Chapter 07

How important is the Perception Process???

Perception can be the source of

communication distortion and conflict
between people from different cultures.

The perception process influences much more

than the impressions people make about each
other.
Perception –
 A Cognitive Process
 Process of interpreting one’s environment
 Major function – To recognize objects

Social Cognition –
 A study of how people make sense of others and themselves
 How they think about people
 Depends heavily on cognitive psychology
Stage 1 – Selective Attention/Comprehension

Stage 2 – Encoding and Simplification

Stage 3 – Storage and Retention

Stage 4 – Retrieval and Response

Attention
 is the process of becoming consciously aware of
something or someone.
 it can be focused on information either from the
environment or from memory.

Salient Stimuli
 something is salient when it stands out from its
context
 one’s needs and goals often dictate which stimuli
are salient.
Encoding is required because observed information
is not stored in its original form.
In encoding, raw information is interpreted and or
interpreted into mental representations.
Schema – represents a persons mental picture or
summary of particular event or type of stimulus.
Encoding Outcomes or the interpretations usually
vary.
This phase involves storage of information in
long term memory.
Long Term memory is made up of the
following wings:-
 Event Memory
 Semantic Memory
 People Memory
People retrieve information from memory
when they make judgments and decisions.

Ultimate judgments are either based on the

 process of drawing on, interpreting, and integrating
categorical information stored in long term
memory.
 or on retrieving a summary judgment already made
in the past.
2 – MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS
 Social cognition is the window through which we all observe,
interpret, and prepare our responses to people & events. A
wide variety of managerial activities, organizational
processes, & quality-of-life issues are thus affected by
Perception. Consider, for example, the following
Implications.

 HIRING
 PERFORMANSCE APPRAISAL
 LEADERSHIP
 COMMUNICATION
 PHYSICAL & PSYCOLOGICAL WELL-BEING
 WEB PAGES
3- STEREOTYPES: PERCEPTIONS
ABOUT GROUP OF PEOPLE

Is an individual's set of beliefs about the

characteristics or attributes of a group.
Stereotypes are not always negative. For ex ,
the belief that engineers are good at math is
certainly part of a stereotype. Stereotypic
characteristics are used to differentiate a
particular group of people from other groups.
STEREOTYPING IS A FOUR-STEP
PROCESS
 Begins with categorizing people into groups
 Infer that all people within a particular category possess
the same traits or characteristics
 Then form expectations of others & interpret their
behavior according to stereotypes
 Finally, stereotypes are maintained by
* Overestimating the frequency of stereotypic
behaviors exhibited by others
* Incorrectly explaining expected & unexpected
behaviors
* Differentiating minority individuals from oneself.
4- SEX-ROLE STEREOTYPES
Is the belief that differing traits & abilities make
men and women particularly well suited to
different roles.

AGE STEREOTYPES

Age stereotypes reinforce age discrimination

because of their negative orientation

RACIAL & ETNIC STEREOTYPES