INDEX

S.No Title Page No.

1. Introduction

2. Meaning of Perception

3. Sensaation vs Perception

4. Types of Perception

5. Theories of Perception

6. Principles of Perception

7. Process of Perception

8. Relationship Between Perception,Sensation & Attention

9. Case Study
 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure. No. Title Pages

1. Introduction

2. Perception

3. Type of Perception

4 Figuer Ground Perception

5 Organization of Perception
6 Depth of Perception
7 Process of Perception
8 Perceiver
9 Impression
10 Promotion enhancing strategy
INTRODUCTION
Meaning of Perception
Perception is a cognitive process wherein an individual collects, organizes,
and interprets data from the environment to obtain a meaning from it. In fact,
perception differs from person to person for the same situation. Each person
interprets the data in their own way and may come up with different
meanings. For instance, when the boss comes to each employee’s desk, one
employee might think that he/she is trying to be friendly with the employees;
another might think that the boss is keeping an eye on the employees.
It is also possible that people’s perception of events or situations is nowhere
close to reality. People react to situations based upon their perception of
reality rather than the reality itself. Therefore, understanding the variations
in the perceptions of individuals will help in understanding their
organizational behavior better. Similarly, the perception of members in one
organization differs from that of people in another organization. It is these
differences in perception that make some organizations employ strict control
over employees (as they believe that a disciplinarian environment will
ensure success in business), while others encourage team culture and
cooperation to enhance the performance of the organization.
 Sensation vs. Perception

Often confusion arises over the relationship between sensation and

perception. Behavioral theorists believe that individuals interpret situations
based upon their senses and stimulation and that this was how they gained
knowledge of the world. Individuals use their sensory organs to sense – for
instance, eyes to see, ears to hear, skin to feel, nose to smell, and tongue to
taste. Therefore, sensation is the basic behavior of individuals caused by
their physiological functions.
Perception, on the other hand, involves people’s assimilation of raw data
through their senses, after which they organize and modify the data with the
help of cognitive thinking to form a coherent picture of the situation.
 Type of Perception

There are many different ways of perceiving the world. One of these ways is
by perceptual organization. Perceptual organizations are processes used to
group basic sensory elements together into perceivable objects. The two
basic principles of perceptual organization involves perceiving figures
embedded in a perceptual background and organizing what you see, or what
you perceive, in the simplest form possible. Another type of perception is
depth perception, which is primarily utilized by visual or auditory senses.
The organ used for visual perception is the eye. The eye is an extremely
complex organ. It is composed of multiple of structures

each having its own Specific function or functions (refer to diagram). The
cornea is a clear protective membrane which allows for the passage of light
but blocks the entrance of dust. The lens is just behind the cornea and it
focuses the light entering into the eye.
The light forms an image which falls on the retina. This image is upside
down and is processed by the brain. The amount of light entering the eye is
controlled by the iris, the colored structure of the eye. The pupil is a black
dot in the center of the eye through which light passes. The retina contains
over 100 million nerve cells known as rods and cones. Cones are
responsible for colored vision and rods are used for black and white vision.

1. Figure-Ground Perception:-
Figure ground perception is
the tendency to discriminate between target and background stimuli. The
stimulus we perceive as being the target is referred to as the figure. The
other stimuli that we do not perceive as the target make up the background,
or ground. The vase seen at right can be perceived in two different ways. If
the black is perceived as the background, you will see a vase. However, if
you perceive the vase as the background, you will see two faces.
An interesting phenomenon occurs when looking at a square centered over
top of several, closely spaced concentric circles. In the figure at left, all of
the sides of the square are perfectly straight. Go ahead and check with a
straight edge. However, the sides of the square will appear to bend inward
toward the center of the circles. This is known as background mediated
illusion. The background is responsible for the distortion seen in the figure.

2.Organisation of Preception:-
The Law of Pregnant, also known
as the Law of Simplicity, states that we tend to perceive the world in the
simplest form possible. There are two major parts to this law: closure and
grouping. Closure is the tendency to fill in missing portions from perceptual
array, or to fill in the gaps. Grouping occurs when similar or proximal
stimuli are perceived as belonging together in a group. A common example
used to illustrate closure is the perception of a complete triangle from three
lines. This can be observed at right. If you look closely you can actually see
two triangles in the figure.
Grouping can be observed by looking at the collection of black dots below.
Your brain groups the dots together and allows you to see the figure of a
dog.

3. Depth of Perception:-
Humans perceive depth in a seemingly
two dimensional world by interpreting binocular visual cues from the
environment. They interpret those stimuli in the brain. Two depth cues that
require both eyes are binocular disparity and convergence. Your eyes are
separated by a space. This allows them to receive two slightly different
images. As distance from your eyes increases the difference between the
two images decreases. Binocular disparity is the depth cue that is based on
the difference between these two images.
Your brain interprets images that are very similar in both eyes as far away,
and images that are different in both eyes as closer.
Another way for you brain to interpret the distance to objects is known as
convergence. This is when your brain interprets the tension in the muscles
that control eye movement. Binocular disparity is used with images that are
farther away, perhaps up to 1000 feet. Convergence is used when the object
is eighty feet away or closer.
An artistic use of the human processing of depth perception is utilized in
stereogram. Have you ever looked at a stereoscopic image, or "magic eye"?
They are two dimensional images, but they can be perceived as three
dimensional images in brain. The feeling of "depth" that you get by looking
at a statue instead of looking at a photo of the same statue is due to the fact
that the human body has two eyes. By having two pictures of the same
object, taken by two different positions, which is the case of the human eyes,
you can get a "three dimensional image." In the same way, the eyes forward
to the brain two slightly different pictures. It is the brain that must
"compute" a 3-D representation of the scene. The brain can make mistakes
in this process of designation of pairs! It is these mistakes which make

possible the 3-D feeling that we get from viewing a stereogram.

 4. Depth of Constancy of Perception:-

Imagine yourself
outside looking up at an airplane high in the sky. You lift up your hand and
see that the plane is smaller than your finger, yet you still know that the
plane is large enough to hold hundreds of people.
Due to the information in your
memory stores, you are still able to
perceive the actual size of the
airplane despite a change in the size
of the retinal image.
This concept is known as size
constancy. Despite the fact that
you know images that are far away
are actually the same size as if they were closer, your brain can be fooled.
An example of this is the moon illusion, in which the moon on the horizon
appears larger than one higher in the sky. The moon doesn't actually changes
size, but it's relationship to the horizon can make it seem larger lower in the
sky. This phenomenon can also be explained using the figure below. The
center circles are actually both the same size, yet they appear to different
because of their relationship to the surrounding circles. Our brain perceives
the circle surrounded by larger circles as smaller, because it is smaller in
relation to the surrounding circles. The opposite is true for the circle
surround small circles .
5.Take a Quiz of Perception:-

The answers are in bold.

Back to Quiz.

1. One of items below is not part of the human eye. Which one?
a) 1. One of items below is not part of the human eye. Which one?
a) optic chiasm
b) cornea
c) retina
d) lens

2. Which aspect of vision are cones responsible for?

a) color
b) black and white
c) focus
d) depth perception

3. When the background effects how a figure is perceived, this is called.

a) figure ground perception
b) size constancy
c) depth perception
d) binocular disparity

4. The non-background stimuli is called _____ .

a) the aim
b) the target
c) the objective
d) the fovia

5. The Law of Pragnanz is also known as ____ .

a) the Law of Duplicity
b) the Phi Phenomenon
c) the Law of Simplicity
d) the Law of Binocular Disparity
6. Which of the following is not a form of the Law of Pragnanz?
a) grouping
b) connection

c) closure
d) following
e) b and d

7. Your brain interpreting the tension in the muscles that control eye
movement in order to judge depth is _______ .
a) convergence
b) binocular disparity
c) depth identification
d) three dimensional judgement

8. The depth cue that is based on the difference between two images is
_____ .
a) convergence
b) binocular disparity
c) depth identification
d) three dimensional judgement

9. Magic Eye can also be referred to as _____ .

a) really cool
b) a stereogram
c) a three dimensional image
d) a fad

10. When you see an airplane in the sky you know there are many
people on board, despite its fingernail size. This is due to _____ .
a) really small people
b) size constancy
c) binocular disparity
d) convergence

11. Explain the moon illusion. See Size Constancy

12. Size constancy occurs due to ____ .

a) memory stores
b) retinal image constancy
c) confusion
d) depth perception

13. We perceive same size circles as being different sizes because of .

a) the relationship to the surrounding circles
b) they actually are different sizes
c) our left eye judges size better than our right eye and thus the circle on the
right seems larger
d) humans are very bad at judging size

14. The iris:

a) is the colored part of the eye
b) controls the amount of light that enters the eye
c) is the black dot at the center of the eye
d) both a) and b)

15. We perceive the sides of the square centered over top of several
closely spaced concentric circles as being bent inward because of___ .
a) size constancy
b) depth perception
c) background mediated illusion
d) the fact that they actually are bent inward .
6. Link of Perception:-
The World of Perception is a very
complex system that allows us to interpret the information that we receive
from our senses. There is far more to this world than we have presented, but
we have given you a taste. If you desire more information on perception
please refer to the links below in order to truly experience the World.

Encyclopedia of Pscyhology
http://ww.psychology.org
A very useful and interesting site, on all aspects of psychology, not just
perception.

The Joy of Visual Perception: A Web Book

http://www.yorku.ca/eye/
An indepth, user friendly, book on the web that has excellent examples and
explanations.

Illusion Works
http://www.illusionworks.com/
"The most comprehensive collection of optical and sensory illusions on the
world-wide web.
7. Credits of Perception:-
Bengamin, Ludy T., Jr., Hopkings, J.
Roy, Nation, Jack R. Psychology. Macmillan Colleg Publishing Company,
New York. 1994.

We got our original idea for the web page from this, our psychology text. It
has good simple examples and explanations. It is an excellent starting point.

Luckiesh, M. Visual Illusions. Dover Publications, Inc., New York, New

York. 1965.

This book contained many in depth explanations of several of the illusions.

Although the diagrams are somewhat lacking it is an excellent supplement to
the other books.

Restak, Richard M. M.D. The Brain. Bantam Books, Toronto. 1984.

The Brain provides more in depth physiological explanations of the visual

cortex as well as other parts of the brain. It is a relatively complex book and
contains a vast amount of information on how humans process information,
both visual and otherwise.

Rock, Irvin, editor. The Perceptual World - Readings from Scientific

American Magazine. W. H.
Freeman and Company, New York. 1990.

A selection of works from many of the top researchers in the field of

perception. This was a source of some graphics and complex explanations
of the eyes as well as the diagram of the eye.
Simon, Seymour. The Optical Illusion Book. William Morrow and
Company, New York. 1984.

Theories of Perception

Two major classes:

Bottom-up: perception builds up hierarchically from a set of primitive
"features" to our internal representations.
Top-down: perception starts with a set of primitives, but our perceptual
experience is influenced by higher-level processes, such as knowledge and
context.

1. Bottom-up theories

All bottom-up theories rely on the notion that perception builds upwards
from a foundation of primitives to a representation our cognitive system can
use.
This takes place without any influence from higher cognitive processes.
Five main theories:

1. Direct perception
Precursor to behaviorism ó Perception is a direct result of stimulus energy
affecting receptor cells. No higher cognitive processes or internal
representations are necessary
2. Template/Exemplar theory
We store examples of all the objects we have seen as exemplars or
templates.
We compare a perceived object to this set of exemplars until we find a
match.

3. Prototype theory
Instead of storing many exemplars or rigid templates, we store a prototype,
which is kind of like the average of an object.
We compare a perceived object to these prototypes until we find the closest
match.

4. Feature theory
Perception starts with the identification of basic features that are put
together into more complex objects, which are put together into more
complex objects, etc. until we identify an object.
Example:Pandemonium
 Neural basis for feature theory

Using single-cell recording (remember that?), Hubel & Wiesel found

neurons in the primary visual cortex (occipital lobe) that respond to visual
features such as lines and corners.
These feature detectors are a result of how the early visual system is wired.

4. Structural description theory

Kind of like a three-dimensional version of feature theory, where rather than
having lines and corners as the basic features, simple geometric shapes,
called geons, are the basic features.

We recognize objects by matching the geons we are looking at to the stored

geons in memory.
 2. Top-down theories

Top-down theories posit varying degrees of influence of higher

cognitive processes on what we actually perceive.

The primary example of this is the effect of context on perception,

such as in the Word Superiority Effect.
 Principles of perception

There are a number of general principles that help us understand the process
of perception. One of the most important is the principle of closure. It tells
us that we have the general tendency to perceive things as complete and
unified. We tend to "fill in" parts that are missing, or parts that conform to a
over all impression. The principle of constancy states that despite changes
that occur in stimulation, we have a strong tendency to perceive objects as
constant in size, shape, colour, and other qualities. For example, an orange
will be perceived with its characteristic colour under different kinds of light.
The opposite of the principle of constancy is also important. Sometimes an
object or pattern of stimulation will remain constant, but the perceived effect
will vary. Look at the grey and black cubes in the illustration on this page.
At one moment you will see three complete cubes, and at another you may
see five. Another important principle relates to perceptual context. The
perception of an object or event depends in part on the context (surrounding
conditions). Look at the two rectangles containing the words World Book in
the illustration on this page. The words are printed with the same ink. Do
they look the same? Background intensity and colour may affect the colour
and intensity of elements upon it. To most people, grey surrounded by black
appears brighter and somewhat larger. This effect is called visual induction.
Notice, too, that the effect is opposite to that observed with the two grey
triangles with black and white detail. In this case, the grey with black detail
appears darker rather than bright.

Sub-processes of Perception

The perceptual process of individuals passes through several sub-processes.

They are stimulus or situation, registration, interpretation, feedback,
behavior, and consequence.
Stimulus or situation is the first sub-process in the process of perception.
Here people are confronted with an external or internal stimulus. As a result,
they might experience an immediate sensual stimulation or the confrontation
may take place with the entire physical and socio-cultural environment.
In Registration, the individuals record in their minds the stimulus they have
received from the environment. Physiological mechanisms such as listening,
hearing, etc. play an active role in the perception of individuals.
During Interpretation, people analyze the stimulus they have received. It is a
cognitive process that is influenced by learning, motivation, and personality.
Feedback is the response individuals receive from the stimulus i.e.
environmental situations. Feedback has an impact on the perception of
individuals. For instance, if employees receive appreciation (feedback) from
the manager for their work, then they perceive that the manager is satisfied
with their performance. Registration, interpretation, and feedback occur
within a person and are in response to a given stimulus from the external
environment. These sub-processes lead to a certain behavior by the
individual, which again leads to a certain consequence.
Individual Perceptual Process
I. Perceptual Selectivity electivity
II. Perceptual organization
III. Social Perception

I. Perceptual Selectivity electivity

People are constantly exposed to various stimuli. However, sometimes the

stimuli may be so understated that they may not even be aware of it. Individuals
are prone to select only a few stimuli at a given time. For instance, while reading
the newspaper, individuals who are interested in movies might read only the
supplementary containing movie news. Perceptual selectivity is further
dependent on factors such as external attention factors and internal set factors.
 A) External Attention Factors
The external attention factors are:--
i. Intensity
According to this principle, the intensity of the external stimulus decides the
probability of its being perceived. For instance, a bright light is more likely to be
noticed than a dim one.
ii. Size
According to this principle, a large object is more likely to be noticed than a
smaller one. For instance, a big super market is more easily noticed than a small
grocery store.
iii. Contrast
According to this principle, a stimulus that stands out against the expectations of
people is bound to attract more attention. For instance, employees working at
airports get so used to the noise that they may not notice the sounds made during
the take off and landing of planes. However, if on any day there is some
reduction in air traffic, they will notice the reduction in noise level.
iv. Repetition
According to this principle, a stimulus is more likely to be noticed if it is
repeated
several times.
v. Motion
This principle states that individuals notice objects that are in motion more than
those that are stationary.
vi. Novelty and familiarity
According to this principle, new objects in a familiar situation and familiar
objects in a new situation attract people’s attention more.
vii. Situations
Situations have a great influence on people's perceptions. A favourable work
environment develops a positive attitude and work culture because the
perception process is easily channelised and rightly directed.

B) Internal Set Factors

The internal set factors are:--
I. Learning and Perception
The process of learning creates some expectations in individuals. As a result,
they tend to perceive things in a particular way. What people see and hear is
influenced by their expectations.
Perceptual set in the workplace: Employees working in an organization for a
certain period tend to interpret situations and events in a similar way. They
might use certain phrases that are unique to their department or organization to
symbolize certain things. However, in general, learning leads to substantial
individual differences. Every employee interprets a particular situation based
upon his/her perception. For example, it has been observed that in general, the
perceptions of the trade union and the management regarding the prevailing
working conditions in an organization differ.
 II. Motivation and perception
Perceptual selectivity is also influenced by motivation. Primary motives such as
hunger and thirst have an impact on the perception of individuals. For instance,
while walking on the road a person who is very thirsty might pay more attention
to a store selling soft drinks.

Secondary motives such as the need for power, affiliation, and achievement also
have a major influence on perceptual selectivity. For instance, employees who
feel that they have the need to attain power, affiliation, and achievement might
be more attentive to the different situations in the organizations, as they are
constantly on the look-out for opportunities. Perception may also have an
influence on motivation. For instance, some employees who are dedicated to
their work might not mind attending office even when sick as they perceive the
work to be more important than their health.

III. Personality and perception

Differences in the personality of individuals due to variances in age, gender,
experience, etc. also might influence the perception of individuals. For instance,
young managers might complain that senior managers are resistant to change in
technology, management practices, etc. Similarly senior managers might
complain that young managers take hasty decisions and implement unnecessary
changes.
 IV. Organizational role and specialization:

The modern organizations value specialization. Consequently the specialty

of a person that casts him in a particular organizational role predisposes him
to select certain stimuli and to disregard others. Thus in a lengthy report a
departmental head will first notice the text relating to his department.

V. Economic and social background:

The employee perceptions are based on economic and social backgrounds.

Socially and economically developed employees have a more positive attitude
towards development rather than less developed employees.

VI. Habit:
Habits die hard and therefore individuals perceive objects, situations and
conditions differently according to their habits. A Hindu will bow and do
Namaskar when he sees a temple while walking on road, because of his well-
established habit. These are several instances in life settings where individuals
tend to react with the right response to the wrong signals. Thus a retired soldier
may throw himself on the ground when he hears a sudden burst of car tyre.
Factors Influencing Perception
The factors that help in shaping perception are the perceiver, the target which is
being perceived, and the situation in which perception occurs. Although these
factors help in shaping the perception of individuals, they also sometimes distort
their perceptions.

The Perceiver
People’s personal characteristics play an important role in the way they perceive
situations, events, objects, people, etc. The various personal characteristics can
be a person’s motives, attitudes, past experiences, interests, and expectations.
Those who have a positive attitude toward a particular thing or situation might
view it in a completely different way from people having a negative attitude
toward it. Studies conducted in the field of OB have also shown that people’s
perception is greatly influenced by their unfulfilled goals and needs.
It has been observed that people who are engrossed by their personal problems
might not be able to concentrate on their work properly. This shows that
personal interests of individuals also have an
impact on perceptions.People’s perceptions might also be influenced by their
past experiences. For instance, an employee who has been reprimanded in the
past by his/her superior for a minor mistake might perceive that superior to be a
strict official.
Expectation is another characteristic that has a major impact on the perception of
individuals. For instance, people generally perceive the products sold by reputed
companies to be of good quality. However, expectations might also lead to
distortion of perception. For instance, policemen are perceived as fearless and
authoritative, which might not be true in all cases.
The Target
The attributes of the target (stimulus) such as motion, sound, size, etc. also affect
perception. For instance, people who are very tall get more attention in a crowd.
Sometimes people might not perceive the target in isolation but associate it with
some other aspects or events similar to it. In doing so, they might group
unrelated objects. This grouping is largely done on the basis of physical
proximity of the objects in consideration. It has also been observed that the
tendency to group objects or events is more if individuals notice a greater
proximity between them.
The Situation
Situational factors in the environment such as time, location, climate, a person’s
state of mind, and other factors play a vital role in shaping the perception of
individuals.

Perceptual Organization
Perceptual organization emphasizes the activities that take place in the
perceptual process subsequent to the stimulus being received.

Figure-Ground
Figure-ground is a type of perceptual organization. In this form of perception,
perceived objects are separated from the general background by the perceivers.
They tend to give more emphasis to the object in the figure than to the other
objects in the background.

Perceptual Grouping
Under perceptual grouping, individuals attempt to group various stimuli together
into an identifiable pattern. This type of perceptual organization may be based
on closure, continuity, proximity, or similarity.

Closure
According to this principle, a person may sometimes perceive a whole where it
does not exist and at times may not be able to perceive a whole although one
exists.
Continuity
Continuity, unlike closure where the individual fills the missing stimulus, refers
to the process wherein the individual perceives the extension of a missing
stimulus. However, this is limited to obvious, continuous lines or patterns.

Proximity
According to this principle, people perceive stimuli that are physically close to
each other as belonging to one group.

Similarity
According to this principle, stimuli that are similar are grouped together by the
individual.

Perceptual Constancy
Perceptual constancy is one of the advanced forms of perceptual organization.
According to this principle, individuals’ perception of certain elements in
objects like size, shape, color, brightness, and location is constant and does not
change from person to person. For instance, even though the picture of an apple
is printed in black and white, we still perceive the color of the fruit as red.
Perceptual constancy is enhanced by learning. Learning helps individuals
perceive certain patterns of cues in a similar way and this leads to perceptual
constancy.

Perceptual Context
The context of the situation also plays a major role in shaping the perception of
individuals. Different contexts convey different meanings to people.
For example, if a manager pats his twoyear-old son, it is considered a sign of
love and affection.
However, if he gives an employee a paton the back, it is considered a sign of
appreciation for the work done by the employee.

Perceptual Defense
When a particular stimulus clashes with the values or culture of individuals, or is
threatening in nature to them, then they develop a defense mechanism against
such a stimulus. Perceptual defense helps in understanding relationships that
exist between union and management, superior and subordinate, etc.
Various researches and studies have also supported the existence of the
perceptual defense mechanism. The following are the results from some of the
relevant studies related to perceptual defense:

• People refuse to perceive information which they believe will disturb their
emotions.
• People substitute the original perception caused by disturbing stimuli and
information
with favorable perceptions to cope with the situation.
• Although some information may actually arouse emotions in an individual,
he/she
may purposely distort and direct the emotion elsewhere.
 II. Social Perception
Social perception is a cognitive process through which other individuals are
perceived by the perceiver. Social perception also involves the study of how an
individual gets to know other individuals. Research has indicated that social
perception is influenced by the characteristics of both the perceiver and the
perceived. Social perception is influenced by the:
• Personality of the perceiver
• Personal characteristics of the perceiver
• Self-esteem of the perceiver
• fact that an individual perceives others depending upon many skills and not
just oneSkill.
The characteristics of the person being perceived that influence social
perception:
• Status of the individual (of person being perceived)
• Role played by an individual in the organization.
The following factors help in understanding the social perceptual process in
organizations better:
Attribution
Attribution is the way in which people explain the causes for their own or
others’ behavior. With the help of attribution, individuals try to understand the
reasons behind the behavior of one another and also draw conclusions about the
factors that influenced that behavior.
There are two types of attributions. They are dispositional attribution and
situational attribution. In dispositional attribution, people’s behavior is explained
with the help of internal factors such as their personality traits, their motivation,
ability, etc.
Stereotyping
Stereotyping refers to the generalization of the characteristics of all members
belonging to a certain group. People judge others based on the perception they
have about the group to which these individuals belong and do not consider the
unique characteristics of the person in question. For instance, politicians are
considered to be manipulative and corrupt. However, judging a person based
upon the characteristics of a group is unfair because every individual is unique
and different from others. In the organizational context, stereotyping often takes
place based upon gender, race, ethnicity, etc.

The Halo Effect

In the halo effect, the perceiver tends to judge a person depending upon a
dominant trait which can be either positive or negative. The various traits could
be intelligence, sociability, aggressiveness, etc. The halo effect is generally
found in performance appraisal. Often appraisers rate the performance of
employees based on one particular trait rather than by taking all aspects into
consideration.

Halo effect
• Is a common error made in performance appraisals
• Has two components viz. true and illusory
• Emphasizes only a particular trait of an employee and does not take
into account the overall picture.
• has negative consequences which have to be avoided.
 Conditions under which halo effect might occur:
• when the perceiver is not familiar with certain traits or does not
frequently encounter them.
• when the traits are ambiguous and cannot be clearly expressed in
behavioral terms.
• when the traits have moral implications.
Impression management
Impression management is also referred to as ‘self-presentation.’ It is a process
by which people try to manage or control the perceptions formed by others about
themselves. Individuals might adopt various management techniques to make an
impact on others.

The Process of Impression Management

Earlier researchers attempted to study the relationship of impression
management with respect to aggression, attitude change, attributions, social
facilitation, and so on. However, in recent times, behavioral theorists have
identified two components of impression management. They are impression
motivation and impression construction.
Impression motivation:
Impression motivation is usually applicable in organizations where employees
try to control the perception of managers or superiors about themselves.
Impression motivation is affected by the following factors:
• relevance that the impression has to the employees in attaining their goals.
• value of these goals to the employees.
• discrepancy between the desired image and the image which individuals
believe others already have about them in their minds.
Impression construction:
Impression construction refers to the methods and techniques adopted by the
individual in order to create the desired image in the minds of other individuals.
Studies conducted in this field have identified the following five factors which
are considered to be relevant to the type of impression people want to create:
• the self-concept
• desired and undesired identity images
• role constraints
• value of the target
• current social image of the individual.
Impression Management Strategies Used by Employees
The following are some of the impression management strategies used by
employees in
organizations:
Demotion-preventative strategy
Employees use this strategy to reduce their responsibilities for a negative
outcome or to stay out of trouble. The characteristics of this strategy are:
Accounts:
The employees try to explain a negative outcome by giving excuses.
Apologies:
The employees might seek to apologize to the superior for the negative
outcome.
Disassociation:
The employees might disassociate themselves from the event, if they are not
directly responsible for the outcome.
Promotion-enhancing Strategy
Employees use this strategy to increase their responsibility for a positive
outcome and try to communicate it to their superiors.

The characteristics of this strategy are:

Entitlements: If the employees feel that they have not been given due credit for
a particular outcome then they might communicate this to their superior through
a formal or informal channel.
Enhancements: It is also possible that sometimes the employees feel that their
contribution has led to a positive outcome that is much higher than the
expectations of
the management. Although the employees are rewarded for such an outcome
they might still find the need for better recognition of their efforts. Thus, they
might convey this to the management.
Obstacle disclosure: Sometimes employees might convey to their superiors the
unavoidable obstacles (personal or organizational) that they had to overcome in
order to achieve the outcome.
Association: Employees might make a deliberate attempt to be seen with the
right people and in the right time in order to give an impression that they are
associated with successful projects.
 Relationship between

1. PERCEPTION

2. SENSATION

3. ATTENTION

1. PERCEPTION

 Perception is a process by which an organism receives certain

information about the environmen.
 The process of creating meaningful patterns from raw sensory
information.

2. SENSATION

 Sensations are cues, signs, indicator & messages.

 Sensation is the process by which a stimulus affects a sense-organs
that takes the information to the brain
 3. ATTENTION

 Attention is the focus of consciousness.

 Attention is the act of fixing or focusing the mind on the object.
 Attention is the adjustment of the mind to an object.

NATURE OF PERCEPTION

 Perception consists in knowing objects in the environment by

combining the sensations.
 Perception requires attention, exploration & past experiences.
 Perception is a complex mental process & consist of sensations &
ideas.

PERCEPTION FORMULA

S + M = P

S: Sensation
M: Memory
P:Perception
 PERCEPTION PROCESS

Perception is a process by which an organism interprets and evaluated

sensory input so that acquires meaning. This complex process involves
several levels of analysis in the nervous system and several sensory system.

It is divide into three process.

1. Perceptual Selectivity
2. Perceptual Organization
3. Interpretation

NATURE OF SENSATION

 A sensation is the simplest form of cognition.

 It is a simple impression produced in the mind by a

stimulus.

 Sensations are integral elements in perception.

 They are simple awareness of qualities e.g. colour, sound,

taste, smells etc.
 TYPES OF SENSATION
1. Organic Sensations
2. Special Sensations

1. ORGANIC SENSATIONS
Organic sensation of hunger, thirst, fatigue,headacheetc are produced by
changed conditions of the organism.

 They have no special sense-organs.

 They are not produced by external stimulus.

 They are due to physiological conditions.

2. SPECIAL SENSATIONS
Sensations of colours, sounds, taste, smells,temperature etc are special
sensations.

 They are produced by external stimulus

 They give us knowledge of the qualities of external objects
 NATURE OF ATTENTION

 There is powerful effect of attention on perception. Individual see and

hear only those stimuli to which he/she pays attention.

 Attention is selective.

 Attention has two aspect, positive & negative.

 Focus of mind is positive & withdrawal of mind is negative.

 Attention convert from one stimuli to an other.

FACTORS INFLUENCE ON ATTENTION

1.Internal Factors:

Internal factors are related to the state of the individual.

• Psychological Factors intelligence

• personality learning
• motivation ability
• training past experiences
• interest expectation

2. External Factors:
It refers to the nature & characteristics of the stimuli. There is usually a
tendency to give more attention to stimuli which are,

• Bright Sharp
• Large Moving
• Loud Intense
• Colorful Repeated
• Familiar Contrasted
 ATTRIBUTION

Attribution is the process by which people interpret the perceived causes of

behaviour.Behaviour is determined by a combination of perceived internal
forces & external forces.

1. Internal Forces:
relates to the personal attribution such as
ability, skills, amount of effort or fatigue.

2. External Factors:
relate to environment such as rules &
policies, supervision, weather.

CLASSIFICATION OF ATTRIBUTION

 Stable factors are ability, or difficulty of the task.

 Unstable factors are the exertion of effort, or luck.

The combination of internal & external attribution , stable & unstable

characteristics, results in four possible interpretations of a person’s task
performance.
Internal attribution External attribution

Stable factors Ability Task difficulty

Unstable factors Effort Luck

 PERCEPTION CASE STUDY

Mr. K.P Bakophaid,69, a high profile investor who during his lifetime had
accumulated millions in investments, particularly in the Microsoft shares in
the 80s and then in a repeat of his talent to spot the gold brought Google
shares cheap at $1 a share with now the shares quoting $563\share and his
long time friend Mr. j k sinha,65 just retired CEO of the famed PELIANCE
group had been for a while contemplating for a move to establish a start up
in IT sector as both the gentlemen were very bullish about the sector in the
Indian space.

Their thoughts were put down to work as with favorable developments at the
macro economic level both pledged their funds together to start a IT start up
MACROHARD INDIA LTD, a BPO firm having primary applications in
the back office jobs of banking and investment banking sector of the US and
EUROPE.

With this they appointed Mr. Rajiv Negad, 39 an IIM-A pass out. He had till
that time established himself as an expert in system analysis with a prime
acumen of business networks having earlier worked with Goldman sacs in
its Hong Kong division. He jumped at the opportunity to be the CEO of the
start up.

I YEAR LATER

MACROHARD had notched up a reasonable success in its limited space and

were looking like they were heading in the right directions.

In the mean time they hired Ms Neha Kakkar , an attractive 25 year old who
was also like the CEO, a pass out of IIM-A .She was a hard working
employee and a really bright prospect who had the right ideas and
confidence. Also her most important asset was her ability to gel with her
colleges well.

Over time there developed good professional repot between Mr. Rajiv and
neha as it was evident with the fact that Mr. Rajiv was really impressed with
the work ethics of his new employee. In the company there also worked
adebayour, a hard working employee. Originally from Nigeria he also was a
good disciplined worker who did his job well. Neha kakkar was really rising
through the ranks of her job fast.

Once neha had this really bright idea of taking the company to the next level
with her idea of venturing into the credit card processing in the US and also
she was quick to spot a potential threat in the form of a competitor taking
away their business and for that she wanted to discuss with Rajiv, her boss,
for which he asked her to come to the canteen to discuss this issue over a
cup of coffee.

This wasn’t taken well by her co workers who thought that she was rather
using her good looks in making Rajiv do as she wished. This was apparently
being discussed and spread around as rumors by 3 people in particular nitin,
venkat, and karan who were spreading all sorts of rumors around. There was
this further issue that adebayor an equally hard working candidate wasn’t
promoted when neha was.

There was now an open talk that Rajiv was showing favoritism toward neha
and everyone wasn’t being treated well. Initially Rajiv ignored this talk.
Being a proud manager who thought that since he was not actually doing
anything wrong, that should be enough—people will recognize it. Or since
he wasn’t actually guilty, he believed that he just doesn’t need to defend
himself further. Lastly, he also thought that since he was the boss people
will anyway come to respect his decisions.

But then in the mean time situations worsened. There was a gradual loss of
productivity. Resentment built quickly with favoritism being suspected.
Resentment quickly become bitterness and bitterness lead to all sorts of
behavior which created problems for company.

Rajiv now really disturbed with the recent developments in the company,
quickly sought advice from his HR manager Mr. Sachin tendulkar to get the
situation back to normal as quickly as possible as In the highly competitive
IT industry he didn’t want his company to miss out on potential
opportunities just because of a simple perception problem.

As a HR manager what advice and steps will you follow to solve this
problem? What’s a manager to do to avoid the PERCEPTION of
favoritism, which can be just as damaging as actual favoritism?
 CASE ANALYSIS

To begin with this is the common problem of Workplace Favoritism. It's a

major topic in HR circles. But regardless of how little formal attention it
gets, this is an important issue that exists in nearly every workplace, large
and small. While it's not something that gets addressed in management
meetings, it can have as much effect on a company as most "high profile"
management topics.

Favoritism is part of human nature. No two people interact similarly to any

other two, so it's impossible for all workplace relationships to be "equal". It's
only natural to gravitate to people that you share common interests with, and
with whom you have an easy rapport. And of course, there's nothing wrong
with any of this, on the surface. The problems surface when one of three
distinct things occurs:

1. When a good rapport and shared interests lead to a PERCEPTION that an

employee is getting favored treatment from a manager
2. When a manager ACTUALLY PROVIDES unfair preferential treatment
for one employee at the expense of others
3. Nepotism.

To begin with, Mr. Rajiv, through there isn’t any logical fault on his side;
He commits some silly errors that you would probably expect with a
computer engineer who hasn’t exactly probed into the human side of the
business.

• Even though neha is in fact a very bright employee and to be frank a

front runner among her colleagues still Rajiv committed the silly error
in being too close to her and apparently not giving enough
consideration of its impact on the psyche of the other employees.

• He was also a bit too rude to deal with adebayor, an employee who
was quite popular in the circles as one of the hardest working
employees. Even though rajiv was quite right in assessing the
personality of adebayor that he wasn’t a very daring employee and
 that there was still time for him to develop fully into the leadership
mode that is required in the highly competitive IT sector .

Clearly there has been a serious perception problem on the part of the
employees in that they had started to wrongly deduce that neha is getting
promoted due to favoritism. This is a big problem but not that big also if the
management decides to follow some simple steps and understand some basic
things about this wrong perception thing.

• There are many people in the workplace who are extremely sensitive,
and are looking around every corner for perceived slights and
injustices.
• There are also many under-performers who look at other's
relationships, in an attempt to convince themselves that it's something
other than their own shortcomings that is preventing them from
getting ahead. Like in this example the clique of nitin, valsat, and
karan shows a lot of characteristics of this behavior.

People who perform well should be rewarded. And a single management

style doesn't work equally well with all employees. Some people need more
attention to fulfill their potential, while others excel with less attention and
more autonomy. Also it is the PERCEPTION of favoritism that does the
damage. If there is actual favoritism, you can argue that management is just
getting what they deserve.

Here are some steps to avoid the problem to tackle the problem initially:

• An open door policy is the right beginning. Further, communication

channels have to be well-established and two-way flow of information
is to be encouraged and maintained.
• A further step in the right direction would be to convey the reasoning
of various managerial decisions through formal and more informal
communication systems for persons at the ground level to appreciate
the managerial constraints and thinking process. That would help
employees strive for right perception even when decisions are
unexplained.
• By experience, everyone is aware of the perception people have when
a male boss frequently appreciates a particular female staff. One is
 keen in such cases to modify behavior and language suitably to avoid
wrong perceptions.

After that the management must take the following measures to ensure that
no such perception problems arise in the future.

1. The management should do everything within their power to

insure that advancement, perks, and compensation are based
strictly upon objective performance measures
2. they must Strive to treat everyone fairly, if not necessarily the
same
3. .they must Create an environment where any employee feels
comfortable discussing a perceived injustice with management
—this enables managers to nip misconceptions in the bud
4. they should Practice an open door policy—this also contributes
to a culture of trust, which can sooth ruffled feathers before hurt
feelings can fester and turn a situation far sourer
5. .the top management should also learn to Manage potential
perceptions of favoritism proactively—it's much easier to
prevent the perception up front, than it is to "put out the fire"
once it's raging

While a HR manager need not get bogged down with all possible and
imaginative perceptions of people, his focus should be to establish an open
work environment and exercise control over the information system
mechanics. A well-established and trusted system would induce people to
ask for reasons behind an action or a decision, than to jump to wrong
perceptions.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
 SEARCH ENGINES :

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1 www.Scribd.com

2 www.Ask.com

3 www.Msn.com

4 www.Whereisdoc.com

5 www.Khoj.com

6 www.Skillscpe.com

7 www.Google.com

8 www.Yahoo.com