its advantage.
Taking perceptions and attributions and using them to influence the motivations of the business can be one way of using the concepts to your advantage. If an employee perceives something in the workplace as discouraging, modifying that thing in some way will alter how they perceive it to some degree. This does require management to apply attribution theory and figure out what is discouraging motivation and how that can be changed. If an employee perceives their supervisor's responses to their work as disappointment, even if it's not, and is being discouraged, then the supervisor may simply need to be clearer with their response.
Key Takeaways
- Attribution is what happens when a person takes the information they perceived and determines a reason as to what happened.
In the perceptual process, several barriers can be identified that inhibit the accuracy of our perception.
1. Selective Perception:
Selective perception is the process by which individuals perceive what they want to hear in a message while ignoring opposing viewpoints. It is a broad term to identify the behavior all people exhibit as we all tend to see things based on our personal frame of reference. We receive a vast amount of information. It is impossible for us to assimilate everything we see. Selective perception allows us to "speed-read" others, but not without the risk of drawing an inaccurate picture because we see what we want to see. Perception tends to be influenced more by an individual's attitudes, interests, and background than by the stimulus itself. Selective perception is a broad term to identify the behavior all people exhibit as we all tend to see things based on our personal frame of reference. Using selective perception people tend to overlook or forget information that contradicts their belief or expectations.
There are two types of selective perception- perceptual vigilance and perceptual defense. Perceptual vigilance refers to people noticing stimuli such as advertising or news reports that are significant to them. Perceptual defense refers to people creating a barrier to screen out stimuli they find threatening or unpleasant.
The selective perception theory states that we filter stimuli both consciously and unconsciously as we perceive stimuli. We can consciously, focus our attention on specific stimuli and disregard distracting, unimportant or contradicting information. We actively choose what information we digest and what we disregard. Selective perception also happens unconsciously, without purposeful effort on our part.
2. Attribution:
Attribution simply refers to how people explain the cause of another’s as their own behaviour. It is the process by which people draw conclusions about the factors that influence or make sense of one another’s behaviour. The knowledge about the causes of behaviour brings order and predictability in certain actions and events and assists us in knowing how to respond. Applied to perception, there are generally two types of attributions that people make: personal dispositions and situational attributions.
Personal dispositions relate a person’s behaviour to internal factors such as personality traits, motivation or ability and situational attributions; attribute a person’s behaviour to external factors such as equipment, accidents or social influence from others. There is a general tendency among the individuals to attribute their own behaviour to situational factors but explain the behaviour of others by personal dispositions.
When a person observes an event in the organisation, his evaluation of and reaction to other’s behaviour may be highly influenced by his perception. For example, if a supervisor believes that an error made by his subordinate, is due to reasons beyond his control that is due to external factors, such as bad equipment, his perception of his subordinate’s work will be different from that if he attributes the error to his own gross negligence.
This behaviour, based on his perceptions, would also then vary depending on the kind of attributions he makes. If the supervisor attributes the error due to external factors beyond the control of the subordinate, he might perceive the subordinate as capable and trustworthy and help him as much as he can. On the other hand, if he attributes to the personal negligence of the subordinate, he would perceive him as irresponsible and try to get rid of him.
Perceptual distortion because of attributions occurs due to two reasons:
(i) Fundamental attribution error and
(ii) Self serving bias.
When we make judgments about the behaviour of other people, we have a tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors. This is called the fundamental attribution error. There is also a tendency for individuals to attribute their success to internal factors like ability or effort while putting the blame for failure on external factors like luck. This is called self serving bias. Therefore, incorrect decisions are possibly based on erroneous attributions resulting in misconceptions.
3. Stereotyping:
Stereotyping means judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs. This is a basic human tendency to perceive an individual as belonging to a single class or category and hence, attributing favourable or unfavorable characteristics to the individual based upon a widely held generalization about the group. Some examples of common stereo types are that Americans are materialistic, Japanese are nationalistic and Germans are industrious.
Generally, a person is likely to categories the others according to some common group characteristics such as sex, race, religion, nationality, occupation or organisational affiliation. The individual’s experiences with others in the category in which he has placed them lead him to believe that they have certain traits in common. Thus, he is ready to believe the other as possessing the same trait.
From organisational point of view, some of the established stereotypes are that managerial positions are the domain of the males. The females are traditionally placed in the categories of nurses, secretaries, airline stewardesses and the male stereo type categories are policemen, firemen, truck drivers etc. Age is another stereotype which presents problems in the organisational environment. Such capabilities as physical, psychological and intellectual are sometimes presumed on the basis of the age of a person.
Generalisation based upon stereotyping makes assimilation easier since it permits to maintain consistency. It becomes less difficult to deal with an unmanageable number of stimuli if we use stereotypes. But the danger lies in incorrect stereotyping. For example, all politicians are not self serving and all workers are not anti management. Exceptions may always be there. This fact must be considered while judging a person based on the generally accepted traits of the group to which he belongs.
4. Halo Effect:
The halo effect refers to the tendency of judging people on the basis of a single trait which may be good or bad, favourable or unfavourable. The halo effect is very similar to stereotyping, whereas in stereotyping the person is perceived according to a single category, under the halo effect the person is perceived on the basis of a single trait. Sometimes, we judge a person by one first impression about him or her. For example, if a person is kind he may also be perceived as good, able, helpful, cheerful, nice, intelligent and so on. On the other hand, if a person is abrasive, he may also be perceived as bad, awful, unkind, aggressive, harmful and wicked.
The halo effect is a very common type of error committed by the managers where evaluating the subordinates. A manager who himself is very punctual would view his subordinate who is always at work on time, more favourable than those who are not. This one trait of punctuality can influence a supervisor’s rating of the employee’s productivity and quality of his product more favourably, even if his actual performance is not up to the mark.
Halo effects, whether they are in the positive or negative direction, cloud our perceptions and act as a screen blocking us from actually perceiving the trait that is being judged. Wrong decisions can easily occur because of the halo effect in perceptions. One way of minimizing the halo effect is to have the manager judge all his subordinates on a single factor or trait before going to the next. In this manner he can consider all of the men relative to a standard as to each other on each trait. An important challenge for effective human resource management is to overcome perceptual problems such as stereotyping and the halo effect.
5. Projection:
It is easy to judge others if we assume that they are similar to us. When one’s own personal attributes are assigned to others, then projection takes place. A manager who loves challenging work may assume that all others like challenging work too. If you yourself are honest and trustworthy you take it for granted that other people are equally honest and trustworthy. This may be particularly true regarding undesirable traits which the perceiver possesses but fails to recognize in himself. For example, a person who is dishonest may be suspicious of others and may perceive dishonest intentions in others where they do not exist. People who are afraid may interpret other’s behaviour as fearful or anxious.
When a manager engages in projection, he compromises his ability to respond to individual differences. He tends to see people as more homogeneous than they really are. In order to avoid this error in judging others, the manager should be conscious of his weakness of overlooking differences among people.
6. Perceptual Set:
A perceptual set means previously held beliefs about an object’s influence on individual perception of similar objects. For example, a manager may have developed the general belief and attitude that workers are lazy and shirkers and that they want to gain whatever is possible from the organisation without giving their best to it. His subsequent perception will be influenced by this set when he meets a group of workers. The manager tends to interpret the behaviour of the workers according to his mental set.
7. Implicit Personality Theory:
In judging and making inferences about others, an individual’s perceptions are influenced by his belief that certain human traits are associated with one another. For example, the trait honesty is associated with hard working. All hard working people are perceived to be honest.
8. Expectancy:
Expectancy is a tendency to perceive people, object events on the basis of what we expected them to be in the First place. This aspect is also known as “Self Fulfilling Prophecy”. Through this aspect, you may create certain things in the work situation that you expect to find to start expected them to be in the first For example, if you have become a member of an important committee, comprising of very high level intellectuals, you would meet the committee members with certain perceptions and would try to find out in the members what you expect to find on the basis of these perceptions.
Key Takeaways
- Since the accuracy of our decisions is contingent upon the accuracy of our perception, it is necessary to know what the barriers to perceptual accuracy are, so that these can be considered in our judgements or can be eliminated, if possible.
- Attribution is the process by which people draw conclusions about the factors that influence or make sense of one another’s behavior.
- Stereotyping means judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs.
- Halo effect refers to the tendency of judging people on the basis of a single trait.
- Projection takes place when a person assigns his own personal attributes to others.
- Expectancy is the tendency to perceive people, objects or events on the basis of what we expect them to be in the first place.
- Successful managers understand the importance of perception on behavior and they act accordingly.
References
- Gupta, S.K. & Joshi, R. Human Resource Management. Kalyani Publishers, New Delhi (2002).
- Khanka, S.S. Organizational Behavior. S. Chand & Company Pvt. New Delhi (2000), pp. 560.
- Economicsdiscussions.net
- www.iedunote.com
- www.theintactone.com
- www.yourarticlelibrary.com
