Ufufivkbobibibibiv7f7vi jvyd5xycuvuf6xyvic

1. Meaning, process, principles and errors of
perception, managerial & behavioral
applications of perception.
PERCEPTION

5. Perception
 Perception is a process by which individuals
organize and interpret their sensory impressions in
order to give meaning to their environment.
 Why is perception important in the study of OB?
Simply because people’s behavior is based on their
perception of what reality is, not on reality itself

6. Process
 Perception is a process consisting of several sub
processes. The approach emphasizes that there is
input which is processed and gives output.
 The stimuli in the environment-objects, events, or
people-can be considered as the perceptual inputs.
 The actual transformation of these inputs through the
perceptual mechanism of selection, organization,
and interpretation can be treated as the throughputs.
 The resultant opinions, feelings, attitudes etc. which
ultimately influence our behavior, can be viewed as
the perceptual outputs.

7.  The simplified process of perception

8.  Perceptual Inputs: Perceptual inputs are in the form
of stimuli.
 Stimuli may be in the form of objects, events, or
people.
 When the perceiver interacts with a stimulus,
sensation takes place which, we have seen earlier
starts perceptual process.

9.  Perceptual Mechanism: Perceptual mechanism
involves three elements-
 selection of stimuli,
 organization of stimuli,
 and interpretation of stimuli.

10.  Selection of stimuli: After receiving the stimuli from
the environment, some are selected for further
processing while others are screened out because it
is not possible for a person to select all stimuli which
he sees in the environment.
 Organization of Stimuli: After the stimuli is
received, these are organized in some form in order
to make sense out of that.
 Interpretation of Stimuli: The perceptual inputs that
have been organized will have to be interpreted by
the perceiver so that he can sense and extract some
meaning of what is going on in the situation. People
interpret the meaning of what they have selectively
perceived and organized in terms of their own
assumptions of people, things and situation.

11.  Perceptual Outputs: Based on perceptual
mechanism which ends with interpretation of stimuli,
perceptual outputs emerge. These outputs may be in
the form of actions ,attitudes, opinions, beliefs,
impression about the stimuli under consideration.

12. Attribution Theory
 Attribution theory tries to explain the ways in
which we judge people differently.
 It suggests that when we observe an individual’s
behavior, we attempt to determine whether it was
internally or externally caused. That determination,
however, depends largely on three factors:
 (1) Distinctiveness,
 (2) Consensus,
 (3) Consistency.

13. Internal and External
 Internally caused behaviors are those we believe to
be under the personal control of the individual.
 Externally caused behavior is what we imagine the
situation forced the individual to do.
 If one of your employees is late for work, you might
attribute that to his partying into the wee hours and
then oversleeping.
 This is an internal attribution.
 But if you attribute lateness to an automobile
accident that tied up traffic, you are making an
external attribution.

14. Three determining factors
 Distinctiveness refers to whether an individual
displays different behaviors in different situations.
 Is the employee who arrives late today also one
who regularly “blows off” commitments?
 What we want to know is whether this behavior is
unusual.

15.  If everyone who faces a similar situation responds in
the same way, we can say the behavior shows
consensus.
 The behavior of our tardy employee meets this
criterion if all employees who took the same route
were also late.
 From an attribution perspective, if consensus is high,
you would probably give an external attribution to the
employee’s tardiness,
 whereas if other employees who took the same route
made it to work on time, you would attribute his
lateness to an internal cause.

16. An observer looks for consistency in a person’s
actions. Does the person respond the same way
over time?
Coming in 10 minutes late for work is not perceived in
the same way for an employee who hasn’t been late
for several months as it is for an employee who is
late two or three times a week.
 The more consistent the behavior, the more we are
inclined to attribute it to internal causes.

18. Errors or Biases
1. Self-serving bias
 The tendency for individuals to attribute their own
successes to internal factors and put the blame for
failures on external factors.

19. 2. Selective Perception
 Any characteristic that makes a person, an
object, or an event stand out will increase the
probability we will perceive it.
 Because we cannot assimilate all that we observe,
we take in bits and pieces.
 Selective perception allows us to speed-read others,
but not without the risk of drawing an inaccurate
picture.

20. 3. Halo Effect
 When we draw a general impression about an
individual on the basis of a single characteristic,
such as intelligence, sociability, or appearance.
 A halo effect is operating.
 If you’re a critic of President Obama, try listing
10 things you admire about him. If you’re an
admirer, try listing 10 things you dislike about him.
 No matter which group describes you, odds are you
won’t find this an easy exercise! That’s the halo
effect: our general views contaminate our specific
ones.

21. 4. Contrast effect
 Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that is
affected by comparisons with other people recently
encountered who rank higher or lower on the same
characteristics.
 We don’t evaluate a person in isolation. Our reaction
is influenced by other persons we have recently
encountered.

22. 5. Stereotyping
 When we judge someone on the basis of our
perception of the group to which he or she belongs,
we are using the shortcut called stereotyping .

23. Managerial & Behavioral Applications of
Perception
 People in organizations are always judging each
other.
 Managers must appraise their employees’
performances.
 We evaluate how much effort our co-workers are
putting into their jobs.
 Team members immediately “size up” a new
person. In many cases, our judgments have
important consequences for the organization.
 Let’s look at the most obvious applications.

24.  Employment Interview: A major input into who is hired
and who is rejected in any organization is the
employment interview. Evidence indicated that
interviewers often make inaccurate perceptual
judgments. Interviews generally draw early impressions
that become very quickly entrenched. If negative
information is exposed early in the interview, it tends to
be more heavily weighted than if that same information
comes out later. As a result, information elicited early in
the interview carries greater weight than does
information elicited later. A "good applicant" is probably
characterized more by the absence of unfavourable
characteristics than by the presence of favourable
characteristics.
 The employment interview is an important input into the
hiring decision and a manager must recognize that
perceptual factors influence who is hired. Therefore,
eventually the quality of an organization's labour force
depends on the perception of the interviewers.

25.  An employee's performance appraisal very much
depends on the perceptual process. The
performance appraisal represents an assessment of
an employee's work. While this can be objective,
many jobs are evaluated in subjective terms.
Subjective measures are, by definition, judgmental.
 The evaluator forms a general impression of an
employee's work. What the evaluator perceives to be
"good" or "bad" employee characteristics will,
significantly influences the appraisal outcome. An
employee's future is closely tied to his or her
appraisal -promotions, pay raises and continuation of
employment are among the most obvious outcomes.

26.  Performance Expectations: A manager's expectations
of an individual affect both the manager's behaviour
towards the individual and the individual's response. An
impressive amount of evidence demonstrates that people
will attempt to validate their perceptions of reality, even
when these perceptions are faulty. This is particularly
relevant when we consider performance expectations on
the job.
 The term self-fulfilling prophecy or Pygmalion effect have
evolved to characterize the fact that people's expectations
determine their behaviour. Managers can harness the
power of the Pygmalion effect to improve productivity in
the organization. It appears that high expectations of
individuals come true. Managers can extend these high
expectations of individuals to an entire group. When a
manager expects positive things from a group, the group
delivers. Similarly, if a manager expects people to perform

27.  Employee Loyalty: Another important judgment 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.
 The assessment of an employee's loyalty or
commitment is highly judgmental.
 What is perceived as loyalty by one may be seen as
excessive by another. An employee who questions a
top management decision may be seen as disloyal.
Some employees called whistle -blowers who report
unethical practices by their employer to authorities
inside or outside the organization, typically act out of
loyalty to their organization but are perceived by
management as trouble makers.