DEPARTMENT OF TOURISM

KUMAUN UNIVERSITY, NAINITAL

INDIVIDUAL DETERMINANTS OF ORGANIZATIONAL

BEHAVIOUR : PERCEPTION

SUBMITTED TO SUBMITTED BY

Department of Tourism Naval Kishore Sunal

MBA 2nd semester
PERCEPTION

Perception means perceiving (i.e.) giving meaning to the environment around us. It is perceiving objects what
we are faced with. (E.g.) Looking at a painting some may perceive it as beautiful, the others as ugly. Then, the
question arises is why the same objects is perceived/ understood differently by different people. The answer to
it is perception which is a cognitive (gaining of knowledge through thought and senses) factor of human
behavior.

The ability to see, here or become aware of something through the senses, understanding something.
Individuals differ in the way of understanding and appreciating the environment, things and people around
them. (E.g.) one person may admire a piece of jewellery while others may consider the same as just
average and still another person may find it unimpressive. What appears to be good to some may appear to
be bad to others. This happens because of difference in perception.

Definition: “Perception can be defined as the process of receiving, selecting, organizing, interpreting
(understanding), checking and reacting to sensory stimuli or data.” “Perception can be defined as a process
by which individuals organise and interpret (understand) their sensory impressions in order to give meaning
to their environment.”
Perception includes all those processes by which an individual receives information about the environment
seeing, feeling, tasting and smelling. Perceptual process shows functioning by three class like objects or
event perceived, environment in which perception occurs and individual doing the perceiving.

Stimuli: Stimuli play a vital role in perception. The word ‘stimuli’ is the plural form of stimulus.
STIMULUS - Make more active, interested or excited. - Raise level of nervous activity in the body. (E.g.)
smell of the food.
Stimulus Means - anything that excites or arouses a person.

Sensation and Perception: * Sensation is the response of a physical sensory organ Eye – See Ears – Hear
Hands – Touch Nose – Smell Tongue – Taste

People usually mean sensation and perception the same. But there is a clear cut distinction between the
two. In simple words sensation may be described as the response of a physical sensory organ to some
stimuli (our physical sensory organ often reacts to these stimuli). The reaction of our eyes to colour, ears to
sound, and so on are examples of our everyday sensations.
Perception is much more than sensation. Perception depends upon the sensory raw data, yet it involves a
process that includes filtering, modifying (or) even changing these raw data to make sense out of them.
Result from sensation is called perception. Result from sensation is called perception.

NEED OF PERCEPTION:

i) Perception is very important in understanding the human behaviour, because every person perceives the
world and approaches the life problems differently.
ii) It can predict their behaviour in the changed circumstances by understanding their present perception of
theby understanding their present perception of the environment.
iii) With the help of perception, the needs of various people can be determined, because people’s
perception is influenced by their needs.
iv) Perception is very important for the manager who wants to avoid making errors when dealing with
people and events in the work setting.

Determinants of Perception: The various determinants of Perception are as follows –

1. Qualities of the Perceiver (Employees): It includes

– Personality and Experience.
- Needs (Monetary benefits)
- Attitude (positive attitude)
- Value system (A system does the perceiver have influence his perception).

2. Qualities of the Perceived (fellow man, supervisor, employer):

a) Physical stamina - A person with good physical stamina, he is deemed to be fit for any kind of physical
work.

b) Mental Qualities – A person with good level of IQ is perceived to be fit to solve any organizational
problem by his intellectual capacity.

c) Level of commitment- If an employee is highly irregular for work, and quarrels with supervisors and
fellow workmen he will be perceived to be indiscipline.

3. Environmental Condition: a) Physical environment - If the work place is not neat and tidy and lacks
even basic facilities like lighting, ventilation, drinking, water, toilet etc. The employer will be perceived to
have no regards for the physical and mental being of his employee.
b) Social environment - If there is always misunderstanding among employees and also between the
employees and the employer, the perception will be that the interpersonal relationship in the organization is
very poor.

PERCEPTUAL PROCESS

The process of perception involves six stages –

1. Receiving stimuli: - the perception process starts with the reception of stimuli. - the stimuli are received
from the various sources- we receive stimuli through our sense organs - eyes, ears, hands, nose and tongue.
- stimuli may be in the form of objects, events or people. - when a person interacts with stimuli, sensation
(feeling from something) takes place and that is the beginning process of perception.

2. Selecting stimuli: - among various stimuli an individual may come across, only when some are
important and relevant. - the election of stimuli is not made at random, but depending on the two type of
factors namely - a) External factors: - influencing the selection of stimuli are nature of the stimulus,
location, size, colour and shape familiarity, contrast and reputation.
i) Nature – by nature whether the object is visual or auditory and it involves pictures, people or animals. -
pictures attract attention than words and rhyming auditory passage attracts more attention than narrative
passage

ii) Location – the best location of a visual stimulus for attracting attention is directly in front of eyes. (E.g.)
location of message or picture in newspaper in upper portion is more favourable than in lower portion.

iii) Colour – a modicum of colour catches the eye in mass of black and white. - it used to emphasize
attractive features of product or create sustainable atmosphere. - some products like cars comes in variety
of colours, but others like toothpaste are in limited range of colours. - it is used to enhance the lighting
effects, for creating pleasant surroundings. - it is psychological impact on an individual and act as stimulant
and others as depressant.

Effects of Colour: Colour Psychological Effect

Violet: Aggressive and tiring
Blue: Restful
Brown : Exciting
Green: Very restful
Yellow: Exciting
Orange: Exciting
iv) Size – objects of larger size attract more attention than smaller ones. (E.g.) Engineering staff pay more
attention to big machine than small one.

Contrast – it states that external stimuli which stand against background, will receive their attention. (E.g.)
Parking or No parking sign boards are block letter on yellow background or red lettering on white
background to get attention from drivers. - managers utilize this factor in organizing in work places to
create contrast atmosphere.

vi) Movement – the principle of motion states that moving object receives more attention than object that is
stationary. - in work environment the attention of workman will be focused more on conveyor belt than on
paintings on walls or illumination. - advertisers capitalize on this principle by creating signs which
incorporate moving parts.

vii) Repetition – it states that a repeated external stimulus is more attention than non – repetitive one. -
same advertisement of product flashed daily on television is based on principle of repetition. - the
supervisor have to give directions to workers over and over again for even simple tasks.

viii) Novelty and Familiarity – it states that either a novel or familiar external situation can serve more
attention, familiar external situation can serve more attention. - new jobs in familiar settings or familiar
objects in new settings draw the attention of perceiver. (E.g.) Job rotation – changing workers jobs from
time to time will tend to increase attention they given to task. - novel attracts attention fast like humour,
animation, graphics.

Internal factors: - influencing the selection of stimuli are personality, age difference, unfulfilled needs
and special interest. - people selectively perceive objects, or things which are interested to them and avoid
those for which they are not interested.

i) Learning – it is a cognitive factor, considerable influence on perception

and creates expectancy in people.on perception and creates expectancy in
people. - people tend to perceive what they want to perceive.
Bird in
(E.g.) One person read the sentence in triangle, it takes few seconds to the the
realize there is extra ‘the’ in sentence. This creates expectancy in learning. box

ii) Psychological needs – it plays significant role in perceptual selectivity. (E.g.) A thirsty person in desert
gets the illusion of water when seeing sand from distance. - every person’s psychic energies are expanded
in trying to satisfy basic psychological needs for love, esteem and adequacy. - it can interact with those
sector’s another personality- it can interact with those sector’s another personality through which can
gratify these needs.
iii) Age difference – senior executives complain about the inability of new, young ones to take tough
decisions terminating people or paying attention to details. - different perceptions of old and young
executives are due to their age differences.

iv) Interest – perception is influenced by interests of perceive. - interest can’t be distinguished from needs. -
person with a particular interest has a need to involve himself in activities. - if a person with special
interest, his perception is likely to be selective at any time.

v) Ambivalence – it is also a mixed feelings about a situation. (E.g.) Young man may be ambivalent about
his fiancée's virtues,(E.g.) Young man may be ambivalent about his fiancée's virtues, attractive, charming
and he wants to remain success in his circle by having beautiful fiancee, represses the awareness of her
negative qualities and selectively perceive that are favourable.

vi) Paranoid (afraid or suspicious of other people) Perception – it is characteristic of emotionally disturbed
person that his perceptual field differs from that of reality and personalized interpretation. - his self-concept
is poor & very insecure, as a result he behave in inflexible manner.

3. Organizing stimuli: - it is the process by which people group stimuli into recognizable patterns. (E.g.)
people have a mental picture of an object made of wood and having four legs, seat, back, an image of
chair. - people actually see an object having these characteristics and able to organize information into
meaningful way and recognize an object as chair.
a) Ambiguous figure – it becomes a difficult task when there are confusing and discouraged stimuli in the
external environment. (E.g.) seeing that pictures, it could represent either a duck or rabbit, which
fluctuates two images.

b) Figure background – it is considered to be the most basic form of perceptual organization. - the
relationship of a target to its background influences perception. - perceived objects stand out separable
from their general background. - in organizations managers face are similar experiences.

c) Perceptual Grouping - the tendency to group stimuli in certain ways has been a common means of
organizing perception. - it include similarity, proximity, closure, continuity and area. (E.g.) all workers
having similarity in certain aspects have perceived similar about their boss.
FACTORS INFLUENCING PERCEPTION

Factors that influences the selection of stimuli are of two types -

a) Internal factors:
1. Needs and desire: - unfulfilled needs of a person influence the selection of stimuli. - a person whose
need for food, clothing and shelter is not fulfilled will perceive anything as unimportant, fulfilled will
perceive anything as unimportant.

Personality: - person with a positive outlook always think of the positive aspects. - while those with a
negative outlook perceive any decision to be detrimental (harm or damage).

3. Experience: - experience and knowledge serve as basis for perception. - successful experience also helps
perceive understand stimuli with more accuracy.

4. Age difference: - age differences play an important role in the process- age differences play an important
role in the process of perception. (e.g.) Son, father
5. Special interest: - a person who has special interest in anything on anyone may perceive anything as less
important. (E.g.) for a musician nothing is more important than music.

b) External factors:

1. Nature of stimuli: - if it is picture type, better impact is created. Picture has greater attention than words.

2. Location: - where, in a newspaper an advertisement for (e.g.) is going to be placed is important (i.e.)
whether in the front page, center page, last page, sports page etc. Center page, last page, sports page etc.

3. Size and shape: - size attracts the attention of the individuals - larger objects attract attention more than
the smaller ones. - it is this reason that some advertisers advertise in a full page in a newspaper on a
magazine.

4. Intensity (quality): - intensity is closely related to size. (E.g.) Bright light, loud sound, strong fragrance
etc, can create better impact than dim light and mild fragrance. - the intensity principle of attention states
that the more intense the stimuli, the more likely it is to be perceived.

5. Contrast: - if the object stands out against the background, it receives- if the object stands out against the
background, it receives better attention. (E.g.) Safety signs with black lettering on a yellow background (or)
white lettering on a red background are more attention attracting.
6. Movement / Motion: - it says that moving objects receive better attention than objects that stand still.

7. Rejection: - a repeated stimulus has greater impact than the one that occurs only once. - it is for this
reason that most advertisement are repeatedly shown in the media to gain the customer’s attention this
product.

8. Status: - it held by an individual also influences his/her perception about things or events. - researchers
suggest that people with high status often exert (apply a force) more influence on the perception of an
individual as compared to those holding low status.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

ETERMINANTS OF OB - II
Unit 3– Individual Determinants of OB - II

-MR.T.SOMASUNDARAM
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT STUIDES
KRISTU JAYANTI COLLEGE (AUTONOMOUS)
BENGALURU