UNIT II

Attention

⚫The process through which certain

stimuli are selected from a group of
others is generally referred to as
attention.
Properties of Attention
⚫Alertness: an individual’s readiness to deal with
stimuli that appear before him/her. Eg: in a marathon,
participants on starting line in an alert state waiting
for whistle to blow in order to run.
⚫Concentration: focusing of awareness on certain
specific objects while excluding others for the
moment. Eg: in an examination hall, students ignores
all sort of distraction and concentrates on teacher’s
instructions.
⚫Search: observer looks for some specified subset of
objects among a set of objects. Eg: going to vegetable
market and picking desired vegetables among others.
Types of Attention

⚫Selective Attention
⚫Sustained Attention (Vigilance)
⚫Divided Attention
Selective Attention

⚫It is concerned mainly with the selection of

stimuli/objects from a large number of stimuli.
⚫Our perceptual system has a limited capacity to receive
and process information due to which it can deal with
few stimuli at a given moment.
Sustained Attention (Vigilance)
⚫It is concerned with concentration.

⚫Sometimes people have to concentrate on a particular

task for many hours (air traffic controllers, radar
readers). They have to constantly watch and monitor
signals on screen, the occurrence of signals in such
situations is usually unpredictable and errors in
detecting signals may be fatal. Hence a great deal of
vigilance is required in those situations.
Divided Attention
⚫On certain occasions, attention can be allocated to
more than one thing at the same time.
⚫Fro eg: driving a car and talking to a friend/ listening
to music.
⚫Here if we watch them closely, we will notice that they
are still allocating more effort to driving than to other
activities.
⚫However, this become possible only with high practise.
⚫They become almost automatic and require less
attention to perform .
Perception
⚫Perception refers to the way we try to understand the
world around us.

⚫Perception is a process by which individuals organize

and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give
meaning to their environment.
Perceptual Process
Attention Feedback

Sense Registration Interpretation Action

Organ

Interest Consequences
Perceptual Process
⚫ 1. Process of Receiving Stimuli:
It is received through five sensory organs . Stimuli may be
external and internal. External – sound, video. Internal –
digestive system, secretion of hormones.

⚫ 2. Process of Organising:
⚫ Figure Ground: assigns a contour to one of the two abutting
regions.
⚫ Perceptual Grouping: principles by means of which a set of
discrete elements are partitioned into groups by visual system.
⚫ Perceptual Constancy: tendency to see familiar objects as
having standard shape, size or colour irrespective of distance
or lightning.
 Perceptual Constancy : Door
is similar to appear rectangle
shape

Perceptual Grouping

Figure-Ground
⚫ 3. Process of Interpreting

⚫ Perceptual Set : previously held beliefs about objects.

⚫ Attribution: refers to the process by which the individuals

assign causes to the behaviour he conceives. Factors such as
status, intentions and consequences.

⚫ Stereotyping: it is the process of judging someone on the basis

of one’s perception of the group to which that perception
belongs to. It provides us a short cut to predicting behaviour.

⚫ Halo Effect: it refers to the tendency of forming a general

impression about an individual on the basis of a single
characteristic. Need not always be positive characteristic.
⚫Perceptual Context: the context in which an object is
placed in perception.

⚫Perpetual Defence: an individual is likely to put a

defence when confronted with conflicting,
unacceptable or threatening stimuli.
⚫4.Process of Checking:
⚫ Check by introspection
⚫ Checking about the interpretation with the others.

⚫5. Process of Reacting:

⚫ Shall indulge in some action in relation to his
perception.
Factors influencing Perception
Factors in the Perceiver
⚫Attitude: evaluative statements or judgements
concerning objects, people or value.
⚫Reflects how we feel about something.
⚫Motives: it reflects stimuli that cause to perform
particular action. It states goals, purpose perceived by
perceiver from event, situation, etc.

⚫Interest: is a state that power the force, an attitude has

towards manifestation in a person’s behaviour.

⚫Expectations: is a state that anticipation of a particular

behaviour from a person. Affects what a person
perceives.
⚫Experience: experience and knowledge serve as basis
for perception. While one’s successful experience
enhance his/her perceptive ability, failure erodes
his/her self confidence. Successful experience also
helps perceiver understand stimuli with more
accuracy.
Factors in the Situation
⚫Time: is a construction of the brain that can also be
manipulated and studied through a variety of
experiments.
⚫Factors that affect one’s perception of how time passes
are level of fatigue, level of concentration , depression
and happiness.
⚫Work Setting:
⚫Social Setting (how an individual perceives other)

⚫ Social perception is that part of perception that allows

people to understand the other people in their social
world.

⚫ Social perceptions can obviously be flawed – even skilled

observers can misperceive, misjudge and reach the
wrong conclusion. Once we form wrong impressions,
they are likely to persist.
Factors in the Target
⚫Novelty : novel or something unique or a peculiar idea
is likely to attract anyone’s attract attention. White
person or black person in India catches attention
faster.
⚫Motion: people gives more attention to moving objects
that the stationery objects.

⚫Sounds: loudness is a psycho-physical sensation

perceived by the human auditory perception or the
human ear/brain mechanism. Furthermore, for speech,
music and many other sounds, the physical
characteristics of the sound produce hearing sensations
in the listener. Eg: TV Advertisement, Radio
Advertisement.

⚫Size: larger object is more likely to be noticed than a

smaller object.
⚫Size: which one can you read fast?

⚫Background:
⚫Similarity: how items that are similar in some way tend
to be grouped together. On similarities and differences
in cultural perceptions in the environment.
⚫Proximity: proximity or geographical proximity is an
important factor for formation of groups. For the same
reason, an individual behaviour may be perceived to
be group behaviour.
⚫But the reality is that not all the balls are happy, but
sad.
Social Perception
⚫An active process (or a set of processes) through which
we seek to know and understand others.
⚫What do non-verbal cues tell us?
⚫How do we explain other’s behaviour?
⚫What types of errors bias our thinking?
⚫How do we form first impression of others?
Factors influencing Social Perception
⚫Non verbal communication
⚫ facial expressions
⚫ Eye contact
⚫ Body language
⚫ Touching

⚫Attribution
⚫ Theory of Correspondent Inference
⚫ Kelly’s Theory of Causal Attributions
⚫ Basic Sources of Error

⚫Impression Formation & Impression Management

Non-Verbal Communication
⚫ Information about our inner states is often revealed through
five basic channels : Facial Expressions, Eye Contact, Body
Movements. Postures and Touching.

⚫ Facial Expressions:
⚫ The face is the image of the soul.
⚫ It reflect individual’s underlying emotions.

⚫ Eye Contact:
⚫ Windows to the soul.
⚫ Often learn much of other’s feelings from their eyes.
⚫ Gazing- sign of liking or friendliness; Staring – a negative mode.
⚫Body Language:
⚫ One’s current moods or emotions are often reflected in
the position, posture and movement of our bodies, in
which, provide us with useful information about others.
⚫ Large number of movements = emotional arousal.

⚫Touching:
⚫ Most intimate nonverbal cues.
⚫ It can suggest affection, sexual interest, dominance,
caring or even aggression.
Attribution
⚫Refers to the process of understanding and thinking
about people within social situations, as one tends to
try and explain the behaviour of others.

⚫Correspondent Inference Theory:

⚫ Coined by Jones and Davis in 1965.
⚫ This theory simply says that people try to explain
behaviour by finding a match between the behaviour
they can see and the stable qualities/personality traits of
the person displaying it.
⚫Keller’s Theory of Casual Attribution:
⚫ Illustrates that knowledge of behaviour is used to make
attributions based on
1. Consensus –do other people behave in the same way as the
individual?
2. Consistency- has the individual behaved in the same way in
the past?
3. Distinctiveness – where different behaviour is shown in
similar, but different circumstances.

⚫Attributional Bias:
1. Fundamental Attribution Error: we tend to perceive
others as acting as they do because they are “that kind of
person”, rather than because of the many external factors
that may have affected their behaviour.
2. The Actor- Observer Effect: the tendency to attribute
our own behaviour to situational factors, but that other
to dispositional (internal) causes.

3. The Self-Serving Bias: the tendency to attribute our

own positive outcomes to internal causes but negative
ones to external factors.
Impression Formation & Management
⚫Impression Formation:
⚫ The process through which we form impressions of
others.
⚫ We combine the information received by considering
the following
⚫- the source of the input.
⚫-Whether the information is positive or negative in nature.
⚫-The extent to which the information describes the
behaviours/traits that are unusual or extreme
⚫- information received first is preferred more than given later.
⚫Impression Management:
⚫ Efforts by individuals to produce favourable impressions
on others (self-presentation).
⚫ Persons who can perform impression management
successfully do often gain important advantages in many
situations.

What tactics do individuals use to create

favourable impressions on others?
⚫Falls into two categories :

Self Enhancement Other Enhancement

(efforts to boost our own (efforts to make target
image) person feel good in our
presence)
• Improve our own • Flattery
appearance.
• Doing small favours for
• Manner or general them.
behaviour, such as being
pleasant, assertive, etc. • Asking for
advice/feedback

• Expressing liking for

them either verbally or
nonverbally.
Learning

⚫Is any permanent change in the behaviour of a person

that occurs as a result of experience.
⚫It is accompanied by acquisition of knowledge, skills
and expertise which are relatively permanent.
Features of Learning
⚫Learning involves change in behaviour of a person.
⚫Change in behaviour must be relatively permanent.
⚫The change should occur as a result of experience,
practice or training.
⚫The practice or experience must be reinforced in order
for learning to occur.
⚫Learning is reflected in behaviour.
Classical Conditioning
⚫Defined as a process in which a formerly neutral
stimulus when paired with an unconditional stimulus,
becomes a conditioned stimulus that illicit a
conditioned response.

⚫It states that an event

repeated several times
results into desired
response.

⚫Ivan Pavlov’s Theory.

Operant Conditioning
⚫Deals with Response-Stimulus (R-S) connection.
⚫Concept originated by B.F.Skinner.

⚫States that “most human behaviour operates based on

the environment.”

⚫Learning depends on what happens after the response

–CONSEQUENCE.

⚫The learning of voluntary behaviour through the

effects of pleasant and unpleasant responses.
Cognitive Theory
⚫Cognitive Approach.
⚫Edward Tolman
⚫Theory consist of relationship
between environmental (cognitive)
cues and expectations.
⚫Rat-Maize – Maze Experiment.
⚫This theory was later applied to
human resources where incentives were related to higher
performance.
Social Learning
⚫Behavioural approach.
⚫Deals with learning process based on direct
observation and the experience.
⚫Achieved while interacting with individuals.
⚫People observe, alter and even construct a particular
environment to fit in the social behavioural pattern.
Reinforcement
Application of Learning in
Organisation
⚫Use of lotteries to reduce absenteeism:
⚫ Attractive prizes can be included in lottery.

⚫Work Pay v/s Sick Pay:

⚫ If sick leave can be converted into payment of bonus for
not taking leave would improve the productivity.

⚫Training and Development:

⚫ Train to adapt to a new working atmosphere.
⚫Mentoring program:
⚫ Mentors should ensure to develop sense of responsibility
amongst subordinates who should be able to take higher
jobs and work for the organization.

⚫Discipline:
⚫ Managers should insist that all his/her subordinates
strictly follow the timing of work, dress code, display
courteous behaviour when interacting with others and
accomplish their assigned task on time.

⚫Self-Management:
⚫ Regulating various activities and achievement of
personal as well as organisational goals would be easier
in an environment of self managed organizations.
GODISNOWHERE
HANG HIM NOT LET HIM
GO