PERCEPTION

“ WE DON’T SEE THINGS
AS THEY ARE, WE SEE
THINGS AS WE ARE.”
MEANING
 Perceptions differ from person to person.
 Each individual perceives the same situation
differently.
 Group perceptions can influence one’s
perception.
 Individuals organise and interpret things based
on their past experiences and the important
values they consider important.
 Employees tend to behave and act on certain
things on the basis of their perception.
PERCEPTION
 What you get from this picture.??
 Different people understood same things

differently. This occurs due to perception.
Organizational Behavior / Perception 4
PERCEPTION DEFINITION
 Oxford defines perception as “receiving,
collecting, action of taking possession,
apprehension with the mind or senses.”
 Simply, “it is the process of

attaining awareness or understanding of
the environment by organizing and
interpreting sensory information.”
Definition
 “ perception include all those process by which an individual receive information about his environment – seeing , hearing , feeling, tasting, smelling,”
Joseph Reitz
 “ Perception may be defined as a process by which individual organize and interpret there sensory impressions in order to give meaning to there environment”
 S.P. Robbins
7

NATURE OF PERCEPTION
 1) Perception is the process by which an
individual gives meaning to the environment.
 2) It is a cognitive and psychological process. The

manner in which a person perceives the
environment affects his behaviour. There can be no
behaviour without perception and perception lies at
the base of every human action.
 3) People’s action, emotions, thoughts and

feelings are triggered by their perceptions of their
surroundings.
 4) Since perception refers to the acquisition of
specific knowledge about objects or events at any
particular moment, it occurs whenever stimuli
activate the sense organs.
 5) Though perception has been defined in a

variety of ways, it basically refers to the manner in
which a person experiences the world.
 6) Perception is an almost automatic process

and works in much the same way within each
individual, yet typically yields different perceptions.
 7) Perception is a process that operates
constantly between us and reality.
 8) Since perception is subjective process,

different people may perceive the same
environment differently. So perception is like
beauty, that lies in the eyes of the beholder.
 9)Perception involves the creation of gestalts.
 10)Perception is more complex and much broader

than sensation.
IMPORTANCE OF PERCEPTION
 Perception plays a very important role in shaping
the personality of an individual.
 Perception is central in interpreting the world
around us.
 Perception affects the outcome of our behaviour
because we act on the basis of what we see.
 Managers should be able to distinguish between a
perceived world and the reality.
 An understanding of perception is important to
understand and control the human behaviour .
PERCEPTUAL PROCESS
PROCESS OF PERCEPTION
Characteristics of
stimuli or input
Perceptual Perceptual mechanism Perceptual

inputs output
-Objects Selection Interpretation -Attitude Behaviour
-Event -Opinion
-People Organisation -Values.
Characteristics Characteristics of
of the situation the perceiver
 Factors influencing Perception
Factors in the perceiver
• Attitudes
• Motives
• Interests
• Experience
• Expectations
Factors in the situation

Perception
• Time
• Work Setting
• Social Setting
Factors in the Target
• Novelty
• Motion
• Sounds
• Size
• Background
• Proximity
•
15 Similarity
Principles of Perceptual
Organization
 William James American psychologist has said if we understand
the world as it appears to us, it will be a big booming- buzzing
confusion. Hence, we do not see the things as they appear, but we
see them as we want, i.e. more meaningfully.
 In perceptual process we select a particular stimulus with our

attention and interpret it. In the same way whenever it is necessary
many discrete stimuli in our visual field are organized into a form
and perceived more meaningfully than they appear.

 This phenomenon was well explained by Gestalt
psychologists. They believed that the brain creates a coherent
perceptual experience by perceiving a stimulus as a whole
than perceiving discrete entities. This is more meaningfully
stated in the gestalt principle as ‘the whole is better than sum
total of its parts’. This is explained under many sub-principles
of perception.

Figure-ground Relationship
 According to this principle any figure can be perceived more
meaningfully in a background and that figure cannot be
separated from that background. For example, letters written
with a white chalk piece are perceived clearly in the
background of a blackboard

Grouping of Stimuli in
Perceptual Organization
 As said above, according to gestalt principle,
the objects can be perceived meaningfully
when they are grouped together. There are
some principles which are followed by us in
order to make our perception more
meaningful.
 They are as follows

A. Proximity
 Proximity means nearness. The objects which are nearer to each
other can be perceived meaningfully by grouping them. For
example, the word ‘Man’, here though the letters are discrete, when
grouped together gives some meaning. The stars in the Figure 3.3
which are nearer to each other are perceived together as
groups/single figure.

B. Similarity
 Stimuli need not be nearer to each other for perception. If there is
similarity in these objects, they are grouped together and perceived,
even if they are away. For example, in this Figure 3.4 grouping will
be done according to similarity, i.e. all circles, squares and triangles
are grouped separately.

C. Continuity
 Any stimulus which extends in the same direction or shape will be
perceived as a whole Figure 3.5A and B. For example, (A) in this
figure though the curved line is broken, it is perceived as a
continuous line, so also straight line is not seen with semicircles but
as a continuous line (B) the dots are perceived as existing in the
same line of direction continuously.

D. Closure
 When a stimulus is presented with gaps, the human tendency is to
perceive that figure as complete one by filling the gaps
psychologically. For example, in the Figure 3.6, the gaps are filled
psychologically and perceived as letters M and A, circle and a
rectangle.

E. Symmetry
 Objects which are having symmetrical shape are perceived as
groups. For example, the brackets of different shapes shown in the
Figure 3.7 perceived meaningfully, because they are grouped
together and perceived as brackets.

Management and
Behavioral Applications of Perception
 Perception and Motivation.
 Perception and Hiring.
 Performance Appraisal.
 Employee Effort.
 Employee Loyalty.
31
Meaning & definition
 Attribution theory is concerned with how individuals interpret
events and how this relates to their thinking and behavior.
Attribution theory assumes that people try to determine why
people do what they do. A person seeking to understand why
another person did something may attribute one or more
causes to that behavior. According to Heider a person can
make two attributions.

Types of attribution
 External (situational) attribution:
 Internal ( dispositional) attribution:
33
Attribution
 “ Attribution is defined as an explanation for
an event or action in term of reason or causes
or both”
 kelly
 “ An attribution is defined as an inference one
makes as to why a person behave to a
stimulus or situation in a particular way”
 Jones and Davis
Attribution theory
35
Thank You

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“ WE DON’T SEE THINGS

AS THEY ARE, WE SEE

 Different people understood same things

 Simply, “it is the process of

 2) It is a cognitive and psychological process. The

 3) People’s action, emotions, thoughts and

 5) Though perception has been defined in a

 6) Perception is an almost automatic process

 8) Since perception is subjective process,

 10)Perception is more complex and much broader

Perceptual Perceptual mechanism Perceptual

Factors in the situation

 In perceptual process we select a particular stimulus with our

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