Concept and Principles of perception

Perception is the process of receiving, organizing and giving meaning to information

obtained through five sensory receptors –eyes, ears, nose, mouth and skin. It is an
individual’s way of giving meaning to the impression they receive from the
environment. An individual differs in the way he sees, interprets and understands a
particular event. Perception can be regarded as the outcome of sensation and is
much broader in its nature. Perception involves observing data, selecting, and
organizing the data based on sensory reflects and interpreting them as per their
personality attributes. It is the individual’s own view of the world. This is the very
reason why the same information may be perceived by different individuals
differently.

Perception is defined as, “a process by which individuals organize and

interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their
environment.” (Robbins)

Perception is a complex process. There exist several sub-processes which gives

evidence of the complexity and interactive nature of perception. The figure below
shows how these sub-processes relate to one another.

Confrontati Registratio Interpretati

on n on

Feedback
For clarification

Consequence Behavior
Reinforcement/ Overt or Covert
Punishment or some
organizational outcome

Fig: Sub process of perception

Application of Perception in Maintaining Organizational
Relation
Employees’ perception in organizational relation has great importance. Employees’
perception of his job, organizational structure and organization as a whole affects
on his performance and his overall productivity. Similarly, the interpretation of any
particular situation of an organization may be perceived differently by each
individual employee. Application of perception in organizational relation can be
better explained with attribution theory and shortcuts in perception.

Attribution Theory
Attribution theory is related to how people explain the cause of a behavior. This
theory basically gives two causes for any behavior –internal and external causes.
The former is related to individual while latter is related to the situation or
environment. The three elements of attribution theory are distinctiveness,
consensus and consistency. Following figure explains the attribution made for the
poor performance of an employee in context to these three elements.

Example of Organizational Behavior Observation

Attribution made
Co-workers are also
performing poorly on High Consensus
this task
External
The employee didn’t do (situational
this task well only this Low Consistency or
one time environment
The employee does well al factors)
High
in other task but not
Distinctiveness
this one
Co-workers are
performing well in this Low Consensus
task
High Internal
The employee never
does this task well Consistency (personal
factors)
The employee does
Low
poorly on other tasks as
well Distinctiveness

To maintain proper organizational relation one should carefully observe the factors
behind the behavior before attributing for the cause. Psychologists have recognized
two potent attribution biases, fundamental attribution error which explains that
people tend to ignore situational forces while explaining other’s behavior and self-
serving bias which explains that people attribute successful to personal factors and
failure to environmental factors. For example a boss may take credit for the success
of a project while he may blame the situation or sub-ordinates for its failure.
Employee must try to be careful not to make such biases in order to maintain good
organizational relation.

Shortcuts in Perception
People tend to apply many shortcut techniques while judging and analyzing others.
These may make the task more manageable or save time but often leads to
incorrect results. In an organization we should be very careful about these shortcuts
when we analyze or evaluate an employee. Common shortcuts used in
organizational context are:

Halo effect
Halo effect is drawing general impression of an individual based on a single
characteristic such as intelligence, appearance, cooperativeness etc. Halo effect is
very common in an organization during selection and performance appraisal. The
rater can make an error in judging a person’s total personality and/or performance
on the basis of single positive trait.

Stereotyping
Stereotyping is judging someone based on the perception of the group or
community s/he belongs to. It can be based on gender, age, race, ethnicity etc. In
an organization managers, laborers, old people, minorities, women are commonly
stereotyped group. For example, a newly appointed manager may be characterized
as authoritative, uncooperative, and exploitative by the sub-ordinates simply
because he belongs to managerial class. Stereotyping should be minimized in an
organizational as it can result into biased environment, inferiority anxiety, lower
expectations and poor organizational relations.

Contrast effect
It is evaluation of a person’s characteristics in comparison with other people
recently encountered. We perceive a person in relative to other. For example in an
interview session, the contrast with previously interviewed candidate, an average
qualification may look better or worse than they really are.

Ethnocentrism
Ethnocentrism is judging or comparing others based on one’s own culture, values
and standard. It is the feeling of being one’s culture, values and standards superior
to others. For example an American manager may not communicate openly with his
Asian counterpart because he feels superior. Ethnocentric behavior is very much
derogatory for organizational relation.
Concepts and Principles of Attitude
Attitudes are evaluative judgment or judgments concerning object, people or
events. Attitude reflects how people feel about something. It may lie anywhere
between like and dislike continuum. Attitudes are learnt over a period of time. It
can be learnt from parents, teachers, friends or reference group members. It is
however, less stable and can be changed. For example, if someone
says that I like my job. This statement expresses his attitude towards his job.
Each and every person has different attitude at different conditions.

Attitude can be defined as, “Attitude are predisposed set of values and
beliefs formed strongly or weakly towards an object, person, doctrine or
any other tangible or intangible or intangible item.”

Components of Attitudes
There are three components of attitude. These components form the attitude of a
person towards

Behavior
Component

Behavior
Affective towards object,
Attitudes
Components person or

Cognitive
components

Fig: Components of Attitude

Cognitive component:
It refers that's part of attitude which is related in general know how of a person, for
example, he says smoking is injurious to health. Such type of idea of a person is
called cognitive component of attitude.

Affective component:
This part of attitude is related to the statement which affects another person which
may be positive, negative or neutral. For example I don’t like him because he is not
hard working or I like him because he is hard working.
Behavioral Component:
The behavioral component refers to that part of attitude which reflects the intension
of a person in short run or long run. Behavioral component of attitude is related to
impact of various situations or objects that lead to individual’s behavior based on
cognitive and affective components. While cognitive and affective component
cannot be seen, behavioral component can be observed.

Application of Attitude in Maintaining Organizational Relation

Proper understanding of employees’ attitude is very important for the maintenance
of organizational relation. Attitude determines job satisfaction and performance
level of the individual employee. It helps people to adjust themselves in the work
environment. Attitude related with workplace can be regarding:

Job satisfaction:
Job satisfaction is related to general attitude towards the job. A person having a
high level of satisfaction will generally hold a positive attitude while dissatisfied
people will generally display negative attitude towards life. When we talk about
attitude, we generally speak about job satisfaction because they are inter-related in
organizational relation.

Job involvement:
Job involvement refers to the degree to which a person identifies himself with his
job, actively participates and considers his perceived performance level important
to self-worth. High level of involvement indicates that the individual cares for his job
that has an impact on high productivity. Higher level of the job involvement
indicates favorable attitude towards the job which will lower absenteeism and
employee turnover

Organizational commitment:
Organizational commitment refers to degree to which an employee identifies
himself with the organizational goals and wishes to maintain membership in the
organization. He wants to belong to the organization and take an active part in its
functioning. Absenting or resigning from the job versus job satisfaction is a predictor
of organizational commitment. Organizational commitment depends upon job
enrichment factor and degree to which the workers enjoy autonomy and freedom of
action while performing.

Attitude of an employee is very crucial in maintaining proper organizational relation.

Attitude of an employee should be maintained at positive level to achieve higher
productivity level. Attitude of an employee also determines the individual behavior.
The attitude of the employee must be properly studied and if needed, measures to
change the negative attitude towards work, workplace or co-workers can be
undertaken. Changing an attitude, however, is a challenging task. There can be
various barriers in attitude change. These must be overcome.