Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. PERCEPTION.........................................................................................................2
I. THE PERCEIVER ..................................................................................................................................................2 II. THE TARGET........................................................................................................................................................3 III. THE SITUATION..................................................................................................................................................4

2. ATTRIBUTION THEORY....................................................................................4
I. COVARIATION MODEL........................................................................................................................................5

3. SCHEMAS...............................................................................................................7
I. JUDGMENTAL HEURISTICS................................................................................................................................9

4. THE COMMON ERRORS IN SOCIAL PERCEPTION...................................9

I. THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR....................................................................................................9 II. SELF-SERVING ATTRIBUTIONS.......................................................................................................................10 III. STEREOTYPING................................................................................................................................................11 IV. HALO EFFECT..................................................................................................................................................12 V. CONTRAST EFECT.............................................................................................................................................13 VI. PROJECTION.....................................................................................................................................................13 VII. SELECTIVE PERCEPTION..............................................................................................................................14

5. CONCLUSION......................................................................................................14 REFERENCES..........................................................................................................16 WEBSITES................................................................................................................18

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Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________

1. PERCEPTION
The word perception comes from the Latin capere, meaning to take, and the prefix per-meaning completely. Perception can be defined as the act, process, or product of perceiving the ability or capacity to perceive, or a particular way of perceiving (newspaper influenced the publics perception of Princess Diana). In Psychology, a distinction is conventionally drawn between Sensation, the subjective experience of feeling that results from excitation of Sensory receptors, and perception, sensory experience that has been interpreted with reference to its presumed external stimulus object or event, this distinction having first been made in 1785 by Thomas Reid (1710-96), founder of the Scottish school of Psychological Philosophy, who pointed out that the agreeable fragrance of a rose is merely a sensation in as much as it can be experienced without thinking of a rose or of any other object, whereas the perception of a rose or of anything else always refers to the external object that is its cause compare apperception. In Social Psychology, the scientific study of the way in which peoples thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the real or imagined presence of other people (Allport, 1985). Other disciplines, like anthropology and sociology, are interested in how people are influenced by their social environment. Social psychologists believe it is more important to understand how people perceive, comprehend, and interpret the social world than it is to understand the objective properties of the social world itself (Lewin, 1943). It is the mind which creates the world about us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never sees what is beheld by yours (Gissing, 1903). This statement reminds us that we dont see reality. We interpret what we see and call it reality. How do we explain that individuals may look at the same thing yet perceive it differently? 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. I. THE PERCEIVER Individual perception can be varied from one to another due to the personal traits and influences by another person or environment. A personal characteristic such as attitude, interest, and motive influenced an individual interpretation to an object or event. For example: a half filled glass of ________________________________________________________________________________ Tan Ling Sze S7773094Z 2

Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ water may perceive by an optimistic person as Half Full, and for an pessimistic person as Half Empty. The perception interpret by the perceiver are more closely to what they think, wish, and believe then the reality itself. Personal past experience also play an important part for an individual perception. An experience, no matter its good or bad, whenever it experienced by an individual will memorize by a person and this will cause a person to perceive the similar event will bring the same effect to them. This consequences may cause the perceiver have more attention to the new thing which they never try and meet before rather then the one they knew it long ago. An unsatisfied needs and motives are the factors to influence our perception. Research showed students who have not taken his/her meal for few hours perceived the blur picture given in lecture class as foods, compare with the students who had eaten before. An interest of a person will also draw much attention to the objects or events which closely related to them. For example, the plastics surgeon may notice the imperfect nose then a farmer. Expectation of an individual such as adults always expect a young child to be naughty and playful, you may perceive them as such irregardless of their actual traits. II. THE TARGET Characteristics in the target that is being observed can affect what is perceived. A production manager in his shirt and tie is more likely to be noticed in a group of uniform operators. The target are not looked at in isolation, the relationship of a target to its background influences perception, as does we tend to group the similar things together. A target may have 2 way of interpretation, what we see may have to depend on how we separate a figure from its general background. See figure 1. An object may look like a white vase but if we take the white colour as background, we will see 2 black profiles.

Figure 1: Figure & Ground, http://encarta.msn.com/Figure_and_Ground.html

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Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ Objects that are close to each other will tend to be perceived together rather then separately. In addition, persons, objects, or events that are similar to each other also tend to be group together. The greater the similarity, the greater the probability we will tend to perceive them as a common group. Gestalt psychologists sincerely believed that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. In order to interpret what we receive through our senses, they theorized that we attempt to organize this information completely without unneeded repetition. For example, when you see one dot, you perceive it as such, but when you see five dots together, you group them together by saying a row of dots. Without this tendency to group our perceptions, that same row would be seen as dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, taking both longer to process and reducing our perceptive ability. The Gestalt principles of grouping include four types: similarity, proximity, continuity, and closure.

Figure 2: The Gestalt Principles of Group, AllPsychOnline.com III. THE SITUATION The context in which we see objects or events is important. Elements in the surrounding environment influence our perceptions. Rarely, we see a person wearing the winter jacket walking at Orchard road and if so, this will catch the peoples eyes. But if you are in winter season country, a female in her winter cloth seem normal but a female in her bikini definitely will attract the attention. Neither the perceiver nor the target changed between Orchard road with winter cloth and the winter season country with the bikini outfit, but the situation is different.

2. ATTRIBUTION THEORY
The most amazing features of human beings are this: They can explain anything. They have a strong need to understand and explain what is going on in our world. Because people must explain, it opens up some interesting influence possibilities. If they can affect how people understand and explain what is going on, they might be able to influence them, too. There is a theory about how people explain things. It is called Attribution Theory.

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Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ Attribution Theory is a description of the way in which people explain the causes of their own and other peoples behavior. According to the attribution theory, we tend to explain our own behavior and the behavior of others by assigning attributes to these behaviors. Fritz Heider (1958) is frequently referred to as the father of attribution theory. His influential book defined the field of social perception and his legacy is still very much evident in current research (Gilbert, 1998). One of Heiders (1958) most valuable contributions is a simple dichotomy: When trying to decide why people behave as they do for example, why a father has just yelled at his son we can make one of two attributions. We can make an internal attribution, deciding that the cause of the fathers behavior was something about him his disposition, personality, attitudes, or character an explanation that assigns the causality of his behavior internally. For example, we might decide that the farther has poor parenting skills and disciplines his child in inappropriate ways. Conversely, we can make an external attribution, deciding that the cause of his behavior was something about the situation such as the fact that his son had just stepped into the street without looking an explanation that assigns the causality of his behavior externally (i.e., it was the childs actions that triggered the fathers behavior, not something distinctive about the fathers personality, attitudes, or character). I. COVARIATION MODEL When we explaining other peoples behaviors, we look for similarities (co variation) across a range of situations to help us narrow down specific attributions. Co variation model is a theory which states that in order to form an attribution about what caused a persons behavior, we systematically note the pattern between the presence (or absence) of possible causal factors whether or not the behavior occurs. This theory developed by Harold Kelly (1967) who took a somewhat different approach on his theory of attribution. Kelley (1967) focused on the first step in the process of social perception how people decide whether to make an internal or an external attribution. Co variation model applies to multiple instances of behavior, occurring across time and across different situations (e.g., Did your friend refuse to lend you his car in the past? Does he lend it to other people? Does he dislike lending you others possessions of his?). Kelley (1967) assumes that when we are in the process if forming an attribution, we gather information or data that will help us reach a judgment. There are three important types if information: consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency. Lets describe these three through an example: You are working at your part-time job in a restaurant and you observe your captain yelling ________________________________________________________________________________ Tan Ling Sze S7773094Z 5

Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ at another employee, Linda, telling her in no certain terms that shes an idiot. Without any conscious effort on your part, you pose that attributional question: Why the Captain is yelling at Linda and being so critical is it something about the Captain, or is it something about the situation that surrounds and affects him? In this case, lets look at how model of covariation assessment answers this question. Consensus information refers to how people behave toward the same stimulus. Do other people at work also yell at Linda and criticize her? Distinctiveness information refers to how the actor (the person whose behavior we are trying to explain) responds to other stimuli. Does the Captain yell and demean other employees in the restaurant? Consistency information refers to the frequency with which the observed behavior between the same actor and the same stimulus occurs across time and circumstances. Does the Captain yell at and criticize Linda regularly and frequently, whether the restaurant is busy with the customers or empty? When these three sources of information combine into one of two distinct patterns, a clear attribution can be made. People are most likely to make an internal attribution (deciding the behavior was due to something about the boss) when the consensus and distinctiveness of the act are low but its consistency is high (Figure 3). We would be pretty confident that the Captain yelled at Linda because he is mean and vindictive person if we knew that no one else yells at Linda, that the Captain yells at others employees, and that the Captain yells at Linda every chance he gets. People are likely to make an external attribution (in this case, about Linda) if consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency are all high. Finally, when consistency is low we cannot make a clear internal or external attribution and so resort to a special kind of external or situational attribution, one that assumes something unusual or peculiar is going on in these circumstances for example, the Captain just received very upsetting news and lost his temper with the first person he saw. Why did the Captain yell at his employee, Linda? People are likely to Low in consensus: Low make an internal the Captain is the distinctiveness: it was only the working about in the at all the attribution something behavior as People are in High in consistency: the Captain yells at Linda almost

person the Captain yells every time he sees her

Captain if they se this restaurant who yells employees likely to at Linda High in consensus: High in High in consistency: the

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Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ make an external all of the employees distinctiveness: it was yell at Linda too the of the doesnt yell at any other Captain yells at Linda almost

attribution

Captain every time he sees her

something about Linda if they see this behavior as People peculiar are likely

employees to Low or High in Low or High in Low in consistency: this is distinctiveness the first time that the Captain has yelled at Linda the

think it was something consensus about particular circumstances in which the Captain yelled at Linda if they

see this behavior as Figure 3: The covariation model, Social Psychology, Third Edition The co variation model portrays people as master detectives, deducing the causes of behavior as systematically and logically. However, people sometimes arent that accurate or rational when forming judgments about others. Sometimes they distort information to satisfy their need for high self-esteem. Other times they use mental shortcut that, while often helpful, can lead to inaccurate judgments. There are several shortcuts frequently used by us when judging others, there are categorized understand Attribution Theory and Schemas Theory.

3. SCHEMAS
Scientist develop many theories and hypotheses about their specialty, be it the behavior of subatomic particles of witnesses to an emergency. All of us, in our everyday lives, also develop theories that help us understand ourselves and the social world. These theories, called Schemas, are mental structures people use to organize their knowledge about the social world around themes or topics (Bartlett, 1932; Markus, 1977; Taylor & Crocker, 1981). We have Schemas about many things other people, ourselves, social roles and specific events. In each case, our Schemas contain our basis knowledge and impressions. Schemas profoundly affect what information we notice, think about and later remember (Kerr & Stanfel, 1993; Trafimow & Schneider, 1994; Trafimow & Wyer, 1993; Von Hippel, Jonides, Hilton, & Narayan, 1993). Schemas also act as filters, straining our information that is contradictory to or inconsistent with the prevailing theme (Fiske, 1993; Higgins & Bargh, 1987; Olson, Roese, & Zanna, 1996; Stangor & ________________________________________________________________________________ Tan Ling Sze S7773094Z 7

Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ McMillan, 1992). Sometimes, of course, a fact can be so in consistent with a schema that we cannot ignore or forget it. For example, Claudia Cohen (1981) showed people a video tape of a woman engaged in various activities and identified her as either a librarian or a waitress. When later asked to recall scenes from the video, the participants more accurately recalled information that was consistent with the occupational label, such as the fact that the librarian had been listening to classical music. In addition, human memory is reconstructive. We dont remember exactly what occurred in a given setting, as if our minds were a film camera recording the precise images and sounds. Instead, we remember some information that was there (particularly information our schema leads us to noticed and pay attention to) and we remember other information that was never there but we have unknowingly added later (Darley & Akert, 1991; Markur & Zajorc, 1985). For example, in Cohens (1981) librarian/ waitress study, participants misremembered what beverage the librarian had been drinking in the video tape. They reconstructed the scene in memory so that she was drinking wine, not beer, because that fit their schema of what a librarian would drink or we called this as stereotype judgment. Schemas can sometimes make us misperceive the world but schemas are particularly important when we encounter information that can interpret in a number of ways, because they provide us with a way of reducing this ambiguity. It is so important to us to have continuity, to relate new experiences to our past schemas, which people who lose this ability invent schemas where none exist. Cultures play an important source of our schemas in which we grow up. Across cultures, there are fundamental differences in peoples schemas about themselves and the social world, with some interesting consequences. Schemas can be useful, because they allow us to take shortcuts in interpreting a vast amount of information. However, these mental frameworks also cause us to exclude pertinent information in favor of information that confirms our pre-existing beliefs and ideas. Schemas can contribute to stereotypes and make it difficult to retain new information that does not conform to our established schemas.

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Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ I. JUDGMENTAL HEURISTICS People often use mental shortcuts called judgmental heuristics in which refer to mental shortcuts people use to make judgments quickly and efficiently. We use judgmental heuristics to help us deal with the large amount of social information with which we are faced. The ability of availability heuristic, which is basing a judgment on the ease with which you can bring something to mind (Manis Shedler, Jonides, & Nelson, 1993; Rothman & Hardin, 1997; Schwarz et al., 1991; Tversky & Kahneman, 1973; Wanke, Schwarz, & Bless 1995). One example of the influence of availability is counterfactual thinking that is, mentally changing some aspect of the past as a way of imagining what might have been. The ease with which people can bring to mind alternative scenarios is an example of the use of the availability heuristic, and it can influence peoples emotional reactions to event. The representativeness heuristic helps us decide how similar one thing is to another; we use it to classify people or situations on the basis of their similarity to a typical case. When using this heuristic, we have a tendency to ignore base rate information the prior probability that something or someone belongs in that classification. People also rely on the anchoring and adjustment heuristic, wherein an initial piece of information acts an anchor, or starting point, for subsequent thoughts on the topic. One example of anchoring and adjustment is biased sampling, whereby people make generalizations from samples of information they know are biased or atypical. Finally, though all three heuristics are useful, they can also lead to incorrect conclusion.

4. THE COMMON ERRORS IN SOCIAL PERCEPTION

People are often very wrong about one another. For example, we overestimate the likelihood that a person who has told a lie one day will lie in a similar context the next day, and we underestimate the likelihood that a social situation will coerce people into doing repugnant acts. We are almost completely ignorant of the context to which our judgments on many topics, from matters of pure opinion to simple perceptual judgment, are shaped by our awareness of the opinion of others. I. THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR Fundamental attribution error (Heider, 1958; Jones & Nisbett, 1971) is defined as people assign to one another more definite individual propensities to specific types of behavior, independent of the effects of the environment, than is in fact the case or is justified by the evidence available to them. Why is the tendency to explain behavior is terms of peoples dispositions called the fundamental ________________________________________________________________________________ Tan Ling Sze S7773094Z 9

Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ attribution error? Is it not always wrong to make an internal attribution; clearly, people often do what they do because of the kind of people they are. However, there is ample evidence that social situations can have a large impact on behavior; indeed, the major lesson of social psychology is that these influences can be extremely powerful. The point of the fundamental attribution error is that people tend to underestimate these influences when explaining other peoples behavior. Even when a situational constraint on behavior is obvious, people persist in making internal attributions. Why do people commit the fundamental attribution error? One reason is that we explain someones behavior by focus on the person but not the surrounding situation (Heider, 1958; Jones & Nisbett, 1971). For example, Ali come to school late today and the teacher assume Ali late because he overslept. But in fact, the reason Ali late to school may be cause by others external factor such as the school bus breakdown when on the way to school or due to traffic jam, etc. The situation causes of another persons behavior are practically invisible to us. If we dont know what happened to a persons earlier in the day, we cant use that situational information to help us understand his/her current behavior and its effects on his/her behavior. Thus, information about the situational causes of behavior is frequently unavailable to us and/ or difficult to interpret accurately (Gilbert & Malone, 1995). II. SELF-SERVING ATTRIBUTIONS Self-serving attributions refer to our tendency to take credit for our successes (by making internal attributions) but to blames others (or the situation) for our failures (Miller & Ross, 1975). Many studies have shown that people make internal attributions when they do well on but make external attributions when they do poorly. Who is more likely to make self-serving attribution? Richard Lau & Dan Russell (1980) examined the explanations made by professional athletes and coaches for why their team won of lost a game. When explaining their victories, the athletes and coaches over-whelming pointed to aspects of their own teams of players; in fact, 80 percent of the attribution for wins were to such internal factors. Losses were more likely to be attributed to things external to ones own team. For example, Soccer team players may attributes their winning to their own effort, skills and teamwork but when they lost the game they will attributed to bad luck, bad weather or unfamiliar environment. The research also found that less experiences athletes were more likely to make self-serving attributions than experienced ones. Experienced athletes realize that losses sometimes are their fault and that wins are not always due to them. ________________________________________________________________________________ Tan Ling Sze S7773094Z 10

Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________

People make self-serving attributions because they try to maintain their self-esteem whenever possible, even if that means distorting reality by changing cognition. A second reason is how we present ourselves to other people (Goffman, 1959). We want people to think well of us and to admire u. Telling other that our poor performance was due to some external cause is such a self presentational strategy in fact, we sometimes call it making excuses! A third reason people make self-serving attribution is about the information that is available to people. For example, a student in Chemistry class, John, who did poorly on the test. John knows that he studied very hard for the test, which he typically does well on Chemistry tests, and that in general he is a very good student. The D on the Chemistry test comes as a surprise. The most logical attribution John can make is that the test was unfair the D grade wasnt due to a lack of ability or effort on his part. However, the professor knows that some students did well on the test; thus given the information that is available to the professor, it is logical for him or her to conclude that John and not the fact that it was a difficult test, was responsible for the poor grade. III. STEREOTYPING Stereotyping occurs when we assume that others have the same characteristics or attributes simply because they belong to a certain group or category. A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image, based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the other group hold in common. Stereotypes may be positive or negative in tone. Such as, it helps us simplifying a complex world and it permits us to maintain consistency. Inversely, it distorts our judgment because they are typically generalizations based on minimal or limited knowledge about a group to which the person doing the stereotyping does not belong. Persons may be grouped based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or any number of other categories. For example, all black men are good at basketball or all prisoners are not trustworthy and all women are lousy drivers illustrate stereotyping. One reason for stereotypes is the lack of personal, concrete familiarity that individuals have with persons in other racial or ethnic groups. Lack of familiarity encourages the lumping together of unknown individuals. Therefore, stereotypes lack accuracy. People who stereotype do not collect enough information about others to describe behaviors or characteristics accurately. They usually base on the first impression or comment from others to make judgments. Some people even have biases against certain type of ethnic groups.

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Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ Stereotypes can be favorable or unfavorable. Employee who favor by the employer will be stereotypes as hardworking and responsible worker but if the employee is unfavorable by the employer will be perceived as lazy and irresponsible when both of the employees cant complete the their tasks as given or late to work. Errors in judgment like stereotype result the misunderstanding and inequitable treatment at the work place lead to low morale in teamwork. IV. HALO EFFECT Halo effect is operating when we draw a general impression about a person based on a single characteristic such as appearance, intelligence or sociability. Attractive people are often judged as having a more desirable personality and more skills than someone of average appearance. For example, celebrities are used to endorse products that they have no expertise in evaluating. Edward L. Thorndike (1920) was the first to support the halo effect with empirical research. In a psychology study, Thorndike (1920) asked commanding officers to rate their soldiers; as a result, he found high cross-correlation between all positive and all negative traits. People seem not to think of other individuals in mixed terms, instead we seem to see each person as roughly good or roughly bad across all categories of measurement. Individual often exhibit their best behavior in the presence of authority figures, presumable to avoid being accosted by said figures. The halo effect is also a term used in human resources recruitment. While interviewing a person, we might be influenced by one of their attributes and ignore their other weaknesses. In brand marketing, a halo effect is one where the perceived positive features of a particular item extend to a broader brand. It has been used to describe how the iPod has had positive an effect on perceptions of Apples other products. The term is also widely used in the automotive industry, where a manufacturer may produce an exceptional halo vehicle in order to promote sales of an entire marquee. Modern cars often described as halo vehicles include the BMW, Mercedes Benz, Toyota and Honda. A corollary to the halo effect is the devil effect, or horn effect, where individuals judged to have a single undesirable trait are subsequently judged to have many poor traits, allowing a single weak point or negative trait to influence others perception of the person in general. Said another way, if we are told that we are seeing a person that has just returned from psychiatric treatment, we will tend to interpret otherwise neutral behaviors as indicators of mental illness. ________________________________________________________________________________ Tan Ling Sze S7773094Z 12

Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ V. CONTRAST EFECT Contrast effect refer to evaluations of a persons characteristics that are affected by comparison with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics. An old adage among entertainers who perform in variety shows advises; never follow an act that has kids or animals in it. Its because the common belief is that audience love children and animals so much, you will look bad in comparison. Contrast effects are ubiquitous throughout human and non-human animal perception, cognition, and resultant performance. A hefted weight is perceived as heavier than normal when contrasted with a lighter weight. It is perceived as lighter than normal when contrasted with a heavier weight. An animal works harder than normal for a given amount of reward when that amount is contrasted with a lesser amount and works less energetically for that given amount when it is contrasted with a greater amount. A person appears more appealing than normal when contrasted with a person of less appeal and less appealing than normal when contrasted with one if greater appeal. VI. PROJECTION Its easy to judge others if we assume they are similar to us. Projection is the tendency to attribute ones own characteristics to other people, which can distort perceptions made about others. Often, we found the manager or supervisor project their subordinates to have same characteristics like them. If they are trustworthy, hardworking and intelligent, they take it for grated that all their co-workers should have the same characteristic or behavior. Projection happens to obliterate attributes of other people with which we are uncomfortable. We assume that they are like us, and in doing so we allow ourselves to ignore those attributes they have with which we are uncomfortable. Neurotic projection perceives others as operating in ways one unconsciously finds objectionable in you. Complementary projection is assuming that others do, think and feel in the same way as you. Complimentary projection is assuming that others can do things as well as you. Projection also appears where we see our own traits in other people, as in the false consensus effect. Thus we see our friends as being more like us than they really are. For example, I do not like another person. But I have a value that says I should like everyone. So I project onto them that they

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Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ do not like me. This allows me to avoid them and also to handle my own feelings to dislike. Another example, an unfaithful husband suspects his wife of infidelity. VII. SELECTIVE PERCEPTION People selectively interpret what they see based on their interests, background, experience, and attitudes. Selective perception from a psychological standpoint is how we view our world to create or justify our own reality (Sherif & Cantril, 1945). Any characteristic that makes a person, object, or event stand out will increase the probability it will be perceived. For example, we notice more the cars which it same like us or we notice the cars which is rarely see on the road such as Porsche or Ferrari. Selectivity worked as a shortcut in judging other people because selective perception allows us to speed-read others, but not without the risk of drawing an inaccurate picture. Because we see what we want to see, we can draw unwarranted conclusion from an ambiguous situation. If rumor is going around the office that your companys sales are down and large layoffs may be coming, a routine visit by a senior executive from headquarters might be interpreted as the first step in managements identification of people to be fired, when in reality such an action may be the furthest thing from the mind of the senior executive.

5. CONCLUSION
Perception is important to us. Our perception influenced our behavior, so as others. Its important to know ones perception before we have further conversation, discussion or bargaining with them. Ones personal attitudes, characteristic, experiences, expectation, interest or even culture play an important role to influence perception. Perception can be very subjective as it is also relate to interpersonal cognition. For example, you may perceived your colleague Tom, who you work with many years, is an intelligent, hardworking, dare to take challenges person. But a colleague who just join a week and does not work with Tom before will perceived Tom aggressiveness, high-Mac, high self-esteem characteristics as show off, over demanding and unfriendly because Tom didnt talk to him or her. We may found this situation often happened in our daily life, either in office, family, school, or in a country. Different perception among individual may causes the negative effect such as argument or war. For instance, China claims that Taiwan is belong to China as part of their territory but why Taiwan refuse to return to mainland as to be one China? China believe that the return of Taiwan will bring more opportunity become a stronger country towards the world. But Taiwan perceived ________________________________________________________________________________ Tan Ling Sze S7773094Z 14

Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________ the return will reduced their opportunity as an independent country. So, what is your perception against this issue? To be a stronger nation which can lead the world is more important or to be an independence country is more important? Perception is lies in the eye of beholder. The reality we see is not the reality itself but is the interpretation of our belief, desire or wish. Sometimes, perception can be distorted by others factors or our mental shortcuts. For example, schemas often operate automatically and unintentionally, and can leas us to biases in perception and memory. Heuristic are cognitive short cuts. Instead of weighing all the evidence when making a decision, people rely on heuristics to save time and energy. If one can understand how the world is perceived and experienced by another person. Then one can predict that persons behavior. This explains the important to understand other person perception in order to conduct persuasion that attempts to guide people toward the adoption of an attitude, idea, or behavior by rational or emotive means.

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Organisation Behaviour ________________________________________________________________________________

REFERENCES
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WEBSITES
http:// www.socialpsychology.org/ http:// wwwspsp.org/ http://allpsych.com/psyhology101/percpetion.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_perception http://changingminds.org/explanations/theories/stereotypes.htm http://wps.prenhall.com/hss_aronson_demo_4/41/10520.cw/index.html http://www.socialpsychology.org/expts.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schema_(psychology) http://www.questia.com/ http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761571997/Perception_(psychology).html

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