perception final doc

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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 theindividual.


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Perceptual Selectivity

Perceptual selection is the process by which people filter out irrelevant or lesssignificant 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 theTV 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 anyparticular 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 negativeones


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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 guidethe 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 lawsorprinciples, 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 (BregmanGP).

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 orother 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 isregular, 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 thesame, 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 Bor the

number 13, depending on whether you read across or

down. At first glance, this looks similar

The switch between the Band the 13doesnt come

from assembling the figure from different portions of

the perceptual stream. Both the Band the 13are

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 Aand Cand see a B. When you read vertically, the same information (now

in the context of the 12and 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 triangleresting 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 explainingthe information you have selected from your perceptual stream,and

you have a bias in favor of simpler and morefamiliar

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 PerceptionSocial 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 (contrasteffect), perceiving

others in ways that really reflect a perceivers own attitudes and beliefs

(projection),judging someone on the basis of onesperception 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 asingle 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 andof

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 effectconcept. Study participants were asked to complete an Implicit Associations

Test to assess overall implicit weight bias

(associating obesepeople and thin people with good vs bad)and three

ranges of stereotypes: lazymotivated, smartstupid, and valuableworthless.

The study respondents were much quicker to pair fatwith 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 personwas 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 theworkers 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 andbeliefs 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 othersin 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 verycomplex 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

violatesa 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 theworkplace 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 departmentfrom 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 withinsocial 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 dispositionsdirectly 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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