definitionA cognitive process of processing informationA unique interpretation of a situationPerception leads people to react differently to

the same situation The perception in the world of manager

could be different form that of subordinates

Perception.The process by which people select, organize,

interpret, retrieve, and respond to information.Perceptual information is gathered from:

Sight. Hearing. Touch. Taste. Smell.

Applied to OB an employees perception can be thought of as a “filter” and every employee has a unique filter and the same situation may cause different reactions and behaviour

The filter determines: which stimulus to notice and ignoreWhich stimulus to love or to hate

What is the perceptual process?Factors influencing the perceptual process.

Characteristics of the perceiver.

Characteristics of the setting.

Characteristics of the perceived.

Perception process ConfrontationPerception starts with confrontation with external

stimulus from the environmentThe external stimulus from the environment consists

of:

Sensual stimulation - consisting of the five senses ( sight, taste, feeling, smelling, hearing)

Physical environment – office, factory floor, store, climate etc

Social/cultural environnent – management style, values, discrimination

 

Registration of the stimulusThe stimulus is registered using the physical

(sensory and neutral) mechanism e.g. hearing a raised voice

Interpretation of the stimulusThe interpretation may depend on the employee

motivation, learning and personality  FeedbackAfter interpretation, the feedback back occurs

and may be seen in terms of fear, anger, panic, pain

 

Behaviour This is the reaction form the feedback and

can be either covert or overtRun or move fact – overt behaviourMake a self evaluation – covert behaviour ConsequencesThe consequences of behaviour could be

reinforcement, punishment, something destroyed or somebody hurt etc

Perceptual selectivity principlesNumerous stimuli are constantly confronting us: -

Noise of papers, people talking, moving cars, phone etc

With all these stimulation on people, how and why do hey select only a few stimuli at a given time?

The answer can be found in the principles of perceptual selectivity

The principles can be divided into external and internal principlesInternal – a those that are based on the individual

psychological make up External – those arising form outside environmental

influences

External factors that affect perceptional selectively

IntensityThe more intense the external stimulus, the more

likely it is to be perceived e.g. A loud noise, strong smell, bright light

SizeThe larger the object, the more likely it is to be

perceived. e.g. full page advertisement ContrastThe external stimulus which stands out against a

background or that are not what people expect will receive more attention. E.g. white lettering against a red background on safety sign

RepetitionA repeated external stimulus is more attention

getting than a single one. A worker will hear better when direction for a task is repeated more than once. Repeated advertising is more effective

MotionPeople will pay more attention to moving objects

in their field of vision than those that are stationary – moving adverts on streets

Novelty and familiarity A novel or familiar external stimulus can serve as

an attention getter – new objects or events in a familiar setting will draw the attention of the perceiver

Perceptual organisation Whereas perceptual selectivity is concerned

with external and internal variable than gains an individual attention, perceptual organization focus on what takes place in the perception process once the information is received

Principles of perceptual organisation1. Figure-ground principle The perceived object stand out as a separable from

their general background When reading a book( printed in black and white)

for example, the reader perceived patches of irregularly black and white shapes, yet he does not perceive it that way, the reader perceives the black shares -letters, words and sentences – printed against the white background

The reader perceptually organizes incoming stimulus into recognizable figures – words – against a ground – white

2. perceptual grouping There is a tendency to group several stimuli

together into a recognizable patternPeople tend to group stimuli together using

any of the four sub principles: closurecontinuityProximitySimilarly

ClosureA person will sometimes perceive a whole

when one does not actually existThe persons perception process will close the

gap that is unfilled form the sensory inputFor example, the head of a team who perceives

complete agreement among team members, when in fact there was opposition from several member, - the team leader in this case closed the existing gap and perceived a complete agreement which was not necessarily the case

Continuity principle Says that a person will tend to perceive

continuous lines or patternsThey perceive only the obvious pattern or

relationshipThis type of continuity may sometimes lead to

people being inflexible, and noncreative

Proximity principle states that ‘ a group of stimuli that are close

together will be perceived as a whole pattern or parts belonging together”

E.g. Several employee in an organisation may be identified as a single unit because of physical proximity

If workers on a particular factory floor produce low output, or report grievance, then the management might see all workers in that group as lazy or troubleshooters , yet some are loyal in the group

Similarity principleStates that “ the greater the similarity of the

stimulus, the greater the tendency to perceive them as a common group’

For example if a certain group of employees wear overalls, then they are perceived to me one group

Principle of perceptual constancy The principle gives the person a sense of stability in

a changing word.Size, shapes, colour, location of the object are all

fairly constant regardless of information received by the sense

Perceptual constancy results from pattern which re for most part learned

A world without perceptual constancy may lead to very chaotic and disorganized individuals

E.g.. If a worker must select a tool of the correct size form a variety of tools at varying distances, from a work station, - without perpetual constancy, the size Shape and colours would change as the worker move from about and would make the job almost impossible

Principle of perceptual contextThis principle gives meaning and value to

simple stimuli, objects, events and other persons in the environment

E.g. the organizational culture an values provides the primary context in which workers and managers do their perceiving. An email message is perceived differently forma verb message ( depending on organizational culture and values )

SOCIAL PERCEPTIONIs concerned with how one individual

perceives other individuals Social perception will be influenced by

whether we look at it: from the perceivers perspective or from the person who is being perceived

From perceivers perspective:

The degree to which one knows oneself – knowing one self makes it easier to see others accurately

Your own characteristics – ones characteristics affect the characteristics you will see of others.

People who accept themselves will more likely be able to see favourable aspect of others

Skills to perceive others accurately

From the perceived perspectiveStatus of the person perceived will greatly

influence the perception of the personThe role of the person at that specific timeVisible traits of the person - e.g.. Pleasant

Errors in social perception Stereo typing This refers to the tendency to perceive

another person as belonging to a single class or category

Stereo typing may lead to favourable or unfavorable traits to the person being perceived

Because each individual is unique, the real traits will generally be quite different form those the stereotype would suggest

Common stereo type groups in organisations include:ManagerSupervisorsUnion members Young/oldWomen/menWhite collar/blue collarAccountants/sales people/engineersCustomers etc

Halo effect This is where a person is perceived on the

basis of one traitE.g. during performance appraisal, a rater

makes an error in judging persons total personality or performance based on a single positive/negative trait like intelligence or appearance

Impressions management Sometimes called “ self presentation” is the

process by which people attempt to manager or control the perception of other form of them

The tendency is for people to present themselves so as to impress others in a socially desirable way

It is commonly used during recruitment and selection, performance appraisal etc

It is a political too for one to build image and be successful

Components of impressions management These are two:

Impression motivationImpression construction

Impression motivation Where employees are motivated to control

how the boss or fellow employees perceive them

The degree of this motivation to impression manage will depend on several factors

The factors influencing the degree of impression motivation: Relevance of the impression to individual goalValue of these goalThe discrepancy between the image one would

like to hold and the image one believes others already hold

Impressions construction Concerned with the specific type of impression

people want to make and how to go about it

Factors that have been identified as being relevant to the kind of impression people try to construct:Self conceptDesire and undesired imagesRole constraintTargets valuesCurrent social image

employees impressions management strategies There are two basic strategies :Demotion – preventive strategies

used hen an employee is trying to minimize responsibilities for some negative event or to stay out of trouble

Promotion- enhancement strategiesUsed when employee is seeking to maximize

responsibility for positive outcome or looked better than they really are

Demotion- preventive strategies AccountsThese are employees attempts to excuse or

justify their actions For example excuse of not feeling well, not

getting something done on time because of another higher priority

Apologies When there is no logical way out, the employee

may apologise to the boss for the negative event – indicate that the event will not happen agent

DisassociationWhen employees are indirectly associated

with something that went wrong , they may secretly tell their boss that they fought for the right thing but were overruled

Promotion enhancement strategies Entitlement Where an employee feel that he has not been

given the credit for the positive outcomeThey make sure that it is known through

formal channels or they may informally note to key people

EnhancementEmployees may have the credit, but they

point out that they really did more and had a bigger impact than was originally thought

Obstacle disclosure Employees identify obstacles ( health , family, lack of

organizational resource, lack of cooperation) that they had to overcome to accomplish an outcome

They are trying to create the perception that because they obtained the positive outcome despite the big obstacle, they really deserve credit or merit

AssociationEmployee may makes sure that they are seen with the

right people at the right timeThis creates the impression that the employee is well

connected and is associated with successful projects/people

Attribution Attribution – the process through which people

explain the causes of their won or someone else's behaviour

Concerned with the ways in which people explain (or attribute) the behavior of others or themselves (self-attribution) with something else.

It explores how individuals attribute" causes to events and how this cognitive perception affects their usefulness in an organization

Attribution cont..It is a cognitive process by which people

draw conclusion about the factors that influence or make sense of another behaviour

It is an aspect of social perception

Attribution theory Is concerned with the relationship between

social perception and interpersonal behaviour .

Assumptions of attribution:we seek to make sense of our worldwe often attribute people’s actions either to

internal and external causewe do so in a fairly logical ways

Attribution theory cont..It is concerned with the “why” question of

organizational behaviour.

Because most “causes”, “attributes” and “whys’ are not directly observable, the theory says that people must depend on cognitions, particularly perception.

The attribution theorists assume that humans are rational and motivated to identify and understand the causal structure of their relevant environment

Two types of attributions Dispositional attribution -Attributes a persons

behaviour to internal factors such as personality traits , motivation, ability, fatigue, effort

Situational attribution -Attributes a persons behavior to external factors such as equipment, rules, social influence etcThese two combine actively to determine behaviour

Note that it the perceived, not the actual determinant that are important to behaviour.

People will behave differently if they perceive internal attributes than they will if they perceive external attributes.

ANTICEDENTS ATTRIBUTIONS CONSEQUENCIES

InformationBeliefsMotivation

Perceived causes

Behaviour

General model of the attribution field.

Attributions errorsThere are two potent errors biases recognize

in attributionThe fundamental attributions error

research has found that people tend o 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 biasPeople tend to present themselves favourably –

a self serving biasPeople 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