Perception

- the process through which people receive, organize,

and interpret information from their environment
- gathered from the five senses of sight, hearing,
touch, taste, and smell
- a way of forming impressions about oneself, other
people, and daily life experiences.
- varies from person to person
 • Experience
• Needs of Motives
Perceiver • Values
Factors influencing • Attitudes
the Perceptual
Process • Physical
Setting • Social
• Organizational

• Contrast
• Figure-Ground
Perceived Separation
• Intensity, Size, Motion
• Repetition/Novelty
Stages of Perceptual Process
1. Attention and Selection – involves
screening of information. This may occur
with or without the perceivers
consciousness.
2. Organization – done with the help of
schemas – cognitive frameworks that
represent organized knowledge about a
given concept or stimulus developed
through experience.
Stages of Perceptual Process
3. Interpretation – uncovering the reasons
behind actions. A person’s interpretation
may vary with those of others.
4. Retrieval – the information stored in our
memory must be retrieved if it is to be
used.
 Common Perceptual Distortions
1. Stereotypes/Prototypes
2. Halo Effects – occurs when one attribute of a person or
situation is used to develop an overall impression of the
person or situation.
3. Selective Perception – the tendency to single out for
attention those aspects of a situation or person that
reinforce or emerge and are consistent with existing
beliefs, values and needs.
 Common Perceptual Distortions
4. Projection – the assignment of personal attributes to
other individuals
5. Contrast Effects – occur when an individual’s
characteristics are contrasted with those of others
recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the
same characteristics
6. Self-fulfilling Prophecy – the tendency to create or find
in another situation or individual that which one has
expected to find
Characteristics of Perceiver and the Perceived
1. Knowing oneself makes it easier to see others
accurately.
2. One’s own characteristics affect the characteristics
one is likely to see in others.
3. People who accept themselves are more likely to be
able to see favorable aspects of other people.
4. Accuracy in perceiving others is not a single skill.
Managing the Perceptual Process
Impression Management
- a person’s systematic attempt to behave
in ways that will create and maintain
desired impressions in the eyes of others

Distortion Management
“Managers should be alert to balancing
automatic and controlled information
processing.”
Attribution Theory
- The attempt to understand the cause
of an event, assess responsibility for
outcomes of the event, and assess the
personal qualities of the people
involved.
- In applying attribution theory, it is
concerned with whether one’s
behavior has been internally or
externally caused
Factors that Influence the Internal or
External Determination:
1. Distinctiveness – considers how
consistent a person’s behavior is across
different situations
2. Consensus – shows how likely all those
facing a similar situation are to respond
in the same way
3. Consistency – concerns whether an
individual responds the same way
across time.
Attribution Errors
Fundamental Attribution Error
- the tendency to underestimate the influence of
situational factors and to overestimate the
influence of personal factors in evaluating
someone else’s behavior
Self-serving Bias
- the tendency to deny personal responsibility
for performance problems but to accept
personal responsibility for performance success.