ORGANIZATIONAL

BEHAVIOUR
Chapter 2: Perception, Personality and Values
 PERCEPTION, PERSONALITY AND VALUES

• Perception is the process through which people receive, organize and

interpret information from their environment.

• Personality is the overall profile or combination of traits that characterize the

unique nature of a person.

• Values are global beliefs that guide actions and judgements across a variety of
situations.

• An attitude is a predisposition to respond in a positive or negative way to

someone or something in your environment.
 UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
Perception is the process through which people receive,
organize and interpret information from their environment.
UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION
AND ITS IMPLICATIONS
 UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
FACTORS INFLUENCING PERCEPTION

The Perceiver- A person's past experiences, needs or motives,

personality, values and attitudes may all influence the perceptual
process.
The Setting The physical, social and organizational context of the
perceptual setting also can influence the perceptual process
The Perceived Characteristics of the perceived person, object or
event — such as contrast, Intensity, size, motion and repetition or
novelty are also important in the perceptual process.
 UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
Stages of the Perceptual Process

Attention and Selection- Selective screening lets in only a tiny proportion of all
the information available. Some of the selectivity comes from controlled
processing which refers, within the topic of perception, to conscious decisions
made to pay attention to certain stimuli while ignoring others.

Organization-selective screening takes place in the attention stage, it is still

necessary to find ways to organize the information efficiently. Schemas help
us do this. Schemas are cognitive frameworks that represent organized
knowledge about a given concept or stimulus developed through
experience. A self schema contains information about a person’s own
appearance, behavior and personality
 UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
Stages of the Perceptual Process

Attention and Selection- Selective screening lets in only a

tiny proportion of all the information available. Some of
the selectivity comes from controlled processing which
refers, within the topic of perception, to conscious
decisions made to pay attention to certain stimuli while
ignoring others.
Organization-selective screening takes place in the
attention stage, it is still necessary to find ways to
organize the information efficiently. Schemas help us do
this. Schemas are cognitive frameworks that represent
organized knowledge about a given concept or
stimulus developed through experience. A self schema
contains information about a person’s own
appearance, behavior and personality
 UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
Stages of the Perceptual Process

Interpretation Once your attention has been drawn to

certain stimuli and you have grouped or organized this
information, the next step is to uncover the reasons
behind the actions

Retrieval -Each of the previous stages forms part of that

memory and contributes to the stimuli or information
stored there
 UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
Stages of the Perceptual Process

Interpretation Once your attention has been drawn to

certain stimuli and you have grouped or organized this
information, the next step is to uncover the reasons
behind the actions

Retrieval -Each of the previous stages forms part of that

memory and contributes to the stimuli or information
stored there
UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
 UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
Common Perceptual Distortions

Stereotypes or Prototypes stereotypes obscure individual

differences, that is they can prevent managers, or
indeed anyone else, from getting to know people as
individuals and from accurately assessing their needs,
preferences and abilities.

A halo effect occurs when one attribute of a person or

situation is used to develop an overall impression of the
individual or situation.
 UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
Common Perceptual Distortions

Selective perception refers to the ways in which we categorize

and organize stimuli leading us to perceive the world in a unique
way.

Projection involves projecting our own emotions or motives onto

another person. It is an example of a perceptual error. Projection
involves us assigning our own personal attributes to other
individuals, and is especially likely to occur in the interpretation
stage of perception.
 UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
Common Perceptual Distortions

Contrast effects occur within the process of perception when an

object or person is perceived owing to their standing out from
their surroundings or group

A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when a prophecy comes true

simply because it has been made.
 UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND ITS
IMPLICATIONS
MANAGING PERCEPTION
IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT -a person's systematic attempt to behave in
ways that will create and maintain desired impressions in the eyes of others.
First impressions are especially important and influence how people
respond to one another.

Successful Managers:
• Use impression management to enhance their own images
• Are sensitive to others people use of impression management

DISTORTION MANAGEMENT
Managers should:

- Balance automatic and controlled information processing at the

attention and selection stage
- Broaden their schemas at the organization stage
- Be attuned to attribution at the interpretation stage
 PERSONALITY DIFFERENCES
AMONG INDIVIDUAL
• Personality is the overall profile or combination of traits
that characterize the unique nature of a person.

• Personality combines a set of physical and mental

characteristics that reflect how a person looks, thinks, acts
and feels.
 PERSONALITY DETERMINANTS

HEREDITY PERSONALITY ENVIRONMENT

Heredity consists of those Environment consists of

factors that are determined cultural, social and
at conception, and situational factors.
includes physical
characteristics and gender
in addition to personality
factors.
 THE NOMOTHETIC (TRAITS)
APPROACH TO PERSONALITY

This view of personality involves location of individuals within ‘personality types’ on the basis of their
traits. There is also a belief that personality is stable and unchanging, possibly as a result of
inherited characteristics

Five Key Dimensions of Personality-

Extraversion—introversion:
Conscientiousness:
Agreeableness:
Emotional stability:
Openness to experience:
 THE NOMOTHETIC (TRAITS)
APPROACH TO PERSONALITY

Locus of Control- measures the internal-external External locus of control,

orientation of a person, that is the extent to which Internal locus of control believe much of what happens
believe they control to them is beyond their control
a person feels able to affect his or her life. their own fate or destiny and is determined by
environmental forces

refers to the general conceptions people have

about whether events are controlled by
themselves primarily, which indicates an internal
orientation, or by outside forces or their social and
physical environment, which indicates an external
orientation
 THE NOMOTHETIC (TRAITS)
APPROACH TO PERSONALITY

Authoritarianism/Dogmatism- deal with the rigidity of a person’s beliefs.

highly authoritarian individuals to present a special problem because

they are so susceptible to obey authority that they may behave
unethically in their eagerness to comply

People high in dogmatism see the world as a threatening place. They

often regard legitimate authority as absolute, and accept or reject
others according to how much they agree with accepted authority.
Superiors possessing these latter traits tend to be rigid and closed.
 THE NOMOTHETIC (TRAITS)
APPROACH TO PERSONALITY

Machiavellianism- the personality profile of a Machiavellian, that is

someone who views and manipulates others purely for personal gain
 THE IDIOGRAPHIC APPROACH TO
PERSONALITY

The idiographic approach to understanding personality focuses on

individual uniqueness:

• Individuals are unique complex entities and should not be

located within typologies.

• Personality should be understood as a complete entity (should

not focus on particular traits).

• People’s personalities, closely related to their self-image, can

change (sometimes radically) owing to experience.
 EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE
Emotional intelligence- is one aspect of our emotional functioning
that complements cognitive forms of intelligence

Self report instrument of Emotional well being ( Reuven Bar- On)

An instrument that focuses more closely on awareness and management
of emotions is the Multifactor Emotional Intelligence Scale (MEIS).The four
dimensions on the MEIS are as follows:

• identifying emotions — awareness of, and the ability to identify, the

emotions you and others are feeling
• using emotions — the capacity to weigh up the emotional aspects of
values and attitudes when confronting problems and making decisions
• understanding emotions — the ability to understand complex emotions
and to recognize how emotions pass through stages over time
• managing emotions ~ the ability to exercise self-control and self-
regulation, and to empathize with and influence others.
 INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND
WORKPLACE DIVERSITY
Increasing diversity is creating unparalleled workplace challenges. Significant variations are
occurring in skill levels, education, physical abilities, cultural backgrounds, lifestyles, personal
values, individual needs, ethnicity and social values. This increasing diversity is changing the mix of
skills required to manage the workforce effectively.
 UNDERSTANDING VALUES AND
ATTITUDES
Values can be defined as broad preferences concerning appropriate courses of action
or outcomes. As such, they reflect a person’s sense of right and wrong, or what ‘ought’
to be

SOURCE AND TYPES OF VALUES

People’s values develop as a product of the learning and experiences they encounter
in the cultural setting in which they live. Because learning and experiences differ from
one person to another, value differences result
 UNDERSTANDING VALUES AND
ATTITUDES
Importance of Values

Values have the potential to influence workplace

attitudes, behaviors and outputs. In addition,
values can be influential through value
congruence, which occurs when individuals
express.
 UNDERSTANDING VALUES AND
ATTITUDES
Attitudes are influenced by values but they focus on
specific people or objects, whereas values have a
more general focus.

An attitude is a predisposition to respond in a positive

or negative way to someone or something in your
environment. When you say that you ‘like’ or ‘dislike’
someone or something you are expressing an
attitude

Component of Attitudes
attitudes as accompanied by antecedents and
results