Perception

What is Perception?
Perception is the process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment

Features of Perception
Perception is an intellectual process-Person selects the data from the environment, organizes it and obtains meaning from it. Perception is a psychological process- The manner in which a person perceives the environment affects his behavior. Thus, peoples actions, emotions, thoughts are triggered by the perception of their surroundings. Perception being an intellectual psychological process becomes a subjective process and different people may perceive the same environmental event differently.

Factors Influencing the Perception

No. of factors operate to shape perception. These factors can reside in the perceiver, or the target being perceived or in the context of the situation in which situation is made.

Factors in the perceiver Attitudes Motives Interests Experience Expectation Factors in the situation Time Work setting Social setting

Perception

Factors in the target Novelty Sounds Size Background Proximity Similarity

Perceptual Process
Seeking

Selecting

Interpreting

Organizing

Distortions in Perception

Distortions in perception may occur because of the following factors: Factors in perceiver- personality, mood, first impression, historical context, personality Factors in person perceived- social status, visibility of traits, impression management Situational factors

Shortcuts in Judging Others:

Selective Perception Halo Effect Contrast Effects Projection Stereotyping

Specific Applications in Organizations

Employment Interview Performance Expectations Performance Evaluation

Managerial Implications of Perception

Interpersonal Working Relationships Selection of Employees Performance Appraisal

Developing Perceptual Skills

Perceiving oneself correctly Enhancing Self concept Having positive attitudes

Being Empathic
Communicating More openly Avoiding Common Perceptual Distortions

IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

What do you understand?

It is a goal-directed conscious or unconscious attempt to influence the perceptions of other people about a person, object or event by regulating and controlling information in social interaction.

Favors

SelfDescriptions Association Verbal SelfPresentation

Flattery

Acclaiming

Opinion Conformity

First Impression
Within three seconds of a seeing a person for the first time we decide their: o Social status o Education

o Religion
o Sexuality o friendliness

FIRST IMPRESSIONS
55% appearance & body language 38% tone, pitch & pace of your voice

7% what you say

First impression at work

It include: Doing a good job. Presentation of work. Presentation of self. Being seen as doing a good job.

IMPACT
Integrity Manners Personality Appearance Communication Thrill

TYPES OF IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT

Constructive- help in the formation of self identity. Strategic- help in the attainment of interpersonal goal.

Ingratiation

Is a social psychological technique in which an individual attempts to become more attractive or likeable to their target.

5 THINGS YOU NEED TO FACE THE WORLD

Confidence A personal brand

An elevator pitch
A winning image Transferrable skills

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Impression Management Tactics

Behavioral Matching
The target of perception matches his or her behavior to that of the perceiver. A subordinate tries to imitate her bosss behavior by being modest and soft-spoken because her boss is modest and soft-spoken. A worker reminds his boss about his past accomplishments and associates with coworkers who are evaluated highly. A worker stays late every night even if she has completed all of her assignments because staying late is one of the norms of her organization. A coworker compliments a manager on his excellent handling of a troublesome employee. The target tries to present herself Selfor himself in as positive a light as Promotion possible. Conforming The target follows agreed-upon rules for behavior in the to Situational organization. Norms Appreciating The target compliments the perceiver. This tactic works best when or Flattering flattery is not extreme and when it Others involves a dimension important

to the perceiver.

Being Consistent

The targets beliefs and behaviors are consistent. There is agreement between the targets verbal and nonverbal behaviors.

A subordinate delivering a message to his boss looks the boss straight in the eye and has a sincere expression on his face.

 It is an attempt to determine whether an individuals behavior is internally or externally caused. Internally caused behavior are those we believe to be under personal control of the individual. Externally caused behavior is what we imagine the situation forced the individual to do.

KELLYS THEORY

We base our judgments of internal or external causality of observations on the bases of 3 types of information.

Consensus is the extent to which other

If others do behave similarly, the consensus is considered high. If they do not, the consensus is considered low.

people behave in the same manner as person we are judging

Consistency is the extent to which we

are judging acts the same way at other times. If the person does act the same act other times, the consistency is high, if he or she does not, then consistency is low.

Distinctiveness is the extent to

which a person behaves in the same manner in the other contexts. If he or she behaves the same way in other situations, distinctiveness is low; if he or she behaves differently, distinctiveness is high.

Interpretation
Implies According to this theory, after collecting this that the persons information we combine what we have learned to behavior is make our attribution of casualty: stemmed High consensus from High consistency Implies that external High distinctiveness the persons causes behavior is stemmed from internal Low consensus causes High consistency Low distinctiveness

Weiners theory of attribution

It suggests that the perceived causes of success and failure share the 3 common properties of locus, stability, and controllability

Ability

Task Difficulty

Effort

Luck

Ability vs. Skills

Abilities are those factors of a persons generic make up, either perceptual or motor in nature, that are beyond ones control and can also be inherited from ones parents.

Skills are a composite of abilities, techniques and knowledge, which help a person perform tasks at a higher degree or standard. They are mostly goal-oriented and are assessed through improvement in ones performance.

The Sodexo Case

Points of interest: Sodexo Extensive diversity training to all employees. Managers are encouraged to interact with diverse groups so as to better understand and appreciate their experience. Ron Bond in a meeting with some of his female coworkers stood out as one of the very few men among around 1500 women, caused him to reflect on his experiences. He recalled when he started his career, there were very few young women managers. Managers are encouraged to mentor employees different from themselves and also to

The Sodexo Case

Points of interest: Principle Financial Group Principle started providing its employees with the option of flexible work schedule. Employees who opt for the flexible work schedule and take advantage of it e.g. a 12 month child care leave, do not have their career progress slowed.

Valarie Vest was glad that even though she was on her second maternity leave, she had been promoted and was asked whether she wants this promotion. Managers strive to hire diverse employees and

Biases of attribution
Researchers have noted that there are several systematic biases that interfere with making completely accurate judgment of others. These biases are referred to as perceptual biases. These are basically predispositions because of which people tend to misperceive others on various ways.

Fundamental attribution error: The tendency to attribute others actions to internal causes while largely ignoring external factors that also may have influenced the behavior

Similar to me effect:
If you are like me you must be pretty good It is the tendency of people to perceive in a positive light others who are believed to be similar to themselves in any of several different ways. This tendency applies with respect to different dimensions of similarity such as Similarity of work values and habits, Similarity of beliefs about the way things should be at work Similarity with respect to demographic variable like age, race, gender, and experience

Dispositional factors:
For others:
Tendency to tag success to external factors and failures to internal factors. For myself: Tendency to tag success to internal factors and failures to external factors.

First impression error:

It is the tendency to base our judgments of others on our earlier impressions of them. When a first impression error is made, the evaluation that we make about someone is highly influenced by our initial impression of that person than by his current performance.

Selective perception:
It is a tendency to focus on some aspects of the environment while ignoring others.

Halo Effect
One bad quality superimposes all other judgments. Halo effect leads to stereotypes

Negative stereotypes lead to prejudices.

Not done yet