Perception:

Perception is the process by which people select, organize and interpret sensory stimulus into
meaningful information about their work environment. The knowledge is captured by
interpreting the sensory input. Perception is more than sensory input supplied by sense organs
and other receptors. It is the final product of raw and unprocessed sensations.

Definition by S.P. Robbins

Perception is defined as the process by which an individual selects, organizes, and interprets
information inputs to create a meaningful picture of the world.

Perception is a process by which an individual organizes and interprets their sensory impressions to
give meanings to their environment.
Feature of Perception:

 The base of every individual’s behavior

 Psychological process
 Differs from person to person and situation to situation.

Perceptual Process (Model)

A Simple Model of the Perceptual Process:

The model has 3 variables: Input, Processes, and Output.

Inputs:
Perceived inputs are the objectives, events, people that are received by the perceiver which
begins when environmental stimuli are received by our five sense organs.

Processes:
Input received is processed by this sub-process:

 Selection,
 organization, and
 interpretation.
a. Selection:

Our five senses are instantly bombarded with the varieties of inputs, so we cannot react
instantly with those simultaneous stimuli or inputs. Therefore, there needs a process of filtering
those bombarded simultaneous or instant stimuli, this process is called selection.

Why there is a selection process:

Because of the following reasons;

 Goal-oriented nature of human beings as we are attracted to our own personal

interests.
 The selection process actually solves the overloading of perceptual handling.
 People generally select the information either that is the most important for them
or they are the most threatening for them.
 Also, human’s perception is that they only perceive what they want to perceive.
For example; in a group picture, an individual only sees himself/herself at first,
then only to the others. Next example; in a student’s cultural program, parents
only perceive their own children’s performance.

Selection perception follows two main principles:

1. Figure-Ground principle
2. Relativity principle

Figure-Ground principle:

The significant portion is called the Figure, and the insignificant or meaningless portion in any
perception is called Ground. According to Gestalt psychology, it is known as identifying an
object(figure) from the background(ground). This principle solely depends on the observer but
not the object or an item.

Relativity principle:

This principle is nothing but it only indicates that we only perceive the perceptions that are only
relevant and attached to ourselves. We don’t care about those perceptions which are irrelevant
to us.

b. Organization:

The organization is the process by which we group selected information and finally perceive the
perceptions from those stimuli. It means to figure out the objects, recognizable patterns,
assembling the information which will give a meaningful whole information. The methods of
organization are:
  Grouping: It is the concept that information is selected based on similarity or
proximity. For example; if more than half a student fails on the same subject, the
principal might guess, it is because the concerned teacher of that subject could
not teach the students properly.
 Closure: It is the concept that people will fill the incomplete information.
Generally, it indicates that we are addicted to full meaning, so if we get half or
incomplete information, we interpret them ourselves, whether it may be right or
not. Example: People will perceive COMP as a computer or company or anything
complete but not as a comp which is incomplete meaning.
 Simplification: To make the information, people generally use this process. For
example; People use this process because they want to end the burden of
unnecessary information.

c. Interpretation:

If there is no interpretation, perceived information would be meaningless. It is highly subjective

and judgmental in nature. In real-life situations, interpretation is influenced by many factors or
perceptual errors. This is called the final judgment of meaningful information.

Output:
The output of perception can be seen in the form of behaviors and emotions. They may be the
feelings, attitudes, actions, etc.

Perception and Individual Decision Making:

Decision-making is an overall package of thinking, deciding, and action. And, it is affected by an
individual’s perception. Every manager at all level of management are required to make a
decision, and that depends upon the perception of those individual managers. So, we can
conclude these two have an intense connection in the businesses. Example:

 Top-level managers decide over the organization’s goals, type of production,

services to offer, etc.
 Middle-level managers decide over production schedules, and recruiting new
employees, and so on.
 Low-level managers decide over whether to go for work or not(today), how much
time and effort to work for, whether to follow the boss or not? etc.

Decision-Making steps:

1. Defining the problem

A perceived discrepancy between the current state of affairs and the desired state. Every
decision problem requires selection, organization, and interpretation of information.
2. Developing Alternatives

Every decision requires the development of alternatives. It also requires the development of
relevant alternatives.

3. Making a Choice

It is the selection of the best alternative. The final choice is influenced by the perception of the
decision-maker.

Factors affecting perception

The factors affecting perception are factors in the perceiver, factors in the target, and factors in
the situation.

Factors affecting perception:

 Factors in the Perceiver
 Factors in the Target
 Factors in the Situation

Factors in the perceiver:

the following are those variables that decide the property or behavior of a perceiver.

a. attitudes:

If the people’s attitude is positive, then he/she will definitely positively pursue the perception,
but if s/he takes it negatively, however, the item or the thing is impressive and quite good s/he
is observing, it will observe as a bad one.

So, it is considered the factors in the perceiver which definitely affect the perception. For
example; if an employee is giving his best and improving himself but the manager is not looking
at his positive side but only looks for the criticism, and cannot encourage him. then the
employee might turn the job for another one.

b. motives:

Motives are the motivations that cause us to work every day. They are also responsible for the
perception that causes a person’s urgent needs and demands to surely influence perception.
For example; in the football club, if the player wants to be selected in every starting eleven, and
wants to show the best level of himself. He will definitely work hard and get praise from the
manager. In this case, the perception of getting starting eleven and praise is caused by
motivation and the motives the perceiver got.

c. interest:

Interest is one of the key influentials of perception. As people tend to work in a better way if
they find compatible interest or enthusiasm. For example; some people are more interested in
sports than the curriculum courses. If they get the proper guidance and maintenance, they will
be successful in those areas. for example; the Nepalese Pubg Team got famous for playing
Pubg, which is their core interest.

d. experience:

Successful experience will boost up a perception, and on the other side, failures will cause to
stop and amend the perception of doing the same work again.

e. expectations:

People always have specific expectations and they will always assume those expectations on
other people, jobs, or anything. For example; backbenchers are perceived as a weak student in
exams by the teachers.

Factors in the target:

a. Novelty (new factor):

People surely will notice the new thing happening in the surrounding. For example; people
notice the developmental works on the roads very quickly. Also, they find intriguing the facts
that animals walking on the roads or something phenomenal.

b. Motion:

Secondly, motions are easily perceived by people. This principle presumes that people are
more likely to focus on emotional or moving objects than non-emotional objects. Examples;
soldiers in combat learn this very quickly, adversaries make more of a moving screen than the
static advertisement.

c. Sound:

Louder and frequent is the sound easier and quicker which will be factors affecting perception
and vice versa.
d. Size:

This principle assumes that the larger the size, the more likely it is to be attracted by the people
than the smaller size. For example; big hoarding boards are used to attract more people using
the size principle.

e. Background:

It is just a similar approach in the figure-ground principle. It assumes the focus of the perceiver
is always on the figure which is on the first layer and the background is ignored by the
perceiver.

f. Proximity:

It assumes that proximate things are perceived easily and quickly. And also shows that an
individual is always different from the other ones.

Similarity: This concept follows the moral that individuals are similar to others, and work the
same way in a group. For example; an army person perceives an army staff easily.

Factors in the situation:

a. Time:

Time affects the perception in a way that if a perceiver implements the knowledge h/she just
got will be more effective than the implementation after a long period of time. For example; if a
student notes down what they learn in the school time after coming home on the same day,
then the student will have no doubts about the subject matter again. So, time matters the most
in these areas.

b. Work setting:

This principle talks about the working environment or nature of the workplace. Obviously, if an
individual work in a friendly, mutually respected company, then surely s/he is motivated to get
the best out of possible resources. But, if the company is old school which just focuses on the
high work rate on the employees, then there will be negative impacts on the individuals.

c. social setting:

It generally gives light on social adjustment and social judgmental. For example; if a girl wears
lipstick in college, then she will be badly judged, but if she had lipstick at a party, she would be
judge differently.

Perceptual errors:
Perceptual errors are called when folks generally use several shortcuts when they judge others.
They have frequently used shortcuts in judging others. They are:

 Selective perception: Since we cannot observe everything going on about us, we engage in
selective perception.
 Halo effect: refers to the tendency of judging the person entirely based on a single trait that
may be favorable or unfavorable.
 Stereotyping: Generalizing or grouping
 Contrast effect: We don’t evaluate a person in an isolation. Contrast error occurs when we
evaluate characteristics of a person with other people, it happens all the time in a job
interview.
 Projection: refers to the tendency of people to see their own traits in other people. As the
saying goes, ‘to an honest man, everybody is honest’ and vice versa.
 Impression: ‘the first impression is the last impression’. This may sometimes lead to
perceptual distortion like first bench students are disciplined and intelligent, and last bench
students are undisciplined and weak.

OR

The perceptual process may result in a person making errors in judgment or understanding of
another person. The most common types of perceptual errors are:

1. Accuracy in judgment
2. Perceptual defense
3. Stereotyping
4. The halo effects
5. Projection
6. Role of culture
7. Horn Effect
8. Recency effect
9. Self-Serving Biasness
10. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Accuracy in judgment

1. Similarity error – assuming that people who are similar to us (in terms of
background, interests, and hobbies) will behave like us.
2. Contrast error – comparing people to others rather than to some absolute
standard.
3. Overweighting of negative information – a tendency to overreact to something
negative.
4. Race, age, and gender bias – tendency to be more or less positive based on one’s
race, age, or sex.
5. First-impression error – forming first impressions that are resistant to change.
Perceptual defense

The tendency for people to protect themselves against ideas, objects, or situations that are
threatening.

Stereotyping

The belief that all members of a specific group share similar traits and behaviors.

Halo effect

A tendency to color everything we know about a person because of one recognizable favorable
or unfavorable trait.

Projection

is the tendency to see one’s traits in others. The role of culture: Culture influence our
perception in selecting information and exhibiting a behavioral pattern in situations

Recency Effect

When the most recent information influences our judgment, even though we have a whole of
other information on the person.

Horn Effect

Based on one Negative quality, we assumed the person is BAD i.e. we perceived the whole
person, based on ONE quality.

Self-serving Bias

 It is the tendency of attributing own success to internal causes while failure to

external causes.
 It represents one’s tendency to take more personal responsibility for success
rather than for failure.
 This business tends to increase as time passes after an event.

Ex- Rishi gets the best journalist award in Nepal but fails to get selected as the top 1000
journalist in South Asia. He attributes his success as his ability and his failure as a lack of
capability of the judge to determine his ability.

Self-fulfilling prophecy:
People’s preconceived expectations and beliefs determine their behavior, thus, serving to make
their expectations come true. E.g. Negative expectations= Negative result