Principles of Organizational Behaviour - Perception Notes

Perception

Learning Outcomes

  • Define Perception.
  • Discuss the perceptual process.
  • Understand stereotyping and its consequences.
  • Discuss Attribution Theory.
  • Identify and explain common perceptual distortions.
  • Give examples of how perceptions influence behavior.
  • Suggest ways to improve perceptual accuracy and avoid errors.

How We Perceive Others

  • Perception is the root of all organizational behavior.
  • How we perceive ourselves and others affects our behavior at work.
  • How others perceive us.
  • Information management depends on the present situation, emotional state, and past experiences.

Perception

  • Perception is a psychological process of receiving and making sense of the world.
  • It does not necessarily represent an accurate picture of reality.
  • What we perceive is what we think is reality.

Factors Influencing Perception

  • Internal Factors:
    • The Perceiver: Personality, Motivation.
  • External Factors:
    • Object: Size, Intensity, Repetition, Contrast, Novelty.
    • Context.
    • Culture.

The Perceptual Process Model

  • Bottom-Up Processing:
    • Processing stimuli received by our five senses.
    • Selective Attention = discarding irrelevant stimuli.
  • Top-Down Processing:
    • Mental processing to organize, interpret, and make sense.

Mental Models

  • Knowledge structures to describe, explain, and predict the world.
  • Consist of visual or relational images.
  • Help us make sense but can also restrict us.

Schema

  • Cognitive structures that represent knowledge about a concept or type of stimulus.
  • Schemas fill in missing details during processing.
    • Person Schema (e.g., managers and supervisors).
    • Role Schema (e.g., pilots and doctors).
    • Scripts – schemas about particular events.
  • Final Stage in the process of perception à REACTION
    • Internal Reaction (e.g., emotion).
    • External Reaction (e.g., action).

Interpretation

  • Judgments based on:
    • Appearance, Age, Gender, Race, Role, Position in hierarchy.

Stereotyping

  • Simplified mental images of what groups look like and what they do.
  • Formed through personal experience, social learning, and to justify social inequalities.
  • Examples: Nationality, Occupation, Age, Physical traits, Education, Gender, Race, Religion, Politics.
  • Tendency to ascribe positive or negative characteristics based on categorization and perceived similarities.

Why Do We Stereotype?

  • Categorical thinking.
  • Non-conscious, energy-saving process.
  • Easier to remember stereotype features than every individual.
  • Innate need to understand how people will behave.
  • Need for social identity and self-enhancement.
  • Categorization, Homogenization, Differentiation, Self-enhancement.

Problems with Stereotyping

  • Inaccurate.
  • Stereotype threat leads to stress and performance monitoring.
  • Foundation of discriminatory attitudes and behaviors.

Consequences of Stereotyping

  • Affects decisions around recruitment, selection, promotion, job suitability, etc.
  • Leads to discrimination.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

  • Expectations can change the situation.
  • We often see what we expect to see.
  • Beliefs about others lead to differential behavior towards them.
  • Individuals internalize these cues.
  • Pygmalion effect: High expectations lead to high performance.

Making Judgments: Attribution Theory

  • Explanations for situations and behavior.
  • Perceptions of Causality: Inferences about causes of events and behavior.
  • Internal Factors: Personal attitudes, personality, ability.
  • External Factors: Situational or environmental causes.
  • Causal Attribution (Kelley, 1973):
    • Distinctiveness: Whether the person acts the same way in different situations.
    • Consistency: Whether the person behaves the same way when faced with a similar event.
    • Consensus: Degree to which other people respond in the same way in the same situation.

Interpreting Behavior

  • High consistency, low consensus, and low distinctiveness lead to internal attributions.
  • High consistency, high consensus, and high distinctiveness lead to external attributions.

Fundamental Attribution Error

  • Underestimating external factors and overestimating internal factors when judging others.
  • Also known as correspondence bias.

Perceptual Defence

  • Discounting information to defend an existing perception.
  • Confirmation Bias: Seeking information that supports existing beliefs.

Self-Serving Bias

  • Tendency to see ourselves favorably.
  • Attributing success internally and failures externally.

Halo / Horns Effect

  • Overall assessment influencing judgment of other characteristics.
  • Focus on one positive (Halo) or negative (Horns) aspect.

Similarity-to-Me Bias

  • Preference for those similar to ourselves.

Practical Implications

  • Everyday decision-making at work.
  • Interpersonal relationships.
  • Interviews – Hiring Decisions.
  • Promotions & Allocation of projects.
  • Performance Appraisals & Evaluations.

How to Avoid Blunders

  • Written workplace policies and procedures.
  • Take time, avoid snap judgments.
  • Do not let visual cues dominate.
  • Develop self-knowledge and understand biases.
  • Fair evaluation of employees.
  • Acknowledge individual differences.
  • Open Communication, Self-awareness.