WE DONT SEE THINGS AS THEY

ARE, WE SEE THINGS AS WE ARE.

Perception
The study of perception is concerned with identifying the process
through which we interpret and organize sensory information to
produce our conscious experience of objects and object relationship.
Perception is the process of receiving information about and making
sense of the world around us. It involves deciding which information
to notice, how to categorize this information and how to interpret it
within the framework of existing knowledge.
A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.

Organizational Behavior / Perception

The Perceptual Process

1. Sensation

An individuals ability to
detect stimuli in the
immediate environment.
2. Selection

The process a person

uses to eliminate some
of the stimuli that have
been sensed and to
retain others for further
processing.

3.Organization

The process of placing

selected perceptual
stimuli into a framework
for storage.

4.Translation

The stage of the

perceptual process at
which stimuli are
interpreted and given
meaning.

Organizational Behavior / Perception

Perceptual Process

Selecting Stimuli
External factors : Nature,

Receiving Stimuli
(External & Internal)

Location,Size,contrast,
Movement,repetition,similarity
Internal factors : Learning,
needs,age,Interest,

Interpreting
Attribution ,Stereotyping,
Halo Effect, Projection

Organizing
Figure Background ,
Perceptual Grouping
( similarity, proximity,
closure, continuity)

Response
Covert: Attitudes ,
Motivation,
Feeling
Overt: Behavior
Organizational Behavior / Perception

Factors influencing perception

A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes
distort perception. These factors can reside in the
perceiver, in the object or target being perceived or in
the context of the situation in which the perception is
made.

Organizational Behavior / Perception

Factors influencing Perception

Factors in the perceiver
Attitudes
Motives
Interests
Experience
Expectations

Factors in the situation

Time
Work Setting
Social Setting

Perception

Factors in the Target

Novelty
Motion
Sounds
Size
Background
Proximity
Similarity
Organizational Behavior / Perception

Factors influencing Perception

1. Characteristics of Perceived
a. Nature: - visual objects, rhymes or colours
always attacts more attention and there is every
likelihood that such objects are perceived
b. Size: Biiger the size, greater is the possibility
that objects will be perceived or will gain
attention
c. Intensity: high speed, bright llight always attracts
more attention
d. Frequency: Repeated external stimulus is more
attention attracting for eg. TV Advertisements.
e. Status: rich or elite class or high status group
Behavior / Perception
people alwaysOrganizational
attracts
more attention as7

Characteristics of Perceiver

Characteristics of Perceiver

a. Needs and Motives: need is a feeling of

discomfort or tension when one thinks
something is missing. All our wishful thinks
goes for satisfying the need.
b. Self concept: if we are clear about our
ourselves, we believe others also as the
same. For eg. If we are optimistic, we will
think that people around us also are postive
and happy going.
Less secured person
always tries to find faults in others.
c. Past Experience: Perception is often caused
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Characteristics of Perceiver

Characteristics of Perceiver

4. Current Psychological State: emotional state

of individual also influences perception. A
person in depression is likely to view the
situation differently than when he is happy
5. Expectations:
expectations
affect
the
perception of a person.
They create
expectancy or anticipation of behaviour in
advance. For eg. Rural people may not be
very good in communication or non
technical people may not have good
command over technical features about the
product.
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Factors influencing Perception

Characteristics of Situation

The environment in which perception is taking

place is also very important. Elements in the
surrounding envn. Influence our perception.
The situation factor that affect perception
includes physical (location, light, heat etc.),
social factors and orgn. Factors.

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Perception Process
Perception is the process through which people
select, receive, organise and interpret
information from their environment. Through,
perception, people process information input
into decisions and actions. It is a way of
forming impressions about yourself and others
and daily life experience.
1. Receiving Stimuli (Input) : We experience
various stimuli in our environment. They
enter organism through sensory organs like
Vision, Hearing, Smell, Touch etc.
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Perception Process
2. Selecting Stimuli: All the stimuli received by human
organism are not accepted by it. Some stimuli are
noticed and others are screened out.
people generally observe in selective manner based on
their interests, background, experience, attitudes etc.
They generally perceive what is more important for
them in a given situation. It involves two principles: -

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Figure-Ground Illustration
Figure Ground Principle: In perception certain
factors are considered significant which give
meaning to a person and others which are
insignificant or unimportant or can not be studied
are left. The meaningful portion is called figure
and insignificant portion is called ground. For
Eg.: an employee while on probation does
everything possible to please his immediate boss
overlooking impact of the same on his colleagues
or subordinates.

Organizational Behavior / Perception

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Perception Process

When we look at picture, most people will focus on individual

figures enclosed with lines but only few will see any
meaning. If we observe it carefully, we can see word WEST
in it.
Hence we should be very careful while selecting the stimuli as
it may result in important information being ignored.
(b) Relevance: People selectively perceive things that are
relevant to their needs and desires.
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Factors Influencing Selection

External Factors: 1. Nature: By nature we mean, whether the
object is visual or auditory and whether it
involves pictures of people or animals. For
eg. Rhyming Auditory Passage attracts more
attention than narrative passage.
2. Location: the best location for an object to
gain attention is directly in front of the yes in
center of a page and then upper portion.
Right side attracts more attention then left
hand side.
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Factors Influencing Selection

External Factors: 3. Intensity: Object of high intensity are
perceived more than the objects with low
intensity. A loud noise, bright light, strong
odour attracts more attention.
4. Size: Objects of larger size attracts more
attention than the smaller size. For eg. full
page advt. Attracts more attention than few
lines.
5. Movement : the principle of movement states
that the moving objects attracts more
attention than the objects which are
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Factors Influencing Selection

External Factors: 6. Contrast: the contrast principal states that
external stimuli which stands out against the
background or which is different from what
people are expecting will receive more
attention. Darkened Circle on the left appears bigger,
however both are of similar size.

7. Repetition: this principle states that a repeated

external stimuli attracts more attention. Same
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Being flashed daily on TV is based on this principle .

Factors Influencing Selection

Internal Factors: 1. Learning: Learning has a considerable
influence on the perception. It creates
expectancy in the minds of people. People
perceives what they want to perceive.

TURN
OFF THE
THE ENGINE
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M-A-C-T-A-V-I-S-H
M-A-C-D-O-N-A-L-D
M-A-C-B-E-T-H
M-A-C-H-I-N-A-R-Y
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Factors Influencing Selection

Internal Factors: In the first figure, we will read the sentence as
Turn Off the Engine because of our previous
learning and may not give attention that there
is an extra the in the sentence.
Similarly in the last word, we will read it Mac
Henry instead of reading it as Machinery.
2. Needs play a significant role in objects
selectivity. Unreal things look real because of
our needs. For eg. Hungry person will give
more attention to those pictures containing
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items.
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Factors Influencing Selection

Internal Factors: 3. Age Difference: Older People complains about
the inability of young persons to take
decisions based on through study and paper
work. While young persons have complains
about them being taking long time in paper
work and delaying tasks. Generation gap also
contribute towards diff. Perceptions.
4. Interest: Perception also is influenced by
interest of perceiver. An architect will observe
many things in a building to which he passes
only once. While on the other hand, the other
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observe
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things
even
if
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Perceptual organization
It is the process by which we group outside stimuli into recognizable
and identifiable patterns and whole objects.

Certain factors are considered to be important contributors on

assembling, organizing and categorizing information in the human
brain. These are

Closure
Proximity
Similarity

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Perception Process

a) Grouping: the process of grouping is possible

depending on the similarity or proximity.

Principle of Similarity: It underlines the tendency where

objects of similar shape, size, or colour tends to be
grouped together. For eg.: a company may require its
employees to wear white hats and visitors to wear
yellow hats , so that employees can be identified easily.
Similarly identification can be made of people who
know safety precautions and those who do not.

Principle of Proximity: Underlines the tendency to

perceive stimuli which are near one another as
belonging together. For eg. Employees working on
same machinery or in same department are perceived
as one group.

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Perception Process
2. Closure: when peple face incomplete information they
have tendency to fill in the gaps themselves. Closure
principle demonstrates that perceivers ability to
perceive a whole object even though only a part of the
object is evident.

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Perception Process
4. Interpretation: It is subjective and judgemental process
and is
Influenced by many factors such as: a) Halo Affect: it refers to the tendency of perceiving
people in terms of good and bad and assigning all good
qualities to one who is liked and all bad qualities to one
who is disliked.
For eg. Professor awarding more marks to a well liked
student or giving promotion to favourite employee at
the cost of performance and merit.

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Halo Affect does not mean overrating positive

characteristics. An individual can be down-rated
based
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on negative evaluation of his or her behaviour. This
is

Perception Process
b) Stereotyping: it is a tendency to assign attributes to
someone solely on the basis of category of people to
which that person belongs. It helps individual assign
meaning to a mass of data.
For eg. Womens, Alcoholic, Drug Addict.
Basic advantage of stereotyping is that it helps the
perceiver to simplify the complexity of environment but
trouble is that it does not recognize people as
individuals having unique characteristics.

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Perception Process
c) Attribution: Attribution refers to the process by which
the individual assigns causes to the behaviour he or
she conceives.
People are interested not only in
observing behaviour in org. But also in determining its
causes.
Perception is distorted sometimes by the efforts of
perceiver to attribute a casual explanation to the
outcome. Eg. If two employees are coming late. One
is relating it to the illness and hospitalization of family
member while the other is relating to problem in
vehicle. Naturally, first one will enjoy smooth corner of
the management.

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Perception Process
d) Inference: There is tendency on the part of people to
judge others based on limited information.
An
employee might be sitting idle at his desk throughout
the day, but he may be inferred as hardworking.
e) Impression: People form impression of others on the
first sight. Even before knowing any of the their
personality traits, they start forming impression. This
leads to perceptual distortion.
f)

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Projection: It is easy to judge others if we assume that

they are similar to us. For eg.: if we want freedom,
challenge and responsibility in our jobs, we assume
that others also want the same. The tendency to
attribute our characteristics and traits to others is
called projection.
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Perception Process
4. Process of Checking: After this, the perceiver checks
whether the interpretation are right or wrong. One way
is to introspect himself by asking questions or to check
it with others.
5. Process of Reacting: Perceiver will indulge in some
action in relation to his or her perception. Action will
depend on whether perception is favourable or
unfavourable.

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