Definition

Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impression in order
to give meaning to their environment. Stephen Robbins

Perception is a important meditative cognitive process through which person make interpretation of
stimuli or situation they are faced with – Fred Luthans

Perception can be defined as process of receiving, selecting, organizing m interpreting checking and
reacting to sentry stimuli or data – Uday Pareek and others

Perception is the process of becoming aware of situations of adding meaningful association to

sensation. Von H. Gilmer

Perception is defined as process by which individual selects, organizes and interprets stimuli into
meaningful and coherent picture of world. It is complex cognitive process by which people attend to
incoming stimuli, organize and interpret such stimuli into behaviour

Nature of Perception

 Is a process by which a person gives meaning to the environment

 Persons Action, thoughts, beliefs and experience are affected by perception of their
environment
 Manner in which Person experience of the world
 It is an automatic process works same way in every individual but results in different
perception

Factors Influencing Perception

A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes to distort perception. These factors emanate
from three sources – the perceiver, the perceived and the situation.

The following Diagram shows the summary of the factors influencing perception

The Perceiver When a person looks at a target, his interpretation of it is influenced by his personal
characteristics like his needs, past experience, habits, personality, values, and attitudes. A person
with a strong need for ego satisfaction may select out from a situation and emphasize signals that
tend to satisfy the desire for self-esteem. Similarly, negative attitudes toward unions may cause a
manager to look for antagonisms in even routine visits by local union officials to the organization.
These and other personal factors will determine what a person gives attention to in a situation and
how these cues are interpreted as a basis for decision-making and action responses.

The Perceived Characteristics in the target / object that are being observed may influence what is
perceived. The physical attributes, appearance, and behaviour of other persons in the situation also
influence how the object is perceived.

Physical attributes of a person are related to age, sex, height, and weight. A young person exercising
authority in a situation is viewed differently from an older person doing the same thing.

Personal attire and appearance are also relevant factors in the formation of perceptions. People in
business suits are received to be professionals where as someone in work clothes is assumed to be
low level employees

Manner of communication both verbal and non-verbal affect our perception. The choice of words,
precision of language can form impression of education and sophistication. The body language or
expressive behaviours on how a person sits or movement of eyes or smile whether he is confident or
nervous.

The status or occupation of a person also influences the perception. We tend to behave more
respectfully to a principal of school, supreme court judge etc

The Situation The context in which we see the objects or events is important. The physical, social and
organizational elements of the situation or event may also influence perceptions. A subordinate
calling his boss by the first name may be perceived quite differently when observed in a typical
Indian office as opposed to in a social reception. Though the perceiver and the perceived are the
same, it is the situation that makes a difference. Such background characteristics of the situation or
context are additional factors that can affect how the situation is perceived by the different persons.
If you meet the person for the first time and he is with someone you respect and admire you create
favourable image. Organizational setting also affects people, where people are given opportunity in a
friendly and social manner become more trust worthy and less defensive.

Features of Perception

 Intellectual Process select data from the environment, organise it and obtain meaning from
it.
 Cognitive process people feeling, emotions, thought and actions are triggered by perception
of their surroundings.
 Subjective process it is subjective as the interpretation is biased which can be beliefs,
attitudes as well as the situations. Each person perception is different from others.

Elements of Perceptual Process

Perception is the process by which people select, organize, interpret and respond to information
from the world around them. Perception process is a sequential step that involves sequentially
selecting stimuli in the environment, organization of that information and interpretation of stimuli.

The perception processes show that their functioning is affected by three variables – the objects
perceived, the environment in which perception occurs, and the individual perceiving the objects.
In the above diagram, you may find that the important aspects of perception are selection and
organization. Different people perceive an object differently both in terms of what they selectively
perceive and how they organize and interpret the things perceived. A person’s selection process
involves factors internal to the person as well as external to him. It is, in fact, a complex set of factors
that determine the perception of an individual. Similarly, an individual organizes the selected stimuli
into meaningful patterns. The interpretation of what is perceived may vary widely. For example, a
wave of hand may be interpreted as a friendly gesture or it may be interpreted as a sign of
threatening depending on the circumstances and the state of mind of the two people. Therefore,
quite often the people perceive things differently and behave on the basis of those perceptions.
Managers in organizations should understand that people’s perceptions differ and at times they also
go wrong.

Perception Inputs this is the first stage of perception process where the perceiver comes across
various information in the form of objects, events and people etc. these factors exists in the
environment itself and provide stimuli to the perceiver. When perceiver interacts with a stimulus
sensation takes place which starts perception process

Perception Process this involves 3 elements

Selection of Stimuli A human being is part of environment, he receives stimuli from it. One is
internal facto which relates to perceiver and another is external factor which is related to
stimuli.

Organization of Stimuli Arranging stimuli in some form to make sense. Various forms of
organising stimuli are

 Figure of Ground While collecting information 2 things are kind in mind focus and
background. Decision is made on the basis of focus with consideration of
background. For ex, for promotions good performance is taken as focus with better
relation ship with supervisor is taken to consideration.
 Perceptional Grouping On the basis of proximity and similarities, stimuli are grouped
to recognizable patterns. These grouping help individuals in perceiving things in a
proper manner or in a manner in which they want to perceive.
 Simplification Each person tries to reduce the burden when he is overloaded. People
try to simplify the process or contents of the matter. The eliminate the less
important information and concentrating on important information. This decreased
their workload and helps them in understanding things.
 Closure this is known as filling up of the gap to make things meaningful and
understandable. Through his experience and past history and analysis he fills the gap
of incomplete information and make the information complete.
 Interpretation of Stimuli After selecting and organizing the stimuli, perceiver interprets the
things according to his thinking style, state of mind, environment, circumstances, beliefs.

Perception Outputs the output may be in the form of covert action like development of attitude,
opinions, beliefs impressions etc about the stimuli. It can also result in overt action like See an Ad-
stimuli, perceive the product as good product and buy the product,

External Factors Influencing Selection

The external factors influencing selection are nature, intensity, size, contrast, repetition, motion, and
novelty and familiarity.

 Nature Pictures attract attention more than words and a picture with human beings attracts
attention more than a picture with inanimate objects. That is why cartoons and caricatures
draw more attraction.
 Intensity stimulus is more intense in nature, the more it is likely to be perceived by the
individual. That is why people pay more attention to loud noise, strong odour or bright light.
 Size Larger objects are likely to be perceived more by the individuals than the smaller ones. A
maintenance engineer gives greater attention to a bigger machine than a smaller one.
 Contrast external stimulus that stands out distinctly against the background or the one that
is quite unusual will receive greater attention of the people.
 Repetition Repeated external stimulus draws more attention than a single one. The several
advertisements of various products shown daily on TVs are based on the principle of
repetition only.
 Motion people pay greater attention to moving objects rather than stationary objects. That
is why advertisers create signs that incorporate moving parts.
 Novelty and Familiarity New objects in familiar settings or familiar objects in new settings
are likely to draw the attention of the perceiver. Job rotation is followed in organizations for
this reason. For instance, workers will pay greater attention to the tasks assigned to them in
the new jobs in order to prove themselves and gain acceptance in the new job.

Internal Factors Influencing Selection

Internal factors influencing selection of stimuli are personality, learning, and motivation. They are
explained below.

 Self-Concept the way a person views the world depends a great deal on image he has about
himself. People own characteristics affect the characteristics they see in other and select only
those they find a match.
 Beliefs A fact is perceived of what is it is but what a person believes it to be. The individuals
normally censor’s stimulus inputs to avoid disturbance of existing beliefs.
 Expectations A mental set of expectation, values and beliefs filter perceptions.
 Inner Need People with different need select different items to remember or respond to an
experience different stimulus.
 Response Disposition refers to the person’s tendency to perceive familiar rather unfamiliar
stimuli.
 Response Salience It is the set of dispositions which are determined not by familiarity but by
person’s cognitive disposition. Particular problem can be seen as marketing problem by
marketing person but human resource person sees it as people issue
  Perceptual Defence refers to screening of elements which are conflict and threatening
situation. Denying – the existence of conflicting information; Distorting the new information
to match old one; Acknowledging the information but treating it as non-representative.

Interpersonal Perception

The idea of interpersonal perception mean process of making meaning from things we experience in
people and relationships. The process involves 3 components – Selection, Organization and
Interpretation.

 Selection means what you notice about someone.

 Organization helps to make sense of what you notice.
 Interpretation we assign meaning to information we received.

Errors in communication

Stereotyping Stereotypes are generalization of groups that are applied to individuals who are
members. They are not bad but they are classification systems. One has to be careful in stereotyping
because individuals do not possess all characteristics of groups. The problem comes when we treat
individuals as extension of groups without giving them a chance to be truly individual separate from
group characteristics

Primacy and Recency effect first impression are known as primacy effect that set the tone for future
interactions. Recency effect are final impression, how people tend to remember us. These 2 are more
important than other impression people form in between.

Perceptual set is an idea that we perceive on what we expect or want. This limits our ability to
perceive actually what is there. People tend to see what they are used in seeing

Egocentrism is an inability to see another’s perspective. While this common in children, most of us
outgrow. We assume others should react to the situation the way you would.

Positive and Negative Biases Positive bias means a tendency to focus on positive attributes when
forming a perception of the person. A negative bias means a tendency to focus heavily on negative
attributes. In a negative bias, even one piece of negative information can adversely affect your
perception heavily.

All these above elements can lead to error in communications, the more we are aware of error we
can work around with them.

Theories of Perception
Attribution Theory

The theory of attribution was first proposed by psychologist Fritz Heider in his 1958 book The
Psychology of Interpersonal Relations. Heider believed that people are constantly trying to
make sense of their social world by attributing causes to events.

Heider proposed that there are three main types of attributions: internal, external, and stable.
Internal attributions occur when people believe that an event is caused by something within
themselves, such as their abilities or personality.
External attributions occur when people believe that an event is caused by something outside
of themselves, such as luck or the actions of other people.

Stable attributions occur when people believe that an event is caused by something that will
not change over time, such as someone’s intelligence or a physical attribute.

Attribution is a process by which people interpret the causes of their own and others
behaviour. It is concerned with an individual’s interpretation of events and its relation to their
thinking and behaviour. There is internal and external attribution affected by internal and
external determinants. Internal determinants are ability, attitudes, mood etc. External
determinants are task, people, situation etc. Internally caused behaviour is under personal
control of an individual whereas externally caused behaviour is believed to be driven by
situational factors that forces individuals to show certain behaviour. The cause of various
behaviours of every person is different. For understanding individual’s behaviour, it is
necessary to observe them wisely. Therefore, Attribution Theory was designed to account for
how people explain others’ behaviour.

Attribution error is basically concerned with making mistakes while understanding the
situation and showing certain behaviour. Since individuals are not perfect, they show different
behaviour in the same situation. It results in perceptual difference among individuals. There are
three types of attribution error described below.

The Fundamental Attribution Error concerns the judgment made focusing internal factors
rather than external factors. Here, people underestimate the influence of external factors and
overestimate the influence of internal factors while judging others. It is popular among
individualistic culture.

For example, managers blame the efficiency of employees on less production, though
deficiency on production is due to decreased manufacturing plants. It shows weakness in
individual decision making. It may provide a negative impact on long-term functioning of the
organization.

Self-Servicing Bias It focuses or gives importance on internal factors for success and blame on
external factors for failure. It gives credit to internal factors like ability, dedication, honesty,
hardworking etc for success. If individuals become failure, he blames external threats like bad
luck, change in technology, competitors etc.

Other Personal Errors There are many shortcuts for subject error while judging others. do it is
useful to make perception rapidly and provide authentic information to predict behaviour
search shortcut technique create problem and difficulty as they lack analysis. Some errors due
to attribution distortion are given below.

 Selective Perception It selects only some of the stimuli to judge others. In reality it is
not possible due to lack of knowledge and interest. People may analyse and response
only on basis of their interest, attitude, experience, and expectation.

 Halo Effect It draws general impressions on the basis of only one single characteristic.
The person perceives on basis of single traits like intelligence, punctuality appearance,
cooperativeness

 Contrast Effect It is the process of evaluating or comparing other people on the basis of
other people who are recently encountered. Here, person efficiency is evaluated by
comparing efficiency and traits of recently faced candidates by evaluators. It is used
generally in taking interviews with new applicants.

 Stereotyping is judging someone or the whole community on the basis of one’s own
perception of a single person. Sometimes it may help in easy adoption and helps to
make quick decisions in complex situations with consistency. but then danger lies in
incorrect stereotyping. It provides a negative impact and the judgment may get wrong.

 Projection is the tendency to see one’s own traits on others or one’s own personal
traits are assigned to others. Individuals project their own feeling, personality,
characteristics, attitude or motives on others.

 Primacy and Recency Effect Primary effect is concerned with the first impression of the
perceiver. It considers approaches of first impression as the last impression. A person
with some specific quality and efficiency can provide immediate impression on the
perceiver.

Kelly Co-variance Theory

Covariation theory is an alternative theory of attribution (developed by Harold Kelley, 1967)
explaining how people determine the causes of a person’s behaviour by focusing on the factors
present and absent when a behaviour does not occur, and specifically on the role of consensus,
distinctiveness, and consistency.

The covariation theory focuses on the factors that are present when a behaviour occurs and the
factors that are absent when it does not occur.
The first component of covariation theory is the consensus of the attitude or behaviour, that is,
whether other people generally agree or disagree with a given person. If many people agree with
that person or behave in a similar manner, we are more likely to make a situational attribution than
we would if few people agreed with the target individual.

Second, we consider the distinctiveness of the person’s attitude or behaviour, meaning whether the
person’s attitude or behaviour in this situation is relatively unique or whether the person generally
reacts in a similar way across different situations.

Third, we consider the consistency of the person’s attitude or behaviour, that is, whether the
person’s attitude and/or behaviour is similar over time.

Imagine that you are trying to decide whether next semester you want to take a class in politics. You
ask a friend, Joan, whether she would recommend the politics class she took last year. If Joan raves
about this class, do you believe her and sign up?

If you are smart, your decision about whether to take the politics class Joan recommends will be
influenced by the three main components of covariation theory.

Consensus — Do her opinions have high consensus? Do many people like this class, or does only
Joan like it? If everyone says it is a great class, then you can make a situational attribution (Joan liked
the class because it was good), whereas if others say it is a really boring class, you should make a
dispositional attribution for her attitude (Joan likes boring classes).

Distinctiveness — Next, consider the distinctiveness of Joan’s attitude about this class. Does Joan
rave about all of the classes she takes? If so, that doesn’t tell you much about this particular class
because you should make a dispositional attribution for her attitude (it is just Joan, who likes all
classes). But if Joan hates most of her classes, then her liking for this particular class should be
attributed to the situation (the class).

Consistency — Finally, consider whether Joan’s liking for this class is consistent over time. Maybe you
asked Joan about the class on a day when she was in a particularly good mood, and later on she’ll
report a different opinion. To make a strong dispositional attribution for her attitude toward the
class, you need to ask Joan about the class on more than one occasion to make sure that her attitude
is consistently positive.

In sum, according to the covariation model, we make different attributions Opens in new
window depending on the consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency of a person’s attitude and/or
behaviour
If consensus and distinctive are low and consistency is high, we make an internal or dispositional
attribution (Joan just loves this class). In contrast, if consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency are
all high, we make a situational attribution (this class is really great).

Managing the Perception Process

Successful managers understand the importance of perceptions as influences on behaviour, and
handle them accordingly. They are aware of perceptual distortions and accept that perceptual
differences are likely to exist in any situation. With this knowledge, they make appropriate decisions
that are acceptable to all persons concerned. The perceptual skills of a manager will help him in the
following ways.

High level of self-awareness As already made clear, individual needs, experience, and expectations
will all affect perceptions. The successful manager understands this and is able to identify when he is
inappropriately distorting a situation because of such perceptual tendencies

Seek information from various sources for decisions The successful manager minimizes the bias of
personal perceptions by seeking out the viewpoints of others. These insights are used to gain
additional perspective on situations and the problems or opportunities they represent.

Empathy As is understood, different people look at the same situation differently. The successful
manager rises above the personal impressions and tries to understand problems as felt by other
people

Influence of perceptions on other people act according to their own perceptions. If felt necessary,
the successful manager influences the perceptions of others in such a way that the work events are
interpreted as accurately as possible and to the advantage of all concerned.

Avoid common perceptual distortions Perceptual distortions include the use of stereotypes and halo
effects, as well as selective perception and projection. Successful managers are self-disciplined and
sufficiently aware that the adverse impact of these distortions is minimized.

Avoid inappropriate attributions A person has a tendency to explain why events happened the way
they did or why people behaved as they did. The successful manager is wise enough to establish the
real reasons for the things that happen and avoid the tendency of making quick or inappropriate
attributions.