Welcome to

Organisational
Behaviour

Tuesday 11.45 – 1.45pm

UBSS Sydney CBD Campus

Level 10 & 11 233 Castlereagh Street
Sydney NSW2000
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Perception in organisations

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Learning objectives
♦ 3.1 Understand the concept and outline the perceptual
process.
♦ 3.3 Discuss how stereotyping, attribution, self-fulfilling
prophecy, halo effect, primacy and recency influence the
perceptual process.
♦ 3.3 Discuss three ways to improve perceptions, with specific
application to organisational situations.
♦ 3.5 Outline the main features of a global mindset and justify
its usefulness to employees and organisations.

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Perception
♦Perception is the process of organising and interpreting
sensory impressions in order to give meaning to the
environment around us at any given point in time.
♦ A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes to distort
perception. These factors are found in the following:
1. The perceiver
2. The target or object being perceived
3. The situation context

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Model of the perceptual process

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Visually impaired people having a feel of an
elephant- that’s how they perceive the reality

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Attention!
The reality as it is perceived is
behaviorally very important; the actual
reality could well be so different!

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‘We generally act/react in
accordance with our
perception’-

Do you agree? Why?

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PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES AND
PROBLEMS

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Perceptual error
Shortcuts used in judging others and their effects on
perception

Selectivity (which allows us to “speed read” but risks drawing

an inaccurate picture)

Assumed similarity (in which we are incorrectly influenced by

our own characteristics rather than by those of the person
observed)
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Perceptual error contd.

Halo effect (in which we form a general impression

about a person based on a single characteristic).

Stereotyping (in which we judge someone on the basis

of our perception of a group he or she is part of i.e.,
belong to).

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Stereotyping problems and solutions
♦ Problems:
● overgeneralises, i.e. does not accurately describe everyone in the
social category
● intentional discrimination or prejudice
● unintentional discrimination

♦ Minimising stereotype biases:

● difficultto prevent stereotype activation
● possible to minimise stereotype application and extent to which we
rely on the information

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Attribution theory
♦ Attribution is the process by which we tend to explain the causes
of behaviour and events.

♦ Attribution—forming beliefs about causes of behaviour or events

♦ Attribution theory- Models to explain the attribution process

♦ Attribution rules—consistency, distinctiveness, consensus

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Attribution theory rules

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Determinants of Attribution (Rules)
Example:
Let’s assume that an employee is making poor quality products one day
on a particular machine: We would probably conclude that there is
something wrong with the machine (External attribution):

if the employee has made good-quality products on this machine in the

past (low consistency), the employee makes good –quality products on
other machine (high distinctiveness) and other employee have recently
had quality problems on this machine (high consensus).

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Determinants of Attribution
On the other hand, we would probably conclude that there is
something wrong with the employee (internal attribution):

If the employee usually makes poor-quality products on this

machine (high consistency), other people produce good–
quality products on this machine (low consensus), and the
employee also makes poor-quality products on other
machine (low distinctiveness).

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Attribution errors
♦Fundamental attribution error:
● While judging others, the tendency to see the person
(internal factor) rather than the situation (external factor)
as the main cause of the person’s behaviour
♦Self-serving bias:
● While judging ourselves, the tendency to attribute our
successes to internal factors and our failures to external
factors

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Self-fulfilling prophecy cycle

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Other perceptual effects
♦ Primacy effect:
● first impressions
♦ Recency effect:
● most recent information dominates perceptions

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Improving perceptions

♦Awareness of perceptual biases

♦Johari Window model

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Model of self-awareness: Johari Window

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Johari Window
This model was created by psychologists Joseph
Luft and Harrington Ingham in 1955.
Luft and Ingham named their model "Johari" using
a combination of their first names.
This model aims at enhancing interpersonal
understanding thereby reducing the chances of
some perceptual biases.
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Summary
♦ Perception helps in making sense of the world around us.
♦ Human action is almost always in accordance with their perception.
♦ Managers need to have clear understanding about perceptual and
attribution processes.
♦ The perceptual process is influenced by stereotyping, attributes,
self-fulfilling prophecy, halo effect, primacy and recency effects.
♦ Perceptual biases can be minimised through self-awareness, self
disclosure and meaningful interaction.

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