ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR SEMESTER I 2010/2011

INDIVIDUAL ESSAY BEHAVIORAL DISCIPLINE: PSYCHOLOGY (Perception)

Perception

Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. However, the objective reality may be different with what we perceive. In other words, perception is the way people organize the massive amounts of information they receive into patterns that give it meaning. People will use their perceptions of reality, not reality itself, to decide how to behave. The word "perception" comes from the Latin words perceptio, percipio, and means "receiving, collecting, and action of taking possession, apprehension with the mind or senses." It is one of the oldest fields in psychology. What one perceives is a result of interplays between past experiences, including ones culture, and the interpretation of the perceived. For example, every employee in a company think it such a great place to work if favorable working conditions, good salary, excellent benefits, interesting job assignments, understanding and responsible managements however, everybody know that it is very hard to find such agreement. So, perception is very important in the study of Organizational Behavior because peoples behavior is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.

There are many factors that influence peoples perceptions. the target such as sounds, size, or background.

The factors are either in the

perceiver such as attitudes and experience; in the situation such as social setting and time; or in

Firstly, factors in the perceiver or in the object itself. As in our own self, when we look at something, whether it attractive for us or not, it is affected by our own personal characteristics. These characteristics also include our motivates, interests, and our expectations about certain things. For example, if people think that there must be something between manager and an employee if the manager gives important position in the firm to the employee that doesnt have any possible education background, they can perceive them as such, regardless of their actual traits.

For factors in the target or being perceived, it means that the thing or person that being perceived characteristics itself. It also can be the novelty, motion, proximity or similarity. For

instance, in the same situation, the employee that has been given the important position in that company might be a women and the manager is a man. So, people may think that there is a relationship between both of them.

The factors in the context situation also affected the perception. The time at which an object see or event can influence it attention, as location, light, heat, or any number of situational factors.

The attribution theory helps us to understand our perceptions about others. Research has shown that our perceptions about others are based upon the assumptions we make about them. The attribution theory says that when we observe behavior we try to determine if it is internally or externally driven. If it is internally driven it is under the persons control whereas external causes are not under the individuals control. We can use three factors to help us decide if distinctiveness, consensus, consistency. Consensus looks at the behavior is internally or externally controlled:

Distinctiveness shows different behaviors in different situations.

response and compares it to others in the same situation to see if it is consistent with the behaviors of others. Consistency looks to see if the response is the same over time.

There are the elements of the attribution theory which can help us to make the connection between external or internal driven factors. For instance, if consensus is high then it is most likely externally driven whereas if consensus is low it tends to be more internally driven.

There are errors and biases in the attributions we make. First, we often tend to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors. This is called the fundamental attribution error. The next common error is the self-serving bias. This bias exists when individuals attribute their own successes to internal factors and blame external factors when they dont experience success.

There are some frequently used shortcuts we use when judging others. People will often utilize past experience, their attitudes, and their interests to interpret information about others and reinforce their own biases. Relying on these shortcuts can lead to misperceiving the situation.

The halo effect is another common shortcut where generally favorable impressions are drawn about an individual when a single characteristic is positive. The opposite is true when unfavorable impressions are drawn about an individual based on a single negative characteristic; this is called the horn effect. In short, it is a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic. Contrast effects occur when we are making judgments about an individual and comparing them to other individuals we have recently encountered and using the comparison to draw conclusions. In other words, we evaluate of a persons characteristics that are affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristic.

Stereotyping is a typical shortcut we utilize in the perception process.

It is making

generalizations about an individual based on the group to which that person belongs. This generalization can be useful in making decisions, however, it can also be inaccurate and cause us to mistakenly develop a perception about an individual that is not representative of whom they are. Profiling is an application of stereotyping where members of a group are singled out for scrutiny based on a single trait.

Organizations use these shortcuts often to make decisions.

The employment interview is a

prime example of this. Many perceptions formed by the interviewers impact their judgments of the applicants. These perceptions are formed very rapidly, some researchers even say within one tenth of a second.

Performance expectations often incorporate perception shortcuts as well. When expectations are set, there is a self-fulfilling prophecy (Pygmalion effect) that works itself out. The higher the expectations, the better people tend to perform and vice versa.

Performance evaluations are often a very subjective process and incorporate many of the shortcuts discussed previously. This particular application has significant impact on employees and their wages.

In organizational behavior we are concerned with how decisions are made and perceptions play a significant role in that process. Often decision making occurs as a reaction to a problem or a perceived discrepancy between the way things are and the way we would like them to be. A decision is then made based on various alternatives that have been developed from the data collected. Perception influences this entire process from problem recognition to data selection to alternative chosen.

In summarize, perception is a process of attaining awareness or understanding of sensory information. The factors that influence perception depends on the perceiver, being perceived, and the situation it takes place. Attribution theory can be used to identify whether the perception that we make is internally or externally driven because our perception and judgment of others is significantly influenced by our assumptions of the other persons internal state. Internal causes are under that persons control where the external causes are not under the persons control. To detect it, we may use the factors which are distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency. However, there are still existed the errors and biases in the attributions we make. It happens because the fundamental attribution error or we underestimate the influence of external factors or overestimate the influence of internal factors. The bias exists when individuals attribute their own successes to internal factors and blame external factors when they dont experience success. People also may use shortcuts when judging others. They always utilize past experience, others attitudes, and their interests to interpret information about others and reinforce their own biases. The common shortcuts are whether the halo effect, the contrast effect or stereotyping. Perception is much related to the decision making in organization or firm because decision making happens when there is a reaction to a problem or

a perceived. It is made according to many ways that have been developed from the data collected. So, it there is no doubt why perception is very important in studying organizational behavior.