Perception

Process of receiving, selecting,

organizing, interpreting, checking
and reacting to sensory stimuli or
data
Definition
 A process by which individuals
organize and interpret their
sensory impressions in order to
give meaning to their environment
Perceptual process

PERCEIVER

RECEIVING SELECTING ORGANISING

REACTING CHECKING INTERPRETING

SITUATION
 Factors influencing
perception
Factors in the individual
Attitudes
Motives
Interests
Experience
Expectation
Factors in the situation
Time
Work setting PERCEPTION
Social setting

Factors in the target

Novelty
Motion
Sounds
Size & Background
Proximity
Similarity
Attribution theory
 When individuals observe behavior,
they attempt to determine whether
it is internally or externally caused
 Internally- believed to be under the
personal control of the individual
 Externally-forced into the behavior
by the situation
Determinates
 Distinctiveness– individual plays different
behavior in different situation

 Consensus—similar situation responds in the

same way

 Consistency—person respond the same way

over time
Error and biasness in
attribution theory
 Attribution error- tendency to underestimate
the influence of external factors and
overestimate the influence of internal factors
at the time of making judgment

 Self-serving bias- attribute their own success

to internal factors and putting the blame for
failures on external factors
Shortcuts in judgment
 Selective perception— perceive on
the basis of their interest,
background, experience, and
attitudes

 Halo effect— drawing a general

impression about an individual on
the basis of single characteristics
Contd..
 Contrast effects- evaluation of a
person characteristics that are
affected by comparisons with other
people recently encountered who
rank higher or lower on the same
characteristics

 Projection—attributing one’s own

characteristics to other people
Contd..
 Stereotyping-judging someone on
the basis of one’s perception of the
group to which that person belongs

 Perceptual defense- an individual

is likely to put a defense when
confronted with conflicting,
unacceptable or threating stimuli
 Implicit personality theory– perceptions
are influenced by his belief that human
traits are associated with one another
 Process of checking— to check whether
his interpretations are right or wrong
 Process of reacting -perceived as
negative or positive for action
Specific applications in
organization
 Employment interview
 Performance expectation
 Ethnic profiling
 Performance evaluation
 Employee effort
Self fulfilling prophecy
 A person influencing the behavior
of another person by actions
related to his/her expectations
SFP cycle
 Begins with a perception or
stereotype of another person
 With the perception behaves
toward the other person as though
the perception is true
 Expectation is reinforced by the
results of the situation that other
person has been placed in
Elements of SFP
 Socialization-our life education process
 Perceptions-trying to make sense out of a situation
 Stereotypes-rigid over-generalizations
 Prejudice-the judgment you make and beliefs you
hold about people and situations based on your
socialization
Social identity theory
 A conceptual framework based on
the idea that how we perceive the
world depends on how we define
ourselves in terms of our
membership in various social
groups.
Application in organization
 Selection-the interviewer’s
judgment about the suitability of a
candidate depends on how his
behavior is perceived by them
Factors in selection
process
 Feelings-attachment of attributes to
candidate that don’t actually exist
 Negative bent- overlook his/her strengths
 Stereotyping- focus on job rather than
personal traits
 Mind-set- background, attitudes, motives,
values aspirations & biases
Contd..
 Halo-effect- to generalize one
outstanding feature of a candidate
as representative of success in any
endeavor

 Chemistry- rapport between two

people can contaminate the
interview
Performance appraisal
 Assessment of an employee’s performance
depends on the perception of the person who
evaluates
 Employee evaluation is a mix of both
subjective and objective criteria
 Subjective measure are judgmental and are
more open to managers discretion
Contd..
 Assessment of an individual’s
effort to subjective judgment
susceptible to perceptual distortion
and bias; employee loyalty and
commitment
Marketing &
advertisement
 Marketing is all about people
perceptions
 Perceptions of the customer about
the product, service and the
company determine the approach
to advertisement, promotion mix
and packaging of the product &
services
Perception and individual
decision making
 Rational decision making
 Creativity in decision making
Rational decision making
 Define the problem– problem
clarity
 Identify the decision criteria—
known options
 Allocate weights to the criteria—
clear preferences
 Develop the alternatives
 Evaluate the alternatives- time or
cost constraints
 Select the best alternatives–
maximum payoff
Creativity in decision
making
Task motivation

expertise Creativity skills

Decisions in organization
 Bounded rationality – Individuals
make decision by constructing
simplified models that extract the
essential features from problems
without capturing all their
complexity.
Common biases
 Overconfidence bias
 Anchoring bias
 Confirmation bias
 Availability bias
 Representative bias
 Escalation of commitment bias
Ethics in decision making
 Utilitarianism
 Individual rights
 Justice
 Ethics and national culture