12 Perception

Dr. Pooja Mehta

1.      Learning Outcome

2.      Introduction

3.      Meaning and Definitions of Perception

4.      Nature and importance of perception

5.      Perceptual process

6.      Factors influencing perception

7.      Perception and Organisational behaviour

8.      Summary

1.    Learning Outcome:

• After completing this module the students will be able to: Understand the concept of Perception.
• Describe the importance of understanding perception from organisation’s point of view.
• Outline the process of perception.
• Define various factors affecting perceptual process.

2.  Introduction

It is very strange that in this dynamic world, every day we are bombarded with the countless objects, events or persons. But, we retain few stimuli and reject others. In addition to that, the way we understand and interpret the stimuli received differs from person to person. What is the reason of this phenomenon? The answer is perception. Perception is a psychological factor affecting human behaviour because perception determines the way the individual experiences the situation.

3. Meaning and Definition of Perception

Perception can be understood as the process through which information or stimulus is received from the environment, then selected, organised and interpreted in order to assign some meaning to it. The meaning is derived out of the information received from the environment so that the information can be used for taking important decisions and actions. The process of perception can be better explained through the definitions given below:

According to Joseph Reitz, “Perception includes all those processes by which an individual receives information about his environment- seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling. The study of these perceptual processes shows that their functioning is affected by three classes of variables-the objects or events being perceived, the environment in which perception occurs and the individual doing the perceiving.”

“Perception can be defined as a process by which individuals organise and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.”

Therefore, in simple words, perception can be described as the process of seeing what is available to be seen. But, this process is influenced by perceiver, the object being perceived and the situation in which perception is being formed.

4. Nature and Importance of Perception

Perception is basically interpretation of the sensory data which involves understanding the stimulus received from the environment. It is determined by physiological as well as psychological characteristics of an individual because perception not just involves receiving the stimulus from the sensory organs-eyes, ears, skin, nose, tongue but, it is much more than that. Perception is formed when the stimulus received is organised in a particular fashion and then interpreted to have an idea about what is happening in the environment. In addition to that, perception is a subjective process because different individuals may perceive the same environment differently on the basis of what stimulus they select from the environment, the manner they organise and interpret the information in order to understand the situation. Importance of perception can be understood from the following points:

a) Perception is important in understanding variations in individual behaviour. As discussed above, every individual perceives the surroundings differently and therefore, understanding the perception help us find out why every individual behaves in a particular manner. This is one of the major reasons why one individual finds one job interesting and satisfying while another finds the same job boring and dissatisfying.

b) As perception strongly influences behaviour of an individual, we can very easily predict the behaviour of an individual in the changed circumstances by understanding his perception about the present environment.

c) Perception can also help in assessing various needs of the people, because their perception is largely influenced by their needs.

5. Perceptual Process

From the definitions of perception discussed above it is very clear that perception is composed of various sub-processes: receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting, checking and reacting to stimuli. The process is influenced by perceiver, object and situation. The process of perception is explained in the following figure:

5.1 Receiving

Human body is comprised of five sensory organs viz. eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin. These sensory organs help in sensing the environment in the form of vision, hearing, smell, touch and taste. The sensory organs receive the stimuli form the outer environment. Anything which we notice in the environment is stimulus e.g. noise of vehicles, smell of food, sound of rain, sense of heat or cold etc. The stimuli which we receive serve as inputs for the process of perception.

5.2 Selecting

Many things happen in the environment simultaneously but, human mind cannot pay equal attention to all events or things equally. Therefore, individuals filter or screen out the irrelevant things and select the things which are relevant with their existing beliefs, values and needs. This process of selecting relevant things from the environment for paying the attention is called perceptual selectivity. The following factors influence the process of selecting stimuli from the environment:

5.2.1 External Factors: External factors influencing selection are following:

a) Size: Size always catches the attention of an individual. Generally bigger objects are more likely to catch attention than the smaller objects. For example: A very big animal in a zoo will always catch more attention of the visitors than the smaller one. In addition to this, a full page advertisement in a newspaper always stands out than a small column advertisement.

b) Intensity: The stimuli with high intensity are more likely to be perceived than the stimuli with low intensity. Very bright colours, very bright lights, loud noise, strong odour are noticed faster than light colours, dim lights, soft sound, weak odour etc.

c) Repetition: Repeated stimuli draw more attention than those which are not repeated. Instructions which are repeated by a plant supervisor are retained in the memory of employees for a longer period of time than those instructions which are conveyed only once. An advertisement which is repeated more on a T.V channel or radio station catches attention and is remembered by the viewers than the advertisement which shown just once a day.

d) Contrast: Principle of contrast states that stimuli which stand out against the background or objects which contrast with their surroundings will receive more attention. An exit signboard in a movie hall, a danger signboard on a road under construction are made with a colour scheme which contrasts with each other like red and black, yellow and black or white and black.

e) Movement: The principle of motion states that a moving object or thing draws more attention than a still one. A moving vehicle among the parked vehicles will catch the attention immediately.

f) Novelty and Familiarity: Novel objects or familiar objects always gain more attention of perceiver. In a crowded trade fair, a friend or a familiar face and a new face in a family get together will be immediately noticed.

g) Nature: It refers to whether the object is visual in nature or auditory. It is a common fact that pictures receives better attention than words, videos attracts more attention than still pictures and a rhyming phrase attracts more attention than a phrase which is presented as a narration. Animated cartoons catch more attention of children than comic books.

5.2.2 Internal Factors: Internal factors influencing the process of perception are:

a) Learning: Learning is a cognitive factor which strongly influences the process of perception. Learning creates expectancy in the individuals and then they tend to perceive what they want to perceive. Take the following example:

Read the text given in the above figure, the individual will most likely read the last word as ‘Mac-Hinery’ instead of ‘machinery’. This is because individual tends to be caught in verbal response set. Now take another example:

In the above figure, because of the prior learning, one will read the sentence as “bird in the hand”. But, it will take few seconds to realise that there is an extra ‘the’ in the sentence.

b) Needs: Needs also play a significant role in the process of perceptual selectivity. A thirsty person will always be sensitive towards the sources of water and a hungry person will always tend to see eating points everywhere. A person who has high need for affiliation will always join the group of his friends in the leisure time and the person with high need for achievement will tend to work hard even in the leisure time to accomplish his goals.

c) Age:  The  people  of  different  age  group  always  hold  different  perceptions  about  the environment. For example: older senior executives always feel that young executives are not competitive enough to take important decisions of the organisations and on the other hand young staff always complaint that older staff members are resistant to change and tend to follow conventional methods of working in the organisation. These differences in the perceptions of old and young employees are due to difference in their age.

d) Interest: Perception is also influenced by the interest of the person though unconsciously. A fashion designer will notice so many details in an outfit which is hanged on a statue of a shop in just a casual look, but a routine visitor will not be able to observe the same details in the same outfit even if he looks at it ten times more.

5.3 Organising

After receiving and selecting the stimuli from the environment, the data received must be organised in a particular fashion so that we can extract some meaning out of it. This aspect of organising the information into a meaningful whole is called perceptual organisation. Perceptual organisation is completely a cognitive process and is based on the following principles:

a) Figure and Ground: This principle is considered as the basic form of organising the perceptual set. This principle simply states that the object or event or person which is being perceived stands out from its background. See the figure given below:

In the first sight, it looks like a white vase but, if you take white as a background then you will see two faces which are in black colour.

b) Perceptual grouping: Grouping is defined as the tendency to group the stimuli into some meaningful patterns. Grouping includes similarity, proximity, closure and continuity.

Similarity: The principle of similarity states that objects of similar shape or colour or size tend to be grouped together. In an organisation all white collared employees are seen as one group. See the following figure, the signs are perceived as four rows rather than eight columns.

Proximity: The principle of proximity states that individuals tend to perceive the objects placed together as one group. The employees who are working in the same department are perceived as one group because of geographical proximity. See the following figure, eight circles are perceived as two groups of four in first row and four groups of two in the second row because of nearness of circles to each other.

Closure: The principle of closure states the tendency to perceive the object as a whole even when some parts of it are missing. Individual’s perceptual process will fill the gaps that are unfilled from the sensory input. The following figure demonstrates the principle of closure. The object given below will be perceived as a circle even if some parts are missing. In an organisation also a sincere, hard working and honest worker will be perceived as a good performer by the managers even if he behave in a contradictory manner sometimes.

Continuity: Principle of continuity assumes that an individual tend to perceive continuous lines or pattern. People tend to perceive the obvious ways of performing the tasks and fail to think creatively. Continuity leads to inflexibility and non creative thinking on the part of employees.

c) Perceptual Constancy: The principle of constancy states the tendency to perceive certain characteristics of an object as remaining constant, despite of the variations in the stimuli. This principle provides a sense of stability in this dynamic world. There are several aspects of constancy:

Shape Constancy: When an object appears to maintain it shape despite of marked changes.

Size Constancy: When we tend to see the object unchanged in the size even if it moves farther away from us. A player who is standing on the other side of the football ground will not perceive football smaller as compared to when he looks at the same football from a closer location.

Colour constancy: familiar objects tend to be perceived of the same colour even if they are exposed to some changed conditions. The owner of a red car will see his car as red in the bright sunlight as well as in the dim twilight.

d) Perceptual defence: This principle states that individuals tend to build a defence against the stimuli which are conflicting, threatening or unacceptable. Defence may assume the four possible forms: (a) outright denial, (b) modification of data received, (c) change in the perception but refusal to change and (d) change in the perception itself.

5.4 Interpreting

Perceptual interpretation is the essential part of the perceptual process. After the selection and organisation of the information, perceiver interprets the information in order to assign meaning to it. Actually perception is said to be formed only when the information is interpreted. Several factors contribute in the interpretation of the information. Most common of them are discussed as follows:

a) Perceptual set: Previously held beliefs or experiences about an object influence the individual’s perception about similar objects. This phenomenon is called perceptual set. For example, an old manager may have developed a general belief that young executives tend to be frequently absent from the job and they are not committed to the organisations. This previously held belief will always influence his perception whenever he will meet a new young worker.

b) Stereotyping: Stereotyping is the tendency of judging someone on the basis of the group to which he belongs. An individual’s perception about one person will always be influenced by his experiences with the other members of the group to which that person belongs. Some common examples of stereotyping are: Americans are materialistic, Japanese are nationalistic, workers are anti-management etc.

c) Halo Effect: It is the tendency of perceiving others on the basis of a single trait which may be good or bad, favourable or unfavourable. Sometimes, we judge the person on the basis of one first impression. For example, a person who is just kind may also be perceived as good, able, helpful etc. and the person who is rude may also be perceived as awful, aggressive, unkind, harmful etc. Halo effect is a common error committed by the managers while evaluating their subordinates.

d) Projection: Projection is the tendency of assigning own attributes to the others. It is easy to judge others if we assume that they are like us. It refers to projecting own feelings, abilities, motives and tendencies into judgement of others. A manager who himself is punctual assumes that all staff members of his office are punctual.

e) Implicit personality theory: When we make judgement about others, our perception is influenced by the belief that certain human traits are associated with others. For example, honesty is associated with hard working.

f) Selective perception: As discussed in the starting of the process that, individuals have the tendency to select certain objects from the environment which they find relevant to their existing beliefs and values. This is because, human mind cannot assimilate everything which it observes and hence, we select certain stimuli and screen out the other. But we don’t choose the stimuli randomly; we choose them according to our interests and experiences. Therefore, selective perception offers the risk of drawing inaccurate picture of the ambiguous situation.

g) Attribution: Attribution refers to the process of assigning causes to the behaviour. People are interested not only in observing the behaviour but also in determining its causes. Their evaluations of and reactions to other’s behaviour may be heavily influenced by their perception that the others are responsible for their behaviour. When we observe an individual’s behaviour, we attempt to determine whether it is internally caused or externally caused. Internally caused behaviours are those which we believe that they are under the control of the individual and externally caused behaviours are those which are believed to be beyond the control of the individual. The determination that whether the behaviour is internally caused or externally caused depends upon three factors viz. distinctiveness, consensus and consistency.

Distinctiveness refers to whether the individual displays different behaviour in different situations. If the individual usually behave differently in different situations, his behaviour is externally caused. But if he behaves in the similar manner in the different situations his behaviour is internally caused.

Consensus is when everyone behaves in a same way whenever they face the similar situation. If there is a consensus in everyone’s behaviour, it means the behaviour is externally caused otherwise it is internally caused.

Consistency in a person’s action refers to when an individual behaves in a same way over a period of time. If the behaviour of a person is consistent, it is internally caused otherwise it is externally caused. The following figure explains the process of attributing one’s behaviour to external factors or internal factors.

Source: Robbins, S., Judge and Vohra, “Organisational Behaviour”, Pearson, pg. 163.

Take a look at an example, if a manager believes that faulty performance of his subordinate is due to external factors such as faulty equipment or electricity crisis, his perception of his subordinate’s performance will be different than if he attributes the faulty performance to subordinate’s own ignorance and negligence. The most interesting finding from the attribution theory of perception is that the errors or biases distort perception. There are two possible errors in attribution:

Fundamental attribution error: When we judge behaviour of others, we tend to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors.

Self serving bias: When we make judgements about own behaviour, we tend to attribute our success to internal factors such as skills and abilities and putting blame of failures on external factors such as faulty equipments, material shortage etc.

5.5 Checking

After the information is received, organised and interpreted, the perceiver checks whether his interpretation of the information is right or wrong.

5.6 Reacting

Reacting is the last stage of the perceptual process. The process ends up when perceiver is indulged into some action in relation to the perception. The action of perception is also called perceptual output. The outcome of the perceptual process is attitude, opinion, beliefs and feelings of perceiver regarding the perceived object or event or person. The action will be based on whether the perception is favourable or unfavourable. If perception is positive, action will be favourable but, if the perception is negative, action will be unfavourable.

6. Factors Influencing Perception

The definitions of perception clearly stated that perception is influenced by the factors of perceiver, perceived and the situational factors. These factors are briefly explained as below:

a) Characteristics of perceiver: An individual’s past experiences, needs, habits, personality, values and attitudes influence the perceptual process. For example, if a manager holds negative beliefs and attitudes towards employee union, he will dislike and express his resentment for even a routine visit of union official in the plant.

b) Characteristics of perceived: Physical attributes, appearance and behaviour of the target also influence how they are being perceived. Physical attributes such as age, gender, height and weight affects the way the person is being perceived. Perceivers tend to notice physical appearance characteristics that contrast with the norm, that are intense, or that are new or unusual. Physical attractiveness often catches the attention quickly. Interviewers rate attractive candidates more favourably and attractive candidates are awarded higher starting salaries.

c) Characteristics of the situation: The physical, social and organisational settings of the situation also influence the process of perception. For example, a conversation with the boss held in the reception area of a dance club will be perceived differently than the conversation held in the office with the door closed.

Source : K. Aswathappa, “Organisational Behaviour”, Himalya publishing house, pg. 122.

7. Perception and Organisational behaviour

In the above discussion, several examples of relevance of perception in an organisational setting have been discussed. Perception is actually a cognitive process through which an individual uniquely interpret the situation based on his needs, experiences and interest. Perception is the judgement about the reality not exact recording of reality. It reveals the picture of the world which may or may not different from the reality. Recognising the difference between perception and reality is very important in an organisational context. Let us understand the applications of perception in organisational behaviour more briefly through following points:

Perception in employment interview: In an employment interview, selection or rejection of the candidate depends upon the interviewer’s perception about behaviour of the candidate. Sometimes, a rejected applicant may deserve the selection but is rejected because he is wrongly perceived by the interviewer. The real fact is that the interviewers usually make judgement about the candidates on the basis of early impressions and form inaccurate perceptions.

Performance appraisal: It is another area where perception plays a very significant role. Performance evaluation of employees depends upon the perception of the evaluator about the employees. Some jobs involve the performance which can be measured in quantifiable terms such as job of salesman, production worker etc. Evaluation of such jobs can be done in objective terms and hence do not provide the managers with greater discretion. On the other hand, some jobs involve the performance which cannot be measured in quantifiable terms. Evaluation of such jobs is done in subjective terms and subjective measures of performance provide relatively wider scope for managers to use their own discretion. Therefore, appraisal of such jobs is largely influenced by perception of the evaluator about who is good or who is bad.

8. Summary

 Perception can be understood as the process through which information or stimulus is received from the environment, then selected, organised and interpreted in order to assign some meaning to it. Perception is formed when the stimulus received is organised in a particular fashion and then interpreted to have an idea about what is happening in the environment. In addition to that, perception is a subjective process because different individuals may perceive the same environment differently on the basis of what stimulus they select from the environment, the manner they organise and interpret the information in order to understand the situation. The process of perception is composed of various sub-processes: receiving, selecting, organising, interpreting, checking and reacting to stimuli. The process is influenced by perceiver, object and situation.

Learn More:

1. Stephen Robins (2012). Organizational Behavior. New Delhi-110092: Prentice Hall publications.
2. Aswathappa, K. (2003). Organisational Behaviour. Himalaya Publishing House.
3. Nair, S. R. (2010). Organisational Behaviour (text & Cases). Himalaya Publishing House
4. Prasad, L. M. (2014). Organizational Behaviour. Sultan Chand & Sons.
5. Greenberg, J. (2003). Organizational Behavior: The State of the Science. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
6. Miner, J. B. (2002). Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Theories, and Analyses. Oxford University Press.
7. Pareek, U. (2014), Understanding Organisational Behaviour, Oxford University Press (Revised and Updated by Sushama Khanna)
8. http://www.kautilyasociety.com/tvph/output_oriented/perception_and_personality_in_ or.htm.
9. http://www.bput.ac.in/lecture_notes/ob.pdf