Organizational Behavior:
Perception
Gholipour A. 2006.
Organizational Behavior.
University of Tehran.
Food Survey
Last month, a world-wide survey was conducted by the UN.
The only question asked was... : "Would you please give your honest
opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the
world?"
The survey was a huge failure because...:
1. In Africa they didn't know what "food" means.
2. In Eastern Europe they didn't know what "honest"
means.
3. In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortage"
means.
4. In China they didn't know what "opinion" means.
5. In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution"
means.
6. In South America they didn't know what "please"
means.
7. In the USA they didn't know what "the rest Organizational
of the world"
Gholipour A. 2006.
Behavior.
means University of Tehran.
What Is Perception, and Why Is
It Important?
Perception
A process by which
••People’s
People’s behavior
behavior isis
individuals organize and based
based on on their
their
interpret their sensory perception
perception of of what
what
impressions in order to reality
reality is,is, not
not onon
give meaning to their reality
reality itself.
itself.
environment.
••The
The world
world as as itit isis
perceived
perceived isis the the worldworld
that
that isis behaviorally
behaviorally
important.
important.
© 2005 Prentice Hall Inc. All
5–3 rights reserved.
“ WE DON’T SEE THINGS AS THEY
ARE, WE SEE THINGS AS WE ARE.”
Perceptual Process Model
Environmental Stimuli
Feeling Hearing Seeing Smelling Tasting
Selective Attention
Organization and
Interpretation
Emotions and
Behavior Gholipour A. 2006.
Organizational Behavior.
University of Tehran.
Perception
“ The study of perception is concerned with identifying the process
through which we interpret and organize sensory information to
produce our conscious experience of objects and object relationship.”
“ Perception is the process of receiving information about and making
sense of the world around us. It involves deciding which information
to notice, how to categorize this information and how to interpret it
within the framework of existing knowledge.
“ A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.
Organizational Behavior / Perception 6
The Perceptual Process
1. Sensation [Link]
An individual’s ability to The process of placing
detect stimuli in the selected perceptual
immediate environment. stimuli into a framework
2. Selection for “storage.”
The process a person
[Link]
uses to eliminate some The stage of the
of the stimuli that have
perceptual process at
been sensed and to
which stimuli are
retain others for further
interpreted and given
processing.
meaning.
Organizational Behavior / Perception 7
Perception: A Social
Information Processing Model
Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
Selective Attention/ Encoding
Storage and Retrieval
Comprehension and Simplification
Retention and Response
A
Competing
B A
environmental C
stimuli: Interpretation C Judgments
* People
D and Memory C and
* Events E categorization F decisions
* Objects
F
Gholipour A. 2006.
Organizational Behavior.
University of Tehran.
Perceptual Process Selecting Stimuli
External factors : Nature,
Receiving Stimuli Location,Size,contrast,
(External & Internal) Movement,repetition,similarity
Internal factors : Learning,
needs,age,Interest,
Organizing
Interpreting Figure Background ,
Attribution ,Stereotyping, Perceptual Grouping
Halo Effect, Projection ( similarity, proximity,
closure, continuity)
Response
Covert: Attitudes ,
Motivation,
Feeling
Overt: Behavior
Organizational Behavior / Perception 9
Factors influencing perception
A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes
distort perception. These factors can reside in the
perceiver, in the object or target being perceived or in
the context of the situation in which the perception is
made.
Organizational Behavior / Perception 10
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
• Similarity
Organizational Behavior / Perception 11
Perceptual organization
It is the process by which we group outside stimuli into recognizable
and identifiable patterns and whole objects.
Certain factors are considered to be important contributors on
assembling, organizing and categorizing information in the human
brain. These are
- Figure ground
- Perceptual grouping
Organizational Behavior / Perception 12
Exhibit 2-1 Figure-Ground
Illustrations
Figure-Ground Illustration
Field-ground differentiation
The tendency to distinguish
and focus on a stimulus that
is classified as figure as
opposed to background.
Organizational Behavior / Perception 14
PERCEPTUAL GROUPING
Our tendency to group several individual stimuli into a
meaningful and recognizable pattern.
It is very basic in nature and largely it seems to be
inborn.
Some factors underlying grouping are
-continuity
-closure
-proximity
-similarity
Organizational Behavior / Perception 15
Shortcuts in judging others
Selective Perception :
People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their
interests, background, experience and attitudes.
Halo Effect :
Drawing a general impressions about an individual on the basis of a
single charecteristics.
Organizational Behavior / Perception 16
Contrast Effect :
Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that are effected 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 persons belongs.
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