Influence of Perception on Organizational Behaviour

Abstract
"We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are"
Each of us has a schema, a collection of ideas, experiences, and associations that we bring to a
situation, and as humans we have a tendency to open ourselves far more readily to input that fits
in easily with what is already there. This means that information-gathering, an important part of
the decision-making process, can be skewed in ways that harm the process. At the most primitive
level, for example, I own a Yamaha R15 bike, and when I hit the road I see the same bike
everywhere, causing me to believe that there are now more R15 bikes on the road. That is not
going to affect very much, so it's not a problem. However, if I am a manager, and I have recently
read an article on wastefulness in the production process, if I need to cut costs somewhere, that is
likely to be my focus, possibly causing me to miss some more important aspect of cost-cutting.
So, selective perception can harm the decision-making process, cutting us off from observing
viable alternatives.
Perception is the process of interpreting the messages of our senses to provide order and meaning
to the environment. Among the most important perceptions that influence organizational
behaviour are the perceptions that organizational members have of each other.

Perceptual Process
Receiving
Stimuli
(External &
Internal)

Selecting Stimuli

External
External factors:
factors: Nature,
Nature,
location,
location, size,
size, contrast,
contrast,
movement,
movement, repetition,
repetition, similarity
similarity
Internal
Internal factors:
factors: Learning,
Learning,
needs,age,Interest.
needs,age,Interest.

Organizing

Interpreting

Perceptual
Perceptual Grouping
Grouping
(similarity,
(similarity, proximity,
proximity,
closure,
closure, continuity)
continuity)

Attribution
Attribution ,Stereotyping,
,Stereotyping,
Halo
Halo Effect,
Effect, Projection
Projection

Response

Covert:
Covert: Attitudes,
Attitudes,
Motivation,
Motivation,
Feeling
Feeling
Overt:
Overt: Behavior
Behavior
Tirthankar Sutradhar
1421427, M, CUIM

Why is this important? Behaviour in the workplace is based on peoples perception of the
workplace. There are many factors that influence how something is perceived. For instance,
factors pertaining to the perceiver can involve the persons attitudes, motives, interests,
experience and expectations. Factors associated with the context can involve time, work setting
and social setting. Finally, factors related to the actual target can involve novelty, motion, sounds,
size, background and proximity.
The processes of perception consist of various sub processes such as confrontation, registration,
interpretation and feedback.
Though people are continuously exposed to numerous stimuli, they tend to select only a few of
them. The principle of perceptual selectivity seeks to explain how, and why people select only a
few stimuli out of the many stimuli they keep encountering at any given time. Perceptual
selectivity is affected by various internal set factors and external attention factors. Some of the
internal set factors are learning, motivation and personality. External attention factors include
environmental influences like intensity, size, contrast, repetition, motion, novelty and familiarity.
Sometimes, different individuals may perceive the same thing differently. Differences may arise
due to factors associated with the perceiver (attitudes, motives, expectations, etc.) or the
situation (time, place, etc.) or the target (novelty, background, sounds, size, etc.
But what does this have to do with an Organization? Well, there are various ways that a person
can perceive a situation in the work environment that can lead to problems. For example, the
following can occur among employees in the workplace on a daily basis:

Fundamental attribution error: The tendency to underestimate the influence of

external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making
judgments about the behaviour of others.

Self-serving bias: The tendency to attribute ones own successes to internal factors and
blame ones own failures on external factors.

Selective perception: The tendency to selectively interpret what is seen based on ones
interests, background, experience and attitudes. In the business context, selective
perception can often lead to unfair treatment of subordinates. For this reason, it is
important to try to prevent those in a position of power in a given business from engaging
in selective perception. A manager might perceive one worker as good and another as
bad. The manager then only notices good things done by the first worker and only bad
things done by the second. This is a reason why it is very important to make sure that
managers are evaluating workers based on at least some sorts of objective measures
rather than just subjective perceptions.

Projection: The tendency to attribute ones own characteristics to other people

Example: I do not like my new colleagues. But I have a value that says I should like
everyone. So I project onto them that they do not like me. This allows me to avoid them
and also to handle my own feelings of dislike.
Tirthankar Sutradhar
1421427, M, CUIM

Stereotyping and workforce Diversity: The tendency to judge someone on the basis of
the perception of a group to which that person belongs.
Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes: Stereotypical views of other races and cultures are
pervasive, persistent, frequently negative, and often self-contradictory. Stereotypical
views that African Americans can't handle pressure or that Asian Americans are
technical wizards have interfered with their opportunities for advancement to upper
management positions.
Gender Stereotypes. Women are severely underrepresented in managerial and
administrative jobs. Since males dominate business and many males have a false
stereotype of women's executive capabilities, women have not been able to advance as
easily as men to higher management levels. Women suffer from a stereotype that is
detrimental to their hiring, development, promotion, and salaries.
Age Stereotypes: Knowing that a person falls into a certain age range, we have a tendency
to make certain assumptions about the persons physical, psychological, and intellectual
capabilities. For example, older people tend to be perceived as having less capacity for
performance than younger people. They are also viewed as being less productive and
lacking the potential for development. As a result of these false stereotypes, many older
people have experienced discrimination, and many have taken their complaints to human
rights agencies.
Nationality: For instance in workplace individualized as all Chinese are hard worker than
other nationality.
Occupation: For example people perceive that all accountants are uninteresting. Or a new
employee from a less renowned college is pre assumed to be less capable of handling the
work.
Age: All young, fresh workers strong and unreliable brain storming, no old workers want
to think new ideas.
Physical: Its assumed that workplace all people with brown hair have a burning
temperament, and all fat workers are lazy.
Education: For instance all new hired fresh graduates are smart in workplace.

Halo effect: The tendency to draw a general impression about an individual based on a
single characteristic. It is a psychological phenomenon that allows a general opinion of
something, or someone, to be gathered from one element.
Appraisals: One area where the halo effect is prevalent is in annual performance reviews.
Some managers take a relaxed approach to reviews and assume that if an employee is
proficient in some elements of the appraisal, then he is proficient in all of them. This can
Tirthankar Sutradhar
1421427, M, CUIM

work the other way, as well. An employee seen as ineffective in one or two aspects of his
job can be given the general label of incompetent.
Promotions: Movies and books may present the theme of a hero who performs one
spectacular task and is asked to rule as king of the people he saved. The problem is that
the hero does not possess any of the leadership qualities or administrative skills needed to
be an effective ruler. The same thing can happen in a corporate workplace. A sales
professional is proficient at bringing in new accounts and generating revenue, so he is
promoted to the position of vice president of sales. Unfortunately, he does not know the
first thing about being a company executive.
Job Tasks: People build up a reputation in the workplace for being proficient at
something when their actual area of expertise is much different. For example, if one of
the accountants from the accounting pool becomes familiar with the accounting software,
others ask for assistance in getting the software to work properly. It is then assumed that
she knows a great deal about all the software titles in the company, and the halo effect in
this situation could also get her labeled as a proficient in hardware repair as well.
Departmental Misconception: Incompetent employees in a department can, by use of the
halo effect, drag down the reputation for the rest of the group. For example, if the payroll
group in the accounting department consistently makes mistakes on employee paychecks,
then the halo effect would allow the rest of the company to assume that no one in the
accounting department can do their job properly.
The way a person perceives a job applicant during an interview can affect an organization. For
example, interviewers may like one aspect of the interviewee, and then pursuant to the halo
effect, assume the interviewee is entirely a good fit with the company because of that one
characteristic. Or interviewers may learn they have one thing in common with the interviewee
and project that they are similar to the interviewee in every way, making a good fit for the
organization.
Alternatively, an employee may not get a promotion because an employer has formed a negative
impression about the employee simply because that person belongs to a particular religious
group. This is stereotyping and is clearly contrary to human rights legislation, but given human
natures tendency to gather things and people into groups and make general impressions, it may
happen more often than one might think.
As well, an employee may be considered to be disloyal or not putting enough effort into a
project. These characteristics are subjectively judged based on an employers perceptions. For
example, one supervisor may consider an employee to be loyal, while another supervisor may
consider that same employee to be too conforming and insincere.
In terms of perceptions, research has shown that what employees perceive from their work
situation influences their productivity most. Therefore, to influence productivity, it is necessary
for employers to assess how workers perceive their jobs.
Tirthankar Sutradhar
1421427, M, CUIM

Likewise, absenteeism, turnover and job satisfaction have more to do with an employees
perception of the job. Those individuals who perceive their jobs as negative are likely to have
increased absenteeism, more frequent turnover and less job satisfaction. The only way to
influence these variables is to understand how an employee subjectively perceives the
workplace.
Consequently, perception influences decision-making within an organization. Take the example
of an interview. Within the first few minutes of the interview, the interviewer has learned some
information about the interviewee and has formed an impression based on various perceptions.
The interviewer then decides whether the candidate is a good fit with the company. The
remaining time in the interview is typically spent asking select information that supports the
initial decision.
The key takeaway of the paper is that perception is how we make sense of our environment in
response to environmental stimuli. While perceiving our surroundings, we go beyond the
objective information available to us, and our perception is affected by our values, needs, and
emotions. There are many biases that affect human perception of objects, self, and others. When
perceiving the physical environment, we fill in gaps and extrapolate from the available
information. We also contrast physical objects to their surroundings and may perceive something
as bigger, smaller, slower, or faster than it really is. In self-perception, we may commit the selfenhancement or self-effacement bias, depending on our personality. We also overestimate how
much we are like other people.
When perceiving others, stereotypes infect our behavior. Stereotypes may lead to self-fulfilling
prophecies. Stereotypes are perpetuated because of our tendency to pay selective attention to
aspects of the environment and ignore information inconsistent with our beliefs. When
perceiving others, the attributions we make will determine how we respond to the situation.
Understanding the perception process gives us clues to understand human behavior.
Though we are all human and have a background and a particular perspective on which we rely
when perceiving things in the work setting, to conclude I will say that, it is important to be aware
of the various factors that influence our perceptions, especially when making important decisions
that affect the organization. Sometimes it is a good idea to have a few decision makers provide
an opinion when making big decisions to ensure that various perceptions are considered before
taking the plunge.

Tirthankar Sutradhar
1421427, M, CUIM

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Tirthankar Sutradhar
1421427, M, CUIM