“ WE DON’T SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE,

WE SEE THINGS AS WE ARE.”

Ch 3: Perception
 Food Survey
Recently a world-wide survey was conducted by the UN.
The only question asked was... : "Would you please give your honest opinion
about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"
The survey was a huge failure because...:
1. In Africa they didn't know what "food" means.
2. In Eastern Europe they didn't know what "honest" means.
3. In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortage" means.
4. In China they didn't know what "opinion" means.
5. In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" means.
6. In South America they didn't know what "please" means.
7. In the USA they didn't know what "the rest of the world"
means
Meaning
Perception may be defined as the process by which an individual selects,
organizes and interpret stimuli into a meaningful and coherent picture of the
environment in which he lives.

The process by which people notice and make sense of information from the
environment”

The process by which people notice and make sense of information from the
environment” Perception is our sensory experience of the world around us and
involves both recognizing environmental stimuli and actions in response to these
stimuli.

It’s important because people’s behavior is based on their perception of what

reality is, not on reality itself.
Components of Perception
Perceiver: person trying to interpret some observation that he or she has just
made or the input from his or her senses

Target of Perception: whatever the perceiver is trying to make sense of

Situation: the context in which perception takes place

Definition of Perception
• Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. – Robbins and Judge
(2013)
• Perception is the process by which individuals select, organize, store, and retrieve
information. - John A. Wagner and John R. Hollenbeck (2010)
• Perception is the process of receiving information about and making sense of the
world around us. - Steven L. McShane and Mary Ann Von Glinow (2008)
• Perception is a very complex cognitive process that yields a unique picture of the
world, a picture that may be quite different from reality. – Fred Luthans (2011)
Nature of Perception
• Intellectual process [giving meaning to the environment around us, it involves
seeing, receiving, selecting, organizing, interpreting and giving meaning to the
environment.
• Interpretation process [unique interpretation of the situation, not an exact
recording of it]
• Subjective process [Different people may perceive the same environment
differently / situation / organize information and interpret]
• Cognitive and psychological process [composite cognitive process / may be
quite different from reality. The decision making process is based on the
perception of a person’s cognitive and psychological status. ]
Perceptual Process
Perception process
1. Receiving/Selection of Stimuli
2. Perceptual Organisation
3. Interpreting
4. Response
 1.Receiving/Selection of Stimuli
Stimuli is a thing or event that evokes a specific functional reaction in an
organ or tissue
Stimuli can be external and internal
External: Nature, Location, Colour, Size, Contrast, Movement,
Repetition, Novelty and familiarity
Internal: Learning, Needs, Age difference, Interest, Ambivalence,
Paranoid perception, etc
Stimuli enter in organism through sensory organs: vision, hearing, smell,
touch, taste and kinaesthetics i.e. our sense organs
Not all the stimuli received by the human organism are accepted by it some
stimuli are noticed and some are screened out
 2. Perceptual Organisation
Perceptual organization is the process by which people group stimuli into
recognizable patterns. Example:
❖ What mental picture do you have for a wooden object with 4 legs?
❖ When people actually see the above wooden object having these
characteristics, they are able to organize information into meaningful whole
and recognize the object to be a chair or bed or table
Following factors help understand the perceptual organization:
o Ambiguous figures
o Figure background
o Perceptual grouping (including: similarity, closure, continuity and area)
o Perceptual constancy
I. Ambiguous Figures
Ambiguous images or reversible figures are visual forms which create ambiguity
by exploiting graphical similarities and other properties of visual system
interpretation between two or more distinct image forms. One of the earliest
examples of this type is the rabbit–duck illusion, first published in Fliegende
Blätter, a German humor magazine
II. Figure ground/background
Figure-ground organization refers to experience that viewers have as to which part
of the image is in front and which part of an image forms the background of a
particular scene. In essence, we divide the world into two elements: the figure that
is the object of regard, and the rest, which is ground or background.

There are some situations in which figure-ground can be highly ambiguous, and it
may not be possible to determine which part of the image is the front and which is
the back. This is true of many classic visual illusions. One such classic example is
the face—vase figure, first introduced into the literature by psychologist Edgar
Rubin in 1915.
21 Organizational Behavior / Perception
III. Perceptual Grouping

The tendency of the human mind to group several stimuli in an easily

recognizable pattern is known as a perceptual grouping. In this principle,
the grouping is based on closure, continuity, similarity, proximity.
Perceptual Grouping: Similarity
Perceptual Grouping: Proximity
Perceptual Grouping: Closure
Perceptual Grouping:
Closure
Perceptual Grouping:
Closure
Perceptual Grouping: Continuity
Perceptual Grouping: Continuity

An Example of Perceptual Continuity

Perceptual Grouping
Continuity

is the tendency to perceive objects as continues patterns

The tendency to perceive continuous pattern may result in an inability to
perceive uniqueness and detect changes
The principle of continuity is closely related to the principle of closure, but
there is a difference 🡺 closure supplies missing stimuli, whereas
continuity principle says that a person will tend to perceive continues
lines or patterns
3. Interpreting
After data has been received and organised, the perceiver interprets or assigns
meaning to the information.
In fact, perception is said to have taken place only after the data have been
interpreted
Several factors contribute toward interpretation of data. More important
amongst them are:
– Perceptual set
– Attribution
– Stereotyping
– Halo effect
– Perceptual context
– Perceptual defense
– Implicit personality theory
– Projection
4. Response
i. These outputs may be in the form of covert action like development of attitudes,
opinions, beliefs, impressions etc. about the stimuli.
ii. It may also result into overt action i.e. behaviour
e.g.,
(a) See an ad-stimuli (Input)
(b) Perceive the product as good (Mechanism)
(c) Buy the product (overt output)
Factors Affecting
Perception
Factors that influence perception
 Factors in the perceiver
Attitude
The attitude and aptitude of employees influence perception formation. If
they have positive attitudes towards the management, they directly
perceive the stimuli given by management. In the case of negative
attitudes, the employees suspect the management’s approach.
Employees of high aptitude have a desire and attitude for growth. They
behave positively toward the management of an organization.
Motives
It plays an important role in determining what a person perceives. A
person’s most urgent needs and desires at any given time can influence
perception. Unsatisfied needs or motives stimulate individuals and may
exert a strong influence on their perceptions. For example, in an
organizational context, a boss who is insecure perceives a subordinate's
efforts to do an outstanding job as a threat to his or her own position.
Personal insecurity can be transferred into the perception that others are
out to "get my job", regardless of the intention of the subordinates.
Interest
It plays an important role in determining what a person perceives. A
person’s most urgent needs and desires at any given time can
influence perception.The interest of individuals draws more attention
and recognition to stimuli. Less attention and recognition lowers the
impact of stimuli or objects on behaviour. If employees lack interest,
behaviour pattern will be less effective, and the perception will be
weak.
Expectations
People see what they expect to see. People who accept themselves are more
likely to be able to see favorable aspects of other people.

The employees may expect more pay and so they perceive the management
from that angle.

The teacher would notice the rough behavior of a student on the last bench as
compared to the first benchers.
 Experience
● Experience and knowledge serve as basis for perception. While
one’s successful experience enhance his/her perceptive ability,
failure erodes his/her self confidence. Successful experience
also helps perceiver understand stimuli with more accuracy.
 Factors in the situation
Time
● Time perception is a construction of the brain that can also be
manipulated and studied through a variety of experiments.
● What are the factors that affect your perception of how time
passes?
● Level of fatigue
● Level of Concentration
● Depression & Happiness
 Work setting

Work setting with autonomy or stressful work environment may

affect perception
Social setting
● “Social perception is that part of perception that allows people to
understand the other people in their social world.”

● It also affects perception. For example, a lady student wearing a

miniskirt in a disco will not be perceived but the same lady with a
miniskirt in classroom will be perceived quickly.
 Factors in the target
● Try this exercise. Look at each umbrella image. Is the message of each
image different? If so, what makes the message different?
 Novelty and Familiarity

Novel or something unique or a peculiar idea is likely to attract anyone’s attract

attention. A novel object in the familiar situation or a familiar object in a novel
situation tends to attract attention. Thus a white person or a black person in
India catches attention faster. Job rotation is an example of this principle.
besides acquisition of new skills.
Motion
People gives more attention to moving objects than the stationery objects.
The factor of motion implies that the individuals attend to changing objects
in their field of vision than to static objects. It is because of this advantage
that advertisers involve signs, which include moving objects in their
campaigns. At an unconscious level the animals in the jungles make use
of this principle. A tiger lying in wait is motionless until his prey is nearer
him and then jumps at an appropriate moment.
Sounds

● Sound level or noise level is a physical quantity measured with

measuring instruments.
Loudness is a psycho-physical sensation perceived by the human
auditory perception or the human ear/brain mechanism. That is not the
same.
● Furthermore, for speech, music, and many other sounds, the physical
characteristics of the sound produce hearing sensations in the listener.
TV advertisement, Radio advertisement
Size
The size of the perceived stimulus plays a very vital role in attracting the
perceiver towards it. The bigger the size of the stimulus, the higher the
chances that it would attract the attention of the perceiver towards itself.
Bigger objects dominate the view and hence, are more capable of attaining
perceptual selection.
Figure ground

What a person observes is dependent on how a central figure is being

separated from its background. This implies that the perceived object or
person or event stands out distinct from its background and occupies the
cognitive space of the individual. In a dance programme, the spectators’
tend to perceive the dance performance against the background music,
backdrop setup etc. The perceiver thus tends to organize only the
information which stands out in the environment which seems to be
significant to the individual.
Proximity
People tend to perceive things, which are nearer to each other, as
together as group rather than separately. If four or five members are
standing together, we tend to assume that they are belonging to
same group rather than as separately. As a result of physical
proximity, we often put together objects or events or people as one
group even though they are unrelated. Employees in a particular
section are seen as group.
Similarity

Persons, objects or events that are similar to each other also tend to be
grouped together. This organizing mechanism helps us to deal with
information in an efficiently way rather than getting bogged down and
confused with too many details. For examples, if we happen to see a
group of foreign nationals at an International seminar, Indians are
grouped as one group, British as another, Americans as yet another
based on the similarity of nationalities.
Principles of
Perceptual
Selection
Intensity
The intensity of stimulus implies that the more intense the stimulus
audio or visual, the more is the likelihood it will be perceived. A
loud noise, strong odour or bright light or bright colours will be more
readily perceived than soft sound, weak odour or dim light. It is
because of this advantage that advertisers employ intensity to draw
the consumers' attention.
Size
Larger object is more likely to be noticed than a smaller
Object.

Example:

● Which you can read fast?

God is great God is great

 Contrast Principle: Example

The dark circle on the right side appears to be larger than the one of left,
however they both are of same size
Repetition (Frequency)
o The repetition principle states that a repeated stimulus is more attention
drawing than a non-repetitive one

● Example: We see repeated advertisements in Television, employees

get repeated instructions from supervisors, etc
Motion
● People gives more attention to moving objects than the stationery
objects.

● Example:

● Moving object Stationary object

Learning Principle: Example
Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the
ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is
taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae.
The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll
raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the
huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef,
but the wrod as a wlohe.
 What do you see?

Now what do you see?

62
 Novelty and Familiarity
o This principle states that either a novel or a familiar external situation can
serve as a attention getter, and

o new objects in familiar settings or familiar objects in new settings will draw
attention

e.g. job rotation helps workers increase the attention

Proximity
● Proximity or geographical proximity is an important factor for formation of
groups. For the same reason an individual behavior may be perceived to
be group behavior.
But the real is the all ball is not happy but sad.
Common shortcuts in
judging others
Selective perception
People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their
interests, background, experience and attitudes.
Contrast Effect
Evaluation of a person’s characteristic that is affected by
comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or
lower on the same characteristic.
Halo effect
Tendency to draw a general impression about an individual on the
basis of a single characteristic.

• Halo effect is just like 1st impression is Last impression

• Like people having good quality and dislike those who have bad
qualities. People may be judged by their work not by their dress

• People may be judged by their result not by their attendance

Stereotyping
Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of
The group to which that person belongs.
 Projection
Attributing’ one’s own characteristic to other people
Person Perception:
Making Judgments About Others
Attribution Theory
When individuals observe behavior, they attempt to determine whether
it is internally or externally caused.

Attributions - are the reasons we we give for our own and others
behaviors.

People are motivated to understand the causes of behavior. Attribution

theory seeks to explain how and why people make these causal
attributions.
Attribution Theory
● How the actions of individuals are perceived by others
depends on what meaning (causation) we attribute to a
given behavior.
○ Internally caused behavior: under the individual’s control
○ Externally caused behavior: due to outside factors

● Determining the source of behaviors:

○ Distinctiveness: different behaviors in different situations
○ Consensus: behaviors similar to others in same situation
○ Consistency: regularity of the same behavior over time
Why is this child smiling?
● Fritz Heider argued that there are two general types of attributions that
people make:

○Personal attributions
○Situational attributions
Personal attributions
● Explanations in terms of personal characteristics. For
example:
○ “The baby must be a happy baby.”
● Other examples:
○ “She scored well on the exam because She is smart.”
○ “She tripped because she is clumsy.”
 Situational attributions
● Explanations in terms of situational factors.
For example:
○ “Someone must have just played with the baby .”
● Other examples:
○ “He scored well because it was an easy test.”
○ “She tripped because a squirrel ran in front of
her.”
 Distictiveness Consistency
Consensus
Does this person Does this person
Do other person
behave in this behave in this same
Behave in the
manner manner at other
Same manner?
in other situation times ?

YES No Yes
Internal
Low Low High Attribution
Distinctiveness Consensus Consistency
NO No External
High Yes Low Attribution
Distinctiveness High Consistency
Consensus
Attribution Theory
Attributions errors
The fundamental attributions error
The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors
and to overestimate the influence of internal or personal factors.
○ research has found that people tend to ignore the powerful
situational forces when explain the behaviour of others
○ People tend to attribute other behaviour to personal factors
(e.g. intelligence, attitudes, personality) even when it is very
clear that the situation or circumstances cause the person to
behave that way
Self serving bias
The tendency of individuals to attribute their successes to
internal factors while blaming personal failures on external
factors.
○ People tend to present themselves favourably – a self
serving bias
○ People tend to accept credit when they are told they
have succeeded ( attributing success to their ability )
yet often attribute failure to external l and situational
forces such as bad lack or impossible staff
 Specific Application of
Perception in Organizations
Specific Application of Perception in Organization
● Employment Interview
● Performance Expectations
● Ethnic Profiling
● Performance Evaluation
● Employee Effort
● Employee Loyalty
Employment interview:
Employment interview is a major input into who is hired and who is rejected in any
organization is the employment interview.There are lots of evidence indicates that
interviewers make perceptual judgments that are often inaccurate. Interviewers
generally draw early impressions (negative or positive) to accept or reject.
Performance expectations:
There are lots of evidence which indicates that people attempt to validate their
perceptions of reality, even when those perceptions are faulty. For example, if a
manager expects big things from his people, they are not likely to let him down.
Similarly, if a manager expects people to perform minimally, they will tend to
behave so as to meet those low expectations. The result then is that the
expectations become reality.
Ethnic profiling:
Ethnic profiling is a form of stereotyping in which a group of individuals is singled
out typically on the basis of race or ethnicity for intensive enquiry, scrutinizing, or
investigation. For example, Muslim ethnic communities are tightly observed and/or
negatively seen especially by American and European organizations after
September 11 attack on World Trade Center, in USA.
Performance evaluation:
An employee’s performance appraisal person are very much dependent on the
perceptual process. Although i. Factor appraisal can be objective, many jobs are
evaluated in subjective terms. Subjective measures are easier to implement. They
provide managers with greater discretion, and many jobs do not readily provide
themselves to objective measures.
Employee effort:
An individual’s future in an organization is usually not dependent on performance
alone. It also depends on their level of efforts. An assessment of an individual’s
effort is a subjective.The judgments susceptible to perceptual distortions and bias.
Employee Loyalty:
Another important judgement that managers make about employees is whether
they are loyal to the organization. Few organizations appreciate employees,
especially those in the managerial ranks openly disparaging the firm. However
there are instances where employees are labelled disloyal when they are
searching for new job or reports unethical practices of his manager to higher
authorities of the organization.
THANK
YOU