Main Factors Influencing Our Perception

Perception: It is the process where by people select, organize and interpret sensory stimulations into meaningful information.
Perception lies at the base of every individual behavior. Perception is the process whereby people select, organize, and interpret sensory stimulations into meaningful information.
All of us do not have the same view of the world. We see the things differently. There is noticeable difference in the way people think and react to the world. For example, consider an equilateral triangle and insert or form equilateral triangles inside the large one exactly fitting. How many triangles are there?
A person who rushes through the figure would put the number at nine. Another visualizes as many as ten. An intelligent or close observer notices as many as thirteen triangles.
Research has shown that though individuals may look at the same thing, they may perceive it differently. Let us look at an example from the business world. There is an assistant who regularly takes several days to make an important decision. One manager may interpret that the assistant is slow, disorganized, and afraid of making decisions. Another manager may interpret the same assistant as thoughtful, thorough and deliberate. The first manager evaluates his assistant thoroughly negative, while the second manager appraises the same behavior only positively.
It is surprising that most people do not see the reality. They actually interpret what they see as reality. Most of our actions are primarily based on our perceptions.
Factors Influencing Perception:
The factors that influence perception are of two kinds – internal and external
Among the internal factors the needs and desires of individuals, individual personality, and the experience of people are included.
Needs and Desires>
The needs and desires of people play a vital role in perception. People at different levels of needs and desire perceive the same thing differently. Power seekers are more likely to notice power related stimuli. Socially oriented individuals pay attention to interpersonal stimuli. That is to say expectancy, motives or interest also affect people perception.
Personality>
Personality is another internal factor that influences the perception of an individual. It need not be mentioned here that optimistic beings perceive the things in favorable terms, whereas pessimistic individual view it in negative terms. Research on the effects of individual personally on perception reveals many facts.
1) Secured individuals tend to perceive others as warm and kind hearted.2) Persons who have faith in their individuality perceive things favorably.3) Elf accepted individuals perceive themselves as liked, wanted and accepted by others.
Experience:
Experience and knowledge have a constant bearing on perception. Successful experiences enhance and boost the perceptive abilities and lead to accuracy in perception of a person.
External factors:
Also known as exogenous factors, they also influence the perception of a person. Perception is affected by the characteristics of perceived object, an event or a person. These include size, intensity, frequency, status etc.
Size>
The bigger the size of the perceived stimulus, the higher is the probability that it will be noticed. Dominance is established by size and it overrides other things and thereby enhances perceptual selection. For example, a full page advertisement may induce more attention than a small advertisement in some corner of the newspaper.
Intensity>
While reading a passage, a person comes across a few lines printed in bold letters. He automatically pays more attention to these lines. Underlined sentences and so the ones in italics are generally more attentively read.
The principle that the higher the intensity of external stimulus, the more likely it will be perceived is not always valid. If intensity is so important, why a whisper by a student in a classroom is effective in getting attention by a teacher? Here, the answer lies in the fact that a whisper often contrasts with the rest of the noisy environment, and so gets noticed. Therefore, the intensity factor has to be considered in the light of the situation i.e. frame of reference.
Frequency>
Repeated external stimulus is more attention gaining than a single one, so states the frequency principle. Repetition is one of the most frequently used techniques in advertising and is the most common way of attracting the people’s attention. Frequency results in making people aware of the stimulus.
Status>
The status of the perceived person has also got influence on the perception. High status people can exert influence on perception of an employee than low status people. When introduced to two people of different ranks, we tend to remember the person holding the higher rank than the other one.
Contrast>
Stimuli that contrast with the surrounding environment are more likely to be selected for getting attention. A contrasting effect can be caused by color, or any unusual factor.

Factors Influencing Our Personalities

In the language of the layman, we may describe an attitude as the way we feel about something. This may be feeling towards college, football team, religion, society, parents the boss or the organization. The object may be anything – people, things, ideas, policies and so on. The remarkable feature of attitude is that it varies in direction favorable or unfavorable, and intensity – how strong they are held.
Managers in an organization need to know and understand employees’ attitudes in order to manage effectively. Attitudes influence their performance in organization.
In business organizations employees have attitudes related to the world environment, security or uncertainly prestige of the product or department and plant location etc.
Values
Values represent our beliefs about an ideal conduct, be it positive or negative of any object or situation.
Attitudes are different for values. Values are ideals – positive or negative, not tied to any specific object or situation. Values represent our beliefs about ideal conduct. Whereas attitudes are narrower, they are our feelings, thoughts and behavioral tendencies towards a specific object or situation Attitudes are evaluative statements either favorable or unfavorable concerning objects peoples or events.
Attitudes are our feelings, thoughts and behavioral tendencies towards a specific object or situation. It is the way we feel about something.
Nature of Attitudes:
Attitudes can be characterized by their valance, mutliplexity, centrality, and relation to needs.
Valance: It refers to the magnitude or degree of favorableness or un-favorableness towards the object/event. If a person is relatively indifferent towards an object then his attitude has low valance. On the contrary, if a person is extremely favorable or unfavorable towards an object, then his attitude will have a high valence.
Multiplexity: It refers to the number of elements constituting the attitude. For example, an employee may feel loyal to the organization, but another may feel respectful and dependent towards the organization apart from feeling loyal. Similarly, a student may show interest towards his studies, but another may add hard work, sincerity and seriousness to his interest in studies.
Centrality: One salient characteristics of attitude refers to the importance of attitude object to the individual. The centrally indicates the importance of the object. The attitudes which have high centrality for an individual will be less susceptible to change.
Relation to Needs: Attitudes can also vary in relation to the needs they serve. For example, attitudes of an individual towards pictures may serve only the entertainment needs. On the other hand, attitudes of an individual onwards task may serve needs for security, achievement, recognition and satisfaction.
Formation of Attitudes:
Attitudes are formed based upon the person’s personal experiences family associations, groups and society.
Moreover the attitudes are a mixture of the above determinants:
Experiences: The experience people gain plays an important role in the formation of attitudes. Through job experiences, individuals form attitudes. They develop attitudes about factors such as salary, performance reviews, job design, work group affiliation and supervision. Before a person goes for work in a particular organization, he holds many attitudes about the job which he is expected to do. Previous work experience can account for the individual differences in attitudes such as loyalty commitments and performance.
Family: Individuals develop certain attitudes from their family members – parents, brothers, sisters etc. the family characteristics influence the individual’s early attitude patterns. When the child’s attitudes are studied as a result of the influence of his family, peers and teachers, it is found that there is high correlation between the attitudes of parents and children. This correlation is the lowest when the attitude of the children and their teachers is under consideration.
Association: The group or association to which people belong influences them greatly. The geographic region, religion, educational back ground, race, caste, sex, age, income group – all have their say on our attitudes. The influence of groups on the attitudes of the individual is inversely proportional to the distance of the group form the individual.
Groups (peer group): During adolescence people increasingly rely on their peer groups for approval. We often seek others who share attitudes similar to our own, or else we change our attitudes to match the attitudes of those in the group whose approval is important us.
Society: social class and the religious set up also play a vital role in forming attitudes of an individual. The culture, language and the structure of the society also have their say. At an early age an individual is taught that certain attitudes are acceptable and certain others are not acceptable in the society. For example, the attitudes of the people of the erstwhile Soviet Union towards communism were quite different form those of the people of the western world. In other words, what seems appropriate in an individual culture and society may be totally unacceptable in another culture.
Personality Factors: Personality differences between individuals appear to be very important in formation of attitudes. This particular area has been the subject matter of great interest and it carries a great deal of weight in an organization.