PERCEPTION

PERCEPTION

• “A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment”

Sub processes of perception

• Stimulus or situation • Confrontation • Situation person interaction • Registration • Interpretation• Feedback • Behavior • Consequences

Factors influencing perception

• The perceiver - attitudes, motives, interests, past experiences and expectations

• The target

• The situation

Attribution theory • “When individuals observe behavior, they

attempt to determine whether it is internally or externally caused”

• Internally caused behavior are those that are believed to be under the personal control of the individual

• Externally caused behavior is seen as resulting from outside causes, I-e having been forced into the behavior by the situation

Factors involve in Attribution

• Consensus related to other people (do other act this way in a situation?)

• Consistency related to time (does this person act this way in this situation at other times?)

• Distinctiveness relates to other tasks (does this person act differently in in other situations?)

Selective perception

• People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their interests, background, experience , and attitudes.

Factors in selectivity

• Intensity

• Size

• Contrast

• Repetition

• Motion

• Novelty and familiarity

Perceptual organization

• Figure ground

• Perceptual grouping – closure, continuity, proximity, similarity

• Perceptual constancy

• Perceptual context

Social perception

• “Social perception is directly concerned with how one individual perceives other individuals, how we get to know others”

• Organizational participants must realize that their perceptions of another person are greatly influenced by their own characteristics and the characteristics of the other person

Halo Effect

• “Drawing a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic”

Contrast effect

• “Evaluations of a person’s characteristics that are affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics”

Projection

• “Attributing one’s own characteristics to other people”

Stereotyping

• “Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs”