PERCEPTION

You only see what your eyes want to see How can life be what you want it to be You are frozen, when your heart not open.. -MADONNA (Frozen) Making sense of the world around us is a complicated business. Indeed, the mystery of how we sense and interpret events in our environment constitutes one of the oldest areas of study in Psychology. There are TWO key concepts in this study. 1. SENSATION 2. PERCEPTION. Our journey of understanding the world is as follows. 1 Sensation to 2 Perception to 3 Consciousness to 4 Learning to 5 Memory to 6 Concepts ( Verbal or Nonverbal ) to 7 Language to 8 Thinking to 9 Behavior ( Decision making ). Perception, learning, and decision making are influenced by personality of the individual, previous knowledge,beliefs,attitudes, culture etc., Basic differeces between Senasation and Perception: Much of our success in being happy and successful depends on our ability to respond intelligently and adapt appropriately to changes in our environment (NAMHC, 1996). The first step in responding and adapting involves gathering millions of meaningless sensations and changing them into useful perceptions. Because our brain changes sensations into perceptions so quickly, automatically, and with very little awareness, we might assume that what we see (sense) is what we perceive. However, the process of changing sensations into perceptions is influenced by whether we are alert, sleepy, worried, emotional, motivated, or affected by the use of a legal or illegal drug. For example, drinking alcohol causes perceptions in social situations to be less rational and more uninhibited, causing people under its influence to act aggressively, make terrible decisions, create problems, or say really dumb things. (R. Goldberg, 2006; Maisto et al., 2008). As we are about to discover, sensing and perceiving are as different as night and day.

SENSATION

A sensation is our first awareness of some outside stimulus. An outside stimulus activates sensory receptors, which in turn produce electrical signals that are transformed by the brain into meaningless bits of information. A baby develped a diapher rash. It is very terrible and it hurts. The baby is not feeling, not crying and she is sleeping well. When taken to doctor, the parents are informed that the baby is having a rare and untreatable condition- a condition that is insensitive to pain or extreme temperature. And these patients die shortly because they accidently injure themselves so frequently.

Pain, like other senses,provides a window to the world, providing with not only an awareness, understanding and appreciation of the worlds beauty, but alerting us to its dangers,our senses enable us to feel the gentle of breezes, see flickering lights miles away, and hear soft murmuring of distant songbirds.

Imagine suddenly becoming deaf or blind, unable to hear what people are saying or to see where you are going. Only then would you realize that your senses provide a continuous stream of information about your world. Your senses tell you that something is out there, and your perceptions tell you what that something is. However, there are some sounds and objects you may not be aware of because the level of stimulation is too low and does not exceed the threshold of a particular sense. Sensation encompassess the process by which our sense organs receive information from the environment. We have five sense organs capable of go beyond these five senses. Eg. Pain, pressure, temp, vibration, light, colors,textures,shapes. Different types of sounds eg. Horns, shouts, whispers, songs. Different types of smells and different types of tasks. Sensation is the activation of the sense organs by a source of physical energy. The study of sensation is concerned with the initial contact between organisms and their physical environment. It focuses on describing the relationship between various forms of sensorystimulation and how these inputs are registered by our sense organs.

THRESHOLD Threshold refers to a point above which a stimulus is percieved and below which it is not percieved. The threshold determines when we first become aware of stimulus. At first, Gustav Fechner (FECK-ner) defined the absolute threshold as the smallest amount of stimulus energy (such as sound or light) that can be observed or experienced. Abolute threshold : Absolute threshold is the intensity level of a stimulus such that a person will have a 50% chance of detecting it. sublimal stimulus : A subliminal stimulus has an intensity that gives a person less than a 50% chance of detecting the stimulus.

PERCEPTION: The focus of attention

WE DONT SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE, WE SEE THINGS AS WE ARE.

We cannot absorb all of the available sensory information in our environment. Thus, we selectively attend to certain aspects of our environment while relegating others to the background. Perception is a process by which individuals select, organize, and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. Selective attention reduces interference from irrelevant sensory sources. However, what we perceive can be substantially different from objective reality. The question is, why the study of perception is important in the study of OB? Simply because peoples behavior is based on their perception of what reality is? Not on the reality itself. The world as it is perceived is the world that is behaviorally important. People have different perceptions of the same situation. Thus, perception is the primary vehicle through which we come to understand our surroundings and ourselves. Social perception is the process of interpreting information about another person. Social perception is directly concerned with how one individual perceives other individuals. Formal organization participants constantly perceive one another. Managers are

perceiving workers, workers are perceiving managers, line personnel perceive staff personnel, staff personnel perceive line personnel, superiors perceive subordinates, and subordinates are perceiving superiors and so on. There are numerous complex factors that enter into such social perception, but the primary factors are found in the psychological process and personality. Perception is the process by which individuals select, organize, store, and retrieve information.The process of human perception provides the keys to developing accurate beliefs about oneself and ones environment.Decision making is the process whereby this perceived information is used to evaluate and choose among possible courses of action. Translating these accurate beliefs into decisions that are rationalor at least satisfactoryis the focus of the decision making process.In addition to having accurate perceptions of the present conditions, decision makers need to be able to envision the future and use their vision to generate innovative and creative options, which is the antithesis to doing things the way you always do. Creativity examines the process of going beyond the traditional decision options to uncover new and innovative alternatives. A perception is the experience we have after our brain assembles and combines thousands of individual, meaningless sensations into a meaningful pattern or image. However, our perceptions are rarely exact replicas of the original stimuli. Rather, our perceptions are usually changed, biased, colored, or distorted by our unique set of experiences. Thus, perceptions are our personal interpretations of the real world. One important feature of perceptions is that they are rarely exact copies of the real world. For example, people who listen to the same song or music can react very differently (happy, relaxed, agitated, and bored). To study how personal preferences for music can bias our perceptions, researchers assigned students who preferred listening to classical music over other types of music to groups that were instructed to sit and relax while listening to either 20 minutes of classical music or 20 minutes of rock music. Researchers used physiological measures to record anxiety levels both before and after subjects listened to music. Findings showed that only those subjects who listened to their favorite kind of music (classical music) had a decrease in anxiety levels. To show that no two individuals perceive the world in exactly the same way, well explain how your personal experiences change, bias, and even distort your perceptions. Obviously, it would be impossible to respond, adapt, and survive if you had to rely only on sensations. You can now appreciate the importance of changing sensations into perceptions.

CHANGING SENSATIONS INTO PERCEPTIONS: It is most unlikely that you have ever experienced a pure sensation because your brain automatically and instantaneously changes sensations into perceptions. Despite what you may think, perceptions do not exactly mirror events, people, situations, and objects in your environment. Rather, perceptions are interpretations, which mean that your perceptions are changed or biased by your personal experiences, memories, emotions, and motivations. For example, let us understand how a 7-year-old Gabrielles perception of a dog was changed from nice to bad by her personal experience of being bitten. The next time Gabrielle sees a dog, she wont see just a four-legged creature with ears, nose, and tail; she will see a bad four-legged creature. To understand how sensations become perceptions, we have divided the perceptual process into a series of discrete steps that, in real life, are much more complex and interactive. Stimulus. Since normally we experience only perceptions, we are not aware of many preceding steps. The first step begins with some stimulus, which is any change of energy in the environment, such as light waves, sound waves, mechanical pressure, or chemicals. The stimulus activates sense receptors in the eyes, ears, skin, nose, or mouth. In Gabrielles case, the stimuli are light waves reflecting off the body of a dog. Transduction. After entering Gabrielles eyes, light waves are focused on the retina, which contains photoreceptors that are sensitive to light. The light waves are absorbed by photoreceptors, which change physical energy into electrical signals, called transduction. The electrical signals are changed into impulses that travel to the brain. Sense organs do not produce sensations but simply transform energy into electrical signals. Brain: primary areas. Impulses from sense organs first go to different primary areas of the brain. For example, impulses from the ear go to the temporal lobe, from touch to the parietal lobe, and from the eye to areas in the occipital lobe. When impulses reach primary areas in the occipital lobe, they are first changed into sensations. However, Gabrielle would not report seeing sensations. Brain: association areas. Each sense sends its particular impulses to a different primary area of the brain where impulses are changed into sensations, which are meaningless bits of information, such as shapes, colors, and textures (top right). The sensation impulses are then sent to the appropriate association areas in the brain. The association areas change meaningless bits into meaningful images, called perceptions, such as a

dog . In Gabrielles case, impulses from her eyes would be changed into visual sensations by the primary visual area and into perceptions by the visual association areas. However, Gabrielles perception of a dog would be changed, biased, and even distorted by many psychological, emotional, and cultural factors. Personalized perceptions. Each of us has a unique set of personal experiences, emotions, and memories that are automatically added to our perceptions by other areas of the brain. As a result, our perceptions are not a mirror but a changed, biased, or even distorted copy of the real world (Goldstein, 2010). For example, the visual areas of Gabrielles brain automatically assemble many thousands of sensations into a meaningful pattern, which in this case is a dog. Now, however, Gabrielle doesnt see just an ordinary white and brown dog because other brain areas add her emotional experience of being bitten. Thus, Gabrielle perceives this white and brown, four-legged creature to be a bad dog. For this same reason, two people can look at the same dog and have very different perceptions, such as cute dog, great dog, bad dog, smelly dog, or friendly dog. Thus, your perceptions are personalized interpretations rather than true copies of objects, animals, people, and situations in the real world.

Factors Influencing Perception: How do we explain that individuals may look at the same thing, yet perceive it differently, and both be right? A number of factors affect perception. These factors can be found in the perceiver, in the object or target being perceived, or in the context of the situation in which the perception is made. A number of factors affect percetion.

The Perceiver: When an individual (the perceiver) looks at something (the target) and tries to interpret what he or she sees, that interpretation is heavily influenced by the perceivers personal characteristics ( Eg. Attitudes,Motives, Interests, Experience, and Expectations,). Have you ever bought a new car and then suddenly noticed a large number of cars like yours on the road? Its unlikely that everyone else has suddenly bought the same model. Rather, your own purchase has influenced your perception so that you are now more likely to notice the other cars. This is an example of how factors related to the perceiver influence what he or she perceives. A variety of factors affects our perceptions. Our attitudes and motives, interests, and past experiences all shape the way we perceive an event. We

often interpret others behaviours based on our own characteristics. Expectations can also distort our perceptionswe see what we expect to see. For example, if you expect police officers to be authoritarian, young people to have no ambitions, human resource directors to like people, or politicians to be unethical, you may perceive individuals from these categories in this way, regardless of their actual traits. Finally, perceptions are likely to vary cross-culturally. Thus, something that you do in a friendly way may be viewed as too aggressive, or too informal, by someone from another country or culture. The target: A targets characteristics can affect what is perceived. Loud people are more likely to be noticed in a group than are quiet ones. So, too, are extremely attractive or unattractive individuals. Novelty, motion, sound, size, and other attributes of a target shape the way we see it. Because targets are not looked at in isolation, the relationship of a target to its background influences perception. Objects that are close to each other will tend to be perceived together rather than separately. Events that are close in time may also be seen as related, even if they are not. Employees in a particular department are seen as a group. If two people in a four-member department suddenly resign, we tend to assume that their departures were related when, in fact, they may be totally unrelated. Timing may also imply dependence when, for example, a new sales manager is assigned to a territory and, soon after, sales in that territory skyrocket. The assignment of the new sales manager and the increase in sales may not be relatedthe increase may be due to the introduction of a new product line or to one of many other reasonsbut people would tend to see the two occurrences as related. Persons, objects, or events that are similar to each other also tend to be grouped together. The greater the similarity, the greater the probability that we will tend to perceive them as a common group. People who are female, black or members of any other clearly distinguishable group will tend to be perceived as similar not only in physical terms but in other unrelated characteristics as well. The Situation: The context in which we see objects or events is important. Elements in the surrounding environment influence our perceptions. For instance, it might be entirely appropriate to wear shorts and T-shirts in a social setting, but not appropriate in a work setting. Therefore, your interpretation of the same clothes will vary with the context. Similarly, you are more likely to notice your employees goofing off if your manager from head office happens to be in town. Your employees may be acting as they always do, but it is the situation that affects your perception. The time at which an object or event is seen can influence attention, as can location, light, heat, or any number of situational factors. Thus, it is possible to say that truth is often in

the eye of the perceiver, rather than some objective fact. For instance, a recent study compared how women managers were perceived, depending upon whether they were wearing flat shoes, slacks, and a turtleneck or high heels, a tight skirt, and a low-cut blouse. Businesswomen wearing the sexy clothes were viewed as less competent. A female manager whose appearance emphasized her sexiness elicited less positive emotions, more negative emotions, and perceptions of less competence on a subjective rating scale and less intelligence on an objective scale, the studys authors reported. PERCEPTUAL PROCESSES Humans have five senses through which we experience the world: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. Most of us trust our senses, but sometimes this blind faith can lead us to believe that our perceptions are a perfect reflection of reality. People react to what they perceive, and their perceptions do not always reflect objective reality. This discrepancy can create major problems, because, as the difference between perceived and objective reality increases, so too does the opportunity for misunderstanding, frustration, and conflict. overview of the processes of perception and decision making: Environment-Attention-Organization-recall=Perception Evaluating outcomes-Evaluating probabilities-Choosing and rejecting alternatives=Decision making. Through the perceptual process, the individual uses some portion of the information that exists in that environment to make decisions. The process of perception will be broken down into three stages: attention, organization, and recall. As the process moves from environment to recall, some information is lost at each stage. At the end of the perceptual process, the decision is framed; that is, the decision maker finishes the process of collecting information and states the decision-making problem in specific terms. At this point, the decision-making process begins. The information collected in the perceptual process is evaluated in terms of what outcomes may result from various decisions and what odds are associated with various outcomes. Using the combined assessment of outcomes and probabilities, the decision maker chooses those alternatives that are most likely to lead to good outcomes and rejects those alternatives that are either unlikely to lead to good outcomes or likely to lead to bad outcomes.

Attention At any given moment in time, our five senses are bombarded with information of all sorts. In the attention stage, most of this available information is filtered so that some enters the system but other information does not. Failures to filter this information can result in information overload, destroying concentration, and harming task performance. If critical information is never attended to it can never figure into decision making, thus resulting in decisionmaking errors. Thus, the attention stage is obviously critical in terms of its gatekeeping function, and we need to appreciate how characteristics of the perceiver affect the way in which attention is directed. Organization Although much information is automatically filtered out at the attention stage, the remaining information is still too abundant and too complex to be easily understood and stored. Because human perceivers can process only a few bits of information at a time, in the organization stage they further simplify and organize incoming sensory data. Recall THE PERCEPTUAL ERRORS: Its difficult to perceive and interpret what others do. As a result, we develop shortcuts to make this task more manageable. These shortcuts are often very helpfulthey allow us to make accurate perceptions quickly and provide valid information for making predictions. However, they are not foolproof. They can and do get us into trouble. For instance, when we make a bad first impression on someone, that perception may lead them to treat us poorly, or dismiss us as a prospective employee or teammate. Some of the errors that distort the perception process include attribution theory, selective perception, the halo effect, contrast effects, projection, and stereotyping. Attribution Theory This theory explains how we judge people differently, depending on the cause we attribute to a given behaviour. Basically, the theory suggests that when we observe an individuals behaviour, we try to determine whether the individual is responsible for the behaviour (the cause is internal), or whether something outside the individual caused the behaviour (the cause is external). Whether we realize it or not, we use attribution theory whenever we try to come up with explanations for why people behaved the way they did.

Internally caused behaviour is believed to be under the personal control of the individual; that is, the person chooses to engage in the behaviour. Externally caused behaviour is believed to result from outside causes; that is, the person does not have control over his or her actions and is forced into the behaviour by the situation. For example, while waiting for one of your team a member who is late for a meeting, you could imagine either an internal or an external reason for the lateness. An internal reason might be that the team member must have partied into the wee hours of the morning and then overslept. An external attribution might be that there was a major automobile accident that tied up traffic. Rules for determining Attribution: In trying to determine whether behaviour is internally or externally caused, we rely on three rules about the behaviour: (1) distinctiveness, (2) consensus, and (3) consistency. Distinctiveness: A behavioral rule that asks whether an individual acts similarly across a variety of situations? Or the behavior in question is unusual. Is the student always underperforming (being late for class, goofing off in team meetings, not answering urgent emails) or is the students behavior in one situation unusual from what he shows in other situations? If the behaviour is unusual, the observer is likely to make an external attribution. If this action is not unusual, the observer will probably judge it as internally caused. Consensus: consensus considers how an individuals behaviour compares with others in the same situation.. If everyone who is faced with a similar situation responds in the same way, we can say the behaviour shows consensus. When consensus is high, an external attribution is given to an individuals behaviour. But if an individuals behavior is different from everyone elses, you would conclude the cause for that individuals behaviour was internal. Consistency: A behavioral rule that asks whether the individual has been acting in the same way overtime. If a student is usually on time for class (she has not been late all term), being 10 minutes late will be perceived differently from the way it is when the student is routinely late (almost every class). If a student is almost always late, the observer is likely to attribute lateness to internal causes. If the student is almost never late, then lateness will be attributed to external causes.

Selective Perception Have you ever misjudged a person? Do you know Why? Because it is impossible for us to absorb everything we see, we engage in selective perception. How does selectivity work as a shortcut in judging other people? Since we cannot absorb all that we see, we take in bits and pieces. Those bits and pieces are not chosen randomly, but are selectively chosen according to our interests, background, experience, and attitudes. Selective perception also allows us to speedread others, but we may draw inaccurate pictures as a result. Because we see what we want to see, we can make unwarranted conclusions about an ambiguous situation. Suppose there is a rumour going around the office that your companys sales are down and that large layoffs may be coming soon. If a senior executive from head office makes a routine visit around this time, it might be interpreted as managements first step in identifying which people to lay off. In reality, such an action might be the furthest thing from the senior executives mind. Selective perception can also make us draw wrong conclusions about co-workers who have suffered serious illnesses.

Halo Effective When we draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic, such as intelligence, likeability, or appearance, a halo effect is operating. This often happens when students evaluate their instructor. Students may give more weight to a single trait, such as enthusiasm, and allow their entire evaluation to be affected by how they judge the instructor on that one trait. Thus, an instructor may be quiet, assured, knowledgeable, and highly qualified, but if his or her presentation style lacks enthusiasm, those students would probably give the instructor a low rating. The reality of the halo effect was confirmed in a classic study. Subjects were given a list of traits and asked to evaluate the person to whom those traits applied. When traits such as intelligent, skillful, practical, industrious, determined, and warm were used, the person was judged to be wise, humorous, popular, and imaginative. When cold was substituted for warm, a completely different set of perceptions was obtained, though otherwise the list was identical. Clearly, the subjects were allowing a single trait to influence their overall impression of the person being judged. The halo effect does not operate at random. Research suggests that it is likely to be most extreme when the traits to be perceived are ambiguous in behavioural terms, when the traits have moral overtones, and when the perceiver is judging traits with which he or she has had limited experience.

Contrast Effect The concept that our reaction to one person is often influenced by other people who have recently encountered. There is an old saying among entertainers who perform in variety shows: Never follow an act that has children or animals in it. This example demonstrates how contrast effects can distort perceptions. We dont evaluate a person in isolation. Our reaction to one person is often influenced by other people we have recently encountered. Consider what happens when a manager interviews job candidates from a pool of applicants. The evaluation of a candidate can be affected by his or her place in the interview schedule. The candidate is likely to receive a better evaluation if interviewed after a mediocre applicant, and a worse evaluation if interviewed after a strong applicant. Projection Attributing ones own charecteristics to other people. It is easy to judge others if we assume that they are similar to us. For instance, if you want challenge and responsibility in your job, you assume that others want the same. Or you are honest and trustworthy, so you take it for granted that other people are equally honest and trustworthy. This tendency for people to attribute their own characteristics to other peoplewhich is called projectioncan distort perceptions. People who engage in projection tend to perceive others according to what they themselves are like rather than perceiving others as they really are. Because they always judge people as similar to themselves, when they observe someone who is actually like them their perceptions are naturally correct. But when they observe others who are not like them, their perceptions are not so accurate. Stereotyping 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. Stereotyping differs from the halo effect in that the latter is based on a single characteristic of the individual, rather than the individuals membership in a particular group. Generalization, of course, is not without advantages. It helps us simplify a complex world, and it permits us to maintain consistency. It is easier to deal with a large number of stimuli if we use stereotypes. As an example, assume you are a sales manager looking to fill a sales position in your territory and 100

people have applied. You want to hire someone who is ambitious and hardworking and who can deal well with adversity without spending too much time interviewing candidates. Your last five hires have been very successful and participated in athletics at university. So you eliminate from consideration candidates who have not participated in university sports, considerably reducing your search time. To the extent that athletes are ambitious, hardworking, and able to deal with adversity, the use of this stereotype can improve your decision making. The problem, clearly, is when we inaccurately stereotype. All university athletes are not necessarily ambitious, hard-working, or good at dealing with adversity, just as all accountants are not necessarily quiet and introspective. Moreover, when we stereotype like this, we run the risk of overlooking highly qualified people who do not meet our stereotypes. Recent research examining how Hollywood studio executives and producers judge the creative potential of relatively unknown screenwriters makes this clear. When the screenwriters did not meet the stereotype of creative individuals in their presentation or appearance, they were judged as not creative (and often not taken seriously) without consideration of the content of their ideas. The researchers noted that this could result in hiring uncreative individuals simply because they fit the creative stereotype, and failing to hire truly creative individuals who did not fit the stereotype. Prjudice Prejudice is an unfounded dislike of a person or group based on their belonging to a particular stereotyped group. For instance, an individual may dislike people of a particular religion, or state that she does not want to work with someone of a particular ethnicity. Prejudice can lead to negative consequences in the workplace and, in particular, to discrimination. For instance, an individual of a particular ethnic group might be passed over for a management position because of the belief that employees might not see that person as a good manager. In another instance, an individual in his fifties who is looking for work but cannot find a job may be discriminated against because of the belief that younger workers are more appealing than older workers. Prejudice generally starts with stereotypes and then has negative emotional content added.

EXTRA MATERIAL

Characteristics of the Perceiver Several characteristics of the perceiver can affect perception. When an individual looks at a target and attempts to interpret what he or she, that interpretation is heavily influenced by personal characteristics of individual perceiver. The major characteristics of the perceiver influencing perception are: (A) 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 (B) Moods: Moods can have a strong influence on the way we perceive someone. We think differently when we are happy than we do when we are depressed. In addition, we remember information that is consistent with our mood state better than information that is inconsistent with our mood state. When in a positive mood, we form more positive impression of others. When in a negative mood, we tend to evaluate others unfavourably. (C) 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. (D) Self-Concept: Another factor that can affect social perception is the perceivers' self-concept. An individual with a positive self-concept tends to notice positive attributes in another person. In contrast, a negative self-concept can lead a perceiver to pick out negative traits in another person. Greater understanding of self allows us to have more accurate perceptions of others (E) 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.

(F) Cognitive Structure: Cognitive structure, an individual's pattern of thinking, also affects perception. Some people have a tendency to perceive physical traits, such as height, weight, and appearance, more readily. Others tend to focus more on central traits, or personality dispositions. Cognitive complexity allows a person to perceive multiple characteristics of another person rather than attending to just a few traits.

Characteristics of the 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 colour 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 doorway, 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.

Characteristics of the 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 bikini at the swimming pool. Yet the professor will notice the same girl if she comes to his organizational behaviour class in a bikini. 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 providestrong 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 salesperson 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 salesperson'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.

MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS OF PERCEPTION

People in organizations are always judging each other. Managers must appraise their subordinate's performance. In many cases, these judgements have important consequences for the organizations. Let us look at the more obvious applications of perceptions in organization. 1. Employment Interview: A major input into who is hired and who is rejected in any organization is the employment interview. Evidence indicated that interviewers often make inaccurate perceptual judgements. Interviews generally draw early impressions that become very quickly entrenched. If negative information is exposed early in the interview, it tends to be more heavily weighted than if that same information comes out later. As a result, information elicited early in the interview carries greater weight than does information elicited later. A "good applicant" is probably characterised more by the absence of unfavourable characteristics than by the presence of favourable characteristics. The employment interview is an important input into the hiring decision and a Perception and Learning manager must recognize that perceptual factors influence who is hired. Therefore, eventually the quality of an organization's labour force depends on the perception

of the interviewers. 2. Performance Evaluation: An employee's performance appraisal very much depends on the perceptual process. The performance appraisal represents an assessment of an employee's work. While this can be objective, many jobs are evaluated in subjective terms. Subjective measures are, by definition, judgemental. The evaluator forms a general impression of an employee's work. What the evaluator perceives to be "good" or "bad" employee characteristics will, significantly influences the appraisal outcome. An employee's future is closely tied to his or her appraisal promotions, pay raises and continuation of employment are among the most obvious outcomes. 3. Performance Expectations: A manager's expectations of an individual affect both the manager's behaviour towards the individual and the individual's response. An impressive amount of evidence demonstrates that people will attempt to validate their perceptions of reality, even when these perceptions are faulty. This is particularly relevant when we consider performance expectations on the job. The term self-fulfilling prophecy or Pygmalion effect have evolved to characterise the fact that people's expectations determine their behaviour. Managers can harness the power of the Pygmalion effect to improve productivity in the organization. It appears that high expectations of individuals come true. Managers can extend these high expectations of individuals to an entire group. When a manager expects positive things from a group, the group delivers. Similarly, if a manager expects people to perform minimally, they will tend to behave so as to meet these low expectations. Thus, the expectations become reality. 4. Employee Loyalty: Another important judgement that managers make about employees is whether they are loyal to the organization. Few organizations appreciate employees, especially those in the managerial ranks openly disparaging the firm. The assessment of an employee's loyalty or commitment is highly judgemental. What is perceived as loyalty by one may be seen as excessive by another. An employee who questions a top management decision may be seen as disloyal. Some employees called whistle-blowers who report unethical practices by their employer to authorities inside or outside the organization, typically act out of loyalty to their organization but are perceived by management as troublemakers. Impression Management: Most people want to make favourable impression on others. Impression management is the process by which individuals try to control the impression others have of them. This is particularly true in organizations, where individuals compete for jobs, favourable performance evaluations and salary increases. Some impression management techniques used in organizations are given below: 1. Name-dropping: is a technique, which involves mentioning an association with important people in the hopes of improving one's image. 2. Flattery: is a common technique whereby compliments are given to an individual in order to win his or her approval. Favours are also used to gain the approval of others. Agreement with someone's opinion is a technique often used to gain a positive impression.

3. Managing one's Appearance: is another technique for impression management. Individuals dress carefully for interviews because they want to "look the part" in order to get the job. Self-descriptions, or statements about one's characteristics, are used to manage impressions as well. Impression management seems to have an impact on other's impressions. As long as the impressions conveyed are accurate, this process can be beneficial one in organizations. If the impressions are found to be false, however, a strongly negative overall impression may result. Furthermore, excessive impression management can lead to the perception that the user

is manipulative or insincere.

What do you see?

There's a face... and the word liar

A couple or a skull?

THE ABOVE MATERIAL IS PREPARED FOR THE M.A. FINAL YEAR STUDENTS OF ANDHRA UNIVERSITY (DISTANCE MODE).