INTRODUCTION TO

PERCEPTION
 TYPES OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOURS
IN ORGANIZATIONS
TASK PERFORMANCE: Goal directed behaviours under the
individual’s control that support organizational objectives. These
include physical as well as mental processes leading to behaviours.
For e.g. Foreign exchange traders make decisions and take actions to
exchange currencies.

ORGANISATIONAL CITIZENSHIP BEHAVIOURS: Behaviours that

extend beyond the employee’s normal job duties. These include
helping others without selfish intent, being actively involved in
organizational activities, avoiding unnecessary conflict etc.
COUNTERPRODUCTIVE WORK BEHAVIOURS: Voluntary
behaviours that are potentially harmful to the organization’s
effectiveness. These behaviours negatively affects the
functioning or property or by hurting employees in a way that
will reduce their effectiveness. Five categories of CWBs: abuse of
others(insults and nasty comments), threats, work
avoidance(e.g. tardiness), work sabotage(doing work
incorrectly) and theft.

Several factors influences CWBs example stress causes

workplace violence and aggression, perceptions of org. injustice
also predict theft, sabotage, tardiness. CWBs are also associated
with personality types.
Job Satisfaction: A person’s evaluation of his or her job and
work context. When employees become dissatisfied with the
job they search for and join another organization.

Job satisfaction however leads to improved performance,

commitment and employee retention
INTRODUCTION TO
PERCEPTION
Perception is an essential factor in determining individual
behaviour both inside and outside an organisation. We all look
at events that happen to us, or situations that occur, in
different ways. Imagine your favourite team losing a match.

As a supporter you might perceive that this has been caused
by the team having poor players; a fellow supporter may see
the outcome as a result of poor management; and yet another
supporter may see it as a significant improvement on previous
defeats! We are all looking at the same situation (the actual
match) but from a different perspective and thus our reactions
to the situation may differ considerably.
INTRODUCTION TO
PERCEPTION
Within an organisation a continual stream of things may take
place and yet these can be perceived very differently by
individuals. Imagine an organization announcing an impending
reorganisation.

This may be perceived by some in the organisation as an

opportunity for advancement through new job opportunities,
whereas others might see it as a threat to their existing job:
thus some may welcome the change and others may seek to
resist it.
THE CONCEPT OF
PERCEPTION
So what is perception? In simple terms it is how we view and
interpret the events and situations in the world about us.
It can be looked upon as a cognitive process and a social
information process whereby we go through the process of:
 picking up some external stimuli, such as some event or
perhaps some personal interaction;
screening, when we only acknowledge the stimuli we choose
to acknowledge;
some interpretation and categorisation of these stimuli,
possibly based on previous experience or on our upbringing.
Thus, in the previously mentioned example, perhaps the
external stimulus is hearing that my team has lost yet again. I
may screen this information in a negative manner, assuming
that something is wrong with the team rather than that it has
just had a bad day.

Finally, I may interpret this information on the basis of

previous experience of supporting the team, and decide that it
is a further example of bad management.
PERCEPTUAL BIASES
However, one must be aware of a number of factors that can
distort this whole process.
1. Perceptual stereotyping, where generalisations are made
about certain groups of people. It’s the process of assigning
traits to people based on their membership in a social
category(observable groups to which they belong).
E.g. Gender, appearance, physical location.
Observable features allow us to assign people toa social group
quickly and without much investigation
 WHY STEREOTYPING OCCURS
Trying to absorb the unique attributes about each person we meet
is a huge cognitive challenge, there is too much information to
remember.
We have a strong need to understand and anticipate how others
will behave, we don’t have much information when first meeting
someone, so we rely heavily on stereotypes to fill in the missing
pieces.
Stereotyping also enhances our self concept(perception): To
enhance our self-concept, we tend to emphasize the positive aspect
of the group we belong and to emphasize the negative aspect of
contrasting group.
 PROBLEMS WITH STEROTYPING
Stereotypes generally have some inaccuracies, some overestimation or
underestimation of real differences, and some degree of accuracy.
One problem is that stereotyped does not accurately describe every
person in that social category. For instance, people with physical
disabilities are stereotyped as being quit, gentle-hearted, shy , insecure,
dependent and submissive(although these maybe true of some people it
is certainly not of everyone).
Another concern is that stereotypes causes us to ignore or misinterpret
information that is inconsistent with the stereotype(selective
perception).
A more serious problem of stereotyping is that it lays the foundation for
prejudice and intentional or unintentional discrimination.
Prejudice refers to unfounded negative emotions and attitudes
towards people belonging to a particular stereotyped group. For
e.g. in a recent survey in Hong Kong, most boys indicated that it’s
unthinkable for men to have female bosses.

Unintentional discrimination occurs when decision makers rely on

stereotypes to establish notions of the “ideal” person in specific
roles(e.g. age discrimination). Recruiters say they aren’t biased
against older job applicants, yet older workers have a much more
difficulty gaining employment
 MINIMIZING STEREOTYPING
Most scholars agree that categorizing information(including
stereotyping) is a natural process related to the mechanics of brain
functioning and we cannot completely avoid it.
However, stereotyping can be avoided through:
Meaningful interaction(have people interact with each other); this
practice is based on the contact hypothesis, which says the more we
interact with someone, the less we rely on stereotypes to understand
that person.
Diversity awareness training: Most diversity programmes educate
employees about the organizational benefits of diversity and the
problems with stereotyping. Many try to dispel myths about people
in a social group.
 HALO EFFECT
 ‘Halo effect’ may apply, where the perceivers pick upon a
particular attribute of the perceived and it is this which
determines their overall perception.

 It may be that the perceived communicates well, or has a good

sense of humour, or is seen as ‘one of the gang’ in a social
setting, and this may influence perceptions irrespective of the
new leader’s ability.
Another possible distortion can arise from self-fulfilling prophecies –
the expectation that others will act in certain ways no matter what
they actually do or say.
Henry continually employed inexperienced staff because he saw the
potentials of these new hires and treated them as winners. His
strategy worked as the employees developed self confidence and
exceptional performance and this made his company one of the larges
printing firm in America.
Thus self perception occurs when our expectations about another
person causes that person to act in a way that is consistent with those
expectations.
This is to say that our perceptions can influence reality.
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
The concept of attribution is related to perception in that it
seeks to evaluate the way we perceive our own behaviour and
the behaviour of others:

The perceptual process of deciding whether an observed

behaviour or event is caused largely by internal or external
factors.
TYPES OF ATTRIBUTION
Internal attributions; it occurs when we decide that an
observed event or behavior originates from within a person,
such as the individual’s ability or motivation.

Eg. we make internal attribution by believing that an

employee performs the job poorly because he/she lacks the
necessary competencies.
 External attribution, on the other hand, suggests that external
forces, such as factors in the organisation, are the cause of the event
or situation such as lack of resources, other or just luck.
External attribution occurs when we believe that the employee
performs the job poorly because he/she doesn’t receive sufficient
resources to do the task.
Kelley developed this concept by looking at whether we
attribute other people’s behaviour as being a product of either
internal or external causes.
He based this analysis on three key factors:
● Consensus: do other people in the same situation behave in
the same way?
● Distinctiveness: was the observed behaviour distinctive or
does the person behave in the same way in other situations?
● Consistency: has the person always behaved in this way over
a period of time?
INTERNAL ATTRIBUTION

Frequently(high Frequently(low Seldom(low

consistency) distinctiveness) consensus)
Consistency
How often did this Distinctiveness Consensus
person act this way in How often does the How often do other
the past person act this way in people act this way in
other settings? similar situations?
……………………….
………………………… ………………………………
Frequently
Seldom Seldom (high consensus)
Low consistency High distinctiveness

External Attribution
SCENARO
The answers to the above questions depend on the judgement
of the perceiver.
Imagine that you (as a senior manager) receive a complaint
about the behaviour of one of your middle managers towards a
client.
If on investigation you find that no other client has complained
about any other manager, this would imply low consensus,
whereas if there were a number of complaints about a number
of managers it would imply high consensus.
If there had been complaints about the same manager in a
different context it would imply low distinctiveness, but if
there had not been any previous complaints about this
manager in different areas of the organisation it would suggest
that the manager’s action was very distinctive and thus had
high distinctiveness.
Finally, if there had been complaints about this manager over a
period of time it would suggest high consistency, whereas if
there was no history of complaints about the manager it would
suggest low consistency.
If, following this analysis, you ascertain that the attributional
characteristics of the manager are low consensus, low
distinctiveness and high consistency, this would imply that the
behaviour of the manager arose from internal characteristics
rather than being the result of external forces.
This is a case of internal attribution and you may consider that
there was something about the behaviour of this manager that
needed further investigation.
If, however, a pattern of high consensus, high distinctiveness
and low consistency emerged, it might suggest that the action
of the manager was primarily determined by external factors,
that is, it was a case of external attribution.

As a result you may consider that this was a unique event

which may reflect more on the nature of the complainant than
on the specific behaviour of the manager concerned.
FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION
ERROR
The tendency to attribute the behaviour of other people more
to internal than external factors.

We assume that aspects of their attribution are determined by

their own personality, intelligence, moods and so on rather
than accept that external factors may have had some impact on
their behaviour.
For example, we may observe a colleague who is forgetting
things or snapping at other people and attribute this to their
personality, whereas in reality it may be a stress reaction
caused by external factors over which the individual has no
control.