PRINCIPLES OF PERCEPTUAL SELECTION

- ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
There are many stimuli demanding attention of the individual at the same time and that
individual can sense only a limited amount of stimuli at a time. Human beings are
characteristically selective. They select from among those physical stimuli, which they
can register at a point in time. They close themselves off entirely from some stimuli and
tend to open their channels of absorption to others. Thus, they set themselves to
respond to a particular stimulus or a group of stimuli. Yet, certain events may
characteristically creep into an individual’s perceptual life and distract his attention.

For instance, the sound of a gun, other things being equal, is more likely to attract
attention than the sound of a gas burner. Thus, while dealing with selective phenomenon
two terms are involved; attention and set. ‘Attention’ incorporates all aspects of the
selective process whereas ‘set’ refers to specific factors or processes within the
individual himself that has a bearing on what he attends to. Accordingly, while studying
the selective process in perception, we study set factors lying within the individual
himself, as well as those stimuli which can creep into his experience— those which are
characteristically attention inviting.

Thus some of the factors that attract attention lie in the situations and some are within
the individual. The factors that are in the situations are called ‘external attention factors‘
and those factors that are within an individual are called ‘internal set factors’.

External attention factors

The external attention factors are:
 Intensity
 Size
 Contrast
 Repetition
 Motion
 Novelty and familiarity
Intensity
The intensity of stimulus implies that the more intense the stimulus audio or visual, the
more is the likelihood it will be perceived. A loud noise, strong odour or bright light or
bright colours will be more readily perceived than soft sound, weak odour or dim light. It
is because of this advantage that advertisers employ intensity to draw the consumers’
attention.

Size
As regards the size of the stimulus, any odd size attracts attention. A Great Den dog
which is tall attracts the attention. At the same time a pocket dog also attracts attention
because of its size. However, generally the larger the object the more likely it will be
perceived. The amount of attention enhances with the size of the newspaper
advertisement exposed to the individuals, although the increase in attention may not be
directly proportional to the increase in size.

Contrast
The contrast principle states that external stimuli, which stand out against the
background or which, are not what the people expect will receive attention. Plant safety
signs, which have black lettering on a yellow background or white lettering on a red
background, are attentions getting.

Any change in the accustomed atmosphere attracts attraction. Thus if one or more of
the machines should come suddenly to a halt, the supervisor would immediately notice
the difference in noise level. Also a person who has fallen asleep in a bus because of the
drone of the engine wakes up immediately the engine stops.

Repetition
The factor of repetition implies that a repeated external stimulus attracts more attention
than the one that occurs at one time alone. Perhaps, it is because of this that
supervisors tend to repeat directions regarding job instructions several times for even
simple tasks to hold the attention of their workers. Advertisers while putting T.V. or radio
advertisements repeat the brand name they are advertising.

Motion
The factor of motion implies that the individual attend to changing objects in their field
of vision than to static objects. It is because of this advantage that advertisers involve
signs, which include moving objects in their campaigns. At an unconscious level the
animals in the jungles make use of this principle. A tiger lying in wait is motionless until
his prey is nearer him and then jumps at an appropriate moment.

Novelty and familiarity

A novel object in the familiar situation or a familiar object in a novel situation tends to
attract attention. Thus a white person or a black person in India catches attention faster.
Job rotation is an example of this principle. Recent research indicates that job rotation
not only increased attention but also employees’ acquisition of new skills.

Internal set factors

The internal set factors are as under:
 Habit
 Motivation and interest
 Learning
 Organizational role and specialization:
Habit
A Hindu will bow and do Namaskar when he sees a temple while walking on road,
because of his well-established habit. The motor set may cause the likelihood of
inappropriate responses. These are several instances in life settings where individuals
tend to react with the right response to the wrong signals. Thus a retired solidier may
throw himself on the ground when he hears a sudden burst of car tyre.

Motivation and interest

Two examples of motivational factors are hunger and thirst. Motivational factors
increase the individual’s sensitivity to those stimuli which he considers as relevant to the
satisfaction of his needs in view of his past experience with them.

A thirsty individual has a perceptual set to seek a water fountain or a hotel to quench his
thirst, which increases for him the likelihood of perceiving restaurant signs and
decreases the likelihood of visualizing other objects at that moment in time. A worker
who has a strong need for affiliation, when walks into the lunchroom, the table where
several coworkers are sitting tends to be perceived and the empty table or the table
where only one person is sitting will attract no attention.

Learning and Perception

The process of learning plays a crucial role even in primitive organization. However, it
should be recognized that the role of learning is more pronounced in respect of complex
forms of perception where the symbolic content creeps into the process. Although
interrelated with motivation and personality, learning may play the single biggest role in
developing perceptual set.

Organizational role or the specialization

The modern organizations value specialization. Consequently the specialty of a person
that casts him in a particular organizational role predisposes him to select certain
stimuli and to disregard others . Thus in a lengthy report a departmental head will first
notice the text relating to his department.

Perceptual set in Organizational Settings

Closely related to learning and motivation is the personality of the perceiving person,
which affects what is attended to in the confronting situation. There are numerous
examples of perceptual sets in work settings. The individuals may tend to perceive the
same stimulus situation in largely different manners. Take the examples of poor
production record in a manufacturing company. The works engineer is likely to perceive
the solution to the issue in the form of improved machine design whereas the Personnel
Manager is likely to perceive the solution in the form of improved personnel policies,
training programs and incentive schemes.

The workers are likely to perceive it as something thrilling because it may be indicative
of poor ability of their supervisor whom they dislike. Irrespective of who is right or wrong,
it is obvious that all related individuals tend to perceive the same situation in entirely
divergent manners.

Another popular example relates to the divergence of perception, which takes place
between the union and management groups. It is widely held that perceptual divergence
is a major cause if industrial conflicts.

Perceptual Selectivity in Organizational Behaviour

Perceptual Organisation
When we discuss Perceptual Organisation, the question arises as to what the individual
does with the sensory data he has received. Obviously, some organizing processes
which give. meaning to the incoming event data, appear to take place in the nervous
system and are relatively free from the effects of past experience or motivational
factors. These processes are called the primitive processes of organisation. The central
nervous system does not simply register raw sensory data in a passive form. Rather, it
does something to them by creating a definitive Organisation. Illusions, false
interpretation or misleading Organisation of sensory events best exemplifies the active
role of central nervous system. There are several kinds of primitive. Perceptual
Organizations which include grouping, closure, figure-ground effect; and constancy
phenomenon.

Perceptual grouping
The grouping principle of Perceptual Organisation states that there is a tendency to
group several stimuli together into a recognizable pattern. The principle is very basic and
seems largely inborn. In the visual fields, we find that objects that are similar in
appearance tend to be grouped together. Likewise, the individual tends to create a whole
even when it is not there.

Closure
The closure principle of grouping is closely related to the gestalt school of psychology.
The principle is that a person will sometimes perceive a whole when one does not exist.
The person’s perceptual processes will close the gaps that are unfilled from the sensory
inputs.

Figure-ground
The objects are perceived with reference to their background. The figure-ground
principle means simply that perceived objects stand out as separable from their general
background. When the reader is reading this paragraph, in terms of light-wave stimuli,
the reader perceives patches of irregularly shaped blacks and whites. Yet the reader
perceives the shapes as letters and figures printed against the white background. In
other words the reader perceptually organizes these stimuli into recognizable patterns
i.e. the words.

Perceptual constancy
Constancy is one of the more sophisticated forms of Perceptual Organisation. It gives a
person a sense of stability in a changing world. This principle permits the individual to
have some constancy in a tremendously variable world. If constancy were not at work,
the world would be very chaotic and disorganized for a person. An organizational;
example would be that of a worker who must select a piece of material or a tool of the
correct size from a wide variety of materials and tools at varying distances form a
workstation. Without perceptual constancy the shapes, sizes, colours etc. of the objects
would keep on changing, making the job almost impossible for the worker.

Perceptual Defense
Closely related to context is perceptual defense. A person may build a defense (a block
or a refusal to recognize) against stimuli or situational events in the context that are
person or culturally unacceptable or threatening. Accordingly, perceptual defense may
play an influential role in understanding union-management relations.

Although there is some conflicting evidence, most studies verify the existence of
perceptual defense. Two examples are classic studies that found barriers to perceiving
personalitythreatening words and identification of thresholds for critical, emotionally
toned words. In another study more directly relevant to organizational behaviour, the
researchers describe how people may react with a perceptual defense that is activated
in them when they are confronted with a fact that is inconsistent with a preconceived
notion. In this study, college students were presented with the word “intelligent” as a
characteristic of a factory worker. Thiswas counter to their perception of factory
workers, and they built defenses in the following ways:
1.Denial: A few of the subjects denied the existence of intelligence in factory
workers.

2.Modification and distortion: This was one of the most frequent forms of

defense. The pattern was to explain away the perceptual conflict by joining
intelligence with some other characteristic, for example, “He is intelligent,
but doesn’t possess the initiative to rise above his group.”

3.Change in perception: Many of the students changed their perception of the

worker because of the intelligence characteristic. The change, however,
was usually very subtle; example, “He cracks jokes” became “He’s witty.”

4.Recognition: But refusal to change. Very few subjects explicitly recognized

the conflict between their perception of the worker and the characteristic
of intelligence that was confronting them. For example, one subject stated,
“the traits seem to be conflicting most factory workers I have about aren’t
too intelligent.
The general conclusion to be drawn from this classic study is that people may learn to
avoid perceiving certain conflicting, threatening, or unacceptable aspects of the context.
These and other relevant experiments have been summarized into three general
explanations of perceptual defense:
1.Emotionally disturbing information has a higher threshold for recognition
(that is, we do not perceive it readily than neutral or non-disturbing
information. This is why a chain of events may be seen differently by those
who are not personally involved and by whose who are involved; thus,
warning signs of trouble are often not seen by those who will be most
affected by the trouble.
2.Disturbing information and stimuli are likely to bring about substitute
perceptions, which are distorted to prevent recognition of the disturbing
elements. In this way a manager can perceive that workers are happy,
when actually they are disgruntled. Then when a grievance committee is
formed or a strike takes place, the manager cannot perceive that these
“happy” workers are participating willingly and concludes that it is because
they have fallen victim to some agitator and that things in the shop are still
basically fine.
3.Emotionally arousing information actually does arouse emotions. Even
though the emotion is distorted and directed elsewhere kicking the cat,
shouting at the kids, cutting someone off for trying to pass you on the left
while driving all offer a sense of relief and are good substitutes for
perceiving that people “upstairs” think you are an idiot. Such findings as the
above help explain why some people, especially supervisors and
subordinates in an organisation, have a “blind spot.” They do not “see” or
they consistently misinterpret certain events or situations.
Social Perception
Although context and perceptual defense are closely related to social perception, this
section gives recognition to social perception per se. The social aspects of perception
play an important role in organizational behaviour. Social perception is directly
concerned with how one individual perceives other individuals, how we get to know
others.

Characteristics of Perceiver and Perceived

A summary of research findings on some specific characteristics of the perceiver and
the perceived reveals a profile of the perceiver as follows:
1.Knowing oneself makes it easier to see others accurately;
2.One’s own characteristics affect the characteristics one is likely to see in
others;
3.People who accept themselves are more likely to be able to see favorable
aspects of other people;
 4.Accuracy in perceiving others is not a single skill.
These four characteristics greatly influence how a person perceives others in the
environmental situation.

There are also certain characteristics of the person being perceived which influence
social perception. Research has shown that:
1.The status of the person perceived will greatly influence others’ perception
of the person.
2.The person being perceived is usually placed into categories to simplify the
viewer’s perceptual activities. Two common categories are status and role.
3.The visible traits of the person perceived will greatly influence others’
perception of the person.
These characteristics of the perceiver and the perceived suggest the extreme complexity
of social perception. Organizational participants must realize that their perceptions of
another person are greatly influenced by their own characteristics and the
characteristics of the other person. For example, if a manager has high self-esteem and
the other person is physically attractive and pleasant and comes from the home office,
then the manager will be likely perceive this other person in a positive favorable manner.
On the other hand, if the manager has low self-esteem and the other person is an
arrogant, unattractive salesperson, the managerwill likely to perceive this other person in
a negative, unfavorable manner. Such attributions that people make of others play a vital
role in their social perceptions and resulting behaviour.

Person Perception
Let us examine how the basic and social factors that have been described above are
related to our perceptions of people. Each individual interacts with the other individuals
and establishes relationships with them. The maintenance of these relationships
necessitates knowledge of social behaviour involving constant judgment about the other
individual’s needs, emotions and thoughts. Research results have shown that there are
three kinds of features that affect these perceptions. These are related to the person
perceived, the perceiver and the situation. First consider the person perceived. The
features of the individual, with whom one tends to interact, exert considerable impact on
his evaluation and behaviour in all interpersonal situations.
These features are of four varieties including physical, social, historical and personal.
The important physical features include gestures, posture, facial expression and color of
the skin. The social features that assume significance in perception are the qualities of
voice and appearance. An individual with long hair and casual dress is called a ‘hippie’
involving accordingly judgments about his political, social and moral values. Likewise,
historical features such as sex, age, occupation, religion, race, etc. largely influence an
individual’s evaluations of others. There are also numerous personality features
attributed to others that affect an individual’s evaluation of them. Individuals tend to be
attracted to others whom they perceive to be identical to them.

This leads us to the perceiver’s features. There seem to be two kinds of general features
about the perceiver, which are crucial in understanding an individual‘s perception of
others:
1.an individual’s own social and personality features cause a divergence, and
2.the complexity of an individual’s perception of other individuals is also
crucial.
Obviously, individuals tend to differ in the manner in which they describe others. Some
individuals employ features such as tricky, ruthless, etc. When further complexity is
involved, they tend to describe others as friendly, aggressive, honest etc.

Thus, our perception of individuals as well as objects depends upon certain historical,
current and situational factors, our past experience, culture and learning exert a wide
impact on these judgements as do our current needs and feelings along with the
physical and social environmental factors. This understanding of perceptual process
provides an insight as to why we behave in the manner we do.