Perception in management Dr Joan Harvey

Sensation: precedes perception and concerns the basic senses  vision  hearing  kinaesthesis  touch  smell  taste

Perceptual selectivity  [a] selective exposure  Framing or perceptual set: the background beliefs and expectations that we use to make judgements  These influence what we choose to see. Set is influenced by: motives, expectations, rewards or punishment, age, personality factors e.g. achievment orientation  [b] selective attention  Choosing from what is there to direct our attention  [c] interpretation, categorisation and inference  Use LTM to aid interpretation of material: making judgements; attributing cause and effect  So we can predict how people might behave

How do you perceive this advert for a job?

Perception to attract attention  Colour, position, relative size etc.  E.g. colour changes to indicate a process is faulty  Novel stimuli: logo, white space etc.  E.g. job advertisements  Cues to aid recognition  E.g. symbols to guide patients in hospitals  Typefaces and imagery  E.g. In memos or ed instructions

Other issues  Ergonomics  Design of equipment  Environmental influences  Person- machine interface, e.g. How do we perceive emoticons?  Signal detection  Perception of low frequency events  Perception of risk  Safety, financial, social,  Impression management  Personal characteristics of the audience

Self image  Self perception and self image  Cognitive, affective and behavioural  These three combine to form the self image  More integrated the self image, more consistent is behaviour  Self image can suppress behaviour that is out of line

Maintaining and stabilising self image  Misperception of incoming information  Distort things, e.g. in an interview, to fit with self image  Selective interaction:  choose who you sit with or talk to or what you respond to  Response evocation:  behaving in a certain way to evoke certain responses from others, e.g. teenagers acting to provoke  Selective evaluation of people  E.g. stereotyped judgements about managers or other employees  Selective evaluation of self:  e.g. see self as less intelligent or less attractive  Affective congruency  Similarities of mood may mean different types of decisions taken  Adopting and playing certain roles  E.g. tactics in meetings

Emotion in the workplace  Transient, ephemeral so difficult to investigate  Strong determinant of behaviour at work:  can influence work productivity, absenteeism, teamworking,  Can affect the effectiveness of any social interactions work, including interviews, meetings, manager-employee communications  Probably 7 main emotions  Anger, sadness, disgust, fear, surprise, happiness, contempt  Although most emotions are a complex mix of several  Easier to judge other people’s intentions and feelings from facial expressions and NVCs than from what they say

Interpersonal perception emotion case: you and your boss  You are asked to carry out a difficult project  This is usually given to more experienced colleagues  You feel flattered but worried; emotions include excitement, elation, fear and frustration  You complete the project well and feel relieved  HOW DO YOU PERCEIVE YOUR BOSS NOW?  You tell your boss and show them your work  Boss does not thank you, but seeks errors, flaws, limitations  You feel resentful and angry, never again put yourself out  You also feel shamed and exploited  You think about looking for another job  You do not volunteer for tasks any more  You start to feel sad and disappointed  You update your resume and start looking for other jobs  HOW DO YOU PERCEIVE YOUR BOSS NOW?

Implications for discussion  Layout of offices  Open plan vs separate offices  ‚hot desking‘  Interpersonal perception and interaction with people in meetings  Impression management  Perceptual mapping  Perception of emotion and facial expressions  Appraisal

Social perception in action: appraisal  Purposes of appraisal  Evaluate current job performance  Evaluate future potential  Determine whether pay rise is appropriate  Methods of appraisal  Interviews  Form filling and rating scales  360 degree appraisal

Appraisal: social perception problems & issues  Ratings  Impression management issues  E.g. the 2 minute rule, judging from first impressions  Appraiser skills at judging  Halo effect [and horns effect]  Non-verbal signals  Judging people on criteria over which they have no control  Fundamental attribution error

Social perception in action [2]: the interview  Application forms and IM  Pre selection judgements and decisions  Long list and short list issues  Decreasing ease as reasons to reject disappear  Positive to negative to positive set  The interview itself  Selection decisions

Thank you for your attention  Drs Joan Harvey and George Erdos  Newcastle University