MODULE II- ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

1. Introduction to Organisational Behaviour:

Organisational behaviour is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups
and structure have on behaviour within the organisations for the purpose of applying such
knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.
Organisational behaviour is a subset of management activities concerned with understanding,
predicting and influencing individual behaviour in organisational setting.
Organisational behaviour is the study and application of knowledge about how people act within
an organisation. It is a human tool for human benefit. It applies broadly to the behaviour of people
in all types of organisations.
In short, organisational behaviour revolves around two fundamental components:
1. The nature of the man.
2. The nature of the organisation.
In other words, organisational behaviour may be organisation of individual’s behaviour in relation
to physical means and resources so as to achieve the desired objective of the organisation.

2. Factors Affecting/ Influencing Individual Behaviour:

I. Personal/ Biographical Factors:
All the human beings have certain characteristics which are genetic in nature and are inherited.
These are the qualities which the human beings are born with. These are the characteristics which
cannot be changed; at the most, these can be refined to some extent. If the managers know about
the inherited qualities and limitations of the persons, they can use their organisational behaviour
techniques more effectively.
1. Gender:
Being a male or female is genetic in nature and it is considered to be an inherited feature. Whether
women perform as well as in jobs as men do, is an issue which has initiated lot of debates,
misconceptions and opinions. The traditional view was that man is tougher than woman or women
are highly emotional than men. But these are some stereotyped baseless assumptions. Research
has proved that there are few if any, important differences between man and woman that will
affect their job performance.
Specially, in some are like problem solving ability, analytical skill, competitive drive, motivation,
leadership, sociability and learning ability, there are no consistent male-female differences.
Initially, some roles were considered to be exclusive domain of women e.g., nurses, airhostesses
etc. but now with the passage of time, we have males in these professions also. Similarly, some
jobs which were considered to be exclusive domain of men e.g., pilots, defence jobs, etc. have
started accommodating women also, though with some conditions.

2. Age:
Age is considered to be an inherited characteristic because it is determined by the date of birth.
The relationship between age and job performance is an issue of increasing performance.
Psychologically, younger people are expected to be more energetic, innovative, adventurous, and
ambitious and risk taking. Whereas old people are supposed to be conservative, set in their own
ways and less adaptable. Though it is incorrect to generalize all old people as unadoptable,
physiologically, performance depends on age.
Performance declines with advancement of age because older people have less stamina, memory
etc. Younger people are likely to change jobs to avail better job opportunities, but as one grows
old, the chances of his quitting job are less. There is a relationship between age and absenteeism
also. Older people tend to absent more from their jobs due to unavoidable reasons e.g. poor health.

3. Education:
Education is about creating minds, not careers. It’s one of the many factors that have a probability
of influencing behaviour. Think of it like adding another section to ones learning history. It
therefore changes our behaviour because our thoughts direct the actions, decisions and
movements.

4. Ability:
Ability refers to the capacity or capability of an individual to perform the various tasks in a job.
Ability is the criterion used to determine what a person can do.
Ability of an individual can be of two types:

(i) Intellectual Ability:

If the individual is expected to perform mental activities, he must have a particular level of
intellectual ability. Some important dimensions used to ascertain intellectual ability are number
aptitude, comprehension, perceptual speed and test of reasoning. For some important jobs or
assignment, a person has to clear some admission test.

(ii) Physical ability:

Physical abilities include a person’s stamina, manual dexterity, leg strength and the like. If the
performance of a particular job requires some specific physical abilities, it is the duty of the
management to identify the employees having those abilities. This is accomplished by either
careful selection of people or by a combination of selection and training.

5. Marital Status:
There are not enough studies to draw any conclusion as to whether there is any relationship
between marital status and job performance. Research has consistently indicated that as marriage
imposes increased responsibilities, to have a steady job becomes more valuable and important.
Married employees have fewer absences, less turnover and more job satisfaction as compared to
unmarried workers. But no research has so far identified the causes for this.

II. Psychological Factors:

1. Personality:
By personality we don’t mean the physical appearance of a person. Psychologists are not
concerned with a smart person, with a smiling face and a charming personality. They consider
personality as a dynamic concept describing the growth and development of a person’s whole
psychological system. Rather than looking at parts of the person, personality looks at some
aggregate whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.
Personality generally refers to personal traits such as dominance, aggressiveness, persistence and
other qualities reflected through a person’s behaviour. Some personality traits like physical built
and intelligence are biological in nature but most traits like patience, open mindedness,
extrovertness etc. can be learned.

2. Perception:
Perception is the viewpoint by which one interprets a situation. In other words, “perception is the
process by which information enters our minds and is interpreted in order to give some sensible
meaning to the world around us. Psychology says that different people see and sense the same
thing in different ways. For example, if a new manager perceives an employee to be a job shirker,
he will give him less important jobs, even though that employee is a very able person. Sometimes,
we tend to lose good relatives and friends because we change our perceptions about them.

3. Attitude:
Attitude is just like perception but with a frame of reference. It is a tendency to act in a certain
way, either favourably or unfavourably concerning objects, people or events. For example, if I say
I am satisfied with my job, I am expressing my attitude towards work. An attitude may be defined
as the way a person feels about something, a person, a place, a thing, a situation or an idea. It
expresses an individual’s positive or negative feeling about some object. An attitude may be
unconsciously held.
A person’s attitude towards a given situation can be ascertained by measuring and understanding
his feelings, thoughts and behaviours. When we directly ask questions from the individuals, we
can measure his feelings and thoughts. Behaviour can be measured either by observing the actions
of the individual or simply by asking him questions about how he would behave in a particular
situation.

4. Values:
According to Milton Rokeach, “Values are global beliefs that guide actions and judgements across
a variety of situations. Values represent basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct is
personally or socially preferable to an opposite mode of conduct.” Values carry an individual’s
ideas as to what is right, good or desirable. All of us have a hierarchy of values that form our
value system. This system is identified by the relative importance we assign to some values like
freedom, self-respect, honesty, obedience, equality and so on.
Values are so closely embedded in the people that these can be observed from their behaviour.
Individual values are influenced by the parents, teachers, friends and other external forces. A
person’s values also develop as a product of learning and experience in the cultural setting in
which he lives. Values vary from person to person because every person learns in a different way
and have different types of experience. Values determine what is right and what is wrong, where
right or wrong is interpreted in terms of perceived values of the decision maker.

5. Learning:
Learning is defined as, “a relatively permanent change in behaviour resulting from interactions
with the environment.” A person is born with biographical characteristics which are difficult to
change or modify. Therefore, the managers lay much stress on studying, learning and predicting
the learned characteristics.

III. Environmental Factors:

The external environment is known to have a considerable impact on a person’s behaviour.

1. Economic Conditions:
Some employees who are working in Government offices or public sector undertakings are not
affected by economic cycles. Whatever the economic position of the organisation, they will
receive their salaries. Whereas, the employees, who work in the organisations, which are severely
affected by economic cycles are subjected to layoffs and retrenchment. For these employees job
security and a stable income is the most important factor whereas the former employees will be
motivated by some other factors.

2. Political Situations:
Political environment of the country will affect the individual behaviour not directly, but through
several other factors. In a politically stable country there will be a steady level of employment
(both in quantity and quality) and high level of capital investment. Whereas, companies are
reluctant to invest large sums of money in a politically instable country.
The political ideology of a country affects the individual behaviour through the relative freedom
available to its citizens. A country can have a controlled society or less controlled society. The
relative freedom available to the individuals can affect their career choice, job design and
performance.

3. Cultural Values:
Although culture is often used to explain behaviour, we have little understanding of why some
culture traits have impacts on behaviour while others do not. Culture should led predispositions
that help us make good choices about which culture traits to act on and which to ignore.

4. Social Norms:
Social Norms are unwritten rules about how to behave. They provide us with an expected idea of
how to behave in a particular social group or culture. For example we expect students to arrive to
lesson on time and complete their work. Social norms are the accepted standards of behaviour of
social groups.
These groups range from friendship and work groups to nation states. Behaviour which fulfils
these norms is called conformity, and most of the time roles and norms are powerful ways of
understanding and predicting what people will do.
IV. Organisational Factors:

Individual behaviour is influenced by a wide variety of organisational systems and resources.

1. Physical Facilities:
The physical environment at a work place is the arrangement of people and things so that is has a
positive influence on people. Some of the factors which influence individual behaviour are noise
level, heat, light, ventilation, cleanliness, nature of job, office furnishing, number of people
working at a given place etc.

2. Organisation Structure:
These are concerned with the way in which different departments in the organisation are set up.
What is the reporting system? How are the lines of communication established among different
levels in the organisation? The behaviour and performance of the individual is influenced by
where that person fits into the organisational hierarchy.

3. Leadership:
The system of leadership is established by the management to provide direction, assistance, advice
and coaching to individuals. The human behaviour is influenced to a large extent by the behaviour
of the superiors or leaders. Behaviour of the leaders is more important than their qualities.

4. Reward System:
The behaviour and performance of the individuals is also influenced by the reward system
established by the organisation to compensate their employees.

3. Foundations of Individual Behaviour:

A collection of individuals meant to pursue a common objective is loosely an organization.

Individual behaviour refers to how individual behaves at work place, his behaviour is influenced
by his attitude, personality, perception, learning and motivating. This also refers to the
combination of responses to internal and external stimuli.

I. Ability:

Intellectual abilities
Intellectual abilities are abilities
needed to perform mental activities
– for thinking, reasoning and
problem-solving. IQ tests are
designed to ascertain a person’s
general intellectual abilities. The
GMAT is another example of such
tests, it’s used as an admission test
in business schools. The seven
dimensions of intellectual ability
are number aptitude, verbal
comprehension, perceptual speed,
inductive reasoning, deductive
reasoning, spatial visualisation and
memory. They are positively
related – high scores in one
dimension correlate with high
scores in the others. These
correlations
have led to a recognition by
researchers of a general factor of
intelligence, called the general
mental
ability (GMA). The correlation
between intelligence and job
satisfaction is about zero, due to
higher
expectations and more critical
evaluation of smarter people.
Cultural intelligence refers to an
ability
to understand another person’s
behaviour and interpret it according
to his culture.
Physical abilities
Defined as the capacity to do tasks
that demand stamina, dexterity,
strength and similar
characteristics. There exists no
interrelation between the
dimensions
Intellectual abilities
Intellectual abilities are abilities
needed to perform mental activities
– for thinking, reasoning and
problem-solving. IQ tests are
designed to ascertain a person’s
general intellectual abilities. The
GMAT is another example of such
tests, it’s used as an admission test
in business schools. The seven
dimensions of intellectual ability
are number aptitude, verbal
comprehension, perceptual speed,
inductive reasoning, deductive
reasoning, spatial visualisation and
memory. They are positively
related – high scores in one
dimension correlate with high
scores in the others. These
correlations
have led to a recognition by
researchers of a general factor of
intelligence, called the general
mental
ability (GMA). The correlation
between intelligence and job
satisfaction is about zero, due to
higher
expectations and more critical
evaluation of smarter people.
Cultural intelligence refers to an
ability
to understand another person’s
behaviour and interpret it according
to his culture.
 Physical abilities
Defined as the capacity to do tasks
that demand stamina, dexterity,
strength and similar
characteristics. There exists no
interrelation between the
dimensions

OB Chapter
2:
Foundations
of individual
behaviour
Ability
The issue here is knowing how
people differ in their abilities and
using that knowledge to increase
the likelihood that an employee
will perform well on the job.
Ability refers to an individual’s
capacity
to perform the various tasks in a
job. A person’s abilities are made
up of two sets of factors:
intellectual and physical.
Intellectual abilities
Intellectual abilities are abilities
needed to perform mental activities
– for thinking, reasoning and
problem-solving. IQ tests are
designed to ascertain a person’s
general intellectual abilities. The
GMAT is another example of such
tests, it’s used as an admission test
in business schools. The seven
dimensions of intellectual ability
are number aptitude, verbal
comprehension, perceptual speed,
inductive reasoning, deductive
reasoning, spatial visualisation and
memory. They are positively
related – high scores in one
dimension correlate with high
scores in the others. These
correlations
have led to a recognition by
researchers of a general factor of
intelligence, called the general
mental
ability (GMA). The correlation
between intelligence and job
satisfaction is about zero, due to
higher
expectations and more critical
evaluation of smarter people.
Cultural intelligence refers to an
ability
to understand another person’s
behaviour and interpret it according
to his culture.
Ability is a current assessment of what one can do. From a management standpoint, the issue is
not whether people differ in terms of their abilities. They certainly do. The issue is of knowing
how people differ in abilities and using that knowledge to increase the likelihood that an employee
will perform his or her job well.
What we are acknowledging is that everyone has strengths and weaknesses in terms of ability that
make him or her relatively superior or inferior to others in performing certain tasks or activities.

According to Stephen P. Robbins, “Ability is an individual’s capacity to perform the various

tasks in a job.”
At last, we can say that ability is the quality or state of being able, power to perform whether
physical, mental, moral intellectual, skill in doing, the sufficiency of strength, available resources
etc.
There are two types of abilities, intellectual and physical abilities, which organizations look for
employees to have to depend on the job requirements.

Types of Ability:
In Organizational Behaviour, the 2 types of ability are;
 1. Intellectual Ability.
2. Physical Ability.

1. Intellectual Ability
Intellectual ability is the capacity to do mental activities – thinking and reasoning and problem-
solving.
It commonly refers to the ability measured by performance on an intelligence test. It is also
sometimes used in the context of discussing the performance of someone in an academic or real-
world setting.
The seven most frequently cited dimensions making up intellectual abilities are number attitude,
verbal comprehension, perceptual speed, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, and memory.
Intellectual abilities have got seven dimensions.
Such as;

Dimension Description
Number Aptitude It is an ability to do speedy and accurate arithmetic.
It is the ability to understand what is read and heard and the relationship
Comprehension
of words to each other.
It is a dying ability to identify visual similarities and differences quickly
Perceptual Speed
and accurately.
It is the ability to identify a logical sequence in a problem and then solve
Inductive Reasoning
the problem.

Deductive Reasoning It is the ability to see logic and assesses the implication of art argument.

It is the ability to imagine how an object would look like its position in
Special Visualization
space was changed.
Memory It is the ability to retain and recall past experience.

2. Physical Ability
Physical ability is the capacity to do tasks that demand stamina, desired strength and similar
characteristics.
It can identify individuals who are physically able to perform the essential functions of a job
without risking injury to others.
Research on the requirements needed in hundreds’ of jobs has identified nine physical abilities
involved in the performance of physical tasks.
These are -dynamic strength, static strength, trunk strength, explosive strength, extent flexibility,
dynamic flexibility, body – coordination, balance, and stamina.

Strength Factors Description

Dynamic Strength Ability to exert muscular force continuously over time.
Trunk Strength Ability to exert muscular using trunk muscles.
Static Strength Ability to exert force against external objects.
Ability to expand a maximum of energy in one or a series of explosive
Explosive Strength
acts.
Extent Flexibility Ability to move the trunk and back muscles as far as possible.
Dynamic Flexibility Ability to make rapid, repeated flexing movements.
Ability to coordinate the simultaneous actions of different parts of the
Body co-ordination
body.
Balance Ability to maintain equilibrium despite forces pulling off balance.
Ability to continue maximum effort requiring prolonged efforts over
Stamina
time.

II. Attitudes:
Attitudes are evaluative statements, either favourable or unfavourable. When a person says he
likes or dislikes something or somebody, an attitude is being expressed. Attitudes are gradually
acquired over a period of time. The process of learning attitude starts right from childhood and
continues throughout the life of a person. In the beginning the family members may have a greater
impact on the attitude of a child.
Attitudes refer to feelings and beliefs of individuals or groups of individuals. The feeling’s and
beliefs are directed towards other people, objects or ideas. When a person says, “I like my Job”. It
shows that he has a positive attitude towards his job.
Attitudes often result in and affect the behaviour or action of the people. Attitudes can lead to
intended behaviour if there are no external interventions. Attitudes constitute a psychological
phenomenon which cannot be directly observed. However, an attitude can be observed indirectly
by observing its consequences. For example, if a person is very regular in his job, we may infer
that he likes his job very much.

Components of Attitudes:
Attitudes comprise of three basic components: emotional, informational and behavioural.

1. Informational or Cognitive Component:

The informational component consists of beliefs, values, ideas and other information a person has
about the object. It makes no difference whether or not this information is empirically correct or
real. For example, a person seeking a job may learn from his own sources and other employees
working in the company that in a particular company the promotion chances are very favourable.
In reality, it may or may not be correct. Yet the information that person is using is the key to his
attitude about that job and about that company.

2. Emotional or Affective Component:

The informational component sets the stage for the more critical part of an attitude, its affective
component. The emotional components involve the person’s feeling or affect-positive, neutral or
negative-about an object. This component can be explained by this statement.” I like this job
because the future prospects in this company are very good”.

3. Behavioural Component:
The behavioural component consists of the tendency of a person to behave in a particular manner
towards an object. For example, the concerned individual in the above case may decide to take up
the job because of good future prospects. Out of the three components of attitudes, only the
behavioural component can be directly observed. One cannot see another person’s beliefs (the
informational component) and his feelings (the emotional component). These two components can
only be inferred. But still understanding these two components is essential in the study of
organisational behaviour or the behavioural component of attitudes.

The components are illustrated in the following table:

III. Job Satisfaction:
The term job satisfaction, attitudes and industrial morale are often used synonymously. An
attitude may contribute to job satisfaction. Similarly, job satisfaction may also contribute to
morale. Thus, “job satisfaction is the result of various attitudes the employee holds towards his
job, towards allied factors and towards life in general”. Job satisfaction is related to the feelings
and the emotional aspects of individuals experience towards his jobs.
Investigators have tried to correlate the different facts of workers behaviour such as production,
absenteeism, accidents and turn over to job satisfaction considering it a independent variable.
Also, many investigators have considered job satisfaction as dependent variable and tried to
develop its relationship with personal variables such as age, marital status, caste, education and
number of dependents etc.

Factors that Affect Job Satisfaction of Employees:

1. Type of Work:
The type of work is considered as the most important factor inherent in the job. Several studies
show that routine work with too much repetition causes job dis-satisfaction while jobs with
variety inherent in them give a lot of job satisfaction to the worker.
Different studies on the topic only end up giving the percentages of workers who are satisfied or
dissatisfied with their jobs which vary from factory workers to teachers to clerks etc. The only
relevant conclusion is that a job in which the type of work is not monotonous for a worker is most
likely to give maximum job satisfaction provided the other factors like pay, status, skill etc. are
also in harmony with this need for variety.

2. Skills Required:
According to an investigation conducted for studying the relationship of skills required for job
satisfaction, if skill exists to a considerable degree in a worker, then it is likely to become the first
and primary source of satisfaction for the worker.
But, in case the worker has less of the skills required for the job, only then conditions of work or
wages etc. become the source of job-satisfaction for the workers. It can thus be concluded that
skilled workers have more job-satisfaction than unskilled ones.

3. Occupational Status:
The prestige or status associated with a particular occupation is determined by the way it is
regarded by the people in a particular society. How much value is associated with a particular
occupation is determined by the ranking that the occupation receives in the hierarchy of
occupations in a particular society.
For instance, ‘Farming’ is ranked 1st in Russia whereas a banker or business men rank as low as
forty—something in their hierarchy and in America white collar jobs are at the top of the list.
Occupational status can be defined as the relative status enjoyed by an occupation in comparison
to other occupations in a particular country/society.
4. Geography:
Workers in small cities and towns are more satisfied with their jobs compared to workers in big
cities. This is probably due to the psychological environment in small cities where level of
aspiration is such that it is easier to satisfy. In a small town everyone is aware of their place in the
society.

5. Size of the Organization:

In a small organization, individuals know each other better. Their relationship is better and more
co-operative. A large organization is very impersonal due to its size. There is less participation of
all the members, which leads to alienation of workers from the management.
The workers in a small organization have positive attitudes, they are optimistic about
advancement opportunities; they have a role in the day-to-day activities, policies etc. and work
with respect and co-operation for the management. They generally have a high level of job-
satisfaction.

IV. Personality:
Personality means how a person affects others and how he understands and views himself as well
as the pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and the person-situation interactions (Fred
Luthans). According to Stephen P. Robbins, personality is the sum total ways in which an
individual reacts and interacts with others. It may be defined as those inner psychological
characteristics that both determine and reflect how a person responds to his environment.

Determinants of Personality:
1. Heredity: Human behaviour is partly affected by heredity. The parent's qualities are passed on
to the children through the molecular structure of genes located in the chromosomes. In our day-
to-day life, so many times we use the term "Like father like son" as "Like Mother like daughter".

2. Environment: All personality traits are not determined by heredity. Environment also plays a
very important role in the development of personality of a person. Environment comprises of
culture, family, social and situational factors.
(a) Culture: Culture is summing total of learned believes, values and customs. Cultural factors
determine now a person acts whether independently or dependently. Culture establishes norms,
attitudes and values that are passed along from generation to generation.

(b) Family: Families influence the behaviour of a person especially in the early stages. The nature
of such influence will depend upon the following factors:
(i) Socio-economic level of the family
(ii) Family size
(iii) Birth order
(iv) Race
(v) Religion
(vi) Parent's educational level and Geographic location.

(c) Social: Socialization is a process by which an infant acquires customary and acceptable
behaviour. Social life has a considerable impact on the individual's behaviour. A man is known by
the company he keeps. Social groups influence the behaviour of the individuals.

(d) Situational: Situational factors also play a very important role in determining the personality
of a person. Life is a collection of experiences. Some of the events and experiences can serve as
important determinants of his personality.
V. Values:
A value system is viewed as a relatively permanent perceptual frame work which influences the
nature of an individual’s behaviour. The values are the attributes possessed by an individual and
thought desirable. Values are similar to attitudes but are more permanent and well built in nature.
A value may be defined as a “concept of the desirable, an internalized criterion or standard of
evaluation a person possesses. Such concepts and standards are relatively few and determine or
guide an individual’s evaluations of the many objects encountered in everyday life.”
According to Milton Rokeach, a noted psychologist “Values are global beliefs that guide actions
and judgments across a variety of situations.” Values represent basic convictions that a specific
mode of conduct (or end state of existence) is personality or socially preferable to an opposite
mode of conduct (or end state of existence)”.
Types of Values:
Milton Rokeach Classification:
An extensive research conducted by the noted psychologist Milton Rokeach, identifies two basic
types of values.

1. Terminal Values:
A terminal value is an ultimate goal in a desired status or outcome. These lead to the ends to be
achieved.
The examples of terminal values are:

2. Instrumental Values:
Instrumental values relate to means for achieving desired ends. It is a tool for acquiring a terminal
value.
The instrumental values given in this study are:

The combination of terminal and instrumental values an individual has, create an enduring cluster
of values which is his value system. Thus, according to this survey, our values and value system
are primarily the determinants of whom and what we are as individuals.

VI. Perception:
Perception may be defined as a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.
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 perpetual 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.”
In simple words we can say that perception is the act of seeing what is there to be seen. But what
is seen is influenced by the perceiver, the object and its environment. The meaning of perception
emphasises all these three points.

Factors Influencing Perception:

Perception is individual specific as different people may perceive the event, object or person in
different ways. A variety of factors shape and sometimes distort the perception. Basically,
perception may be affected by individual, target and situation related factors. So, factors affecting
perception can be classified into three major heading as factors in individual, factors in target and
factors in situations.

1. Factors in Individual:
Main factor in perception formulation is the individual i.e. perceiver itself. Personal characteristics
of perceiver greatly affect the way of making judgments regarding the event, object and person.
Attitude, motives, emotions, interests, experience and expectations are some perceiver related
factors affecting perception.
i. Attitudes: The perceiver's attitudes affect perception. For example, suppose Mr. X is
interviewing candidates for a very important position in his organization –a position that requires
negotiating contracts with suppliers, most of whom are male. Mr X may feel that women are not
capable of holding their own in tough negotiations. This attitude will doubtless affect his
perceptions of the female candidates he interviews.

ii. Motives: Unsatisfied needs or motives stimulate individuals and may exert a strong influence
on their perceptions. For example, in an organizational context, a boss who is insecure perceives a
subordinate's efforts to do an outstanding job as a threat to his or her own position. Personal
insecurity can be transferred into the perception that others are out to "get my job", regardless of
the intention of the subordinates.
iii. Interest: The focus of our attention appears to be influenced by our interests. Because our
individual interests differ considerably, what one person notices in a situation can differ from
what others perceive. For example, the supervisor who has just been reprimanded by his boss for
coming late is more likely to notice his colleagues coming late tomorrow than he did last week. If
you are preoccupied with a personal problem, you may find it hard to be attentive in class.

iv. Experience:
What you see is strongly influenced by your past experience. These influences predispose you to
pay attention to certain information and to organise interpret the information in a certain way. If
you attended a friend’s party last week that was boring, that may predispose you to thinking that
next one will be boring as well.

v. Expectations: Finally, expectations can distort your perceptions in that you will see what you
expect to see.

2. Factors in Target:
Characteristics in the target that is being observed can affect what is perceived. Physical
appearance plays a big role in our perception of others. Extremely attractive or unattractive
individuals are more likely to be noticed in a group than ordinary liking individuals. Motion,
sound, size and other attributes of a target shape the way we see it.
Physical appearance plays a big role in our perception of others. The perceiver will notice the
target's physical features like height, weight, estimated age, race and gender.
Perceivers tend to notice physical appearance characteristics that contrast with the norm, that are
intense, or that are new or unusual. Physical attractiveness often colours our entire impression of
another person. Interviewers rate attractive candidates more favourably and attractive candidates
are awarded higher starting salaries.
Verbal communication from targets also affects our perception of them. We listen to the topics
they speak about, their voice tone, and their accent and make judgements based on this input.
Non-verbal communication conveys a great deal of information about the target. The perceiver
deciphers eye contact, facial expressions, body movements, and posture all in an attempt to form
an impression of the target.
The perceiver, who observes the target's behaviour, infers the intentions of the target.
For example, if our manager comes to our office door way, we think "oh no! he is going to give
me more work to do". Or we may perceive that his intention is to congratulate us on a recent
success. In any case, the perceiver's interpretation of the target's intentions affects the way the
perceiver views the target.
Targets are not looked at in isolation, the relationship of a target to its background influences
perception because of our tendency to group close things and similar things together.
Objects that are close to each other will tend to be perceived together rather than separately. As a
result of physical or time proximity, we often put together objects or events that are unrelated. For
examples, employees in a particular department are seen as a group. If two employees of a
department suddenly resign, we tend to assume their departures were related when in fact, they
might be totally unrelated.
People, objects or events that are similar to each other also tend to be grouped together. The
greater the similarity, the greater the probability we will tend to perceive them as a group.

3. Factors in Situation:
The situation in which the interaction between the perceiver and the target takes place has an
influence on the perceiver's impression of the target. For example, a professor may not notice his
20-year-old female student in a short dress at the swimming pool. Yet the professor will notice the
same girl if she comes to his organizational behaviour class in a short dress. In the same way,
meeting a manager in his or her office affects your impression in a certain way that may contrast
with the impression you would form had you met the manager in a restaurant.
The strength of the situational cues also affects social perception. Some situations provide strong
cues as to appropriate behaviour. In these situations, we assume that the individual's behaviour
can be accounted for by the situation, and that it may not reflect the individual's disposition. This
is the discounting principle in social perception. For example, you may encounter an automobile
sales person who has a warm and personable manner, asks you about your work and hobbies, and
seems genuinely interested in your taste in cars. Can you assume that this behaviour reflects the
sales person's personality? You probably cannot, because of the influence of the situation. This
person is trying to sell you a car, and in this particular situation he probably treats all customers in
this manner.

Perceptual Errors:
Many times, the prejudices in the individual, time of perception, unfavourable background, lack of
clarity of stimulus, confusion, conflict in mind and such other factors are responsible for errors in
perception.
There are some errors in perception;

1. Illusion
The illusion is a false perception. Here the person will mistake a stimulus and perceive it wrongly.
For example, in the dark, a rope is mistaken as a snake or vice versa. The voice of an unknown
person is mistaken as a friend’s voice. A person standing at a distance who is not known may be
perceived as a known person.

2. Hallucination
Sometimes we come across instances where the individual perceives some stimulus, even when it
is not present.
This phenomenon is known as a hallucination. The person may see an object, person, etc. or he
may listen to some voice though there are no objects and sounds in reality.

3. Selective Perception
Selective perception means the situation when people selectively interpret what they see on the
basis of their interests, background, experience, and attitudes.
It means any characteristics that make a person, object, or event stand out will increase the
probability that it will be perceived.
Because it is impossible for us to assimilate everything we see, only certain stimuli can be taken
in.

4. Halo Effect
The individual is evaluated on the basis of perceived positive quality, feature or trait. When we
draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic, such as
intelligence, sociability, or appearance, a halo effect is operating.
In other words, this is the tendency to rate a man uniformly high or low in other traits if he is
extraordinarily high or low in one particular trait: If a worker has few absences, his supervisor
might give him a high rating in all other areas of work.

5. Stereotyping
People usually can fall into at least one general category based on physical or behavioural traits
then they will be evaluated. When we judge someone on the basis of our perception of the group
to which he or she belongs, we are using the shortcut called stereotyping.
For example, a boss might assume that a worker from a Middle East country is lazy and cannot
meet performance objectives, even if the worker tried his best.

6. Similarity
Often, people tend to seek out and rate more positively those who are similar to themselves. This
tendency to approve of similarity may cause evaluators to give better ratings to employees who
exhibit the same interests, work methods, points of view or standards.

7. Horn Effect
When the individual is completely evaluated on the basis of a negative quality or feature
perceived. This results in an overall lower rating than an acceptable rate.
He is not formally dressed up in the office, that’s why he may be casual at work too.

8. Contrast
The tendency to rate people relative to other people rather than to the individual performance he
or she is doing. Rather will evaluate an employee by comparing that employee’s performance with
other employees.

9. Self-fulfilling prophecy:
Self-fulfilling prophecy, process through which an originally false expectation leads to its own
confirmation. In a self-fulfilling prophecy an individual’s expectation about another person or
entity eventually result in the other person or entity acting in ways that confirm the expectations.
A classic example of a self-fulfilling prophecy is the bank failures during the Great Depression.
Even banks on strong financial footing sometimes were driven to insolvency by bank runs. Often,
if a false rumour started that the bank was insolvent (incapable of covering its deposits), a panic
ensued, and depositors wanted to withdraw their money all at once before the bank’s cash ran out.
When the bank could not cover all the withdrawals, it actually did become insolvent. Thus, an
originally false belief led to its own fulfilment.

10. Recency Effect:

Recency effect is a human tendency to remember and recollect the things, experiences or gifts/
items which have been given to that person recently. In other words, people remember the things
which have been said or described in the end, at the start.
People tend to recall the things or experience which have happened recently, and tend to forget the
earlier experiences.