PERCEPTION

ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOUR

GROUP NO.04

GROUP MEMBERS

RUCHIKA - 60
HARSHITA-85
KETAN -30
RONAK-57
PRATIK-48
SURBHI-71
SHRUTI-67
STEVE-70
SAGAR-63


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

























Topic Page No.
Perception 3
Sub-Process of Perception 3
Perceptual Selectivity 4-5
Perceptual Organization 6-8
Perceptual Constancy 8-9
Perceptual Context 9-10
Social Perception 10-13
Kellys Attribution Theory 14-17
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What Is Perception?
Perception is our sensory experience of the world around us and involves both
the recognition of environmental stimuli and actions in response to these
stimuli. Through the perceptual process, we gain information about properties
and elements of the environment that are critical to our survival. Perception
not only creates our experience of the world around us; it allows us to act
within our environment.
What is the sub-process of perception?
The process of perception includes several sub processes, which give rise to
complexity. The sub processes consist of stimulus or situation, registration,
interpretation, feedback, behaviour and consequence.
Stimulus or Situation

The first sub process, stimulus or situation, refers to an individuals confrontation
with an internal or external stimulus. An individual may experience an immediate
sensual stimulation or the confrontation may take place with the entire physical and
socio cultural environment.

Registration

The second sub process, registration involves an individual taking note of the
stimulus received from the environment or recording it in his mind. Physiological
mechanisms play an active role in registration. For instance, eyes capture the
beauty of scenery, ears receive sounds, and both send signals to the mind where a
complete image is formed and stored for future retrieval.

Interpretation

The next sub process, interpretation, is the most important cognitive aspect of
perception. Interpretation is affected by the psychological processes of an individual.
The aspects of learning, motivation and personality largely affect an individuals
interpretation of a situation.

The situation and the behaviour are visible to others. The three sub processes of
perception registration, interpretation and feedback cannot be observed.

Perceptions have a crucial role in individual decision-making in organizations, by
affecting both the decisions as well as the quality of the decision. The decision taken
by an individual is a complex process involving the intake of data, screening,
processing, and interpreting and evaluating of data, based on the perception of the
individual.
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Perceptual Selectivity

Perceptual selection is the process by which people filter out irrelevant or less
significant information so that they can deal with the most important matters.

Perceptual Selection is determined by

External Factors

Internal Factors


External Factors affecting perceptual selection:

Size: The larger the size, the more likely it is to be perceived. The tallest person
in the office will invariably be noticed.
Intensity: The more intense an external factor (bright light, loud noise, high
pitch sound etc.) the more likely it is to be perceived. One may notice that the
TV commercials always have high pitch as compared to normal telecast.
Contrast: External factors that stand out against the background or things that
are not which people expect are more likely to be perceived.
Motion: A moving factor is more likely to be perceived than stationary factor.
Films (motion pictures) attract people more than a static picture.
Repetition: A repeated factor is more likely to be noticed. Marketing managers
use this principle in trying to get attention of the prospective customers.
Novelty and familiarity: Either novelty or familiarity will can attract attention.
People would quickly notice a person riding an elephant on a busy street in
Delhi. On the other hand, one is likely to spot a familiar face in a crowd or a
familiar voice even if there is a lot of noise and confusion.

A combination of these or similar factor may be operating at any time to affect
perception. Along with the internal factors, they determine whether any
particular stimulus is more or less likely to be noticed.

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Internal factors affecting perceptual selection:

Personality: Personality has an interesting influence on what and how people
perceive. For example, conscientious people tend to pay more attention to
external environmental cues than does a less conscientious person. Less
conscientious persons are impulsive, careless, and irresponsible. They see their
environment as hectic and unstable which affects the way they make
perceptual selections. On the other hand, more conscientious people organize
their perceptions into neat categories, allowing themselves to retrieve data
quickly and in an organized manner. In other words, they are careful,
methodical, and disciplined in making perceptual selections.


Learning: Learning determines the development of perceptual sets. A
perceptual set is an expectation of a particular interpretation based on past
experiences with the same or an identical object. In organizational settings,
past experiences of the managers and employees influence their perceptions
to a great extent.

Motivation: A persons most urgent needs and desires at any particular time
can influence perception. People perceive things that promise to help satisfy
their needs and that they have found rewarding in the past. Also, according to
Pollyanna principle, people process pleasant event more efficiently and
accurately than they do unpleasant events. For example, an employee who
receives both positive and negative feedback during the appraisal meeting may
more easily and clearly remember the positive statements than the negative
ones





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Perceptual organization

Perceptual Organization is central to the key question of perception: how do
we make the leap from information detected by our sensory receptors to
our perceptions of the world? This requires not just the detection of
information by the organization of that information into veridical percepts.

Perceptual organization is the process by which particular relationships
among potentially separate elements (including parts, features, and
dimensions) are perceived (selected from alternative relationships) and guide
the interpretation of those elements in sum, how we process sensory
information in context.

According to GESTALT LAW ,

A major aspect of Gestalt psychology is that it implies that the mind
understands external stimuli as whole rather than the sum of their parts. The
wholes are structured and organized using grouping laws. The various laws are
called laws or principles, depending on the paper where they appearbut for
simplicity sake, this article uses the term laws. These laws deal with the
sensory modality vision however there are analogous laws for other sensory
modalities including auditory, tactile, gustatory and olfactory (Bregman GP).

Law of ProximityThe law of proximity states that when an individual
perceives an assortment of objects they perceive objects that are close to each
other as forming a group.


Law of SimilarityThe law of similarity states that elements within an
assortment of objects are perceptually grouped together if they are similar to
each other. This similarity can occur in the form of shape, colour, shading or
other qualities.

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Law of ClosureThe law of closure states that individuals perceive objects
such as shapes, letters, pictures, etc., as being whole when they are not
complete. Specifically, when parts of a whole picture are missing, our
perception fills in the visual gap. Research shows that the reason the mind
completes a regular figure that is not perceived through sensation is to
increase the regularity of surrounding stimuli.


Law of SymmetryThe law of symmetry states that the mind perceives
objects as being symmetrical and forming around a center point. It is
perceptually pleasing to divide objects into an even number of symmetrical
parts.
Law of Common FateThe law of common fate states that objects are
perceived as lines that move along the smoothest path. Experiments using the
visual sensory modality found that movement of elements of an object
produce paths that individuals perceive that the objects are on. We perceive
elements of objects to have trends of motion, which indicate the path that the
object is on. The law of continuity implies the grouping together of objects that
have the same trend of motion and are therefore on the same path.

Law of ContinuityThe law of continuity states that elements of objects tend
to be grouped together, and therefore integrated into perceptual wholes if
they are aligned within an object. In cases where there is an intersection
between objects, individuals tend to perceive the two objects as two single
uninterrupted entities.


Law of Good GestaltThe law of good gestalt explains that elements of
objects tend to be perceptually grouped together if they form a pattern that is
regular, simple, and orderly. This law implies that as individuals perceive the
world, they eliminate complexity and unfamiliarity so they can observe a
reality in its most simplistic form. Eliminating extraneous stimuli helps the
mind create meaning. This meaning created by perception implies a global
regularity, which is often mentally prioritized over spatial relations. The law of
good gestalt focuses on the idea of conciseness, which is what all of gestalt
theory is based on. This law has also been called the law of Prgnanz.Prgnanz
is a German word that directly translates to mean "pithiness" and implies the
ideas of salience, conciseness and orderliness.

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Law of Past ExperienceThe law of past experience implies that under some
circumstances visual stimuli are categorized according to past experience. If
two objects tend to be observed within close proximity, or small temporal
intervals, the objects are more likely to be perceived together.




Perceptual Constancy
Refers to the tendency to perceive an object as remaining stable and
unchanging despite any changes that may occur to the image cast on the
retina. There are three visual constancies which are discussed further.

Size Constancies
Size constancy involves recognising that an objects actual size remains the
same, even though the image it casts on each retina changes. Example: The
picture on the next slide shows a far away jet and a jet close up. Even though
the far away jet looks tiny, we still know that it is the same size as the close up
jet, because of our past experiences and how we perceive it. Despite this, you
will perceive that the jets size is constant and know that it isnt actually tiny.
Shape Constancies
It is the tendency to perceive an object as maintaining its shape despite any
change in shape of the image of the object on the retina.
Example: The front view of a laptop looks like its flat but when we look
at it from a different angle, we would know that it is a three dimensional
shape. By using the principle of shape constancy we know that the object
hasnt changed its shape and we perceive it as remaining stable.

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Brightness Constancy
Is the tendency to perceive an object as maintaining its level of brightness in
relation to its surroundings.
A persons hair colour will differ from when they are indoor to when they are
outdoor. Example: A girls hair colour that is black when she is inside looks
brown when she goes outside, due to the amount of light being reflected from
the hair to the retina. This is how we know that even in the light, the girls hair
colour will still remain black.


Perceptual context

The central character can be read as the letter B or the
number 13, depending on whether you read across or
down. At first glance, this looks similar
The switch between the B and the 13 doesnt come
from assembling the figure from different portions of
the perceptual stream. Both the B and the 13 are
constructed from the same raw data. The difference lies in the surrounding
context. When you read horizontally, you interpret that data in the context of
the A and C and see a B. When you read vertically, the same information (now
in the context of the 12 and 14) becomes a 13. The perceptual principle here is
that
your experience of a situation (the B/13, in this case) depends
on the context within which you interpret that situation.


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The virtual triangle shown here illustrates
another important perceptual principle. Most
people clearly see a white triangle resting on top
of a black triangleand three black circles. The
white triangle is so clear, in fact, that many
people believe they can see its white edges
against the white background even though,
objectively, there are no edges there.
You dont experience incoming information
directly. Instead, you assemble it into things you
know how to experience. In effect, you compose your experience as a way
of explaining the information you have selected from your perceptual stream,
and
you have a bias in favor of simpler and more familiar
explanations over more complex and unfamiliar explanations.


Hudson (1960) noted difficulties among South African Bantu workers in
interpreting depth cues in pictures. Such cues are important because they
convey information about the spatial relationships among the objects in
pictures. A person using depth cues will extract a different meaning from a
picture than a person not using such cues.


Social Perception

Social perception is how an individual sees others and how others perceive
an individual. This is accomplished through various means such as classifying
an individual based on a single characteristic (halo effect), evaluating a
persons characteristics by comparison to others (contrast effect), perceiving
others in ways that really reflect a perceivers own attitudes and beliefs
(projection), judging someone on the basis of ones perception of the group to
which that person belongs (stereotyping)

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Halo Effect

The halo effect occurs when an
individual draws a general impression
about another person based on a
single characteristic, such as
intelligence, sociability, or
appearance. The perceiver may
evaluate the other individual high on
many traits because of his or her belief that the individual is high in one trait.
For example, if an employee performs a difficult accounting task well due to
the managers belief of the employees high intelligence,
then the manager may also erroneously perceive the employee as having
competencies in other areas such as management or technology.
The halo effect is applicable to individuals perceptions of others and of
organizations. For example, a hospital that is well known for its open heart and
cardiac programs may be perceived in the community as excellent in other
departments such as obstetrics or orthopedics whether proven to be true or
not. Opposite to the halo effect is the horn effect, whereby a person evaluates
another as low on many traits because of a belief that the individual is low on
one trait that is assumed to be critical (Thorndike, 1920). A study on obesity
conducted with health professionals and researchers reflects the horn effect
concept. Study participants were asked to complete an Implicit Associations
Test to assess overall implicit weight bias
(associating obese people and thin people with good vs bad) and three
ranges of stereotypes: lazymotivated, smartstupid, and valuableworthless.
The study respondents were much quicker to pair fat with lazy and other
negative traits and/or stereotypes (Schwartz,Chambliss, Brownell, Blair &
Billington, 2003).




Contrast Effects

Research has provided evidence that perceptions are also subject to what is
termed perceptual contrast effects.
Contrast effects relate to an individuals evaluation of another persons
characteristics based on (or affected by) comparisons with other people who
rank higher or lower on the same characteristics. For example, Wedell,
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Parducci, and Geiselman (1987) found that, if compared to a highly attractive
person, a target person of average attractiveness is judged less attractive than
he or she would have been if rated on his or her own. When asked to contrast
a target person with persons who were more physically attractive, ratings of
attractiveness of the target were more negative; and when the target person
was compared with those less attractive, it resulted in more positive
evaluations (Thornton & Moore, 1993). In other words, the contrast effect
relates to how an individual is perceived in relation to others around him or
her. The contrast effect not only applies to the perception of attractiveness,
but it has also been shown to influence self-esteem, public self-consciousness,
and social anxiety (Thornton and Moore, 1993). It stands to reason that a
workers performance would be judged in contrast to the workers around him
or her. However, managers need to be aware of this contrast effect bias when
interviewing job candidates or evaluating a workers performance.




Projection

Whereas, contrast effect is the perception of an individual based on the
comparison to others, projection is the attribution of ones own attitudes and
beliefs onto others. All of us are guilty of unconsciously projecting our own
beliefs onto others. Sigmund Freud (1894), along with his daughter Anna Freud
(1936), suggested that projection was a defensive mechanism, where we
attribute our own attitudes onto someone else as a defense against our
feelings of anxiety or guilt. Projection can mean ascribing to others the
negatives that we find inside ourselves, thereby protecting our self-esteem.
Who has never blamed others for making them late to work, going off a diet,
or being in a bad mood (when it was themselves at fault)? Projection is an
interesting human tendency. Projection allows an individual to perceive others
in ways that really reflect oneself because, in general, people are in favor of
those who are most like themselves.

Stereotyping

In 1798, printers invented a new way to permanently fix and reproduce visual
images. This precursor to modern photographic printing processes was called
stereotyping. Over time, this word came to apply not just to visual printed
images, but also to how we fit attributes of ability, character, or behavior to
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groups and/or populations in order to make generalizations. As such, the term
stereotype is defined to mean a conventional image applied to whole groups of
people, and the treatment of groups according to a fixed set of generalized
traits or characteristics.
Although stereotyping can be positive because it allows us to organize a very
complex world, it may be considered negative if used as overly generalized
views about groups of individuals. Researchers suggest that stereotypes wield
a strong, covert influence on human behavior (even among those who do not
agree with stereotypes). Social researchers have revealed that it is relatively
easy for stereotypes to be activated across a wide range of contexts and
situations, based on many factors including race, gender, religion, physical
appearances, disability, and occupation (Bargh, Chen & Burrows, 1996).
One of the most common forms of stereotyping is on the issue of gender and
leadership. Women hold positions at all levels within healthcare organizations,
but as noted only 40 percent hold senior healthcare management positions.
The influence of gender stereotypes is one possible explanation of why it is
sometimes difficult for people to accept women as leaders in the workplace.
Traits often attached to leadership are masculine qualities such as courage,
persuasiveness, and assertiveness. As such, an aggressive male leader may be
viewed as ambitious, compared with an assertive female leader who may be
viewed as pushy. This is, in part, because the female leaders behavior
violates
a gender stereotype that women are not so assertive.
Everyone uses stereotypes because it helps us simplify our world.
However, most often we do not take the time to understand why we are
perceiving groups in a certain way. We revert to our cognitive prototypes and
ignore relevant information. These habits and biases are learned and, thus, can
be unlearned. Training exercises can help to sensitize individuals to issues of
bias, racism, sexism, ageism, and others. One goal of management is to assist
staff in recognizing that stereotypes are illogical by challenging these faulty
cognitions. The need to challenge gender and other stereotypes in the
workplace is one of the reasons so much increased attention has been placed
on managing diversity in organizations. It is important to be aware of how our
perception of groups can influence our behavior, including our hiring and
management practices and our interactions with workers. Stereotypes may
lead to discrimination; therefore, it is important to discuss them and work
toward de-stereotyping the workplace. Negative stereotypes can be
problematic for any organization, and proper training can be effective in
minimizing widely held false beliefs.

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Kellys Attribution Theory

1. Name of Theory: Attribution Theory

2. Originator(s) and Professional Background:

Attribution theory was developed overtime from the theories of Fritz Heider,
Edward Jones, Keith Davis, and Harold Kelley. All were social psychologists.
Edward 'Ned' Jones was born August 11, 1926 in Buffalo, NY. He received his
doctorate degree from Harvard University in 1953. He taught at Duke
University in the psychology department and was chair of the department
from 1970-73. He was on both the National Science Foundation and National
Institute of Mental Health's advisory boards. He has written several books
including Foundations of Social Psychology.

3. Institution(s) with which identified:

Harold Kelley was at the University of California and most of his research
involving attribution theory was funded by the National Science Foundation.
Edward Jones spent his entire career at the Duke University.

4. Purpose of the theory:
Attribution theory is about how people make causal explanations; about how
they answer questions beginning with "why?" The theory deals with the
information they use in making causal inferences, and with what they do with
this information to answer causal questions. The theory developed within
social psychology as a means of dealing with questions of social perception. For
instance, if a person is aggressively competitive in his/her behavior, is s/he this
kind of person, or is s/he reacting to situational pressures. If a person fails a
test, does s/he have low ability, or is the test difficult? In both examples, the
questions concern the causes of observed behavior and the answers of interest
are those given by the man on the street. This is why Heider refers to
attribution theory as "nave" psychology. Attribution theory describes the
processes of explaining events and the behavioral and emotional
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consequences of those explanations.

5. Approximate year of origin:
Heider first wrote about attribution theory in his book The Psychology of
Interpersonal Relationships (1958) which played a central role in the
origination and definition of attribution theory. Jones and Davis' systematic
hypotheses about the perception of intention was published in 1965 in the
essay "From Acts to Dispositions." Kelley published "Attribution in Social
Psychology" in 1967.

6. Circumstances that led to model development: In the 1970s the field of
social psychology was dominated by attribution theorists and researchers.
"Attribution theory came to rival cognitive dissonance as one of the most
imperialistic theories in social psychology. Attribution theory was seen as
relevant to the study of person perception, event perception, attitude change,
the acquisition of self-knowledge, therapeutic interventions, and much more"
(Ross and Fletcher, 1986). Attribution theory emerged from Heider's (1958)
"nave" or "lay" psychology and subsequent reformulations by Jones and Davis
(1965) and Kelley (1967). Heider postulated a set of rules of inference by which
the ordinary person might attribute responsibility to another person (an
"actor") for an action. Heider distinguished between internal and external
attributions, arguing that both personal forces and environmental factors
operate on the "actor," and the balance of these determines the attribution of
responsibility (Lewis and Daltroy, 1990). Kelley (1967) advanced Heider's
theory by adding hypotheses about the factors that affect the formation of
attributions: consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus.

7. Key terms:
1. Attributions - the causes individuals generate to make sense of their world.
2. Consistency - the degree to which the actor performs that same behavior
toward an object on different occasions.
3. Distinctiveness - the degree to which the actor performs different behaviors
with different objects.
4. Consensus - the degree to which other actors perform the same behavior
with the same object.
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8. Description of Attribution Theory:
Heider's "Naive" Psychology: Heider believe that people act on the basis of
their beliefs. Therefore, beliefs must be taken into account if psychologists
were to account for human behavior. This would be true whether the beliefs
were valid or not. Heider also suggested that you could learn a great deal from
commonsense psychology. He stressed the importance of taking the ordinary
person's explanations and understanding of events and behaviors seriously.
Correspondent Inference Theory: Jones & Davis described how an "alert
perceiver" might infer another's intentions and personal dispositions
(personality traits, attitudes, etc.) from his or her behavior. Perceivers make
correspondent inferences when they infer another's personal dispositions
directly from behavior; for example, perceivers may infer a disposition of
kindness from a kindly act. Inferences are correspondent when the behavior
and the disposition can be assigned similar labels (e.g. kind).
Kelley's Model of Attribution Theory: Kelley's theory is not limited to
interpersonal perception. His theory concerns the subjective experience of
attributional validity. He asks the question: "How do individuals establish the
validity of their own or of another person's impression of an object?"
Kelley suggested that perceivers examine three different kinds of information
in their efforts to establish validity (Ross and Fletcher, 1985):
Consensus information - do all or only a few people respond to the stimulus in
the same way as the target person?
Distinctiveness information - does the target person respond in the same way
to other stimuli as well?
Consistency information - does the target person always respond in the same
way to this stimulus?
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When individuals observe behavior, they attempt to determine whether
it is internally or externally caused.
observation Interpretation Attribution of causes
Individual behavior
Distinctiveness
Consensus
Consistency
H
L
H
L
H
L
External
Internal
Internal
External
Internal
External


Distictiveness
Does this
person
behave in
this manner
in other situation
YES
Low
Distinctiveness
NO
High
Distinctiveness
Consensus
Do other person
Behave in the
Same manner?
No
Low
Consensus
Yes
High
Consensus
Consistency
Does this person
behave
in this same
manner at other
times ?
Yes
High
Consistency
No
Low
Consistency
Internal
attribution
External
attribution