Perception: It is a process by which individuals organise and interpret their

sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment

(a) What one perceives may be different from objective reality. A person coming late on duty
may be perceived as casual and tardy while there may be social problems faced by him.
(b) There is often disagreement among the individuals in the organization in relation to pay
and allowances, administrative back up, policies and procedures and the place of work itself.
An individual who displays a positive attitude may perceive above factors as good and
conducive to work environment while the others may consider them inadequate. Employees
also compare themselves on job assignment. If a job is assigned to one individual who may
consider the assignment in excess to his job entitlement on the contrary if he is not given
the job, he may consider it as neglecting him in allocation of responsibilities.
(c) It would often be observed that the manager is rated differently by his subordinates
because of the different perception of the individual about the manager. The study of
perception is very important in the organization because it is necessary for the manager to
perceive individuals correctly irrespective of their status and perceive each of the situation
as close to the real fact or as it exists by interpreting the sensory reflects in correct way.
Sensation and perception are complex phenomenon. Perception is outcome of sensation and
is much broader in its nature. Perception involves observing data, selecting, and organizing
the data based on sensory reflects and interpreting the same as per personality attributes of
the perceiver. That is why no two individuals can perceive an employee in the same manner,
for one he may be efficient while for the other he may be perceived as useless.

Factors Influencing Perception: Following three factors influence the perception:

1)Perceiver
Attitude,Motives, Interests ,Experience,Expectations
2)Situation
Time
Work setting Social setting

3) Object/Target
Shape
Size
Shade
Sound
Silhouette
Movement
Background

Perceiver: When an individual looks at the object and attempts to interpret the same, what
he or she sees it is largely influenced by the personal characteristics. Perception is a matter
of attitude that can be positive or negative. Some workers would feel and perceive that the
prevailing working conditions in the organizations are congenial for work and it contributes
positively while for others, it would be inadequate and demand improvement.This is
indicative of positive and negative attitude patterns. Motive is another factor that plays an
important role in perception. Motive is nothing but unsatisfied needs. This exerts
considerable influence on perception. Boss who is insecure perceives subordinate who does
well as threat to his position. Personal insecurity is a threat to personal survival in a job
especially if one is frequently transferred. Interest is persons liking for a particular thing in
an individual. Someone not interested in classical movie may find it boring. Past
experience also plays an important role in perception. Just as interest narrows down one’s
perception so does past experience. For example second or subsequent visit to a historic
place. Object or events that have not been experienced before are more noticeable and
creates an interest. Expectations
can distort one’s perception in what one sees and what one expects to see. For example
expections about the result may create satisfaction or dissatifaction to students.

The Target: Objects, events that are similar to each other tend to group together and have
a tendency of perceiving them as common group. Physical and time proximity also leads us
to perceiving a situation in a different form than actual reality. Increase in the sales volume
may be attributed to newly posted sales manager. In actuality the increase in sales may
have been the outcome of hard work done in the past by sales representatives and public
contact. Soldiers in identical uniform and their uprightness is perceived as being strict,
5. Stereotyping: In order to simplify matters, we often tend to classify people and events
into already known categories. For example we generally perceive man as executive and
woman as secretary even if the situation may be different. For police person, it is generally
believed that they are generally tough which may not be true. In our mind we have
established certain categories with certain attributes. For example, category of teenagers
would generally be independent, indisciplined and so on. In reality this may not be true.

Attribution Theory:

The Theory states that we try to give cause to every event or behaviour of the person we encounter.

1) Heider theory

2) Kelley's model

3) Weiner's model

Heiders Model: 1. Dispositional Attribution

Dispositional attribution assigns the cause of behavior to some internal characteristic of a person, rather
than to outside forces.

When we explain the behavior of others we look for enduring internal attributions, such as personality
traits. This is known as the fundamental attribution error.

For example, we attribute the behavior of a person to their personality, motives or beliefs.

2. Situational Attribution

The process of assigning the cause of behavior to some situation or event outside a person's control
rather than to some internal characteristic.

When we try to explain our own behavior we tend to make external attributions, such as situational or
environment features.

Kelley's model:
Kelley’s (1967) covariation model is the best-known attribution theory. He developed a logical model for
judging whether a particular action should be attributed to some characteristic (dispositional) of the
person or the environment (situational).

The term covariation simply means that a person has information from multiple observations, at
different times and situations, and can perceive the covariation of an observed effect and its causes.

He argues that in trying to discover the causes of behavior people act like scientists. More specifically
they take into account three kinds of evidence.

Consensus: the extent to which other people behave in the same way in a similar situation. E

Distinctiveness: the extent to which the person behaves in the same way in similar situations.

Consistency: the extent to which the person behaves like this every time the situation occurs.
Weiner's Model:

Weiner developed a theoretical framework that has become very influential in social psychology today.
Attribution theory assumes that people try to determine why people do what they do, that is, interpret
causes to an event or behavior. A three-stage process underlies an attribution: example. A student
cleared JEE. People may assume the cause of success differently.

 behavior must be observed/perceived

 behavior must be determined to be intentional

 behavior attributed to internal or external causes

When one succeeds, one attributes successes internally (“my own skill”). When a rival succeeds, one
tends to credit external (e.g. luck). When one fails or makes mistakes, we will more likely use external
attribution, attributing causes to situational factors rather than blaming ourselves. When others fail or
make mistakes, internal attribution is often used, saying it is due to their internal personality factors.

Achievement can be attributed to (1) effort, (2) ability, (3) level of task difficulty, or (4) luck.