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Perception
Attention Introduction
Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their env. However, what one perceives can be substantially different from objective reality. Peoples behavior is based on their perceptions of what reality is, not on reality itself.

Stimulus or Situation - refers to an individuals confrontation with internal or external stimulus.

Factors Influencing Perception

Factors in the perceiver If you expect police officers to be authoritative or young people to be lazy, you may perceive them as such regardless of their actual traits. Factors in the target Loud people are more likely to be noticed in a group than quiet ones. Factors in the situation (context) At a nightclub, on a saturday night, you may not notice a 22 year old female dressed to the nines. Yet the same women so attired for your Monday morning management class would

2 certainly catch your attention. Neither the perceiver nor the target changed between Saturday night and Monday morning, but the situation is different.

Social Perception
Social perception deals with how an individual perceives other individuals. Research findings have shown that certain characteristics of the perceiver as we all as the perceived play a role in influencing social perception. The following are the characteristics which influence the perceptions of an individual (perceiver) If an individual understands his own personality well, it becomes easier for him to understand others accurately. Personal characteristics of an individual may affect the way he perceives others. For example, a person who is manipulative will perceive everyone else as being manipulative too. An individual who has a high self esteem is more likely to perceive favorable aspects in others as well. How accurately an individual perceives others is based on not just a single skill but involves many other skills. Apart from the characteristics of perceiver, certain characteristics of the person being perceived also play a role in influencing social perception. Some of them are Status of the individual and the role played by the individual in the org or in the society. Visible traits of the person. An understanding of the characteristics of both the perceiver and the perceived helps managers to understand the vital roles these characteristics play in determining the social perception of individuals as well as their resulting behavior both within and outside org. Attribution Theory Attribution theory suggests that when we observe an individuals behavior, we attempt to determine when it was internally or externally caused. That determination depends on 3 factors - distinctiveness, consensus and consistency. Internally caused behaviors are those that are believed to be under the personal control of the individual. Externally caused behavior is seen as resulting from outside causes; that is, the person is seen as having been forced into the behavior by the situation. Distinctiveness refers to whether an individual displays different behavior in different situations. What we want to know is whether this behavior is unusual. If it is, the perceiver likely to give the behavior an external attribution. If this action is not unusual, it will be probably be judged as internal. If everyone who faces a similar situation responds in the same way, we can say the behavior shows consensus. If the consensus is high, you would expect to given an external attribution. The more consistent the behavior, the more the perceiver is inclined to attribute it to internal causes.

However, there are errors or biases that can distort attributions. This is called the fundamental attribution error and can explain why a sales manager is prone to attribute the poor performance to her sales agents to laziness rather than to the innovative product line introduced by the competitor. Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others. Self serving bias is the tendency for individuals to attribute their own success to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors. Stereotyping We use number of shortcuts when we judge others. The term stereotype refers to the tendency of generalizing the characteristics of all the members of a group. When a perceiver judges some person based on his perception about the group to which the person belongs, it is known as stereotyping. We rely on such generalizations every day because they help us making decisions fast and as accurately as possible. It is less difficult to deal with an unmanageable number of stimuli if we use stereotypes. Stereotyping may attribute favorable or unfavorable traits to the person being perceived. For example, politicians has been stereotyped as being manipulative, corrupt and having greed for power. Women have been stereotyped as being sensitive, caring or patient. Generally, in org, stereotypes are based on gender, race, ethnicity etc. It is often assumed that women do not prefer a promotional transfer due to possible dislocation from family, men do not prefer to take care of children, older employees do not have aptitude to acquire new skills etc. Stereotyping is widespread despite the fact that it may not involve any truth or it may be irrelevant.

Halo Effect

4 We use number of shortcuts when we judge others. When we draw general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic such as intelligence, sociability or appearance, a Halo effect is operating. The halo effect is commonly seen in performance appraisals when the appraiser commits an error in evaluating the performance of the appraisee on the basis of a single trait such as appearance, punctuality or cooperativeness. A certain positive trait of a person may outweigh all other characteristics that have to considered while evaluating performance or making a decision. Selective Perception - Selectively interpreting what one sees on the basis of ones interests, background, experience and attitudes. Contrast Effects - Evaluation of a persons characteristics that are affected by the comparison with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics. Projection Effect - Attributing one's own characteristics to other people.

Impression Management
Impression management is sometimes referred to as self presentation. It is the process by which people try to manage or control the perceptions formed by other people about themselves. Often people like to present themselves in a socially desirable way and impress others. Impression management techniques are used by individuals for various purposes. They may be used to obtain approval, to command respect in society or to project self image and satisfy ones need for self esteem. They may also use it to obtain control over the env. Two prime strategies for impression management that employees use are demotion preventive strategy and promotion enhancing strategy. Demotion Preventive Strategy It is used when employees want to minimize their responsibilities for a negative outcome or to remain out of trouble. The main characteristics are Accounts - The employee attempts to justify the occurrence of a negative outcome by giving excuses. For example, an employee may tell his manager that he could not complete his task because of bad health or that he helped his colleague complete a priority task. Apologies - When an employee is unable to come up with any excuse to support his action, he will seek to apologize to his manager. This will give an impression to the manager that the employee regrets the occurrence of the negative outcome and would not repeat it in future. Disassociation - When employee are not directly responsible for a negative outcome, they may try to disassociate themselves from those who were responsible for the outcome and thus from the responsibility for the problem. This especially holds good if the employee was a member of the team responsible for making the wrong decision. Promotion Enhancing Strategy It is used when employees want to maximize their responsibility for a positive outcome or improve their image. The main characteristics are

5 Entitlements - Sometimes employees may perceive that due credit has not been given to them for the positive outcome and may try to make this known to their boss through formal or informal channels. Enhancements - Sometimes, the efforts for an employee may result in an outcome that delivers much more profits than were expected. In such a case, the employee may believe that he deserved a promotion rather than just an increment and may convey his expectations to the management. Obstacle Disclosures - Under this strategy, employees try to impress upon the boss by making aware of the personal (ill health or family issues) and organizational (scarcity of resources, lack of cooperation) obstacles they had to overcome. They try to make their boss perceive that they deserve more credit because they achieved a positive outcome despite facing many obstacles. Association - An employee tries to be seen with the right people at the right time. By doing so, he try to convey the impression that he has good contacts and that he is associated with successful projects. All the strategies stated above help an employee to develop a positive perception or impression in others about himself. It is likely that the motivation behind an employees attempt to develop a positive perception or impression is to obtain more political power, promotions or monetary rewards. Impression management is used in org either to maintain good relationships with customers or to rise in the org hierarchy. During the evaluation of employees, it is important for managers to consider whether the people are deliberately manipulating perceptions or whether they are projecting their real self.

OB Application
Employment Interview A major input into who is hired and who is rejected in any org is the employment interview. Various research indicates that interviewers make perceptual judgments that are often inaccurate. Also different interviewers see different things in the same candidate and thus arrive at different conclusions about the applicant. Interviewers 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 the same information comes out later. Studies indicate that most interviewers decision change very little after the first 4 or 5 minutes of the interview. As a result, information elicited early in the interview carries greater weight. Performance Expectations The terms Pygmalion Effect have evolved to characterize the fact that an individuals behavior is determined by other peoples expectations. In other words, if a manager expects big things from his people, they are not likely to let them down. Performance Evaluations An employees performance appraisal is very much dependent on the perceptual process. An employee's future is tied to the appraisal - promotions, pay rise & continuation of employment are among the most obvious outcomes. The performance appraisal represents an assessment of an employees work. Although the appraisal can be objective, many jobs are evaluated in subjective terms. Subjective measures are by definition judgmental.

6 Ethnic Profiling It is a form of stereotyping in which a group of individuals is singled out typically on the basis of ethnicity for intensive inquiry or investigation. Organizations need to sensitise employees and managers to the damage of profiling can create. Diversity training programs are increasingly being expanded particularly to address ethnic stereotyping & profiling.