We grow up with the idea that perception is reality. When our perceptions are congruent with those held by others, there is cooperation and success, but when it differs, the result is conflict and destruction. Our perception about a person, thing, or situation is indeed one of the most difficult things to change. This is equally true, if not truer, for other’s perception about us. However, when we change our perception, we find it easy to change our behaviour. In a world driven by change, perception has a central role and this explains the importance of the study of perception.
—Y. B. Yeats
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:
Section I – What Is Sensation and Perception?
Section II – Perception–Models, Process and Theories
Section III – Perceptual Distortions/Biases
Section IV – Impact of Perception on Modern the Organisations
On Friday, January 12, 2007, a young white man clad in jeans, T-shirt, and baseball cap positioned himself strategically near a trash basket outside Enfant Plaza metro station in the US and opened his violin to earn his daily bread. The street performer threw down a little change in front of him as seed money and then began to play at 7.51 a.m. and played six classical pieces in the next 43 minutes during the peak office hours. 1097 people passed by. At the end of that time, he was lucky to collect $ 32.17. Who was this poor violinist who was trying to earn the day’s bread? It was Joshua Bell, one of the most noted violinists of our era whose concert two days earlier had been sold out at an average of $ 100 a seat. Welcome to the mystic world of perception!
Adapted from https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/magazine/pearls-before-breakfast-can-one-of-the-nations-great-musicians-cut-through-the-fog-of-a-dc-rush-hour-lets-find-out/2014/09/23/8a6d46da-4331-11e4-b47c-f5889e061e5f_story.html accessed on 02 May, 2017.
If you read the incident given in Box 4.1 (Dr P) you might wonder what is happening to Dr P. We all know that we have five sensory organs, namely eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and skin, and whenever some stimuli stimulates these organs, we see, hear, smell, taste, and feel. This is called sensation. However, have you ever felt any sensation while losing balance during a dance or some feeling in your stomach when you are stressed? In addition to the sense organs mentioned above, our joints and viscera also contribute to our sensation. Sensations can be divided into general and special. General sensations are heat, cold, touch, pressure, pain (related to skin), and proprioception (muscle, joint, and visceral sensation). Seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling of balance occur because of special organs associated with these and are called special sensation.2
Sensation can be defined as the simulation of sensory organs. Another way to define is: “Sensation is the conscious or subconscious awareness of the internal and external conditions of the body”. Sense organs operate by sensing the internal or external variations through special nerve cells. These nerve cells are called sensory receptors and are different from other nerve cells (for description of nervous system, see chapter on fundamentals of behaviour). Each type of receptors vary in their function; for instance, the way visual receptors work is different from the way olfactory receptors work.
Dr ‘P’ was an excellent musician who could tell the name of his students from the sound of their voice with his eyes closed. However, he was not so adept in doing this with his eyes open. One day, mistaking the head of his wife to be his hat, he tried to take it (her head) and put it on. Like most of us, everyone thought how good he was in playing pranks! However, he eventually landed up with Dr Sacks, an eminent neurologist. Dr Sacks showed him a rose bud and asked him what it was. Dr ‘P’ described it as ‘about six inches in length and a convoluted red form with a linear green attachment’. When Dr Sacks asked what it was, the answer was that it was difficult to say as it lacked the simple symmetry of platonic solids. Sacks then handed over the bud to Dr ‘P’ and asked him to smell it. And then suddenly Dr ‘P’ remarked, ‘Beautiful! An early rose. What a heavenly smell’.1 Dr ‘P’ was not playing pranks. It was found that he was suffering from visual agnosia or inability to recognise objects through visual stimuli.
Based on Sacks, O. (1998). The man who mistook his wife for a hat: And other clinical tales. Simon and Schuster.
Figure 4.1: Perception
Now look at Figure 4.1. You may read it as ‘THE CAT’ or ‘TAE CHT’. You may also say that the glass is half full or half empty. Without seeing, you could not have said this; yet you could give different meanings to the same thing. It suffices to say that what we see and what we interpret are different. What does this mean? Seeing, or more generally, sensing through our sense organs, is necessary but not sufficient for perceiving. Perceiving involves not only selecting and organising, but also interpreting the meaning of what we sense3. Now revisit the case of Dr ‘P’ to get a better understanding of the impact of agnosia. There is an interpretation mechanism corresponding to each sense organ. Let us study this mechanism in detail.
Sensation is the simulation of sensory organs while perception involves selecting, organising and interpreting the sensation.
Vision is our dominant sense organ. It contributes 50 per cent of our sensation.4 When light from an object falls on the retina of our eyes, information is carried to the brain through the optic nerves. The retina is a complex structure and has cells called cons and rods. Cons play a vital role in daylight vision and colour vision. Rods play a vital role in night vision and peripheral vision (vision towards the sides). The eyes have dark adaptation, which is the reason why you can still see when you enter a cinema theatre after a while, and light adaption, which is the reason why you blink for a while when you come out of the theatre.
The information so gained by the rods and cons is processed to the visual cortex of the brain, which plays a major role in interpretation. The cells in the brain respond to lines, edges, and other complicated stimuli much more than to small spots.5 Our eyes are trichromatic. In other words, they see only three basic colours, that is, red, green, and blue. It is our brain that mixes these colours and helps us to visualise many colours. This would make it clear that beyond the sensory organ, there is a complex mechanism that selects, organises, and interprets information that leads to perception. Let us have a look at Figure 4.2 to understand this phenomenon better. Image 1 is a block that looks similar to CPU of a computer or a block of wood, but in reality, it is mere shades on a piece of paper. The second image could be a flower vase or two faces. Similarly, the perceptions of other images can also differ from person to person.
The same image being interpreted differently can be explained by two possible theories: feature analysis theory and gestalt principle.
The same image being interpreted differently can be explained by two possible theories: feature analysis theory and gestalt principle.
Feature analysis theory suggests that we detect specific elements in the visual input and assemble them into a more complex form. Therefore, we start with lines, edges, and corners, and convert them into a car, phone, or computer. Hence, Image 1 in Figure 4.2 could be a CPU for one and a block of wood for another.6 You can see several such images in the internet.7
Figure 4.2: Visual perception
Gestalt principle suggests that the ‘whole’ we perceive may have qualities that do not exist in the ‘parts’. For example, a forest is different from its parts, that is, various trees, grass, and flowers. Similarly, rapid succession of still images makes you feel that there is a motion picture, which is referred to as phi phenomenon. Principles of Gestalt phenomenon are as follows:
While gestalt principles indicate how people organise their visual input, it is insufficient to explain how perception takes place in the real world. If I show you a carom board lying 30 feet away from the place you are sitting, and ask you to look at the carom board and tell me its shape , you are likely to say that is a square without any hesitation. Now take a picture of the same with your smart phone and you will see that the figure you get is that of a trapezium. In fact, the shape that falls in your eyes is also that of a trapezium; yet, you say that it is a square without any hesitation. Now, go closer and take a photograph. The same would be a square. In other words, there is a difference between distal stimuli or stimuli from an object from far and proximal stimuli or stimuli from the object from near. Yet, we do not perceive things differently merely because the image the object creates in our eye from far and near is different.
Perceptual hypothesis attempts to explain this and is defined as the process by which individuals make inferences about what they see by overcoming the difference/gap between distal and proximal stimuli. Perceptual hypothesis posits that we continually make inferences or intelligent guesses about the images that fall on our brain through the eyes. This is an everyday experience. When we see someone walking towards us, we don’t perceive that his face is growing bigger and bigger. Perceptual hypothesis helps us to understand illusion. For instance, look at Image 9 in Figure 4.2. You feel that the right image is longer, though it is not so. There are many such illusionary figures such as ‘ponzo illusion’, impossible figures, which you can check on the internet. A real-life example is ‘moon illusion’ or feeling that the moon that we see in the horizon is larger than the moon that we see overhead, though the size of the moon never changes. Illusions are examples that prove perceptual hypothesis wrong; but in doing so, it reinforces existence of perceptual hypothesis because if perceptual hypothesis did not exist, illusion would also not exist. From OB perspective, it suffices to say that what falls in our eyes and what we actually perceive can be different.
We continually make inferences or intelligent guesses about the images that fall on our brain through the eyes.
To understand this better, we have to explore a little more about the abilities of vision and capabilities of visual perception. Tables 4.1 and 4.2 clarify these.
Application in Organisation Visual perception is complex and it affects every aspect of an organisation and management. From productivity perspective, it enables us to identify errors and report them, respond to an unusual sound in a machine, achieve speed and coordination of working with a machine, and make out the bigger picture when we see something.
Table 4.1 Visual ability
Table 4.2 Capabilities of visual perception
Insight from visual perception is widely used in designing a product, packaging, visual marketing and use of visuals in social media, and creating 3-D perception to support e-commerce. It is widely used in branding and marketing communication also.
In human resources management, it affects the way we see other people and their work, interpretation of body language during communication, and interpretation of seeing a person in a group known for its good/mischievous behaviours. The list is endless.
Try the experiment recommended in Box 4.2. Auditory perception is defined as the ability to identify, interpret, and attach meaning to speech and environmental sound.8 Auditory sensation and visual perception have many things in common, as well as many differences. The foremost challenge of auditory perception is that we hear sound at any time of the day or night, from different directions and from different distances. Many different types of sounds also get mixed. We still have to make sense out of this complex mixture.
Auditory perception is defined as the ability to identify, interpret, and attach meaning to speech and environmental sound.
Switch on and listen to some music that you enjoy. After sometime, turn it off and sit silently with your eyes closed. The silence would soon give way to the sound of the fan, the traffic outside, the little kid jumping in the flat above yours, and so on. Even when the music was on, these sounds might have been there, but you did not hear them. Let us now revert to the famous Joshua Bell experiment given in the initiating case. When he was playing the most exquisite pieces, people did not hear them amidst the cacophony around the plaza metro station. Does it sound strange? Welcome to the wonder world of auditory perception!
We hear because of sound waves. They consist of three components, namely wavelength, amplitude, and timbre or purity (See Figure 4.3). The wavelength is described in terms of frequency and measured in cycles per second (Hz). Human beings can hear frequencies between 20 and 20,000 Hz only. But, human ear is best suited only for 1000–5000 Hz range. In addition, sounds at the either end of this limit are harder to hear. Even this depends on the age and other factors. Amplitude is measured in decibels (dB). Higher the decibel, the louder would be the sound. Perceived loudness doubles for every increase of 10 dB.9 Decibels greater than 110 to 120 cause pain in the ear.10 Because of these factors, if two people sit at a place and listen to a sound, they are likely to hear it differently, and hence perceive it differently.
The sound waves that hit our outer ears actually reach as vibrations of air molecules from the source of sound. This is then transferred to the middle ear, which transmits the waves through movable bones. Then these waves reach the inner ear, which is a coiled fluid filled tunnel called cochlea. The cochlea has a membrane called basilar membrane inside it and it is lined with several thousand tiny hairs. The cochlea contains the nerve/neural cells with special properties to receive sound waves. These cells send the information to the auditory cortex of the brain. The auditory cortex has specialised cells, each with special sensitivity to various types of sound.11 The reason for including a little biology is to impress upon you that any biological difference could lead to variations in sensation, and consequently in perception.
Figure 4.3: Sound wave
Auditory Perception Theories A lot of research has been done on how auditory perception takes place. Two theories dominate this field, namely place theory 12 and frequency theory.13 Place theory suggests that the basilar membrane with minute auditory sensing hairs have specialised areas and these pick up different sound waves. Frequency theory, on the other hand, suggests that there are no specialised areas and the entire basilar membrane vibrates depending on the frequency of sound. Over a century-long research on these theories suggests that sound less than 1000 Hz is transmitted as explained by the frequency theory and those between 1000 and 5000 Hz through a combination of methods suggested by both theories.14
Place theory and Frequency theory explains auditory perception.
Phonological Awareness The role of auditory perception in understanding words and making sense out of them makes it indispensable for day-to-day communication, learning, and management. Auditory perception has three key capabilities without which it would be impossible to use any languages. These three key capabilities are as follows:
The incident described in Box 4.2 may not be uncommon. But why does it happen? Whether we are awake or asleep, we use auditory senses and perceptions quite unconsciously. We hear orders, jump up from sleep to answer phone calls, learn by listening to lectures, listen to the flowing music even while we jog, and learn and obey a lot of things merely by using auditory power. Sometimes we even judge people by the sound of their voice(Box 4.3). In work life, its importance is even more, as most work is done by giving and receiving orders and instructions. We stop the machines and check them if we hear a strange sound and respond to a blast merely by hearing the sound. Some of the real-life examples we encounter are s/he whispered something looking at me, s/he sounded insulting, you neglected the unusual noise coming from the machine, and so on. Therefore, the importance of auditory perception needs little emphasis.
On August 01, 2014, during lunch, I got an SMS from a junior colleague stating that she wanted to meet me. I confirmed. On reaching the office, we discussed many things that happened during her performance evaluation. One issue stood out. The boss had told her that she was arrogant, and she had countered that she was not so, though her tone could often be misinterpreted. Of course, she has a gruff voice and fast pace of speaking, but I know her to be a very adaptable and humble person. But then, that is my perception and not that of the boss! Now, you know the trouble you can get into with your voice.
Central Auditory Processing (CAP) skills is responsible for auditory perception. This term refers to transmission, analysis, organisation, transformation, elaboration, storage, retrieval, and use of information contained in the audible signals.15 Sometimes there are problems with this system, which manifest in ways that we cannot detect easily. As a result, people might develop biased perceptions. For example, difficulty in following oral instruction may be interpreted as unwillingness or slowness to learn. Failure to differentiate the unusual noise of a machine from the background noise in a factory floor and attend to it may be interpreted as carelessness/negligence. Lack of phonological awareness could lead to misunderstanding, and we may be easily distracted by one type of sound. We may have poor auditory memory and so, show poor problem-solving skills because we may not have heard the problem being described correctly, and perceived it correctly. We may ask for repeating an order which could irritate a supervisor. We may also show fidgety and restless behaviour because of the uncertainty created due to lack of CAP. These indicate that a lot of problems in the workplace can be caused due to auditory perception.
It is important to differentiate between auditory and visual perception. Visual sensations are more powerful, and there is greater direct connection between the source and the perceiver in visual perceptions. In auditory perception, the perceiver and the origin of the stimulus that creates the sensation are often disconnected; that is, we do not often see the source of the sound. In modern workplace, auditory sensation has to be used more frequently than visual sensation because order giving, listening to comments by others, and receiving feedback—three most important methods used in controlling the workplace—are dependent more on auditory perception than visual perception. In the globalised world with outsourcing and disconnected workplace, auditory perception plays even greater role in customer relationship, client interactions, tutoring, and giving feedback through technology-assisted methods, especially phone calls. Any defects in our CAP can affect auditory perception and can have negative impact in the workplace.
Order giving, listening to comments by others, and receiving feedback are the three most important methods used in controlling the workplace. Hence we depend more on auditory perception than on visual perception.
Other sensory perceptions that affect us are touch, smell, taste, and kinesthetic and vestibular sensations.
Skin is the primary source of touch sensation. It has at least six different types of receptors for pressure, heat, cold, and other sensations.16 Information from these receptors are transmitted to the somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobe of the brain. Although the entire body is sensitive to touch, the bulk of the somatosensory cortex of the brain is dedicated to processing the sensation from the hands, lips, and tongue. Some cells in the somatosensory cortex function in a similar manner to the feature detector of the visual sensation, which we discussed earlier in this chapter, and enable us to decide specific features of touch, such as, its direction of movement.17
Perception of pain depends on expectations, personality, mood, and other factors.
The sensation of pain is generated through the nerve endings in the skin and is transmitted to the brain through a ‘fast pathway’, which gives you the immediate sensation, and a ‘slow pathway’ routed through the limbic system. (see chapters on fundamentals of behaviour for input on limbic system). Although there are two routes, the perception of pain depends on expectations, personality, mood, and other factors.18
This is the reason why Sujata mentioned in the incident in Box 4.4 was able to react the way she did. It does not mean that everyone would react the same way in this situation or that Sujata will react similarly in another situation. Another example is how some people feel pain when a nurse administers an injection, whereas others don’t even notice it. This suggests that even the perception of pain is highly subjective. The ‘pain gate’ theory suggests that the incoming pain sensation must pass through a ‘gate’ in the spinal cord and that this gate can be closed, thus blocking the pain signals.19 If you are keen to learn more about it, read about the ‘pain gate theory’ in the work of Melzak.20
Stand a few feet away from a table and try to pick up a pen from the table. How do you do that? You actually move closer and then stretch your hands and pick up the pen. How close to an object you walk or how much you stretch your hands to pick up a pen may look like a routine action; but without your kinesthetic sense, you would not be able to do so. This sensation is created by our tendons and joints, and this allows you to be aware, where your limbs are in the space. For instance, it allows you to perceive where your hands are, when you stretch them to pick up the pen, and hence, you don’t stretch your hands when you are too far from the table. Kinesthetic stimulation is also passed to the brain through the same pathway as the touch sensation, but the type of information it contains is kept separate.21 You might now be clear that without this sensation, your hands would be unable to do any meaningful work. This is true for other moving parts of your body too.
How close to an object you walk or how much you stretch your hands to pick up the pen may look like a routine action; but without your kinesthetic sense, you would not be able to do so.
Sujata was convulsing from an acute back pain and the doctors had told her to be on complete bed rest for a week. But when she saw her three-year-old child getting electrocuted, she ran down the hall to disconnect the power, ran back to pull the child out of danger, carried the child down, and drove to the nearest hospital. This is a true story. However, it is not included here to illustrate her bravery, but to ask you what happened to her pain when she did all these?
Try travelling in a bus along a bumpy road and taking a photograph of a beautiful flowering tree. You will struggle to do so as you find the tree is moving up and down and going out of the screen because your body is actually moving up and down. Now, look at the tree with your naked eyes. Though your body is still jolting up and down, you do not feel the same sensation as what you got through the camera. This is because of the vestibular sensation that responds to gravity and informs you about your body’s location in space. This system provides balance by compensating for the changes in the position of the body.22
So far, we had a thorough look at different sensations. The supermarket story (see Box 4.5) is a little different one. There are multiple sensations involved in it such as sight, sound, aroma, and sensation of warmth on a cold day. No matter what is the source of sensation, the information reaches the brain and gets interpreted in an integrated manner. It is this integrated interpretation that converted me to an oats noodles fan. Sensory integration is central to perceiving anything. A sound and flash are not interpreted separately but together. For example, an angry boss shouting at you and slapping you is not interpreted using three different sensations of sight, sound, and touch, but as one integrated entity. A boss seating you comfortably over aromatic coffee, looking into your eyes, and using gentle words to give you vital feedback is not interpreted as different sensation of sight, sound, and aroma, but as one integrated entity. Your perception of the feedback given this way, as against a crisp e-mail, would differ although the content might be the same. These examples would highlight the power of sensory integration. It would also indicate to you, how subjective, stimulus can be and how you can use multiple sensory stimuli to convey what you want in the workplace.
Sensory integration is central to perceiving anything.
I still recall my visit to a supermarket last year on a cold weekend. One of the famous noodle companies was introducing their oats noodles. At the decorated entry point to the supermarket, people were looking at the exquisite arrangement for the demonstration of making the oats noodles. The aroma of the scented candles mixed with the freshly cooked noodles and the soft music appeared to enhance my appetite. As the girl behind the counter, dressed in sparkling white dress, served the noodles and as I held the plate in my left hand, I could feel the warmth of the hot noodles, and quite instinctively, the fork in my right hand plunged into the noodles. As I placed the filled fork in my mouth, my taste buds tingled. I was a convert to oats noodles.
Individual Level The content given in Box 4.6 is a clear indication of how perception can affect an individual. Perception leads to the way we think of ourselves and others. We evaluate the values and attitude of others that impact the way we interact with them. We learn things which we perceive can help us progress in life, we shun others based on our perceptions about them, we perceive what motivates others and direct our behaviour accordingly, we feel stressed because we perceive negatively the actions of other people, we spend time in office and with the family depending on our perception of the importance of work life balance, and we adjust to people from diverse cultures based on our perception of these cultures. It is equally true that we see and fail to see the actions of others according to our perceptions, we judge people based on what we hear about them, and we interpret a touch as loving, friendly, or intrusive. What is more, we even judge a training session on the taste of food served during lunch! We do not hesitate to change our jobs merely on the perception that the other place is a better one to work, without rigorous and factual validation. These examples highlight the importance of perception at individual level.
We see and fail to see the actions of others according to our perceptions, we judge people based on what we hear about them, and we interpret a touch as loving, friendly, or intrusive; all because of perception.
One day the author received a mail from a young and bright lady student, who had scored above 7 out of 10 in her Combined Grade Point Average (CGPA). She quoted about 12 life tips (given below) on why people move away from you.
Then, she wrote: “Sir, all of these points describe me. ALL . . . Sir, Am I toxic??” [quoted verbatim from her mail]
Group We either cooperate, or refuse to do so, because of our perception about others in a group. We often get into conflicts in the group because we perceive that all work is loaded on us or that reward is not shared equitably and injustice is done to us. We negotiate and resolve conflicts based on our perception about the other party and our perceptions of fairness.
Organisation We create a vision depending on our perception of the future and a strategy based on our perception of threat and opportunities. Our planning is affected by our perception of the resources that we can muster and what our workforce is capable of delivering. The organisational structure we use such as hierarchy or matrix is strongly influenced by our perception of the need to exercise control. Our staff selection system is highly influenced by our perception of a person’s fitness for the job and we coach or mentor people whom we perceive to have high potential, and dump others.
Leadership The entire process of leadership is based on the perception of the ability of a leader to achieve a goal, and the behaviour of the leader towards the followers is based on his/her perception of the ability of the followers to help achieve the goals. The reality can be widely different.
External Environment Interestingly, we have our perception about the external environment also. For instance, we perceive that some political party is pro-growth, some states are better, some economic policies are pro or anti-business, some social environments are better for business, and we even perceive the legal system of a country as just, fast, slow, and so on. These perceptions influence several major business decisions.
Change Management Most managers consider changing the ‘perception’ of people towards change, the most difficult task, and a lot of their effort is directed towards it.
The above discussion will make us appreciate that perception affects every aspect of organisation and management, and it can be considered as one of the most important OB variables that we should understand, assimilate, and apply.
According to Alan Saks,23 there are three important components involved in perception—the perceiver, the target, and the situation. The perceiver is the person who interprets the stimuli. The target is the entity (a person, place, thing, event, and so on) about which the perceiver makes an interpretation based on the stimuli generated by the target or a third party. For example, as you were running into the office late for work, your boss was walking out of the door. He, the perceiver in this case, may create a perception about your punctuality and dedication. It is also possible that another person, may be his secretary, tells him that you tend to come late. This too could lead to his creating a perception about you. In both cases, you are the target. The situation also matters in creating the perception as it also acts as a stimulus. Suppose you were running into the office late on a rainy day in a rain coat with water dripping, the boss is likely to perceive your action differently than if you were running into the office on a clear day, looking dry and fresh. This happens because the rainy days and the clear dry days (the environment) also create stimulus.
Figure 4.4: Components of perception
Jerome Bruner’s24 model of perception, though a basic one, is very useful to understand perception (See Figure 4.5). This model suggests that when the stimulus from an unfamiliar target reaches the perceiver, the perceiver gets different cues, and he/she tries to collect more cues. This happens till the perceiver gets some familiar cues, which help the perceiver to categorise the target. The moment it happens, the perceiver tends to not only stop the search for more cues, but also tends to reject any new cues. What is worse is that the perceiver even goes to the extent of distorting the new incoming cues to fit the interpretation created by the initial familiar cue.
Figure 4.5: Basic model of perception
Let us now combine the components given in Figure 4.4 and the basic model given in Figure 4.5, to arrive at Figure 4.6. A stimulus is created by the target or by a third party about the target. The situation also creates a stimulus, as we saw earlier. These stimuli reach the sensory organs of the perceiver after passing through filters such as other noises like background noise, light, lack of light, and so on. The stimulus, which falls on the sensory organs such as eyes or ears is called proximal stimuli. The original stimulus without any filtration is the distal stimuli and we have already seen the difference between these under ‘visual sensation and perception’. The proximal stimuli undergo transduction (change in form to make it suitable for transmission through neurons) and then these are transmitted to the brain. The stimuli generate some cues in the brain of the target. The brain also receives input from the memory based on the cues that the stimuli generate. The brain combines these and quickly interprets them into a percept. Although the perceiver’s brain continues to get stimuli from the target, these are either stopped or distorted to fit the first cue, in order to reinforce the initial percept. The percept that the perceiver creates about the target tends to influence his/her attitude and behaviour towards the target.
Now you might understand why during an interview, the moment you enter the cabin, and spend a few minutes with the interviewers, they make up their mind on selecting you, and all your later effort to showcase your competencies fall on deaf ears. When you become an interviewer, you should ensure that you don’t stop the stream of stimuli coming from the target and don’t allow the brain to distort the incoming cues. Understanding this perceptual model is important because it explains why we perceive something in a particular way, why perceptual biases take place, and how we can try to prevent perceptual biases.
Figure 4.6: Perceptual process
There are a number of factors that affect perception. These are as follows:
When we study perception, we can look at what happens in our body/sensory organs and what happens outside, that is, in the mind/brain and the environment. The former is called ‘proprioception’ and the latter ‘exteroception’. These are integrated in the brain. It is estimated that the brain dedicates at least half its resources for sensation and perception.25 This means sensation and perception are extremely important and complex processes.
There are several theories to explain sensation and perception. Perhaps, the reason why there are many theories is that perception has been studied under various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, and medicine, and each discipline proposed its own theories. Most theories on perception, irrespective of the discipline, can be classified into two approaches: ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ approaches. These approaches are closely linked to proprioception and exteroception.
Bottom-up Approach Bottom-up approach, also called ‘direct approach’, was proposed by Gibson. According to this approach, objects exist whether they are perceived or not; for instance, the door of your house exists whether you perceive it or not, and it retains the properties of a door whether someone perceives it as a door or not. Therefore, the properties of the target are perception-independent. In other words, we perceive the world directly through our sense organs and inferences are not involved. This thinking is also referred to as naive realism or direct realism.26 The strongest argument in favour of this is our ability to perceive something fast and accurately. Gibson’s theory was largely based on his observation of pilots in World War II. Many argue that this was a unique situation and the theory cannot explain several real-life situations. For example, when a door is ajar and only the rectangular frame falls in the eye, we still perceive it as a door through which we can enter and exit. Illusions are another case in point and we have already seen in earlier section that what falls on our sensory organs is not what we perceive.
Bottom-up approach suggests that we perceive the world directly through our sense organs and inferences are not involved.
Top-down Approach This approach accepts that there are several inputs and intermediary thinking/inferences other than the physical stimuli, which falls on our sensory organs that affect perception. This approach is also called ‘constructivist’ or indirect approach, and Gregory has been its dominant proponent.27 Although this approach sounds very logical, it too faces several inadequacies. For example, if perception is the result of inferences, then how can a new born baby perceive, since a neonate is not capable of inferring? However, a neonate does perceive and show preference for shape constancy28, mother’s voice,29 and normal features rather than scrambled features, even 5 minutes after birth. This makes it difficult to explain perception solely through an indirect approach.
Top-down or the constructivist approach suggests that we make inferences from our sensation all the time.
Perceptual Cycle From the above discussions, it is clear that neither top-down nor bottom-up approaches can independently explain perception. Furthermore, experiments have shown that increase in clarity of stimulus and amount of context increased the likelihood of correct identification of the object. From this arose, the assumption that the top-down and bottom-up processes interact with each other to produce perception. Neisser’s perceptual cycle attempts to explain this. According to this, a perceiver tends to explore the actual environment using his/her knowledge from past experiences and do not do so in a vacuum. The existence of past experience is, thus, important to start the exploration. This experience may be very rudimentary, say for example, a gut feeling that a problem can be solved in a particular way. Based on this, the perceiver takes some actions.30 The success/failure in the action refines the experience. This iteration goes on and is called perceptual cycle. Because of the iteration, it is only natural that new combinations of actions come up.31
Perceptual cycle suggests that we explore the actual environment using our knowledge from past experiences and do not do so in a vacuum
Evolutionary Psychology Approach Our eyes adapt to the intensity of light, and similarly, we can adapt to the intensity of pain. Bats navigate their way without colliding, using sound waves, whereas most other animals do so by sense of sight. This indicates the existence of an evolutionary process, and the theory suggests that perception evolves through adaptive actions.
Attribution Theory If someone is angry with you, you will attribute it to his/her bad temper, your own mistake, or some external factor that infuriated the person. In other words, we find a cause for the anger. Heider, an eminent psychologist pointed out that people are ‘naive psychologists’ and try to make sense out of social events and create causal relations for any social situation, even when there are none.33 He extended this idea and suggested that we tend to explain the behaviour of others by attaching ‘internal attribution’ such as envy, lack of grooming, anger of the person, and so on. However, we explain our own behaviour by using external factors such as circumstances and compulsions. This is called external attribution. Formally, the attribution theory deals with how a social perceiver uses information to arrive at causal explanation of events.34
Correspondent Inference Theory Let us take two cases to understand this. A person who has a friendly disposition wishes you warmly. Another person who does not have a friendly disposition also wishes you warmly. It is quite natural that we perceive them differently and attribute different meaning to the same behaviour. This is what correspondence inference theory attempts to explain. Correspondent inference theory was proposed by John Davis and suggests that we attribute behaviour based on the following five different inputs35:
Correspondent Inference theory suggests that we interpret behaviour based on choice, intention, social desirability, non-common effect and hedonistic relevance.
Kelly’s Covariance Theory This is the best-known theory of attribution. The term covariance signifies that a person has input from multiple observations. According to Kelly, causal information has three components that determine the type of attribution. These are consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.
Causal information has three components that determine the type of attribution. These are consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.
Kelly’s view is that we fall back on past experiences to create attributions and look for either multiple necessary causes or multiple sufficient causes. For example, if we see a student excel in examinations, then, we reason that the student must be intelligent, hardworking, highly skilled, motivated, and trained. All these are necessary to do well in an examination. This way of attributing is called multiple necessary causes. However, often we attribute success in examination to intelligence only. 36 This is called attribution due to ‘multiple sufficient cause’. In other words, we find a way to attribute success to a few causes rather than all the causes.
How did Michel Angelo paint without ever seeing what he painted? How did Tulsidas describe the Ramayana without ever seeing Ram and Sita? How did Steve Jobs perceive the iPad without ever seeing or feeling it? Can you sit with your eyes closed and perceive your future? Simple top-down or bottom-up approach can hardly explain these effectively. Indian philosophy of perception considers ‘intellect’ and ‘intuition’ as distinct and important entities. Intellect creates sensing, feeling, thought, understanding, and volition (power of choosing or determining); whereas intellect is below intuition. Intuition can bring various parts together into a harmonious whole, and enable a person to enter reality. However, this does not occur usually, because we tie down our consciousness in the mundane task of understanding the world in terms of time and space. If we free our consciousness from this task and focus on ‘noumenon’ or knowing without the use of senses, we will be able to perceive the truth.32 This approach is important because human beings tend to perceive not only doors, chairs, tables, people, and events but also self, truth, future, and even God, though all these are abstract. However, all of them are also truth, even if it cannot be proved in the normal scientific method. Perceiving abstractness is, therefore, a human capability and the usual theories of perception tend to ignore this, while trying to explain perception.
Based on http://www.swami-krishnananda.org/phil/Philosophy_of_Life.pdf accessed on 20 January, 2014
Last but not the least, Indian philosophical approach to perception has much to teach us (See Box 4.7)
We all know about rational decision making. However, in real life, decisions are influenced by perceptions, attitudes, and emotions. This view suggests that making decision is a function of perceptions, attitudes, and emotions in addition to rationality. It is called perception-based view (PBV). This answers why people in the same circumstances with same input make different decisions and why people make decisions that seem irrational or contrary to what is propagated by the rational decision theory. In other words, we can reasonably conclude that variations in decisions are attributable to perception.
Making decision is a function of perceptions, attitudes, and emotions, in addition to rationality.
Perception is multidimensional and fluid. This is because people’s perception of the same thing differs depending on circumstances, and so, we can say that time and space have an influence on human perceptions. PBV suggests that: (i) decision makers do not always focus on rational or utilitarian view of the decision, (ii) utility itself differs from one person to another and this variance in the definition of utility could be attributable to perception, (iii) analytical comprehensiveness or the ability to take all factors required for analysis could be impossible, and therefore, perception influences decision making, and (iv) psychosocial factors influence perception and decision making.
PBV is an extremely important concept in OB because it simply means that all our decisions are influenced by our perceptions.
In the earlier sections, we learnt about perceptual process and attribution. Our perception can vary widely based on the perceptual process and attribution.We have already seen that once the brain gets a few cues, it tends to shun additional cues. All these suggest that there can be severe distortion in perception. Perceptual distortion is also called perceptual biases or perceptual errors. Since attitude and behaviour are influenced by perception, it is important to study about perceptual distortions so that we could avoid these distortions and learn to perceive, as objectively as possible.
Since attitude and behaviour are influenced by perception, it is important to study about perceptual distortions so that we could avoid these distortions and learn to perceive as objectively as possible.
Stereotypes or Prototypes This is the process of attributing certain characteristics and behaviour to a person by linking the person to a category, even if such linking is arbitrary.37 For example, we link gentleness to women, vulnerability to children, and environmental destruction to business. Such categorisations help to simplify decision making because (i) by grouping many characterestics into one category, there will be fewer characteristics to remember (ii) it accentuates or makes the characteristic of each group more prominent, (iii) it makes it easier to describe something or someone, and (iv) it is flexible as it is possible to create any number of categories as per one’s convenience, even though the parameters used may be arbitrary. However, this simplification leads to distortions and biases in perception.
Halo This occurs when we use cues or indications of one characteristic of a person as a cue for his/her other characteristics or performance. It is also called disambiguation. Cues such as smart dressing, height of a person, show of confidence, regularity of attendance, and so on are often used as cues for performance effectiveness. Halo is a common error in selection of candidates and performance management.38
Selective Perception Often there is a tendency to single out one of the characteristics of a target.39 For example, if you create an ad hoc team consisting of members from different departments for product development, and ask them to state the most important characteristic that the proposed product should have, then, those from the marketing department will say that it is low cost and ease of selling, those from production will say that, it is the ease of production, and those from finance, would say that the margin is the most important feature. This happens because of selective perception. Selective perception can be a result of one’s values, needs, and attitudes.
Projection This happens because we attribute our personal values and attributes to others and feel that others too have similar ones. You may have observed a person/manager with strong task orientation drive other members of the team. His/her behaviour would appear very logical to him/her, but those whom she/he drives may have different values.
Contrast Effects If you look at a red spot against a yellow background, the contrast is very prominent. Similarly, if person ‘A’, who is very aggressive, and person ‘B’, who is very passive, are working alongside, then the aggressiveness of ‘A’ would be more prominent than if ‘A’ was working alongside ‘C’, who is also aggressive. It is most visible when two siblings differ in their capabilities.
In an interesting Israeli military experiment, instructors of one class were told that they were teaching highly intelligent students. Instructors of another similar class were not told anything. In fact, both classes were of students with similar intelligence. However, the students of the former class received better grading. This experiment has been repeated in various walks of life.
(Based on Eden, D., & Shani, A. B. (1982). Pygmalion goes to boot camp: Expectancy, leadership, and trainee performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 67(2), 194.)
Pygmalion and Golem Effects If a manager tells a worker that s/he is very efficient and then gives a task, the chances are that the output will be better. This phenomenon is called Pygmalion effect. Another term for Pygmalion effect is ‘Rosenthal effect’. It is the result of self-fulfilling prophecies.40 There are many explanations to this. One is that the person or manager, who places the expectation or prophesies that his subordinate is efficient, tends to evaluate the person higher. Second is that the subordinate works harder to fulfil the expectation of the manager. Similarly, if the expectation is lower, then performance also tends to be lower and this is called Golem effect. 41 See Box 4.8 and read more about this experiment.
Pygmalion and Golem effects have wide organisational implications. For instance, if stretch goals (goals little more than the estimated capability) are given to employees, the employees usually tend to exceed their capability. Similarly, if easy goals are given, they tend to underperform.
It is common knowledge that we create impressions/opinions about people all the time. We also make inferences about other people’s feelings and emotions. This is called social perception/person perception. We use a plethora of cues for person perception. It can be physical appearance, facial expression, the way of dressing, tone of voice, touch, gaze and so on. As managers, we should be competent to make right person perception, though it is a difficult task. We can do this by training ourselves to observe the emotions, intentions, and desires of other people, learn to infer the inner state of the other people based on their words, behaviour, and expressions, and by adjusting our actions to the inferences we make. Social perception is also applicable in customer relationship, managing the boss, and building interpersonal relationship.
While the theories of perception are applicable to social/personal perception also, implicit personality theory can also help us to understand and manage our person perception. The theory proposes that there are central and peripheral traits. For example, a billing clerk at the checkout of a supermarket may be attractive, intelligent, or rude. At the time of billing, the rudeness that the person exhibits is central, because we expect politeness from the billing staff. However, as we walk away and think of it, the person’s attractiveness and intelligence, which were peripheral at the time of billing, also begin to play a role in our perception of the individual. This happens because we pay attention to a variety of cues such as visual, auditory, and verbal to create a perception of the other person. Additional cues of attractiveness and intelligence are used to fill the information gap to create perception. Understanding this theory would enable us not to create a person perception without seeking more cues. Many organisations insist that we should test any attribute of an individual at least twice before we make a decision to hire the person. This method enables us to create the social/person perception of the individual as accurately as possible.
We should test any attribute of an individual at least twice before we make a decision to hire the person. This method enables us to create the social/person perception of the individual as accurately as possible.
How can managers limit the impact of perception? A few clues given in Box 4.9 could help.
Illusions are distortions of sensory perception. They occur in all sensations, though illusions related to visual perception are more common. We have already seen some of these in Section I (Gestalt principle). Research on illusions is important and popular because it helps one to understand how the brain processes information.
Illusions are distortions of sensory perception.
Visual illusions enable one to understand the adaptations the brain has made to operate in a way so as to transform visual stimuli into perception. Mirage, rainbow, and reflection in a mirror are examples of physical illusion. These occur due to the nature of human anatomy. Blind spots and ‘after images’ are examples of physiological illusions. The various receptors of the eye gather at a point, and then, run to the brain. At this point, there are no photoreceptors; however, we do not feel this because each eye compensates for the blind spot of the other eye. Afterimages occur due to fatigued visual channels.
Figure 4.7: Cognitive illusions
Cognitive illusion is another type of illusion. It can be ambiguous illusions in which an object seems to change its appearance. This happens in the brain. Necker cube and Rubin’s vase illustrated in Figure 4.7 are examples of this. Another cognitive illusion is paradox illusion. Try making the Penrose Triangle given in Figure 4.7 and you will know that the figure is an illusion. A third type of cognitive illusion is called distorting illusion; for instance, the moon appears larger when on the horizon, than when overhead. Fourth type is fictional illusion or perceiving something that does not exist; for instance, hearing a sound that did not exist. This is often called hallucination. We now know that all that we see and hear may not be real. Knowledge about illusions will help us not to fall into the trap of perceptual distortion/bias resulting from illusions.
Can an organisation create stimulus to create the perception that it intends to create much like an individual, and if so, how? This is a question that should be on concern to managers at all levels.
Firstly, when an organisation defines its vision including the values, it is able to influence the perception of the stakeholders. Here, the vision acts as the stimulus, and hence, a written vision statement is one of the tools that an organisation can use to create appropriate perception of it by the target, that is, its stakeholders such as customers, employees, and suppliers in the case of an organisation.
Secondly, strategy, structure, policies, and practices act as stimuli, which create the required perception. For example, the Tata group is perceived as an ethical organisation because their policies and practices act as stimuli to create that perception. Google is perceived as non-hierarchical and innovative because of the structure and practices, and HCL as employee friendly because of the ‘employee first, customer later’ policy. Similarly, some companies are perceived as risk takers, whereas others as risk averse. Therefore, it is evident that organisations also have mechanisms to initiate stimuli that create perception.
Read the content of Box 4.10 and take a few minutes to reflect on it. Although there can be many perceptions that impact competiveness, here we confine our discussion to perceptions related to risk, innovation, entrepreneurship, and change.
Risk Since risk and return are correlated, several studies have addressed how people and organisations perceive risk. These studies show that risk perception is often exaggerated even though they know that risk leads to better returns.42 Psychological studies have shown that people’s risk perception depends on many factors including dread, newness and stigma,43 and emotions.44 The valence theory of risk perception explains that positive emotions increase optimistic perception of risk.45 Another interesting finding is that though risk and returns are positively correlated (higher the risk, higher the return) in the real world, it is negatively correlated in people’s mind.46 In other words, in people’s mind, higher risk means lower return. Many of us believe that additional information helps to reduce risk perception, but this is not substantiated by studies.47 Such results are consistent with the perceptual process, which suggests that once a percept is created, additional cues do little to change the percept.
Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky identified the following important human perceptions related to risk49:
Based on Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A. (1979). Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica: Journal of the Econometric Society, 263–291.
Studies also show that events that can be more easily brought to mind are judged more risky. For example, terrorist attack in Mumbai is likely to be perceived as more risky than Mumbai suburban rail mishaps, though more have died in suburban rail accidents than in terrorist attacks (on an average 5.8 deaths take place in a day on the Mumbai suburban routes).48 Similarly, loss due to a major stock market crash is likely to be brought to mind more easily to create a negative perception of the risk, than many small losses that one has faced. This is because people use heuristics to create shortcuts. Although heuristics are useful shortcuts, they also tend to create biases.
Perception and Innovation Similar to risk, innovation is also important for competitiveness. Behavioural theory of the firm suggests that firms begin information search only when performance falls. Hence, the way an organisation perceives its performance has an impact on the alternatives it searches for, and the innovations it adopts.50 Research indicates that like individuals, organisations also have both cognition and perceptions. No organisation has perfect information, and therefore, they approximate much like the human brain does. Hence, organisations initiate innovation strategies based on their perception of their need.
Perception and Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurial opportunities have both objective and subjective qualities.51 As a result, these opportunities are perceived differently by different people. Probability of success, stability in the environment, ease of doing business, legal soundness of a country, terrorism, conflicts and stability of the government are some of the factors based on which entrepreneurship bloom. None of these can be estimated precisely. They are only perceived as conducive or not conducive even when some data is available on these.52 It is possible to change perception of entrepreneurship through training.53
Perception and Change There is little need to emphasise the importance of change. Employees’ perceptions about the need for change and their perceptions about the organisational support, participatory decision making, procedural justice, power, status, job security and benefit and growth, from individual and organisational perspective, are some of the well-established perceptions that impact changes.54
A deep understanding of perception and perceptual biases would help managers because of the impact perceptions have on management functions. Let us see how perception would impact the management functions/processes.
Planning and Decision Making Any business plan begins with the perception of an opportunity. For example, our perception about ease of doing business shapes our decision to invest in a place. Similarly the decision about layout in a retail store is based on creating a positive impact on the perceptions of the customers.
Organising Perceptions about the nature of employees, interdepartmental relationship, and degree of control required, form the basis for creating structure. For instance, our perception of the degree of control required decides whether the structure should be hierarchical or flat. Structure influences perception of employees about the organisation.55 For instance, employees in an organic and mechanistic structure perceive subjectivity in performance evaluation.56
Staffing It can be defined as selection, training, and giving charge of job responsibilities to people. Stereotyping people from an institute, region, or gender, halo effect of good grading or achievement in non-related areas, selecting ‘people like me’, or projection are some of the common biases that affect selection. A few poor quality candidates followed by a moderate quality candidate could affect by contrast, leading to selecting the moderate quality candidate, whereas better candidates may have been rejected merely because they faced the interview after a few excellent candidates. Pygmalion and Golem effect also influence staffing decisions. For example, grades or having graduated from a reputed school may influence giving challenging jobs and then evaluating them favourably, when such opportunities may not have been given to another person who may have superior competencies.
Leading It is influenced by the leader’s perception of the opportunities, goals, values, intent, and capabilities of the people one leads. Similarly, follower’s perception of the leader determines the degree of influence the followers permit the leader to have over them. Creating the organisational vision, communication, building trust, involvement, delegation, and styles of leadership are, thus, influenced by perception.57
Controlling Control is the process by which we ensure effective execution of plans. We exercise controls through reports and checking. If we perceive our subordinates as robust and efficient, then, we exercise less control, else we tend to have more controls.
We live in an information economy characterised by globalisation, information flow and constant change of images and messages, social and economic networks, and innovation. These become powerful stimuli that influence our perception. Table 4.3 gives an overview of this.
Table 4.3 Influence of information age on perception
Services have some unique characteristics that are strongly influenced by perception. Over 78 per cent of the US GDP, 70 per cent of Japanese, German, French, and British GDP, and over 58 per cent of Indian GDP is contributed by services.61 It is, therefore, important for us to identify how perception influences this business.
If you watch a news program at night, you are often asked to vote or send tweets on your perception of the issue being discussed. This is measuring perception. In fact, we tend to measure perception of virtually everything. Brand, violence in society, job satisfaction, effectiveness of a slimming program, and risk taking capability are a few examples. In most cases, we use a well-designed survey questionnaire for this. Questions measuring perception should differ from questions measuring attitude, behaviour, or knowledge. Let us consider two questions to understand this: (i) how do you rate the incentive plan of your company, (ii) how did you feel when you received your last bonus. The former measures perception, whereas the latter the behaviour. Therefore, perception can be measured even if the individual has not experienced an event, but behaviour can be measured only if he person has experienced the situation/event.62 Let us now see some of the popular perception tests.
Perception is measured using four methods-limits/staircase, adjustment, constant stimulus and catch trails.
In Section II, we learnt about target and perceiver as the key components in perception. Perceptual skill is enhanced by creating some changes in the target or the perceiver. These are:
Physical Measures Wearing spectacles, using a microphone, or having a hearing device are examples of this. Wine tasters wash their mouth before every wine tasting. This is also intended for increasing the stimuli.
Accumulating Data Consider that a manager sees an employee coming late to office one day. The manager can create a perception immediately or seek record or the employee’s attendance before creating a perception. The latter leads to better perception because of accumulation of data.
Concentrating/Focusing Consider a situation where a manager is giving instructions to a group of employees. Some would concentrate and some would not. The ones who concentrate are likely to have a better perception of the work involved because the perceivers, were able to enhance the stimulus through concentration.
Adapting Let us take the case of a demonstration taking place in a noisy environment and two people attending it; one, a person who works in a noisy environment most of the time and another who works in a calm atmosphere. The latter is likely to perceive the situation more negatively and learn less. The advantage that the first person would have is that he/she is better adapted to a noisy environment.
Preventing Filtering Let us take the case of a supervisor reporting to the manager just before he/she was going for an important presentation, that two employees had a minor scuffle. The chances are that this stimulus will get filtered because of the important work the manager has at hand and not get due attention. The manager can ask the supervisor to raise the issue the next day or note it down in his ‘action pending’ list to prevent filtering.
Training/Practice How does a musician learn to differentiate between the fine tone of music or a child learn to identify the differences between the two figures (see Figure 4.8) A child can be trained to look at these two images inch by inch, curve by curve, area by area to enhance the perceptual skills.
Figure 4.8: Enhancing perceptual skills
Wine tasting, observing a movement in a forest, or observing a suspicious person are all done by training, to pick up the stimuli from the target, item by item.
Increasing Experiences We have already learnt that sensory stimulus and input from the memory are integrated to create perception. It means that perception is dependent a lot on the input from the memory. Input from the memory itself is dependent on own exposure to activities and experiences. This is the reason why people who take part in various activities, travel and talk to people, participate in workshops, or have better background knowledge are able to perceive things better.
Developing Mindful Awareness It is a method of “paying attention to the present moment or experience with openness, curiosity, and willingness to accept things without judgement”.64 Mindfulness prevents the first cue from the memory getting attached to the percept, thus blocking more input from getting attached.
A person (or the perceiver) has perception about almost anything(Targets). A target may be an organisation, processes, systems, people, events, places, risk, or products. Perceptions may be passive. Examples, are a general dislike for change, investment in stocks, using genetically modified products, or ignoring a person in the workplace. It can also be active. For example, using aggressive language towards a colleague or actively propagating against the use of genetically modified products are result of active perception.
Perceptions are like snapshots. The perceiver develops the perceptions almost at the first instance or interaction when she/he receives the stimulus. Thereafter, the perceiver tends to retain and strengthen these perceptions. The reason for this is that the perceiver tends to take the first cue and interpret the meaning of the sensation/stimulus and then actively resists further cues (See perceptual process explained in Section II). Therefore, changing the perception about something involves reducing the impact of the first cue and allowing more cues to influence perception.
We can change perception in two ways: (i) the perceiver changes her/his perception about the target and thereby changes her/his own behaviour towards the target and (ii) the target changes its behaviour so that the perceiver changes the perception of the target.
Perceiver Changing Her/His Own Perception This is important in an organisational context. Resisting change because of our perception about the changed situation is one of the greatest challenges today; more so, when changes have to be frequent. It is also central to interpersonal relationship in workplace. To change our perception, first the perceiver should define the issue at hand, for example ‘I don’t like X’, ‘this office is ridden with politics’, and so on. Then, the perceiver should look for evidence to substantiate these perceptions and preferably record them. Thereafter, evaluate the evidence for its credibility. The perceiver may ask a neutral person to corroborate the evaluation. This would minimise bias and enable the perceiver to gain new insight about the target. Do organisations use this technique effectively? The answer is that organisations with good performance management system use this method. They have KRAs (key result areas) and KPIs (key performance indicators). KPIs are evidence of achieving the KRAs agreed to, at the beginning of the performance evaluation cycle. This leaves little scope for perceptual bias about an individual during performance evaluation. Yet bias takes place.
Target Changing Other’s Perception about Itself We find universal application of target changing the perception in business. A leader intending to change the way followers perceive him/her is an example of target changing others’ perception of himself/herself. A product can also try to change the perception of customers about itself. An example is Tata Nano car trying to change the customer’s perception about itself. Impression management and branding are the terms used to refer to these perception changes.
Role of Communication and Personal Example in Changing Perception Communication is one of the most effective means to change perception. When we communicate frequently and effectively, the message is retained in the brain and the cues that come can be easily converted into a percept. Personal example is a very powerful stimulus that can change perceptions. For example, on October 25, 2014, Barak Obama, the President of the US, hugged the nurse who had been quarantined for Ebola after caring for a US citizen who had died.65 This was not done so much to show the country’s gratitude for what she did, as to remove several wrong perceptions about Ebola. Vikram Pandit of Citigroup taking a pay cut during the financial meltdown in 2009 is another example that changed the perception that pay cut during a recession is only for the lower hierarchy.66
Perceptual congruence is defined as the extent to which members of the surveyed group agree on the perceptions of the social structure.67 It is applied to predict conflicts in organisations, groups, men and women planning to get married and so on. Organisations often study the congruence of values of their employees with organisational values. Perceptual congruence helps us to live without conflicts. Congruence among couples predict differences that could emerge. Similarly, value congruence in an organisation, predicts possible conflicts that can emerge because of variation in perception of the values by an employee.
It is estimated that approximately half of our brain is involved in perception. It affects our decisions, our behaviour, and other people’s behaviour towards us. People consider perception as reality though it can be widely different. This leads to perceptual biases. Our sensory organs, which pick up the stimuli, often create illusions, and this adds to perceptual biases. Sensation can be defined as the simulation of sensory organs. Perception involves interpreting the meaning of what we sense. There is an interpretation mechanism corresponding to each sense organ such as eyes or ears.
Vision is one of our predominant sensory organs. There are two important theories that dominate the process of interpreting visual stimuli. One is feature analysis and another is gestalt principle. Feature analysis theory suggests that we detect specific elements or features in the visual input and assemble them into a more complex form. Therefore, we start with lines, edges, and corners, and convert them into a car, phone, or computer. Gestalt principle suggests that the ‘whole’ we perceive may have qualities that do not exist in ‘parts’. These theories are insufficient to explain the complex mechanism of perception. For example, when we see a man walking towards us from far, though the figure we see is small, we do not interpret it as a small boy. Perceptual hypothesis attempts to explain this. Perceptual hypothesis is defined as the process by which individuals make inferences about what they see by overcoming the difference/gap between distal and proximal stimuli. We also have visual abilities. For example, we have ability to look fixedly or intently at something. In addition, we have visual capability. It is the capability to make our body movement in relation to the vision. That is why we can often duck a speeding vehicle.
Hearing/auditory sensation is another important aspect of perception. In organisations, we listen to orders and feedbacks and adjust our behaviour and actions. Hence, auditory perception is important in the organisational context. Because of tactile perception, we interpret a tap on our cheek as loving and friendly or aggressive and offensive. Kinaesthetic sensation and perception enable us to move our body in a coordinated manner. Without this perception, you will find it hard to pick up a glass of water from the table. Vestibular sensation keeps our body in balance, which is the reason why we do not find the houses and trees jumping up and down even when the vehicle in which we are travelling may be doing so. Perception can integrate multiple sensations, and that helps us to take decisions and actions.
The basic model of perception has three elements: the perceiver, the target, and the situation. The basic process of perception is that the perceiver gets the cues from the target, adds more cues from the memory, and then perceives. There are several factors that affect the perceptual process. Stimulus, origin, situation, sensory organs and their sensitivity, the perceiver, cues and memories, and our mental training affect our perception. In other words, we can mentally train to change our perception, and this is good news for all managers.
There are several theories related to perception, Kelly’s Covariance theory being the most important as it explains the logic behind many organisational decisions. Perceptual bias is a common problem in an organisation. Some of the common perceptual biases are stereotyping, halo effect, selective perception, projection, contrast effect, and Pygmalion and golem effect. Perceiving people from a particular religious or social group in a particular way is an example of stereotyping. Considering a good student as also honest is an example of halo, whereas singling out one of the characteristics of the target rather than looking at the person holistically is called selective perception. Perception influences a number of organisational behaviours such as risk taking, competitiveness, customer delight, decision making, controls used in an organisation, and so on. The methods to enhance one’s perceptual skills and also to change perception are discussed in this chapter, in detail.
In sum, this chapter will help any person, and particularly a manager, to make more objective decisions. It also gives the managers know-how to enhance perceptual skills and to change own perception of others and others’ perceptions about us. Hence, this chapter has a special place in the study of OB.
Do you remember the last time you crossed a busy road ducking the vehicles because there was no traffic light to regulate pedestrian movement across the road? Although you might have done that often, you might never have thought about the complex brain function that converted the stimuli into perceptions, so real, that you successfully got across without getting run over.
The Nobel Prize of 2014 in Physiology and Medicine went to the research on how we find our position in the world around us or, in other words, how our perception of location is created. Research had indicated that hippocampus, a location in our brain, is the seat of memory. Extending this knowledge, John O’Keefe began his research to find out how we navigate ourselves. Although the ‘ducking and getting across the road’ story sounds simple; it is a very complex operation. You might also have noticed that some are adept in doing this. If you bring a tribal friend to the city and ask him to do all the ducking you might have done successfully, that person might never be able to do it initially. Similarly, you will not be able to walk across a crevice in the mountain which the tribal friend would do easily. Much of this mystery is explained by ‘place cells’.
Research has indicated that our brain has location-specific ‘place cells’, and a map is built on these place cells. Each place cell gets activated depending on the location and environment. Hence, the cells that get activated while crossing the road would be very different from the cells that get activated while going round the sofa in your drawing room to switch on the TV.
There is also strong suggestion that we are born with some sense of space, and this sense develops as we grow in the environment. The brain creates geometric shapes abstractly and matches this to the space in which we are walking or running. This action is initiated in ‘entorhinal cortex’ or ERC (a region of brain) and then passed to hippocampus. We navigate ourselves using these abstract geometric shapes created in our brain. In other words, the abstract geometric shapes in the brain can be mapped to actual space, by brain to interpret the stimuli and create perception of space accurately.
You now know how you are able to perceive space and navigate, whether we walk, run, or drive a car.
The Nobel prize for Physiology and Medicine in 2014 for this work was shared by three eminent scientists John O’Keefe, Britt Moser, and Edvard I. Moser.
Many human senses work together and augment the function of each other. The relation between aroma of spices used in food and the taste of food is well known. So is the link between sound and vision. The book titled Brain Rules by John Medina includes some interesting finding related to perception.68 You can see a video of this at http://www.brainrules.net/sensory-integration?scene=
Studies indicate that vision is about twice as powerful as sound in creating a perception that lasts. If you do an immediate recall test, visual information has three times the recall of oral information. However, if the information is both visual and oral, the recall rate jumps to six times, which suggests that sound and sight tend to work together.
In 2011, UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) researchers reported that sound and sight augment each other. When one input is vague, the other comes in to clarify. According to their study, this interrelationship is even more pronounced in moving scenarios.69
All of us have heard about the intuitive wisdom that a speaker with a matching body language is far more effective than a speaker without it. Contemporary research endorses this. Hence managers should put special emphasis on this, while talking to subordinates, peers, losses and customers.
Components of perception are __________ , ________ and __________.
Mr A remarked, “I did not know that his father is a politician. No wonder cheating comes to him quite naturally”. This statement is an example of___________.
You are working in an organic and mechanistic organisational structure, whereas your friend is working in a flat structure. Everything else being equal, compared to you, your friend is likely to feel that pleasing the boss is important to get a good performance rating.
A wine taster rolls the wine in his mouth. This is an example of enhancing perception through_________ measure.
Organisations use 360 degree appraisal method. The main purpose of this is to:
Need some help with this? Go to Answers to Test Your Understanding given at the end of the book.
Need some help with this? Go to Clues to Answer Assimilation Questions given at the end of the book.
For Lecture-driven Teaching Those institutions which use lecture method can follow the standard pattern of lecture and quizzes. Thereafter, they can go to the experiential learning mode by attempting the application challenges.
For Case-driven Teaching Perception is best taught using visuals than cases. Institutions that follow case method (participant-centred learning) may use the film 12 Angry Men referred to in Application Challenge 2 and/or use the film National Geographic: Test Your Brain Episode 2. You can access the film through http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq1rfl_national-geographic-test-your-brain-episode-2-perception_shortfilms