INDIVIDUAL LEVEL

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Topic 2 – PERCEPTION &

COMMON BIAS

Instructor: Dr. Truong Thi Lan Anh

SELF-AWARENESS

• Who do you want to be?

• Where are you now?
• How do you get there?

• What are your strengths &

weaknesses?
• What are inside that lead
you to such behaviors?

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 How do you define
the TRUTH?

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 Individual differences: PERCEPTION
• Perception: a process by which individuals
organize and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give meaning to their
environment
– Different individuals “see” the same thing in
different ways!
• So what?

(Robbins & Judge, 2018)

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 What do
the words
in the
triangle
say?

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 Factors That
Influence Perception

Distortion:
These factors can reside in…
• the perceiver,
• the object or target being perceived,
• the situation in which the perception
is made
(Source: Robbins & Judge, © Pearson Education, 2019)
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PERCEPTUAL PROCESS

Observations (sensory)
of the object in the person’s environment

Perceptual Selection
Short-
cut
Perceptual Organization with
bias &
Interpretation errors

Response
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 Gestalt’s most 3 Principles of
Visual Perception (1920s)
• Figure-Ground
– We do not evaluate a person in isolation ➔ Organize
perceptions by distinguishing between a figure (i.e. the
object) and a background. Ex. Contrast effect
• Proximity
– Elements tend to be grouped together according to their
nearness/in common. Ex. Stereotype
• Common Fate
– Objects that move together are understood to be similar
and related to one another. Ex. Recency effect
(Gestalt = a group of German psychologists such as Carl Stumpf in the early 20th century)
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Which is YOUR
Figure? Which
is the Ground?

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 Why Perception is normally
bias/error?
• Shortcuts in judging others: to shorten the
perceptual process
– are frequently valuable: they allow us to make
accurate perceptions rapidly and provide valid
data for making predictions
– are not foolproof: they can and do get us into
trouble when they result in significant distortions
• Perceptual selection: people “see” what
they expect to “see” (i.e. perceive) ➔
Perceptual distortion (error and
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 Shortcuts in judging others
= Human being?

“Most people do not

listen with the intent to
understand;
They listen with the
intent to reply.”
Source: Stephen R. Covey (2008)

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 GIVE & TAKE:
We tend to give advices rather than take them!

THEY & ME:

They should change, not me!
Failure - their faults,
Success - thank to…me!
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 Unconscious bias
❑Overconfidence Bias –the more people are
knowledgeable about an issue, the less likely they
are to display overconfidence
❑Anchoring Bias – a tendency to fixate on initial
information and fail to adequately adjust for
subsequent information
❑Confirmation Bias – seeking out information that
reaffirms our past choices and discounting
information that contradicts past judgments

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 Unconscious biases
❑Representative Bias – the tendency to assess the
likelihood of an occurrence by inappropriately
considering the current situation as identical to
past situations.
❑Escalation of Commitment – staying with a
decision even when there is clear evidence that it
is wrong.
❑Hindsight Bias – the tendency to believe falsely
that we accurately predicted the outcome of an
event after that outcome is actually known.

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Which type of bias?
Most interviews are
a waste of time
because 99.4
percent of the time
is spent trying to
confirm whatever
impression the
interviewer formed
in the first ten
seconds. (Laszlo
Bock, “Work
Rules!”, 2015)
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 Perception and Judgement:
Attribution Process
Why we study PERCEPTION?
– To better understand how people make attributions
about events.
– We don’t see reality. We interpret what we see and call
it reality.
– The attribution process guides our behaviour,
regardless of the truth of the attribution
Attribution Theory (Kelley, 1967)
– about how people make causal explanations ➔ When
we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to
determine whether it was internally or externally caused.

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 Perceivers examine three
different kinds of
information in their efforts
to establish validity

(Source: Kelly, 1967, from Robbins & Judge, 2018)

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 Errors in Attributions
When making judgments about the behavior of
others…
Fundamental Attribution Error: The tendency to…
– Underestimate the influence of external factors (outside
of your control)
– Overestimate the influence of internal or personal (what
you can control) factors

➔Then, here is how we respond:

Blame people first, not the situation!
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 Bias in Attributions
Self-serving bias: The tendency to
– attribute your own success to internal/personal factors
– while putting the blame for failures on external factors.

Success is mine;
Failure is due to someone else!

Projection: Attributing your own characteristics to

others.

You assume that they like what you like!

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 Shortcuts in judging others/things:
Selective perception
A characteristic that makes someone stand out in
our mind will increase the probability that it will be
perceived.
– People selectively interpret what they see on the basis
of their interests, background, experience, and attitudes

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 Stereotype

Judging someone on the

basis of one’s perception of
the group to which that
person belongs.

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How do you think about this statement?

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 Shortcuts in judging others:
• Halo Effect: when we draw a
general impression based on a
single characteristic.
• Contrast Effects: Evaluating a
person’s characteristics by
comparisons with others who rank
higher or lower on the same
characteristics.
• Similar-to-me effect: unconscious
tendency to favor people who are
physically and professionally similar
Normally affect
to them
performance appraisal

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Shortcuts in judging others:
• Recency effect: the most
recently presented items or
experiences will most likely
be remembered best.
• Primacy effect: likely to
remember words at the
beginning of the list more
than words in the middle. Ex.
“first impression”, “love at first
sight”
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In summary

We don’t see reality. We only “see” what

We interpret what we see we want to “see”
and call it reality! and call it reality!

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 KEY WORDS

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