Perception

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Perception​

“Perception is the process through which the individual interprets sensory inputs” (Bennet, 1997, p. 61) including; sight – the way we perceive an individual by their actions and body language, sound – the way we perceive an individual by their words, smell and taste – the way we perceive an individual’s cooking, are all examples of how great a scale perception can be.

Figure 1. What do you see? An old lady, or a young woman?​

Perception can be categorized by principles of perception including organisation and selectivity whereby organisation includes schemas, prototypes and stereotypes and selectivity includes controlled processing and screening. However perception can also include other interesting aspects such as the Halo Effect, Impression Management and Projection. All of these perceptual ideas can be useful in explaining organisational behaviour.

Schemas are cognitive frameworks that represent the way we interpret inspiration developed through experience. These broad frameworks are categorized into two types. Within the context of perception, a prototype is looking at a person for a group of people. One can assume certain characteristics such as looking at a team leader in an organisation and very quickly, create a perception on what one may think they are and start looking at another team leader against this standard framework. The question becomes; what is a team leader? So a comparison is formed about any individual that may differ from this prototype possibly due to the leader getting top sales in that organisation.

There exists also the individual who diverges from the mass, possibly due to not following any of the customs of a team leader but is still doing just as well in the organisation. These prototypes are usually perceived by their characteristics. Results have shown that when an individual decides to join a group, that individual will make a comparison between them self and the individual they perceive as the prototype in that group (Gibbons Frederick, Gerrard, 1995, p.505). It is also thought that the “closer the match between the self (concept) and the prototype, the greater the interest in joining the group” (Gibbons Frederick, Gerrard, 1995, p.505). Due to this, projection (a distortion) occurs which can be extremely negative in organisations such as when a manager recruits a subordinate because he/she feels that they have the same needs. Projection is a perception because it makes an individual feel that other people exhibit the same perceived negative characteristics as they do (Bennet, 1997, p. 63).

Stereotyping, a more common word to our society, is an individual’s perception of a certain aspect such as specific social groups based upon stereotype-generated attributions. These perceptions are usually inaccurate. A Professor (Karenga, 2001) and an African American author wrote how the destruction of human possibility involved “redefining African humanity to the world” due to stereotyping of black people. Now although decreased enormously, there still lives this type of stereotyping in organisations and so in some organisations, managers have eliminated the need to put your ethnical background to avoid being accused of stereotyping and to stop unconsciously discriminating people. The Johari Window, Figure 2 depicts the 4 areas of awareness. Stereotyping can occur particularly when an individual or group of individuals perceive another individual by what they know of that individual’s background or demographics. This explains the “Open” section because both the individual and the others know about that individual’s background. An example of stereotyping in this case could be of a woman who has just got a job and is being spoken of to the work team as follows, “Miss Smith is a young woman who worked as a wholesale distributer.” Being a young woman may add to perceptual stereotyping (someone who is about to work with this young woman may, for example, have a negative perception of young women because they feel that young women are all troublemakers.

Figure 2. The Johari Window​

However sometimes, but rarely, stereotyping can in fact be accurate. In the “Blind” section where actions of an individual occur such as tapping a pencil on the table are not known to that individual but are known to others. If someone with a bad condition of Tourette’s syndrome was spoken about to a team, the exact same way the young woman was above, then if one of the team member’s perceptual view was for example, that “this individual will be doing or saying unrelated things because he has Tourrette’s which annoys me,” then this could be an example of accurate stereotyping. Accurate perception has been backed up by the theory that we often only perceive accurately when we are prepared to do so (Schneider, Donaghy, Newman, 1975, p. 92). Perception can also occur due to the layout of an organisation wherein “people are pigeon-holed in a specific part of the organisation and thus have little contact with people outside of their particular area. (They are stuck in their work area and can’t be in contact/communication with their peers),” (Brooks, 2006, p. 39). Brooks (2006, p.39) then writes about how it is common for organisations to include “training weekends” where people from different sections of the organisation are brought together to tackle the problem of perceptual stereotyping.

Perception is selective as it is unavoidable to see all there is to see.
Selectivity, known as attention and selection, can sometimes be associated with perceptual illusions. Figure 3 is an example of a perceptual illusion. Our attention is not of the two people looking at each other but is consciously of the vase. We choose to see something the way we want to. This is known as screening – the way we perceive objects and people through choice.

Figure 3. Rubin Figure ​

An example of this is when you are driving you unconsciously notice the red light and stop whilst listening to the radio. Controlled processing refers to “conscious decisions made to pay attention to certain stimuli while ignoring others” (French, Rayner, Rees, Rumbles, 2009, p. 82). For example, when you are at a party with a friend and another group speaks to both of you, but you selectively choose not to listen to them. An interesting case of attention and selection is where controlled processing becomes uncontrolled processing. For example, you are working and choose not to hear the noisy neighbours chatting away. However maybe, half an hour later, this controlled processing becomes uncontrolled processing because without realizing it, you can’t hear the noisy neighbours anymore, until you choose to stop working. If you stop working for even a second, you will supposedly start to hear the neighbours again. The halo effect, a social perception, is the judgement of an individual based on a single characteristic such as the way you enter a room or the way someone shakes your hand. This is more likely to occur in the organisation stage of perception. A positive halo effect could lead to recruitment of a job, such as when someone gives a pleasant smile, the manager may feel that this gives an overall impression of the person as being kind, and honest.

However a negative, rusty halo effect which usually has a bigger effect could be that an extremely nice and honest individual comes to an interview with 0 hours sleep in 24 hours and gives an impression to the manager that the individual is moody, the manager is unlikely to recruit this individual. The halo effect is put beautifully as; “someone who is perceived by you as diligent and hardworking is unlikely to be perceived as lazy and cavalier if he or she ‘plays truant’ from work for a few days” (Wilson, Rosenfield, 1990, p.20). This individual could also create an impression management to the manager in order to get recruited and perceive himself as an entrepreneur, associating himself with certain characteristics such as “high need for achievement, internal locus of control, risk-taking and self-efficacy” (Stokes, Wilson, Mador, 2010, p16) which could link in to the “Hidden” section of Figure 1. This could also be associated with projection. Shakespeare (1590, p.1210) said “Thoughts are but dreams till their effects be tried,” who was a master of perception without knowing it. What he says here is that thinking is a perception of how we see something as and this perception can only become real when it is explored in real life. This means that if for example, Sarah perceives John as bright and intelligent after having spoken to him for 5 minutes, only exploring John more, can Sarah find a more accurate perception of John.

Perception is a complex cognitive process which differs between people depending on certain aspects such as your cultural background.
Our world is perceived in so many different ways and our perception of things is made from conscious thoughts. These thoughts allow us to interpret data and create information out of it such as buildings and planes. It allows us to think outside the box and perceive something as possible. These incredibly wide range of perceptual thoughts, are what drives humans to success.








Bibliography
Bennet, R. (1997). Organisational Behaviour (3rd ed.). London: Prentice Hall, Financial Times. 61.
Bennet, R. (1997). Organisational Behaviour (3rd ed.). London: Prentice Hall, Financial Times. 63.
Brooks, I (2006). Organisational Behaviour. 3rd ed. London: Prentice Hall, Financial Times. 39.
French, R., Rayner, C., Rees, G., Rumbles, S. (2009). Organizational Behaviour. London: John Wiley & Sons, LTD. 82.
Gibbons Frederick, X., Gerrard, M. (1995). Predicting Young Adults’ Health Risk Behaviour. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69(3), 505-517.
Karenga, M. (2001). The Ethics of Reparations: Engaging the Holocaust of Enslavement. Available: http://www.africawithin.com/karenga/ethics.htm. Last accessed 23/10/10.
Schneider, A.E., Donaghy, W.C., Newman, P.J. (1975). Organizational Communication. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. 92.
Shakespeare, W. (1590). The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. Wordsworth Library Collection.
Stokes, D., Wilson, N., Mador, M. (2010). Entrepreneurship. Basingstoke: Cengage Learning. 16.
Wilson, D.C., Rosenfield, R.H. (1990). Managing Organizations. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. 20.
Figure Page
Figure 1. Old woman/young woman. Brooks, I. (2006). Organisational Behaviour. 75
Figure 2. The Johari Window. Brooks, I. (2006). Organisational Behaviour. 39
Figure 3. Rubin Figure. Rubin E. Synoplevede Figurer. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske; 1915. N/A

 

Well detailed guide in my opinion but before I read it my first impression was a wall of text which could defer some people from reading this.

 

Thanks. I will seek change.

 

I'll split my critique into two sections.

Information: There is a lot of information in this guide, which is of course great because it's nice to see strong, detailed guides. The issue I've had is stated above. It seems to be a wall of text. I personally had trouble reading it and trying to understand it. However you said you're going to improve that, so I look forward to re-reading it soon

The only other issue I had I stated on your application thread. The use of references. I can't change your mind on that though. When you're ready for your application to be submitted a HUE will decide whether they're permitted or not.

Formatting: When I first saw the guide I noticed there were no images, this now has been fixed. I still do think some more pictures could be added elsewhere though.

Also, again as I stated above if someone randomly opened the thread looking for a good thread they probably wouldn't stay for long because it seems a little boring. I only see the default font/colour being used and it's a little plain, spicing it up always helps.

 

Ok Brendan W. I appreciate your advice and it seems fair and I would agree with all but one point, as I'm sure you know .

Cheers,

Ritchynator0.

 

The new colours and font certainly make the guide look more appealing. Excellent effort.

 

very...