HCM 433 MANGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR.pdf

3. Explain the issues influencing in social perception
3.0 PERCEPTION
3.1 THE STUFF OF PERCEPTION
Perception plays a key role in human behaviour. Generally speaking, people behave according to
what they believe they see, not the “objective reality”. Indeed, how people act is often largely a
function of how they interprete their current surroundings, both physical and social.
Even when exposed to the same situation, information or events, different persons often report
sharply contrasting reactions through an active complex process. This is known as perception.
Perception is often defined – As the process through which are actively select, organize and
interprete information brought to us by our senses in order to understand the complex world
around us. Perception “translates” (or processes) the stimuli (situations) received by the senses
into impressions (pictures) of the world. Although perception is a very private process, in almost
all situations, our behaviour is strongly determined by the process of perception, and the
interpretation of physical of social reality it yields.
3.2 THE PRINCIPLES OF PERCEPTUAL SELECTIVITY
At any given time, numerous stimuli (situations) are constantly confronting everyone. The noise
of the air conditioner, the sound of other people talking and moving and outside noises from cars,
planes or street repair work are a few of the stimuli that literally swept/ flood on us from our
various senses, plus the impact of the total environmental situation. Yet we do not perceive the
world around us as a random collection of sensations, instead, we recognize specific objects and
orderly patterns of events. The most important aspect of perception that contributes to this
orderliness lies in the selective nature of perception. Perceptual selectivity is a discussion that is
concerned with the how and why people select out only a very few stimuli at a given time in the
face of numerous inputs/stimuli that floods us from our senses. It is essentially as study of the
external variables that gain an individual attention.
Attention is probably the crucial first step in perception. Unless a stimulus (situation) is noticed, it
can not be perceived and interpreted. Thus, attention acts as a kind of filter with respect to
perception such that only what passes through our notice can have any impact on our
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