Individual Differences:

Dissimilarity is principle of nature. No two persons are alike. All the individuals differ from each
other in many a respects. Children born of the same parents and even the-twins are not alike.
This differential psychology is linked with the study of individual differences. Wundt, Cattel,
Kraepelin, Jastrow and Ebbing Haus are the exponents of differential psychology.

This change is seen in physical forms like in height, weight, colour, complexion strength etc.,
difference in intelligence, achievement, interest, attitude, aptitude, learning habits, motor
abilities, skill. Each man has an intellectual capacity through which he gains experience and
learning.

Areas of Individual Differences

There are various aspects of human behaviors; and, it can be seen in terms of the individual
differences. The significant aspects of individual differences are:

• Intelligence
Intelligence is the ability to acquire and learn something and then apply that at a right place on a
right time. Binet and Simon were the one who attempted to define intelligence as early in 1905.
They described it as the "ability to appraise well, to understand well, and to reason effectively."
The noticeable definition of intelligence was given by Wechsler. According to him "the
aggregate or global capacity of the individual to behave purposefully, to think rationally, and to
successfully interact with the environment." Over period in time, this definition accepted and
frequently used by most of the scholars and researchers working in this field. According to
Gardner, intelligence is "the capacity or capability to deal with issues or produce things valued
within one or more cultural settings." He used the phrase "Multiple Intelligences."

• Aptitude
An individual's capacity to learn a certain skill or information after receiving training is indicated
by a mix of traits known as their aptitude. These abilities can be enhanced with the right training.
In other words, even with adequate training, a person would not be a good musician, if he/she
lack the unique skills necessary to become a musician, such as the ability to distinguish between
pitch, tone, rhythm, and other characteristics of musical sensitivity. There are clear distinctions
between achievement, aptitude, and intellect. A person's capacity to perform a specific task at a
specific moment is related to intelligence. On the other hand, aptitude describes a person's
perspective capacity to carry out a task, which typically requires different sets of skills.
Performance at any particular moment constitutes achievement. Achievement refers to the
performance of an individual at any given time in a subject (like mathematics), which has been
given to him.

Personality

Personality is sum of behaviors that a human being reflect in a given period of time. Many
psychologists attempted to define personality; however, among all, Allport's definition is widely
used. According to him "personality is the dynamic arrangement within the person of those
psychophysical processes that define his particular adaption to his environment." Different
schools of psychologists attempted to understand personality with different approaches and each
of these viewpoints explains specific facets of personality; a few of them are:

The trait perspective describes personality in terms of traits such as introversion and
extraversion.

Psychodynamic perspective looks at unconscious needs and conflicts and the

influence of earlier stages of development.

The humanistic perspective underlines the human’s huge potential for freedom and
growth, and it is optimistic, as emphasizes-on positive aspects of life and
potentialities.

Our personality and behavior patterns are acquired through interaction with others
and adopting social and cultural norms.

• Emotional Intelligence
The view that emotions convey information about relationships, suggests that emotions and
intelligence can work hand in hand. Emotions reflect the relationships between a person and a
friend, a family, a situation, or a reflection or memory. Emotional intelligence refers partly to an
ability to recognize the meanings of such emotional patterns and reason based on them.
Emotional intelligence (EI) predicts outcomes in specific domains of social interaction.
Causes of Individual Differences
There is no single cause for individual differences, but researchers have identified some basic
reasons for individuals to behave differently.

Heredity: The heretical qualities of a person determine his/her height, size, shape, color, and
other physical characteristics, such as hands, legs, and hair. In addition to this, it also plays a
significant role in the development of intellectual disparities.

Environment: Environmental factors reflect individual differences in behavior, attitude,

styles, personality, etc. The environment does not refer only to physical surroundings, but it
also includes different types of people, society, culture, customs, ideas, and ideals.

Race and nationality: Race and nationality are one cause of individual differences. Some
nationals are peace-loving, some are cruel: and some are frank.

Sex: Due to sex variation, one individual differs from the other. Men are strong in mental
power. On the other hand, women have a little advantage over men in memory, language,
and aesthetic sensibility. Women excel the men in shouldering social responsibilities and
better control over their emotions.

Age: Age is another factor that is responsible for bringing individual differences. Learning
ability and adaptability naturally increase with age. When one grows, one can acquire better
control over his/her emotions and better social responsibilities. When a child grows, this
maturity and development go side by side.

Education: Education is a potential factor that brings individual differences, and there is a
wide gap in the behaviors of an educated and uneducated persons. All traits of human beings
like social, emotional, and intellectual are controlled and modified through proper education.

Perception
Different individuals have different thinking styles, beliefs, feel-ings and objectives etc. and
almost every individual behaves accordingly. Just because of these factors different people take
different meaning for the same things. For some, a particular thing is right where as for some it is
totally wrong. It is all because how you take things, what is your point of view, how you look at
things. This is perception.

Stephen P. Robbins: – “Perception may be defined as a process by which individu-als organise

and interpret their sensory impressions in or-der to give meaning to their environment.”

Perceptual Process
Perceptual process are the different stages of perception we go through. The different stages are
−

Receiving

Selecting

Organizing

Interpreting

1. Receiving

Receiving is the first and most important stage in the process of perception. It is the initial stage
in which a person collects all information and receives the information through the sense organs.

2. Selecting

Selecting is the second stage in the process. Here a person doesn’t receive the data randomly but
selectively. A person selects some information out of all in accordance with his interest or needs.
The selection of data is dominated by various external and internal factors.

External factors − The factors that influence the perception of an individual externally
are intensity, size, contrast, movement, repetition, familiarity, and novelty.

Internal factors − The factors that influence the perception of an individual internally
are psychological requirements, learning, background, experience, self-acceptance, and
interest.

3. Organizing

Keeping things in order or say in a synchronized way is organizing. In order to make sense of the
data received, it is important to organize them.

We can organize the data by −

 Grouping them on the basis of their similarity, proximity, closure, continuity.

Establishing a figure ground is the basic process in perception. Here by figure we mean
what is kept as main focus and by ground we mean background stimuli, which are not
given attention.

Perceptual constancy that is the tendency to stabilize perception so that contextual

changes don’t affect them.

4. Interpreting

Finally, we have the process of interpreting which means forming an idea about a particular
object depending upon the need or interest. Interpretation means that the information we have
sensed and organized, is finally given a meaning by turning it into something that can be
categorized. It includes stereotyping, halo effect etc.

Perceptual Selectivity
Meaning of Perceptual Selectivity: – Perception is a selective process because people can
perceive only a limited amount of information in the environment. Perception is the process by
which individuals screen, select, organize, and interpret stimuli in order to give them meaning.
Perceptual selectivity is the process by which individuals select certain stimuli for attention
instead of others.

In everybody’s environment there are various stimuli. These stimuli are in the form of objects,
events and people. An individual cannot get attracted towards all these stimuli. So they are
characteristically selective. By selection some aspects of the stimuli are examined and others are
accepted.

Such selectivity in perception can be brought about by various factors which can be broadly
classified as external and internal factors: –

External factors in perceptual selectivity: –

External factors are in the form of perceptual inputs or characteristics of stimuli. The influence of
external factors on perceptual selectivity: –

Size: – Can influence perceptual selectivity by influencing the attractiveness of the

perceiver. Usually, the larger the size of the perceived stimulus, the higher the
probability that it attracts the attention of the perceiver and he can select it for
perception. E.g., Large letters in books grab the attention of the readers and they tend to
read the entire text before reading it.

Intensity: – The more intense the external stimulus, the more likely it is to be perceived.
Loud sound or strong smell, bright light. E.g., Advertisements on TV are a bit louder
than the hoarding.

Repetition: – Repeatedly the external stimulus is attracting more than one attention.

Novelty and Familiarity: – Either a novel or a familiar situation can serve as an

attention-getter. E.g., Job rotation makes people more attentive to their new job or better
accepted communication in a familiar jargon.

Difference: – Stimuli that stand out against the background or that people don’t expect
attract more attention. E.g., block letters, differently dressed person, different colour.

Motion: – Moving objects attract more attention than stationary objects. E.g., TV
commercials get more attention than print ads. All these factors should be used
judiciously.

Internal Factors in Perceptual Selectivity: –

These are related to the complex psychological structure of individuals.

Self-Concept: – The way a person sees the world depends to a great extent on the
concept or image that it is about. People’s own characteristics affect the characteristics
they can see in others. They select only those aspects that match their characteristics to
them.

Belief: – A fact is not considered what it is, but what a person believes it to be. The
individual typically censors the stimulus input to avoid disturbances in their existing
beliefs.

Expectations: – We expect the trade union officials to use abusive language. A mental
set about beliefs, expectations and values filters perception.

Internal Requirement: – People with different needs choose different objects to

remember or respond to and experience different stimuli. When people are not able to
meet their needs, they engage in wishful thinking to satisfy needs not in the real world
 but in the imaginary world. In such cases people understand only those things which are
in line with their wishful thinking.

Response Disposition: – Refers to a person’s tendency to perceive familiar stimuli

rather than unfamiliar ones. E.g., In one experiment people with dominant religious
values took less time to recognize such related words as priest or minister. Whereas it
took them longer to recognize words related to economic values such as cost or price.

Response Salience: – It is the set of attitudes that are not determined by familiarity with
the stimulus situations, but by the cognitive tendencies of individuals themselves. E.g.,
A particular problem in an organization may be viewed by the marketing person as a
marketing problem, but as a control problem for the accounting person and as a human
resource problem for the personnel person.

Perceptual Defence: – Refers to the screening of elements that create conflict and
threatening situations among people. They may also perceive other factors to be present
that are not part of the stimulus state.

Managerial Implications of Perception

A manager is mainly concerned with the achievement of organizational objectives. Perception
influences the behaviour of the employee. Therefore, necessarily the facts cannot always be
accepted. Thus, understanding human perception is important for understanding and controlling
behaviour. There are five major areas that require special attention with regard to perceptual
accuracy, as follows: –

Interpersonal Working Relationship: – Managers in the organization need to know

whether the members share the same or at least consistent perception. Interpersonal
relationships can be strengthened if people are not misunderstanding each other, if they
are not working with busy mind and having a positive attitude.

Staff Selection: – Selection is based on test, interview and background review of

applicants. The perception of managers should not be biased. The selection of staff also
depends on how the candidate is taking the questions. His answers will be accordingly.
If the candidate is taking the questions in the same way as they are asked then he/she
will be in a better position to answer it in an affirmative manner. The perceptual
 difference completely changes the meaning of the response which sometimes results in
bigger problems.

Performance Appraisal: – Valuation is highly affected by the accuracy of managers’

perceptions. In most of the cases promotion, transfer, increment, continuation of
employees etc. depends upon the perceptual process of the boss. Performance appraisal
is related to the performance of the employees and should be based on objective criteria.
But despite this fact, it is dependent on subjective criteria E.g., Senior’s personal likes
and dislikes.

Level of Efforts: – The manager evaluates the qualitative aspect of the performance of
the employees by looking at the level of effort of an individual. If he regards them as
having made enough effort and being honest then he will give them a high status even if
they do not achieve their goals and vice versa. The manager should be careful while
judging in this aspect.

Increase in Loyalty Levels: – Loyalty levels can be increased with proper application
of perception. If the employees feel that the management is not taking any undue
advantage from them, the management is understanding them, then they will understand
it as their own organization and the job swap will be reduced.

Errors of Perception
The main sources of errors in perception include the following: –

Central Tendency: – Appraising everyone at the middle of the rating scale.

Contrast Error: – Basing an appraisal on comparison with other employees rather than
on established performance criteria.

Different from me: – Giving a poor appraisal because the person has qualities or
characteristics not possessed by the appraiser.

Halo Effect: – Appraising an employee undeservedly on one quality (performance, for

example) because s/he is perceived highly by the appraiser on another quality
(attractiveness).

Horn Effect: – The opposite of the halo effect. Giving someone a poor appraisal on one
quality (attractiveness) influences poor rating on other qualities. (Performance)
Initial Impression: – Basing an appraisal on first impressions rather than on how the
person has behaved throughout the period to which appraisal relates.

Latest Behavior: – Basing an appraisal on the person’s recent behavior.

Lenient or Generous Rating: – Perhaps the most common error, being consistently
generous in appraisal mostly to avoid conflict.

Performance Dimension Error: – Giving someone a similar appraisal on two distinct

but similar qualities, because they happen to follow each other on the appraisal form.

Spillover Effect: – Basing this appraisal, good or bad, on the results of the previous
appraisal rather than on how the person has behaved during the appraisal period.

Status Effect: – Giving those in higher level positions consistently better appraisals
than those in lower level jobs.

Strict Rating: – Being consistently harsh in appraising performance.