Perception Finakl

Table of ContentsDefinition.................................................................................................................................................2

Categories of perception.........................................................................................................................3

Perception as a process...........................................................................................................................4

The Environmental Stimulus................................................................................................................4

Perception and reality.............................................................................................................................6

Importance of perceptions......................................................................................................................6

WHY DO PEOPLE PERCEIVE?................................................................................................................7

Why do people perceive same things differently?..................................................................................8

Why do Organizations perceive employees behavior?............................................................................9

Why do employees perceive bosses behavior?.......................................................................................9

Why do Organizations perceive customers’ behavior?..........................................................................10

SIGMUND FREUD PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY.............................................................................11

PERCEPTUAL ERRORS.........................................................................................................................18

Accuracy of judgment:...........................................................................................................................18

Perceptual Accuracy:.........................................................................................................................18

Errors:................................................................................................................................................18

How to avoid perceptual errors.........................................................................................................21

ATTRIBUTION THEORY.......................................................................................................................21

Attribution theory relevance:.............................................................................................................24

How attribution theory is linked with Motivation?................................................................................26

EMOTIONS & FEELINGS.......................................................................................................................27

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY AND PERCEPTION:.............................................................................30

EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEW – ROLE OF PERCEPTION...................................................................31

ROLE OF PERCEPTION IN ORGANIZATION.....................................................................................34

Perception, job and motivation:............................................................................................................34

Perception in some empirical evidence:................................................................................................36

WAYS TO IMPROVE PERCEPTION.....................................................................................................37

CONCLUSION.........................................................................................................................................39

REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................40

PERCEPTION AND INDIVIDUAL DECISION MAKING

PERCEPTION

Definition

Perception is the process by which people translate their sensory impressions in to a coherent and unified view of the world around them. In simple words it can be said that it is a process by which we attach meaning to the world around us.

The word perception came from Latin word percept means to receive or to collect. It is one of the oldest fields in

Psychology and there are many theories about its underlying process. One of the oldest ones is the Weber - Fechner law, which quantifies the relationship between the intensity of the external stimuli and their perceptual effect. The perception of an individual depends upon the stimuli. In everyday life the term perception and sensation are used interchangeably, however they are very distinct, yet they both are complementary processes.

Perception is unique to everyone, none of the two persons perceive in a similar way. The view of everyone about the world around us is different.

Sensation is the passive process of bringing information from outside world into the body and brain where as perception is an active process of selecting organizing and interpretation the information brought to the brain by the senses. Past experiences, and culture play important role in perceiving from the external stimuli and eventually interpreting what is perceived. We behave according to what we believe.

There is a curious characteristic of human nature in perceiving others. People perceive others in the way as they are really and themselves, for example, liars always think that the other person is also lying and they hardly believe on what the person is saying.

There are also visual perceptions in which people look at the picture and interpret it as they perceive it, for example once an artist sketched a masterpiece in which a large snake is twisting around and engulfing a man, the critics found nothing in the picture, as for them it was just a hat. That is what actually they perceived from the picture.

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Categories of perception

There are two categories of perceptions,

Preprioception: it is an internal perception, tells us about whats going on inside our body, and we can sense our needs as well. Feelings such as tired, hungry, sleepy etc are the example of internal perception.

Sensory perception: it is an external perception, in which we tell about the environment at large outside our body using our sensory organs (i-e, sense of hearing, smell, touch, taste, and sight).

However the philosophy of perception is mainly related with external or sensory perception. It is helpful in understanding the attitudes and behaviors of the individual.

Perception as a process

The perceptual process is a sequence of steps that begins with the environment and leads to our perception of a stimulus and an action in response to the stimulus. It is a three stage process of selective attention, organization and interpretation.

The Environmental Stimulus

The world is full of stimuli that can attract our attention through various senses. The environmental stimulus is everything in our environment that has the potential to be perceived. These Environmental stimuli are received through senses that are:

o Feeling o Hearing o Seeing o Smelling

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o Tasting

Selection:

Selection is the process of filtering information through senses. It is the tendency of an individual to pay attention only to those messages that address their need or interest or are consistent with their attitudes, opinions, and beliefs. People pay attention to certain events while ignoring others. Selective attention theories have suggested that individuals have a tendency to orient themselves toward, or process information from only one part of the environment with the exclusion of other parts. For e.g. Imagine that a person is standing in a crowded room while his friends and acquaintances are socializing all around him. The sounds of conversations, laughter, glasses clinking, and music are loud and confusing. He is attempting to carry on a reasonable conversation in his little circle but is having trouble hearing the others speak. All of a sudden, from across the room, he hears his name mentioned. Immediately, selective attention operators spring into overdrive. He now finds it easier to screen out other stimuli, pick out the discussion of interest, and overhear it.

Three influences on selective attention are as follows:

1. Characteristics of the objects: This depends upon the size, color and uniqueness of the object. It is being observed that large object will bright intensity of colors, repetitive and having novelty in features are more successful in captivating viewer’s attention.

2. Perceptual Context: This aspect of selective attention highlights the fact that we tend to notice those things that stands against the environment.

3. Characteristics of perceiver: This means that we tend to remember and notice those things that are consistent with our values, beliefs and interest.

Ways to reduce selective attention:

One way to reduce Selective attention is done by engaging in Splatter Vision. Splatter vision means perceiving everything as a whole rather than focusing on specific elements. It means to expect the unexpected which reduces chance of screening out potentially important information. It is also used to avoid unexpected threats and opportunities.

Organization and interpretation:

Organization means to mentally arrange the stimuli so that we can understand or make sense out of the stimuli whereas interpretation means to add meaning to the stimuli. Our

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interpretations are subjective and based on our values, needs, beliefs, experiences, expectations, involvement, self-concept and other personal factors.

Following are some of the exercise that help in the organization and interpretation of stimuli:

Perceptual groupings: It involves organizing information into general categories and interpreting it. This is done by:

o Identifying trends.o Similarity / proximity (nearness)o Closure i.e. filling in missing pieces.

It helps us make sense at the workplace, but it may inhibit creativity in order to organize and interpret the information accurately.

Mental Models: It consists of the broad world views or “theories in use” that people rely on to guide their perceptions and behaviors

o They create the screens through which people select information. o They guide perceptions and alert people to deviations from the past. o They help to make sense of one’s environment.

One disadvantage of mental map is that it may blind people from seeing the world in different ways as the people solely rely on theories and do not make their own judgment.

Perception and reality

Reality is actually the state in which things exist. There are always proofs for the reality, otherwise it is not reality.

For example, it is considered as that rain is a blessing and god’s work, it is a general perception , but if the rain is considered scientifically, than it is actually conversion of water from one state to another.

It is a common phrase now a days that perception is reality, which is absolutely wrong. People perceive according to the way they tend to, and it is also dependent upon their capacity, which varies from person to person also, fro example few people are more keen

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observers than others , or some people are more sensitive than others. The world outside is actually the way we perceive it, and the way we are allowed to recognize it.

Human beings have a nature that they cannot understand any information without the inherent bias of their previous knowledge and a person’s knowledge creates his or her reality as much as the truth

Importance of perceptions

Perception is important in understanding individual behavior and making judgments about others. It is the base of all the knowledge acquired. In organization, mostly the behavior of individuals is based on their perception and not on the reality, and they behave according to their perceptions. Their decision power is also dependent upon it.

WHY DO PEOPLE PERCEIVE?

Perception process of people is related to cognitive psychology. We perceive the same things differently. Perception is strongly related to our senses. The senses which make us think are sight, auditory (hearing sense), somatic (touching sense), olfactory (smell sense) and gustatory (sense of taste). We perceive things both consciously and unconsciously. It all starts from attraction towards any object. Objects can be anything which gains our attraction and will automatically hit to our mind and proceed in our thinking process. It is arousal of any of our senses. Perception process highly depends on our attraction. If we don’t attract, we won’t perceive. Perception is the process in which we utilize our thinking power.

Our perception process is also link to our beliefs, attitudes and values. What we believe will affect our perception.

Example no 1:

On seeing a person early in the morning roaming around the road, a religious person will perceive that the person is going for prayer at mosque. On the contrary a non religious person will perceive that person is either a thief or robber.

Example no 2:

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Like some people perceive India Pakistan cricket matches as war because they are patriotic and some people are considered as just a usual game.

People perceive objects because they want to make judgments about things or the objects. Whenever you see anything you think about it, and want to make judgment about it.

For example:

Perception based on judgment can be best observed in the medical field. Doctors have to perceive and then to differentiate between an ill patient and malingerer.

We perceive people as we want to react to the stimuli. In order to react accordingly to the things understand. Without getting understands anything you can’t predict and say anything. Even in simple thing you need perception. If we don’t make any perception about the object we won’t be able to react.

Example:

We perceive food from their appearance and aroma and in reaction eat them eagerly that’s why food decoration also matters in cooking

Why do people perceive same things differently?

There are many reasons of different perception of same thing by different people. Perception is formed by experiences and believes. Their perceptions are highly based on their values. What they believe it affects in great deal. More over your culture, family back ground also gets in the way of your perception process.

Example:

If someone observes a person with uncoordinated gait then if the observer is a lay man it will interprets it as a drunken person while the doctor can perceive it as disease effecting brain or legs.

Why do Organizations perceive employees behavior?

Perception has got much importance in organization behavior. Perceiving an employee is worthwhile for organizations. As a boss you want to know what is going on in your

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employees mind regarding organization and his attitude assessment towards his work and colleague right from day one and finally pay assessment and you can’t ask them because they might hesitate to tell you their true feelings. So to conduct your business in a better way you have to perceive their reactions.

Example:

Bosses want to know that how much work is desirable for employees. Rather than asking them directly they make perceptions about it. If they observe that employees are coming punctual and regular, the perception will b e that they are contented from their job but on the other hand this can be basic personality of the worker to be regular and punctual whether or not he is contented and satisfied.. If they see that employees are not punctual then they perceive that they don’t like their work.

Organizations make decision by using their perceptions about employees. If you perceive that employees don’t like their job, you redesign their job. If they are unhappy with pay system you want to change pay structure up to certain limit. The decision criteria of organization are highly dependent on perceptions which they make in day to day operations.

Why do employees perceive bosses behavior?

Not only organizations employees also perceive bosses behavior. To react the same way as they want.

Example:

If boss comes and don’t greet any one then they might think that either the boss is in trouble or a proud person. In any case they will hesitate to share work related problems and the result will be disastrous for the company and both employee and employer. With company and boss suffering from failure stress and the employee may lose his job. So a wrong perception can lead to big problems

Example:

If company gives bonuses to hard working and creative people, this will lead to motivate workers.

Why do Organizations perceive customers’ behavior?

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Customers are valuable for organizations. They are precious. Their perceiving matters for organizations. What they want from their product. What they think about organization. Like for Microsoft customers will have positive attitude so it really counts for an organization to perceive customers behavior.

Example:

Thousands of dollars are spend to find out what customers think about their products.

In order to make goods customer oriented products, they predict consumer. They perceive consumer behavior.

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SIGMUND FREUD PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY

A well known Austrian scientist Sigmund Freud also worked on subject of perception. His world wise famous theory regarding perception is entitled as psychoanalytic theory.

Introduction about scientist:Sigmund Freud was a brilliant child since early age. He studied hard to get admission in Medicine school. He found his interest in research department and started progressing under guidance of Earnest brucke. He further researched in neurophysiology. His research, books and literature regarding human psychology gave him fame in medical history.

Theory: The purpose of this theory is to find the individual’s neurotic behavior and symptoms and to discover ones unconscious mind. He was not the pioneer of deriving the concept of conscious versus unconscious mind. He wanted to get deep knowledge about human behaviors. He wanted to find out the various psychosomatic effects on the body. He linked three theories.

FREUD'S PSYCHOANAL-YTIC

THEORY

ECONOMICAL

DYNAMIC

TOPOGRAPHIC

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THE TOPOGRAPHIC THEORY:

The conscious mind:Conscious mind reflects to that part of your mind in which you have present perceptions, theories, things, feelings and others. Freud named Preconscious this unconscious mind. According to him all the things which belong to our preconscious are in our full awareness. These are readily available for our use. Even though if data is related to past and now we have forgotten it, the data can be recruited into our awareness in no time because it is stored in our ordinary or conscious mind. According to him this is our short term memory.

The unconscious mind:The larger part of our memory stored in unconscious mind. It is not readily available for our use. The things which get place in this mind can’t easily bring to our awareness. He further explained that in this mind we put our drives, some interests and things which we don’t want to see. Reason may be we want to suppress these things because otherwise they will create problem for us. Sometimes it is painful too remember that’s why we tried to avoid it. For example accidents, feeling of pain and trauma.

According to Freud unconscious mid is very important and strong indicator of behavior. Whatever we behave is based on our unconscious mind. It directed us but we are unaware of his directions. The memory which exists in our unconscious are randomly scattered and find in disguised form.

The id:Freud explained to us that human beings are gifted with very important part that is called nervous system. God has created human being with a strong desire to satisfy their biological needs. These needs comprise of food shelter and warmth. According to him, human beings are determinant to satisfy these needs. When these needs are satisfied they get pleasure. So according to him these needs come from our childhood.According to him when we come into this world our nervous system is same like other creatures. At this stage he called it our nervous system is “ID”. Our nervous system at childhood converts these needs in to motives and desires. He also gave name to these desires wishes.

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Primary process:

When need are converted into derives. In primary process when you need something, your nervous system converts your needs into want or wish which you want to satisfy at any cost. Example given by Freud:A neonate is hungry. He needs food which is his biological needs. He said that neonate will only scream or cry. He does not know what he needs but he wants to satisfy his ultimate need as soon as possible.

He said if your need does not satisfy then it becomes stronger and stronger.

The ego:At first year after child birth, Id converted into ego, which job is to relate the needs in to reality. In this stage child tries to find the object which satisfy his needs.

Secondary process:

Freud named this problem solving activity to secondary process. In this process you have to take care of your needs till you find your desired objects which are capable of satisfying your needs. Sometimes it is hard for people to keep the needs under your control.

Super ego:

Super ego maintains the record of things which we want to avoid and want to get out of its effects. Two aspects of super ego are described below.

Conscious: It derives from punishments and warnings.

Ego ideal: It derives from rewards and positive models presented to child.

He explained further that we can also say that super ego is society as it tries not to satisfy out desires.

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Life and death instincts:

People are motivated from their biological desires which named as libidio. Initially he called it life instincts. With the passage of time he reached at the conclusion that life instincts are not sufficient. He had firm belief in that ever y human being has unconscious desire to die.

The anxiety:

Usually ego is accompanied with super ego. When super ego and ego are in conflict, usually super ego wins the situation and the feeling we faced named as anxiety.

Realistic anxiety:

We can call this anxiety fear which every human being faces.Example:

If I saw lion I will suffer from realistic anxiety.

Moral anxiety:

This anxiety comes from fear of punishment, guilt and shame.Example:

ANXIETY

NEUROTICMORALREALISTIC

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Students don’t give answer of question being asked by teacher because this anxiety forces them to speak up.

Neurotic anxiety:

This is the fear of being overwhelmed by impulses from the id. Example:When you feel that situation is out of your control.

The defense mechanism:Ego comes in to defense position when ego and anxiety come in contact. It does so by unconsciously blocking the impulses or distorting them into a more acceptable, less threatening form. The techniques are called the ego defense mechanisms

Distraction According to Sigmund Freud, we throw our distracting thoughts and feeling unconscious. The reason is to avoid these things. Because these things active your guilt criteria so you want to maintain distance from these things. These also include painful memories.Example:We forget someone name who we don’t like. Repression: According to Sigmund Freud, we throw our distracting thoughts and feelings into our unconscious. The reason is to avoid these things. Because these things activate your guilt criteria so you want to maintain distance from these things. These also include painful memories.Example:

Hydrophobia may result from a childhood event of visualizing someone drowned.

Projecting: According to Sigmund Freud, projecting is attributing one’s own thoughts and feelings to another. Example:

If you think you can’t great good grade without short cut, you will think that pother person may also good grades by short cuts.

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Displacement: You divert your emotional feelings usually anger to someone else. Example:

If you face music from your teacher, you may divert your anger to your siblings by scolding them.

Rationalization: You create false excuses of your wrong deeds. This is very common. It gives a false confidence to the person which can create distortions in life.Example:

Student after cheating the test may face guilt scenario but relax himself by saying that everyone was doing this.

Reaction formation:You shape your behavior against your true feelings. You hide your actual feelings and show fake feelings to others. You don’t want to show that what are you going from or what do you think or what you want. Example: You may not like your teacher but show him that you are supreme fan of his teaching style.

Regression: Regression is a reversion of immature pattern of behavior. To cope up with your stress you start behaving childish. The underlying reason behind is that you are ignoring your own behavior and you are doing this in order to get something you want to.Example:

In order to show that you have knowledge some time people try to other people aware by using any behavior.

Identification:Identification involves taking into your own personality characteristics of someone else, because doing so solves some emotional difficulty. Example:

A child who is left alone frequently, may in some way try to become "mom" in order to lessen his or her fears. You can sometimes catch them telling their dolls or animals not to be afraid.

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PCYCHOSEXUAL STAGES:

These stages are started from your childhood. As soon as you grow up your sexual stages are developed which influence on adult personality. You face lots of challenges during your psychosexual development which shapes your personality. This describes fixation process. When process of shifting from one stage to another stage becomes stopped. It refers to fixation.

Oral stage:It is of first year of human life. When mother feeds her child so he will get close to his mother but if someone instead of mother takes this responsibility then bonding of child will not be developed with his mother. So that’s why doctors suggest mother to feed their children.

Anal stage:Parents should train bowl movements to their children in a polite and gentle manner. If they scold them, it will affect their upcoming life and their anxiety level will increase in upcoming life.

Phallic stage:In this stage children are attracted towards opposite sex. You can see that usually girls are closed to their father and sons are closed to their mother.

PSYCHOSEXUALSTAGES

LATENCY ANDGENITAL

PHALLICANAL ORAL

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Latency and genital stage:The child’s sexuality is suppressed on this stage. It becomes latent which comes later on. When child enters in genital stage sexual urges appears once again and they started attracting toward opposite sex.

PERCEPTUAL ERRORS

Accuracy of judgment:

The whole perceptual process that is discussed before might raise certain misconception while judging or understanding other. This is called perceptual errors. To understand those individual differences while perceiving others, one should know the sources of those errors. To do this first step is to know the idea of accuracy of judgment in people’s perception. The next step is to explore the most common types of perception errors.

Perceptual Accuracy:A very important question in organizational behavior is how accurate people perception is about others. One example can be that during the performance appraisal process if supervisor perceives inaccurately, like misjudging his/her characteristics, abilities or behavior, the assessment of the employee would be inaccurate and this would affect the future and current assessment of employee. Another very common example is during employment interviews. Errors can be made while judging the candidate because decisions are made usually only on the information gathered in face to face interview. Errors are:

Errors:Similarity error: People are predisposed towards those having similar traits, socio-economic-cultural background.

Example: In an interview interviewers are positively predisposed towards those candidates who are similar to them in terms of background, interest etc. and negatively biased towards those who are unlike them.

Contrast error: People tend to compare among the available resources and thus arrive at a conclusion that might be far from the objective reality. We don’t evaluate person in

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isolation. Our reaction to a person is influenced by other persons we have recently encountered.

In a job interview, a candidate is likely to receive a more favorable evaluation if preceded by mediocre candidate and vice versa. The evaluations is not done on a standard.

Race/gender/age bias: People’s perception may be tempered by their prejudices vis-à-vis race, gender, and age.

Primacy effect/First impression error: People may hold a long-term view about a person or thing based on first impression. It is difficult to change.

Overweighing of negative information: In this type of error person overreacts after knowing about a particular negative information.

In an interview, interviewer tend to overreact about some negative information, this gives an impression that he is just looking for some ways to disqualify a candidate.

Recency effect: In this type of error most recent information dominates our perception of others. The most recent info has greater influence when the first impression has worn off. Usually found in performance appraisals.

There are no general answers to ensuring accuracy. Some basic guidelines to accurately judge people are as follows:

Avoid generalizing from an observation of a single trait (e.g. Tactful) to other traits (e.g. stable, confident, energetic, dependable)

Avoid assuming that a behavior will be repeated in all situations. Avoid placing TOO much reliance on physical appearance.1

Perceptual defense: People tend to defend the way they perceive things. Once established, a person’s way of viewing the world may become highly resistant to change. Sometimes, perceptual defense may have negative consequences. A well known folk song suggests “we hear what we want to hear and disregard the rest”. This perceptual error can result in manager’s inability to perceive the need to be creative in solving problems. As a result, the individual simply proceeds as in the past even in the face of evidence that business as usual is not accomplishing anything worthwhile.

1 http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=sghB48ZbruwC&pg=PA79&lpg=PA79&dq=example%2Bperceptual+defense&source=bl&ots=IrGxGnh1eo&sig=1a7F7R5bk0ceOoLYI58egbdOg0o&hl=en&ei=lYzES7qSDs_CrAf6ht2KDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CDQQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=example%2Bperceptual%20defense&f=false

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Stereotyping: Stereotyping can be defined as the rigid and hurried judgments about others. It is the belief that all members of a specific groups share similar traits and behaviour. Most often, a person is put into a stereotype because the perceiver knows only the overall category to which the person belongs. However, because each individual is unique, the real traits of the person are generally quite different from those that stereotype would suggest.

An example of stereotype is 'Germans are methodological but unimaginative' (Huse and Bowditch: 1977, p.123). Yet, this is not absolutely correct! One must be very careful and not consider that all Germans satisfy this categorisation, when we have to deal with, say, a German manager.

The accuracy on stereotyping relies on how well we know the person. It is less accurate if we have little interaction with people in that group.

Stereotyping generates prejudices which will eventually effect the hiring of employees. It will limit employment for qualified people.

Halo effect: According to Zebrowitz (1990, p.64), 'our impressions of others may be heavily influenced not only by early information but also by a single, central trait which is either very positive or very negative.' Under halo effect, a person is perceived on the basis of a single trait. It generally occurs during performance appraisal where the supervisor rates an employee on the basis of only one trait e.g. intelligence, punctuality, cooperativeness appearance etc.

Huse and Bowditch (1977, p.123) picture this well: When a stupid person makes a mistake, we are tempted to say 's/he always makes mistakes anyway.' In other words, because we have been told that this person is stupid, even though we have not checked ourselves or though it was based on a single trait, we confirm the judgement. On the other hand, if a clever person makes a mistake, we rather say 'nobody's perfect' and ignore the mistake.

Projection: It is the tendency of seeing one’s own traits in others. We believe others have the same beliefs & behaviors that we do. Thus, individuals project their own feelings, personality characteristics attitudes, or motives onto others. Projection may be especially strong for undesirable traits that the perceivers possess but fail to recognize in themselves. People whose personality traits include stingyness, obstinacy, and

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disorderliness tend to rate others higher on these traits than do people who do not have these traits.

How to avoid perceptual errors 2

1. Avoid hasty conclusions

2. Take more time patience

3. Be available--listen--see other view

4. Commit self-seek info before judgment

5. Create proper climate -is it ok to say

6. Make adjustments-be prepared to change

ATTRIBUTION THEORY

It is proposed that one of the factors that affect judgments besides the perceptual errors is explained by attribution theory.

Attribution theory is intended to help a person understand the causes of human behavior, be it their own or someone else's. The basis of attribution theory is that people want to know the reasons for the actions that they and others take; they want to attribute causes to behaviors they see rather than assuming that these behaviors are random. This allows people to assume some feeling of control over their own behaviors and over situations.3 So both internal and external forces determine behavior. The behavior will then tend to be different if one perceives internal attribute than external attributes.

2 http://webhome.idirect.com/~kehamilt/ipsyperc.html

3 http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/A-Bud/Attribution-Theory.html

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Why am I not buying this car? Why is the salesman telling that this shoe is better than the other?. These are some typical questions that consumers ask not only about other people but also about themselves, and about the objects around them. How one answer such question is basically dependent on the understanding of their following behavior. Consumers when searching for such answer tend to explain the reasons/causes of the happenings. And basically this question to know and understand the environment is the actual focus of attribution theory.

It was suggested by Kelly that after observing individual’s behavior, type of attribution that will be made is dependent on following characteristics (interpretation):

Consensus (do others act this way in a situation?) Consistency (does this person act this way in this situation at other times?) Distinctiveness (does this person act differently in other situations?)

It should be remembered that consensus relates to other people, distinctiveness relates to tasks, and consistency relates to time.

The figure on the next page shows how this type of information affects the attributes that are made in evaluating employees’ behavior:

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The external attribution maybe that the task is too difficult or that outside pressures from home or coworkers are hindering performance. The supervisor making an internal attribution may conclude that the subordinate just doesn’t have the ability, or is not giving the necessary effort, or does not have the motivation to perform well.

To better understand consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus, consider a workplace example. Nancy, a manager, has assigned a team of employees to develop a custom sales training program for a client. As the project progresses, Nancy continues to see problems in the work produced by Jim, one of the team members. In order to determine why Jim's performance is not satisfactory, Nancy first considers consistency, or whether Jim has performed poorly on other similar team projects. A review of his past performance appraisals indicates that he has not had prior performance problems when creating custom sales training programs. This would lead Nancy to conclude that there was an external cause of the poor performance. Second, Nancy considers distinctiveness; she

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wants to know if Jim has performed poorly on different types of tasks. Again, in checking Jim's performance reviews, she finds that when he is on a team to accomplish a different type of task, such as developing a selection interview, he has excelled. This further points to an external cause of Jim's poor performance. Finally, Nancy assesses consensus, or the behavior of others in this similar task. In asking the team members about their experiences with the current project, she finds that many of them have had difficulty in developing this custom sales training program. Thus, all indicators point to Jim's poor performance being caused by an external factor, such as a difficult task or a demanding client. Based on this attribution, Nancy may explore ways in which to minimize the negative effects of the external factors on Jim's performance rather than attempting to influence his level of effort or ability.

The prior example illustrated how consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus might point toward an external cause. However, these three factors also may lead an observer to attribute behavior to an internal cause, such as the observed person's effort or ability. Nancy, the observer from the previous example, also has experienced difficulties with a secretary named Kelly. Another manager has complained to Nancy that Kelly has not completed work on time and turns in work full of errors. Nancy observes Kelly for several days and finds that, when given work by this particular manager, Kelly continues to perform poorly, which indicates an internal cause (i.e., high consistency). Second, when performing work for other managers on other tasks, Kelly continues to do substandard work; this is distinctiveness, and it again points to an internal cause. Finally, Nancy observes that when other secretaries perform the work assigned by the manager who complained about Kelly, they are able to successfully perform their duties in a timely manner. This is consensus, and it also points to an internal cause. Based on these observations, Nancy can attribute Kelly's poor performance to an internal cause, or namely to Kelly's own lack of skill or effort. 4

Attribution theory relevance:How attribution theory is linked with Decision making?

In any organization judgment happens on the basis of performance. And performance of employees' is related to their perceptions too. In particular poor performance can be defined as: “Specific-agreed upon deviation from expected behavior”. By standardizing

4 http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/management/A-Bud/Attribution-Theory.html

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and agreeing upon the expected behavior the chances of employees and supervisors interpreting performance differently may reduce.

Attributions are thus critical to management because perceived causes of behavior may influence managers' and employees' judgments and actions. For instance, managers must often observe employee performance and make related judgments. If a manager attributes an employee's poor performance to a lack of effort, then the outcome is likely to be negative for that employee; he or she may receive a poor performance appraisal rating or even be terminated from the job. Conversely, if a manager perceives that an employee's poor performance is due to a lack of skill, the manager may assign the employee to further training or provide more instruction or coaching. Making an inaccurate judgment about the causes of poor performance can have negative repercussions for the organization.

If supervisor determines that poor performance has occurred as mentioned above, then he/she must identify the causes for deviation and then select an appropriate response. This appropriate response is determined from the same causal attribution.

Poor performance is not detrimental on one single cause in fact different factors at different times may cause the performance problem. In making a decision while solving a performance problem depends on identifying and dealing with proper cause(s) of the problem. And as discussed before, causal attribution theory describes the process by which people assign causes to their own and others behavior. A response to poor performance will depend on whether a supervisor concludes that the cause of employee performance is within the employee or is in the situation. However the judgments and decision that supervisors make when diagnosing the cause of poor performance can be affected by biases. The errors are fundamental attribution error and self serving bias. Supervisors should be trained to guard against bias, and to make sure that they correctly identify the cause for poor performance.

Attribution theory was developed to explain how people understand the causes of human behavior, be it their own or someone else's. Managers often act based on their attributions and may act inappropriately if attributions are not valid. Managers who are aware of the attributional process, the types of internal and external attributions, and the presence of the fundamental attribution error and the self-serving bias can better understand their own and others' behavior.

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Specific judgment applications in Organizations:

Employment Interview: Employees are employed on the basis of perceptual judgments of interviewer. Also the perception about the employee may be different by different interviewers. Many times in organizations interview is very common application for the employee's performance; and this is heavily influenced by personal perception of interviewer.

Performance Expectations: People's expectations determine their behavior. Self-fulfilling prophecy is a situation in which one person inaccurately perceives a second person and the resulting expectations cause the second person to behave in ways consistent with the original perception.

Ethnic Profiling: A form of stereotyping in which a group of individuals is singled out- typically on the basis of the race or ethnicity- for intensive inquiry, scrutinizing, or investigation.

Performance Evaluation: An employee's performance appraisal is very much dependent on the perceptual process.

Employee Effort: Many organizations give more importance for the employee's performance rather his/her perception in the organization. As assessment of an individual's effort is a subjective judgment susceptible to perceptual distortions and bias.5

How attribution theory is linked with Motivation?

Attributions may influence employee motivation. It has been used in explaining the difference between high and low achievers. By applying the concept of internally and externally caused behavior, high achievers will approach rather than avoid task related to their succession because they believe success is due to their high ability and effort which they are sure shot about. Failure is rather caused by bad luck or something else which is not in their control thus not their fault. So even if such people fail that wouldn’t affect their self esteem in fact it will be bring them more pride and confidence. On the

5 http://marketandme.blogspot.com/2009/01/person-perception-is-all-about-making.html

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contrary, low achievers tend to avoid success related tasks because firstly they doubt their ability. Secondly they think that success is not in their hands as it is related to luck or something which is not in their control. So even if they are successful it wont be as rewarding because they don’t think that they are actually responsible for it. Due to this low motivation will be seen among employees in performing their tasks in workplace. Thus, understanding attributions that people make can have a strong effect on both employee performance and managerial effectiveness.

EMOTIONS & FEELINGS

It is common sense that emotions and feelings go before and cause various kinds of behaviors. For instance we frown because we feel angry, sit slumped in our chairs because we feel depressed, speak well of a candidate because we feel attracted to her, let our attention wander because we are bored, and so forth. Emotions and feelings carry more significance to our mental life than even the quality and meaning of our existence in the first place. Emotions tend to make or break our lives. Emotions tend to raise normative questions that whether the degree to which they are considered to be rational, or whether emotions can add to rationality. Therefore, for us the quest of our knowledge regarding emotions is difficult, as seemingly emotions are both the object of our most awareness and also our source for self-deception, which results in ambivalent relation between emotions and morality.

Emotions/Feelings follow Perception and vice versa

One of the founding fathers of cognitive behavioral therapy, Aaron Beck believed that "emotion follows perception". The way we feel about a situation is a result of the way we perceive it. The "emotion follows perception" is really a two-way idea and thus we often see the reverse, namely, that "perception follows emotion".

Sometimes we perceive a situation and are held in the grip of strong emotions that would change as soon as we get more information and a fresh perception. Here is an example. Lets assume a 50 year old man finds a couple of younsters nosing and doing something fishy around his car. It is probable that the gentleman would feel heated up and a surge of anger alongwith some fear would find their way into his mind and body. The feeling is most likely to be certain if the person has already had a bad experience of the same before. The fact that explicit memory performance is often better for emotionally significant stimuli than for emotionally neutral stimuli is applicable here. It may well be

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that the emotional significance of a stimulus enhances the formation of long-term memory traces, thereby improving performance in explicit memory tasks, as well as tasks that tap memory in a more indirect manner, such as perceptual identification tasks. Now, he is likely to run over, shout or might throw something over the youngsters to shove them away. But what, if instead of running away the boys looked up and pointing say: “our ball is under your car” or "our kitten, she ran away". And the gentleman finds a taped cricket ball/ innocent little kitten under his four wheeler! His perception of the situation would likely to be changed in an instant and his emotions would shift from anger and fear to that of compassion and kindness. He might even help those ‘fussy’ teenagers now!

Information comes in through our many senses. Our brains are looking for patterns to match the same to our previous experience and then using that meaning to create perceptions or expectations of the future. Emotion follows these expectations. This is the process that allows us to know and to relate to our world. However, when we get emotionally aroused it is like our attention becomes locked on a narrow view and we fix on the emotional expectation (what happened in the past) and block out the bigger picture (what is actually happening now).

Implication of the Emotions on the Perception Theory

Perceptual theory is a hybrid of the somatic and cognitive theories of emotion. It reinforces that the bodily responses are central to emotions. On the other hand, it also emphasizes the meaningfulness of emotions as is recognized by the cognitive theories. The theory thus claim that conceptually based cognition is not needed and that the bodily changes themselves perceive the meaningful content of emotion because of being triggered by certain situations. Thus, emotions are considered analogous to entities like vision or touch which provides information about the relation between the subject and the world in various ways.

Emotions make certain features of situations or arguments more prominent, giving them a weight in our experience that they would have lacked in the absence of emotion. Here is an example from ‘Othello, the Moor of Venice’ a tragic play by William Shakespeare. Consider how Iago proceeds to make Othello jealous in the play. He directs Othello's attention, suggesting questions to ask, and hinted that there are conclusions to be drawn without specifying the same himself. Once Othello's attention turns to his wife's

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friendship with Cassio and the lost handkerchief, inferences which on the same evidence would not even have been thought of before are now experienced as compelling: “Farewell, the tranquil mind….”

This account however does not identify emotions with judgments or perceptions, but it does explain why theorists have been tempted to make this identification. Emotions set the agenda for beliefs and desires. It is a known fact that questions have much to do with the determination of answers: the rest can be left up to the facts. Therefore emotions could be said to be judgments, in the sense that they are what we see the world “in terms of.”

Finally, as it is widely believed that emotionally significant stimuli are better identified than neutral stimuli. It is considered more likely due to enhanced perceptual processing and also to an extent to bias favoring the identification of emotionally significant stimuli over neutral stimuli. Thus emotionally significant subjects are likely to be better identified than the neutral subjects. Thus perceptual encoding of emotionally significant stimuli is enhanced.

Thus it is quite evident now that emotions and feeling do carry a lot of weight especially when it comes to organizational behavior. Hence it is not a surprising factor that most of the Multinational, companies and corporate sectors especially involving jobs and service related to higher positions tend to evaluate the candidates seeking the jobs on different aspects and a special consideration is given to their scoring on the Emotional Intelligence test.

One example of that can be addressed here is that of the U.S. Air Force which uses emotional intelligence as a selection criterion for recruiters, whose jobs demand a high degree of social interaction. By hiring recruiters with high EI scores, the Air Force has reduced turnover rates among new recruiters and decreased hiring and training costs.

Similarly, yet another example would be that of the local hospitals in Pakistan where all the doctors which are supposed to be hired for the A & E (Emergency) department of the hospital are usually tested on the emotion part as well. This is usually done with the help of bombardment of extremely personal or emotional questions in the interview. This determine the make or break point of the candidate, also it help to identify to the administration that how likely would be the response of the doctor in cases of any disaster, overcrowding or angry mob coming in with the patients. Those scoring highly

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on this test are usually the one that show reduce turnover, increased loyalty to the hospital and decreased absenteeism. In the other case, vice versa is true.

SOCIAL IDENTITY THEORY AND PERCEPTION:6

Social identity is a theory expounded by Henri Tajfel and John Turner to understand the social-psychological basis of intergroup discrimination. This theory attempted to identify the minimal conditions that would lead members of one group to discriminate in favor of the in group to which they belonged and against another out group. When we belong to a group, we are likely to derive our sense of identity, at least in part; from that group i.e. this theory explains the process of personal or self-perception and social-perception. Personal identity includes the individual’s unique characteristics and experiences, such as physical appearance, personality traits, and special talents whereas Social identity refers to a person’s self-perception as memberships in various social groups. For example when abroad, especially in countries which have particularly different languages and cultures, we feel our nationality far more keenly than when we are at home. We will tend to band together in national groups, perhaps making comments about the strangeness of the natives. In the Social Identity Theory, a person has not one, “personal self”, but rather several selves that correspond to widening circles of group membership. Different social contexts may trigger an individual to think, feel and act on basis of his personal, family or national “level of self” (Turner et al, 1987). Apart from the “level of self”, an individual has multiple “social identities”. Social identity is the individual’s self-concept derived from perceived membership of social groups (Hogg & Vaughan, 2002).

Social identity theory features four important elements:

Categorization: Social Identity Theory asserts that group membership creates self-categorization and enhancement in ways that favor the in-group at the expense of the out-group. People often put others and themselves into categories. This involves labeling someone with respect to the group he/she belongs to. For e.g. a Muslim, a Pakistani, a cricketer etc.

6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-perception_theory

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Identification: After being categorized of a group membership, individuals seek to achieve positive self-esteem by positively differentiating their in-group from a comparison out-group on some valued dimension.

Comparison: It involves comparing characteristics of our groups with other groups. It is a Homogenizing process in which we perceive that everyone in a group has similar characteristics

Psychological Distinctiveness: People desire our identity to be both distinct from and positively compared with other groups. This quest for positive distinctiveness means that people’s sense of who they are is defined in terms of ‘we’ rather than ‘I’.

EMPLOYMENT INTERVIEW – ROLE OF PERCEPTION

The hiring process can be stressful for both employee and employer. It typically requires both parties to consider their needs and how to present themselves most favorably. The process can be time-consuming and emotional. Hiring a new employee is really no different than getting married to them, for better or worse. Even though there is no specific contract for employment, in most hiring situations, you are still forming a relationship with the employee that can involve a long and painful divorce if you later decide to terminate their employment. Therefore, it is important that you take special care in hiring the "right" employee for you company. It is quite common question – which steps are most important in the recruitment and selection process. Many HR Professionals believe the most important step in the recruitment and selection process is the job interview.

Before meeting an applicant, interviewers should briefly review the four primary ways in which we formulate our perceptions and ideas about people. These four aspects of perception – first impressions, information from others, single statements and ethnocentrism – together form a valuable interview component. Briefly reviewing them when meeting with an applicant can help one avoid hasty hiring or rejection decisions based on nonfactual, subjective factors.

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

This is the most prevalent and often most damaging way of formulating ideas about people, since we often form first impressions without even realizing it. Interviewers

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unaware of the importance of perception frequently boast, “The minute he walked in the door, I would tell he was right for the job.”

This is a mistake. One cannot determine job suitability by sizing up people in a split second based on their appearance. Of course appearance (e.g. clothing, colors and grooming) does play a role in selection process. After all, employees represent an organization; therefore the image that they project is a direct reflection on that company. The problem is that interviewers have a tendency to form preconceived notions of how employees in certain job classifications should look. An accountant, for example, conjures up a different image than does a mechanic. If a person applying for a mechanic’s opening came to an interview dressed in a suit, you would be surprised but probably not turned off. However, if an accountant appeared in your office wearing overalls, it’s far more likely that you would form a negative first impression.

First impression should play a role in the decision making process, but not at the exclusion of all the other factors to be examined. It should not be allowed to act as a substitute for judgment, and try not to form a complete impression until after the interview conducted. It might be found that the applicant’s attire or grooming is the only problem. The person’s job skills may be superior to those of other applicants. At this point one can talk to the applicant about the image the organization wants its employees to project. Then a brief follow-up interview should be scheduled to see if candidate got the message.

INFORMATION FROM OTHERS

An applicant who comes highly recommended by someone for whom the interviewer has high regards can elicit a positive response from him even before the actual face-to-face meeting. On the other hand, someone whom the interviewer dislike may make a referral to him automatically creates a negative bias toward the person being recommended. In both instances interviewer is allowing himself to be influenced by information from others. Instead of assessing the applicant on her own merits, interviewer is accessing the person making the recommendation, thereby transferring his opinion from the referral source to the applicant. As with the first impressions, information from others does play a role in the decision-making process. Anything that might supplement the data on an application or resume can be helpful, but it’s premature to make an evaluation based on this highly subjective aspect of perception at this stage of the employment process.

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SINGLE STATEMENTS:

Suppose an applicant’s response to one of the interviewer questions rubs him the wrong way. If he is unaware of the impact that a single statement can have, it could bother him to the extent that he can eliminate the person from further consideration, even though the comment doesn’t constitute a valid reason for rejection. Interviewer should be particularly careful if this should happen during the initial stage of the interview, when he is trying to put the applicant at ease and establish rapport. If he errs and mentions something relating to, say politics, the applicant might express a view contrary to his. If the interviewer is not careful, this difference could influence his objectivity in assessing the applicant’s job suitability. He will then have taken a single statement one that is totally irrelevant to the decision-making process—and allowed it to affect his judgment.

Even single statements that are job-related must be weighed in relation to other qualification factors. Interviewer should keep in mind that it’s usually a combination of factors that results in the rejection of an applicant.

ETHNOCENTRISM:

Ethnocentrism refers to applying our values, standards, and beliefs to judge or evaluate others. Overall, this is a perfectly natural result of the cultural conditioning process to which we are all exposed. In our early years, well-intentioned parents, teachers, and religious leaders teach us to think and act according to certain guidelines. At the age of five or six, few of us question the validity of these guidelines. Unfortunately, many people grow up believing that is the only way to think. The result is stereotypical misperceptions whereby we assign specific attributes and roles to others based on surface characteristics, such as sex, age, or ethnic origin.

Others factors also come into play. For example, the interviewer sees from a resume that the applicant graduated from Harvard. The interviewer’s general assumption about Harvard graduates could lead her to hastily conclude that the person would b an asset to the organization. Negative reactions may also occur. What distinguishes an exploratory interview is the amount of the time allotted to asking questions. Interviewers must focus on key job related issues – usually in a period of fifteen to twenty minutes for nonexempt applicants and about thirty minutes for professional applicants – and decide if a follow-up interview is warranted.

Under these conditions, interviewers often feel pressured into making a decision based on what they perceive to be limited information. Consequently, it can be tempting to dismiss a person for giving an inappropriate answer, or even because of the way he dresses or

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shakes your hand. Using such a non-job-related reasons as the basis for rejection, even at this early stage in the interview process, can be counterproductive for a number of reasons: you may be passing up a viable applicant; the applicant leaves with negative feeling about your organization (which he may well share with others); and it could lead to claims of discrimination based on “intent”, for e.g. the minute you saw the applicant was a woman, she contends she was excluded from further consideration. It is rightly said that "perception is the only reality". That may be rather extreme. But it does remind us of the dangers of subjectivity. As managers we may see ourselves as objective and impartial. But our objectivity and impartiality may be based on some erratic perceptions.

ROLE OF PERCEPTION IN ORGANIZATION7

Perception shapes human behavior at workplace in several ways which are as follows:

Perception, job and motivation:

Perception has a strong effect on employee motivation and consequently on human behavior at work. Motivation can be defined as the drive to put efforts to some goals. It is a perceived physiological or psychological imbalance. This can also be illustrate through examining the two extreme levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs:

Physiological Need: Physical job conditions, i.e. noise, temperature and lightning, are directly related to Maslow's physiological needs (Jewel: 1998) through physical perception. It is difficult to determine their precise effects on perception, since individual conditions can vary significantly.

Self Actualization Need: Maslow's self-actualization needs also define motivation. Motivation may derive from self-efficacy, 'the judgment that people make about their ability to execute certain courses of action' (Jewel: 1998, p.581). In other words, self-efficacy is the perception of self-performance. Specifically, it is based on previous experience in mastering new skills and obstacles, comparison of one's competence with the previous performance of similar people, and assessment of one own physical states (Wade and Tarvis: 1996).

More generally, if motivation is derived from needs, it is obviously higher under job satisfaction. Let us note that Wagner and Hollenbeck (1998, p.107) define job satisfaction 7 http://www.prunelle.org.uk/ponderings/perception.htm

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as 'a pleasure feeling that results from the perception that ones's job fulfills or allows for the fulfillment of one's important job values.'

Perception, groups and conflicts

Organizational conflicts are a result of distorted perceptions. Following facts must be considered while dealing with perception and conflict in organization:

1. In a conflict, both parties overestimate i.e. misperceive themselves and underestimate their rival.

2. Each group has distorted perceptions and judgments about the other group.3. Each group sees the other as the "enemy”, i.e. they perceive other to be their

enemy.4. Group disharmony, arguments, and less morale increase if the odds are

overwhelming. Again perception is concerned, because group members see morale, harmony and cooperation as having greater importance than under normal conditions.

5. Negative perceptions and feelings such as mistrust and suspicion carry over into non competitive situations.

6. Information is used to grind down the position of the other group. At this point, information is controlled, which leads to individual misperceptions.

7. With some piece of information representatives may become "heroes" or "traitors”, which clearly implies misperception, since the sudden quality of heroes or traitors, are not founded from any new piece of information.

In summary, differing perceptions lead employees to conflicting behavior. In particular, in such cases, problems become more vivid in mind; hence it is difficult to retrieve the relevant knowledge that would allow undertaking an 'objective' corrective behavior, since the brain is overwhelmed with 'negative' information.

Perception, leadership and decision making:

The analysis of perception and conflicts suggests that group leaders and managers should take perceptions into account in order to make their decisions. The definition of decision making found in Sekuler and Blake (1998, p.50) again emphasizes the role of perception in organizations. According to them indeed, it is 'the process whereby perceived information is used to evaluate and choose among various courses of action.' Thus, the

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key to effective managers' decision making may be accurate perceptions of themselves, their organization, their competitors, their markets and their personnel. Unfortunately, subordinates often only convey the information they think their chief wants to hear. In the other direction, as French (1985, p.402) observes, managers tend to impart too concise messages down to their employees, which often degrades overall understanding and increases misinterpretation.

Another interesting point is that research concerning leadership has studied people ideas about how real leaders should be (Jewel: 1998, p.507). Their conclusion was that perceived good leaders are seen as higher performing and are more appreciated by employees, than are 'real' good leaders. This shows, again, that perception is significantly at stake in organizations. Even though a leader is 'really good', if his or her subordinates do not think s/he is, their motivation may be impaired, which in turn may be very likely to affect their behavior.

Perception in some empirical evidence:

Perception notably affects human behavior in organizations. Particularly, through job satisfaction, conflict and competition, decision making and leadership, perceptions have a strong impact on employee performance. It is impossible to detect precisely through which elements, and in which way, perception influences human behavior in the workplace. Let us lastly consider some recent empirical evidence. Hutchison and Garstka (1996, p.1363) concluded that 'goal setting and performance feedback do not affect commitment directly, but rather through their effects on employees' perceptions of the organization’s commitment to them.' Hattrup (1998, p.232) showed that self-efficacy (i.e. self-perception) also played a role 'in influencing individuals' reactions to various hiring procedures.' Finally, Finegan and Theriault (1997, p.720) suggested that employee behavior might also be influenced through their perception of the corporations' code of ethics, and that 'organizations should be careful to portray an image to their employees that matches their intent, since perception is a stronger determinant of affective reactions than is reality.'

WAYS TO IMPROVE PERCEPTION

Following are some of the ways to improve perception in organization:

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1. Diversity initiatives:

It is important that organization introduce diversity in its workforce. This can be done in following ways:

a. Recruit people with diverse backgrounds and build long-term relationships with minorities so that you are able to understand how perception varies from culture to culture.

b. Provide reasonable accommodation to your employees in a way that let them accommodate work–family balance and also support non-traditional breaks for religious reasons.

c. Diversity awareness activities should be introduced by appreciating differences in the workplace and sensitize people about stereotypes and prejudices. Beyond diversity awareness it is also very important to interact more with people from different backgrounds

2. Empathize with others:

Empathy is a person’s ability to understand the feelings, thoughts and situation of others

Developing empathy skills. This can be improved by receiving feedback on our interaction with others and work with others in their environment.

3. Postpone impression formation:

In order to avoid perception we should try to ignore first impressions. This practice would enable people to engage in a developmental learning process that forms a better understanding of others

4. Compare perceptions with others

By sharing perceptions, people learn different points of view and potentially gain a better understanding of the situation

5. Know yourself (Johari Window)

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This technique to avoid perception is developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram (hence the name ‘Johari’). This technique states that others need to be aware of and sensitive to our own values, beliefs and prejudices. This would help in having better mutual understanding when others know us better and also helps us in understanding our colleagues, etc.

Johari Window: It consists of four elements:

a. open area : This stands for information about you which is known to yourself as well as others

b. blind area : This stands for information that is known to others but not to you.

c. hidden area: This stands for information that is known to you but unknown to others

d. unknown area : This stands for information about you known to neither you nor others.

Objective is to increase size of open area:

This can be done by:

a. Disclosure: This means telling others about you. This could include your personality, nature, experiences, style, habits etc.

b. Feedback: This means receiving information from others about yourself found in the blind area i.e. information that others know about you which you are still unaware of.

Applying the Johari Window

a. This technique can be used for diversity awareness as it helps in interacting with others.

b. It also appreciates the 360-degree feedback process.

c. It also encourages dialogue i.e. sharing perceptions about each other.

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CONCLUSION

Perception is real. It's normal. It's part of our response to normal events and human interactions of business. It is very important to have a long hard look at whether our perceptions are interfering with our business judgments. If they are, then we should try and get the quick remedy for it. What needs to be emphasized is that we should consider two orders of reality, the first referring to the existence of an external world, and the second designating the internal signification we give to that world and being founded on communication. Since organizations basically consist of human beings communicating with each other, we should consider this second 'reality' to explain human behavior. Moreover, considering this 'reality', it makes no sense debating what is 'real', for human beings primarily behave according to the signification they give to things and facts, i.e. to perception rather than 'reality.' This analysis thus leads us to conclude that perception is far more important to explain human behavior in organizations than 'reality.

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