INTRODUCTION We all come across various objects or things in our everyday life. We are also donstantly bombarded with various stimuli. Then, what we do in practice is while we ‘eceive some objects, we reject others. Further, we look at the same thing, yet perceive itdifferently. Looking at a painting, for example, some may perceive it as beautiful, the others as ugly..Then, the question arises is why the same object is perceived/ derstood differently by different people. The answer to it is perception which is a » tognitive factor of human behaviour. Strictly speaking, perception lies at the base of every human behaviour. There can be no behaviour without perception. This chapter deals with various aspects of perception such as meaning of perception, process of perception, factors influencing perception and application of perception in - exganisational behaviour, Impression management which has direct implications for human behaviour, at the end of the chapter is also discussed. 62 WHAT IS PERCEPTION? { } In simple sense, perception means perceiving i.e., giving meaning to the |. ewironment around us. It is perceiving of objects what we are faced with. We can } uarlerstand the meaning of perception in a better sense if we go through some important i deinitions of it given by some behavioural scientists. j 69 Weeangisy70 ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR: x. According to Udai Pareek and others' “Perception can be defined asthe pee of receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting, checking and reacting to sensory stimu or data”. Stephen P. Robbins? defines perception as “a process by which individuals organise and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment”. is a Fred Luthans? opines that “Perception is an important mediating cognitive process. through which persons make interpretations of the stimulus or situation they are faced with”. 7 Now, perception can safely be defined as a process which involves seeing, receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting and giving meaning to the environment. The functioning of the whole process is influenced by the individual doing the perceiving, the objects or events being perceived, and the environment in which perception occurs. 6.3 PERCEPTION DIFFERS FROM SENSATION People usually mean sensation and perception the same. But, there is a clear-cut distinction between the two. In simple words, sensation may be described as the Tesponse of a physical sensory organ to some stimuli. Our physical senses i.e., vision, hearing, touch, smell and taste are continuously bombarded by numerous stimuli that are both inside and outside of our body. Our physical sensory organs often react | to these stimuli. The reaction of our eye to colour, ear to sound, nose to odor, and so:| on are the examples of our every day sensations. What these examples indicate is that sensation activates the functioning of the physical sensory organs‘. Thus, sensation | precedes perception. In this way, sensation serves as a raw input to be processed so; as to make sense out of them to perceive the environment or stimuli around us. 4 Perception is much more than sensation. As noted before, perception depends. upon the sensory raw data, yet it involves a cognitive process that includes filtering: modifying or even changing these sensation raw data to make sense out of them. Ii other words, the perceptual process adds to or/and subtracts from the sensory worl A simple illustration may be looking at an object. We see by means of our eyes,| Remember, it is not our eyes but what we see and tend to see in its totality, witha R figure and form against a background?. Thus, we find that eyes activate us to see ar} object, ie., sensation and what is being seen, i.e., perception. In this seeing process though both sensation and perception are involved, yet perception process overcom sensation process to make what is being seen. Study the following examples. These will hel between sensation and perception more clearly: . 1. You buy a two-wheeler that you think is the best, but not the.one that t engineer says is the best. ji “gy 2. A subordinate’s answer to a question is based on what he heard his bos says, but not on what the boss actually said. - ie : 3. The same Professor may be viewed by one student as a very good Profe and by another student of the same semester as a poor Professor. Ip you understand the differenPERCEPTION { 1 ‘4° “The'same item may be viewed by the manufacturing engineer to’be of high ‘equality and by a customer to be of low quality. 6.4 PERCEPTUAL PROCESS We have already defined perception as a process of receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting, checking and reacting f stimuli. This is like an input- throughput-output process in which the stimuli can be considered as ‘inputs’, transformation of ‘inputs’ through selection, organisation and interpretation as ‘throughputs’ and the ultimate behaviour/action as. ‘outputs’, This whole perceptual process can be presented as follows: Chroughputs Seleetion—r Organisation > ‘i [ Stimuli -———+} biatainin Action Fig. 6.1: Perceptual Process Let us discuss each of these in turn : 1. Receiving Stimuli: The perception process starts with the reception of stimuli. ‘=. The stimuli are received from the various sources. Through the five organs, we see » Ihings/objects, hear sounds, smell, taste and touch things. In this way, the reception “©. of stimuli is a physiological aspect of perception process. Stimuli may be external to +, us uch as sound waves) and inside us (such as enefgy generation by muscles): 2. Selection of Stimuli: People, in their everyday life, are bombarded by myriads | ofstimuli. They cannot assimilate all what they observe or receive from the environment ata time. Hence, they select some stimuli for further proc ssing to attach meanings to => them while the rest are screened out. Selection of stimuli is not made at random, but > depending on the two types of factors, namely, external factors and internal factors, » While external factors relate to stimuli such as intensity of stimuli, its size, movement, =, fepitition, etc “internal ones relate to the perceiver such as hishher arming, }. Interest, etc. Normally, people selectively perceive objects, or things which interest to them most in a particular situation and avoid those for which they are indifferent®, } Thisis also called ‘selective perception’ The “selective perception’ involves the following two psychological principles: F___ (0 Figure Ground Principle: As we just noted, we select stimuli for further {fe processing that we consider important for us or which we cannot study. The meaningful ibits and pieces of stimuli are called the “figure” and the meaningless ones are levelled a8 “ground”. More attention is given to figure and less to ground. (i 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,5 72 ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR 3. Organisation of Stimuli: Having selected stimuli or data, these need to be: organised in some form so as to assign some meanings to them. Thus, organising the bits of information into a meaningful whole is called “organisation”. There are three ways by which the selected data i.e., inputs are organised. These are: () Grouping: Grouping is based on the similarity or proximity of various stimuli perceived. The tendency to group stimuli i.e., people or things appearing similarin certain ways has been a common means of organising the perception. For example, all the workers having similarity in certain aspects may be perceived have similar F. opinion about their boss. Similarly, all the workers coming from the same place may be perceived as similar on the basis of proximity. p> (i Closure: When people face with incomplete information, they tend to fill the Zaps themselves to make it more meaningful. They may do it on the basis. of their experience, hunches, guess or past data. Take an example of an advertisement of an alphabet written by putting electric bulbs. You may have noticed the name of af newspaper, for example, The Hindustan Times in your or other city shaping the alphabet by putting electric bulbs in broken line. In such case, you tend to fill up the gap among different bulbs to get meaning out of these. Thus, the tendency to forma complete meassage from an incomplete one is known as Closure. (ii Simplification: When people find themselves overloaded with information, they try to simplify it to make it more meaningful and understandable. In this process, F what they do is to subtract less salient information and concentrate on important ones f ‘only. ieee heed ae ae 4. Interpretation: The data collected and organised remain meaningless for the bis perceiver till these are assigned meanings. Assigning meanings to data is called Fi ‘interpretation’. Thus, interpretation of data forms one of the most important element in the entire perceptual process. Strictly speaking, data collected. and organised do not make any sense without interpretation. Several factors influence interpretation jn, organisations. The’ most ‘important ones are halo effect, attribution, stereotyping, personality, situation, person perceived, etc. These are discussed one by one. A brief description of these follows in seriatim : ss (i) Halo Effect: Drawing a general impression about an individual based on af single characteristics or trait is called halo effect. But, it has an important implication for understanding or evaluating an employee in the organisation. An employee, based, on halo effect, may be rated as bad in one trait, but good in other traits. Let us illustrate te it with an example. : i The students of the MBA Ist semester are asked to appraise their one teacher teaching|f: them OB: Indoing so, the students may isolate a single trait/characteristics enthusiasm, fo: example, and do their appraisal/evaluation to be tainted by how they appraise the teacher on this one trait. If the teacher is quiet, assured, knowledgeable, and highly-compete but lacks zeal in his teaching style, he will be rated as poor or lower on this trait (enthusiasm) and a number of other traits and characteristics. This example‘well indicates how hallo effect can distort one’s perception about another. In organisations, halo effect, usually fe ‘occurs in selection interviews and at the time of performance appraisal. Research studies! suggest that halo effect tends to be most extreme’ when (a) the traits to be perceived are ambiguous in behavioural terms, (b) when the traits imbibe moral overtones, and (c) when the perceiver judging the traits has had limited experience or knowledge. 7FACEPTION 73 #. (i) Attribution: Explaining human behaviour in terms of cause and effect is Htalled ‘attribution’. However, attributing casual explanation to a particular human itsfaviour sometimes tends to distort perception. For example, if a prosperous worker {does overtime on any day, it is perceived that he has done it in the interest of. jegntion, But, 173 poor worKer also oes The sama. the acon or behave [iced as being for money. A unique tendency is also observed among individuals {isthat they attribute their own behaviour to situational requirements but explain the ‘behaviour of others by their personal disposition’. © (ii) Stereotyping: When individuals are judged on the basis ofthe characteristics ‘bithe group to which they belong, this is called ’stereatyping’. The word stereotype ‘vas fist, in 1922, applied by Walter Lipmann to perception. Since then, it has become afequently used term to describe perception. In particular, it is employed in analyzing pgiudice. Most stereotypes have favourable and unfavourable traits. That ‘older Workers cannot learn new skills’, ‘over-weight people lack discipline’, ‘Japanese are fationalistic’, ‘Indians are fatalistic’, and ‘workers are anti-management’, are some gommon examples of stereotypes. The basic problem with stereotyping suffers is that {tiss0 widespread that it does not give indepth truth. The fact otherwise remains that {may not contain even a shred of truth or may be irrelevant. Thus, stereotyping inakes the perception inaccurate based on a false premise about a group. \.. (iv) Personality: Rersonallty of shi percelver also affects what is to be perceived. ‘nihis context, researchers have reported that Sécure Individuals tend to perceive hers as warm not cold and indifferent and persons accepting themselves and having 3ih in their individuality perceive things favourable, These also imply that persons xing insecure and nonaccepting themselves are less likely to perceive others around jem. (v Situation: The situation or-context in which we observe or see things also fluences our perception about them. Just think. A management Professor may not aiice his 20-years-old girl student in an evening gown and heavy makeup at a marriage ary in a five-star hotel. Now, if the same girl student so attired attends his class on ext day would certainly-catch the Professor's attention alongwith that of the rest of ‘eclass. This indicates how situation affects our perception. Closely related to situation lime, light, heat or other situational factors that affect perceiver’s perception about ethings or events to be percieved. (vi) Perceiver: So far we have learnt how factors residing in objects and situations fect one’s perception about things and events. Factors residing in the perceiver mselffherself do also operate to shape and sometimes distort his/her perception. 'e perceiver’s attitudes, motives, interests, past experience, and expectations are tong the more relevant personal factor acteristics that affect perception. Let give an example how personal factors influence what he or she perceives. Ifyou have bought a new Hero Honda, then you suddenly notice a large number of Hero Hondas just like yours plying on the road. Remember, itis unlikely that the number sfsuch Hero Hondas suddenly increased, Rather, your own purchase (of Hero Honda) 1as influenced you so. You are now likely to notice them around you,74 ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR r } 5 t 5. Action: Action is the last phase in the perceptual process. Action is the resultant | behaviour of individual emerging from the perceptual process. The action may be | positive or negative depending upon favourable perception held by the perceiver. As } airexample, a student may respond favourably to the motivational intentions of the } Professor provided his understanding about his Professor is positive or favourable. The action also may be covert or overt. The covert Action relates to change in attitudes, opinion, feetings, impressions, etc. The overt action may be in the form of one’s behaviour easily noticeable and visible. E 6.5. FACTORS AFFECTING PERCEPTION t Factors that influence perception relate to the perceiver, perceived and situation. E All these factors are of two kinds — ( Internal (Endogeneous) Factors, and (if External (Exogeneous) Factors. These are now discussed in detail. } Internal Factors These factors reside in person concern. These include one’s needs, desires, personality and experience. (7 Needs and Desires: An individual's perception about stimuli is influenced by, inter alia, his needs and desires at that time. Perception varies depending F upon variations in his/her needs and desires from time to time. b Z (7 Personality: Closely related to needs and desires is the personality of the F perceiver, which affects what is attended or perceived in the given situation. ‘As mentioned earlier, research studies suggest that secure individuals tend to understand or perceive others as warm and self-accepting individuals perceive themselves as liked, wanted and accepted by others’. (ji). Experience: Experience and knowledge serve as basis for perception. While one’s successful experience enhances his/her perceptive ability, -failure| erodes his/her self-confidence. Successful experience also helps perceiver understand stimuli with more accuracy. External Factors The external factors relate to what is to be perceived and situation. These are size, intensity, frequency, status, etc. f @ Size: The principle of size says that the larger:the object, the more is th probability that it is perceived. Size attracts the attention of the individualf: A full-page spread advertisement attracts more attention than a few linesit Ee a classified section.-The reason is not difficult to seek. The size establishe} eX dominance and enhances perceptual selection. (i) Intensity: Intensity, is closely related to size. The intensity principle J attention states that the more intense the stimuli, the more likely it is tob perceived. As an example, a loud noise or strong odour will be notice} more than a soft sound and weak odour. Following the intensity principlg the superiors may yell at their subordinates to gain attention. Advertises also use intensity to attract and gain the consumer's attention.PERCEPTION 75 (ii) Frequency/Repetition: The repitition principle states that a repeated external stimulus is more attention-getting than a single one. It is for this reason that advertisers go for repetitions advertising to gain the customers’ attention to their product. (iv) Contrast: As. per'contrast principle, the external stimuli which stands out against the background will receive more attention. For example, plant safety signs with black lettering on a yellow background or white lettering on a red background are more attention-attracting. (v) Status: Status held by an individual also influences his/her perception about things or events. Researches suggest that people with high status often exert more influence on the perception of an individual as compared to those holding low status. eee anaes (vi) Movement: The movement principle says that people pay more attention to a moving object than the stationary ones. People will be attracted more by a running train than one standing on the plateform. 6.6. HOW TO IMPROVE PERCEPTION? By now, you have learnt that perception precedes behaviour. How one (say, “ boss) will behave with others (say, subordinates) depends on how the former perceives “the latter. More accurate the perception, the better will be behaviour and vice versa. Inaccurate perception distorts behaviour. And, in this lies the need for and importance of improving perception. Perception can be improved by making various attempts. following are the important ones that can help one improve his/her perception. © 1 Péfeei ing Oneself Accurately: In order to perceive others accurately, one first feeds to perceive oneself:accurately. Therefore, one needs to improve more awareness about himself/herself. Frequent and better interaction with peers; free, frank ‘and open communication with others and mutual trust are some commonly adopted ‘practices for perceiving oneself more accurately. 2. Improving One’s Self-Concept: When people successfully accomplish what > they want, it develops a sense of self-regard and self-esteem. Itis called ‘self-concept’. L Reséarch studies suggest that people having self-concept tend to perceive others more accurately. Abraham Maslow? also contends that self-actualising people have more “accurate perceptions about themselves and others than those who are not self- actualising. It also indicates that correct perception about oneself helps perceive others also more accurately. 3. Be Empathetic: Empathy means to be able to see a situation as it is perceived “by other people. In a way, it is like putting your feet in another's shoes. Looking at a “problem from others’ point of view enables the person to perceive the other side of the problem, The role of empathy in improving perception can be appreciated by a story of ‘A76 ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR APUPPY Aboy went to the pet store to buy a puppy. Four puppies were sitting together, priced at | Rs. 1,000 each. Then there was one sitting alone in a corner. The boy asked if that was | from the same litter, if it was for sale, and why it was sitting alone. The store owner | replied that it was from the same litter and that it was a deformed one, and not for sale. | | The boy asked what the deformity was. The store owner replied that the puppy was born without a hip socket and had a leg missing, The boy asked, “What will you do with this one?” The reply was it would be put to sleep. The boy asked if he could play with that puppy. The store owner said, “Sure.” The boy picked the puppy up and the puppy licked him onthe ear. Instantly the boy decided that was the puppy he wanted to buy. The store owner said “That is not for sale!” The boy insisted. || The store owner agreed. The boy pulled Rs. 200 from his pocket and ran to get Rs. 800; from his mother. As he reached the door the store owner shouted after him, " don’t. | understand why you would pay full money for this one when you could buy a good one for the same price.” The boy didn’t say a word. He just lifted his left trouser leg and he was wearing a brace. The pet store owner said, “I understand. Go ahead, take this one”. SI TRI This is empathy. 4, Having Positive Attitudes: Positive attitude makes one’s perception positive or more accurate. Hence, the managers need to try to overcome their personal bias, get rid of any negative feelings, if any, they have of others. These enhance an individual’s perceptual skill. 5. Avoiding Perceptual Distortions: As discussed earlier, some factors such as halllo effect, stereotyping, attribution, first impression, etc. distort one’s perception about things or problems. Therefore, sincere and contineous efforts should be made to guard oneself against such biases. This, in turn, improves one’s perceptual ability. t: 6. Communicating Openly: Experience suggests that sometimes perception gets f- distorted due to communication gap or/and inadequate communication. In such case, effective communication needs to be developed to'ensure that true and right message reaches at the right place and at the right time. This will enable to know the problem in.a better perspective which, in turn, will improve person's perception about the F problem. 4 In short, it can be summed up that perception skills can be enhanced/improveile by: E © Knowing and perceiving oneself accurately. $ * Seeing a situation/problem as it is experienced by-others, i.e. empathy. «Having positive attitude towards the problems and situations we are confronted with. * Improving one’s self-esteem or self-concept. Avoiding the common biases in perception. «Making two-way/effective communication to dispel mis-communication of lack of communication. : Making a conscious effort to avoid attribution. cacaoPERCEPTION AND ITS APPLICATION IN OB =~" The word ‘organisation’, among other things, implies where host of individuals Mork together for achieving the organisational and individual goals. In this process, ‘fe they are always judging each other on a continuous basis. One tries to evaluate how Performance Appraisal: Assessment of an employee's performance very much e dgpends on the perception of the evaluator about the employee. In practice, an = employee's future is closely tied to’his or her performance appraisal. Promotions, pay haises and continuation of job are the most obvious and common outcomes of the = tmployee’s performance. Performance appraisal. is both objective and subjective. It may be objective when performance can easily be quantified. For example, a lesman’s performance can be assessed based on how many Rupees of sales he/she / ienerated in his/her territory during a given period of time. However, many employees’ _ jsare evaluated in subjective terms. An'impressive amount of evidence demonstrates that subjective measures are, by definition, judgemental. Judgements, as we discussed “eatlier, make one’s perception more susceptible to distortions. Thus, subjective | approach may influence the appraisal outcome. “ |__ Performance Expectation: New employees during their selection process acquire /aselof expectations both about the organisation and about the job he is expecting to tathieve. In case, there is a big difference between what expected and what actually acquired, it results in increased employee absenteeism and turnover. » _ Employee Effort: In many organisations, the level of an employee's performance ‘given high importance. Hence, an employee's future in an organisation depends ‘nhis/her effort made for achieving the organisational goals. However, assessment of an individual’s performance is a subjective judgement and thus, susceptible to Perceptual distortions and bias also.