A small presentation for management graduate students to get acquaint with fundamentals of perception, meaning, importance, elements, process and associated errors with it.

1. Perception

2. Content
 Definition
 Nature
 Importance
 Elements
 Perception Process
◦ Selecting
◦ Organizing
◦ Interpreting
 Perceptual Errors
 Perception and its application in
organization
 How to improve perceptual skills

3. Defintion
 perception can be defined as “the
process by which individuals organize
and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give meaning
to their environments. -S.P.
Robbins
 “Perception includes all those
processes by which an individual
receives information about his
environment—seeing, hearing, feeling,
tasting and smelling.” -Joseph
Reitz

4. Nature
 Perception is an intellectual process
 Perception is the basic psychological process
 It is a subjective process as the different perceive things/
event in different manner
 Perception is a unique interpretation of event instead of
recording of the exactly event
 Perception is more complex and broader than the situation
 As we know perception refers to the acquisition of specific
knowledge about the things/ event at a particular time so it
occurs as the stimuli activate the sense organ

5. Importance of Perception
 Perception plays an important role in
shaping of the personality of an
individual
 To understand and control the human
behavior
 To predict the human behavior as it is
based on perception
 To determine the needs of human being
 Understanding of perception is important
as human behavior is dependent on his
perception of reality; not on reality
exactly

6. Elements of Perception
Sensory Receptor- Body sense organ that acquire stimuli like Nose,
Ears, Eyes, Skin and Tongue
The Absolute Threshold- is the difference between something and
nothing i.e. the lowest level at which an individual experience a situation
The Differential Threshold- just noticeable difference that is minimal
difference which can be detected between two similar stimuli
Subliminal Perception is a very weak stimuli below the level of
conscious awareness

7. Perception Process
• Sensation
Input
• Selecting
• Organizing
• Interpreting
Processing
• Values
• Attitudes
• Behavior
Output

8. External environmental
Sensual stimulation
Physical environment
Factory,office,Laboratory,
Computer, Climet etc.
Social cultural environment
Organizational culture
Leadership styles
Values, beliefs, norms etc.
discrimination
Internal environment
Individual values,
Beliefs and norms
Psychological background
Sociological background
Economic background
Physiological state
External factors
•Intensity, Size, Contrast, Repetition, Motion, Novelty & Familiarity
Internal factors
•Learning, Motivation, Personality
Dimensions of organization
•Figure ground
•Perceptual Grouping ( Similarity, Closure, Continuity, Proximity)
•Perceptual constancy
•Perceptual context
Factors
•Characteristics of the perceiver
Needs & Motives, Self Concept, Past experience
Psychological/Emotional State
•Characteristics of the situation
Physical, organizational, social, technical, natural
PERCEPTUAL
INPUTS
Selection
Organization
Interpretation
PERCEPTUAL
OUTPUT
INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR

10. Perceptual
Errors
Illusion
Hallucination
Halo Effect
Stereotyping
SimilarityHorn Effect
Contrast
Recency
Effect
Self-fulfilling
prophecy

11. Illusion
 This is a false perception and the
person will make a stimulus and then
perceive it wrongly.

12. Hallucination
 Hallucination is a condition where the
individual perceives some stimulus or
listen some voice even though the
stimulus and sound is not present in
reality.

13. Halo Effect
is that when one trait of a person or
something is used to make overall
impression about the object.

14. Stereotyping
When we judge the person on the basis
of our perception about the
group(based on behavioral or physical
traits) he belongs is considered as
stereotyping

15. Similarity
People have positive opinion about
those object which have similar
characteristics and believe they
perform in a better way thus they give
higher rating to employees while the
others also present same performance
or give suggestion.

16. Horn Effect
 When the person is evaluated on the
basis of any negative quality or trait
then this is considered as horn effect.
 Like If an employee is properly
dressed up we assumed that he can’t
handle the team and not make him
team leader although he had good
experience.

17. Contrast
 Tendency to rate person in compare to
other people instead on the basis of
their performance criteria.
 Here the perception is based on the
benchmark set by the previous
employee/object/event
 This error can go conscious or
subconscious by observer.

18. Recency Effect
 When perception about the object is
created on the basis of most recent
information received

19. Self-fulfilling prophecy
 Here the perceiver ‘s preconceived
belief and expectations will decide
their behavior so that the expectations
will come true.

20. Application of Perception in
organization
 Employee Interview
 Performance Appraisal
 To assess organization loyalty
 To assess commitment level for given
task

21. How to improve Perceptual Skills
 Be emphatic
 Know yourself accurately first
 Develop positive attitudes
 Communication employees to get clarity
to avoid possible biasness
 Avoiding attributions