1. Perception in management
Dr Joan Harvey and Dr George Erdos

2. What will we be considering?
The perceptual process in relation to:
How we perceive products, our workplace, money
How we perceive people- both ourseives and others
How we process the information coming in, deciding what to keep and what to throw out, and how this affects our behaviour or judgements

3. Sensation precedes perception and concerns the basic senses
Hearing
Combined with visual information in warning systems and radar
Touch
Sensory feedback for controls eg pedals in cars
Taste
Advertisers know we are predisposed to sweet and salty
Vision
The most powerful sense
Smell
Used in supermarkets to entice consumers
Kinaesthesis and proprioception
Replicated in flight simulators, also haptic information for computer games and truck drivers

4. Perceptual selectivity
[a] selective exposure
Framing: the background beliefs and expectations that we use to make judgements. Eg how I perceive you in an interview may be influenced by what University you attended.
A perceptual set is a frame of reference, and it influences what we choose to see.
[b] selective attention
Choosing from what is available to direct our attention. E.g. in a power station control room, over 1000 pieces of information in 20 minutes- too much to take in, so we select what to attend to

5. How do you perceive this advert for a job?

6. Perceptual selectivity
Our perceptual set is influenced by:
motivation
expectancy
reward/punishment
age
personality factors

7. Selective interpretation, perceptual categorisation and inference
Use LTM to aid how we interpret material:
Making judgements
E.g. you dress really scruffily so I think you are either poor, maybe stupid or don’t care
Attributing cause and effect
So I assume you are not who I want to work with or employ
So we can predict how people might behave
I think you would be a poor employee who would not work well or accurately. I did not take into account that you were Bill Gates and you spent three days at work without going home when developing the software

8. Perception to attract attention
Colour, position, relative size, novel stimuli: logo, white space etc.
For example, job advertisements
Cues to aid recognition
Reminders, catchphrases, etc.
Typefaces and imagery
E.g. In memos or ed instructions, emoticons

9. Other issues Ergonomics Signal detection Perception of risk
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

10. 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
Big problem of self-image development amongst young unemployed

11. Maintaining and stabilising self image
Misperception of incoming information
Distort what was ‘seen’, for example in an interview, to fit with self image
Selective interaction:
choose who you sit with or talk to or what you respond to at work
Response evocation:
behaving in one way to evoke responses from others, e.g. teenagers acting to provoke, bullying in the workplace
Selective evaluation of self and others
e.g. stereotyped judgements of others races, or see self as less intelligent or less attractive
Affective congruency
Similarities of mood to others make you feel closer to them
Adopting and playing certain roles
E.g. tactics in meetings

12. Interpersonal perception
Large individual differences
Social synchronisation eg in meetings
Need to be liked
Response biases and NVCs
Stereotyping: of management, of ethnic groups, of different groups of employees

13. Implications for discussion
Layout of offices
Open plan vs separate offices
‚hot desking‘
Interpersonal perception and interaction with people in meetings
Impression management
What you write in your cv
Perceptual mapping
Appraisal and PDRs

14. Social perception in action: appraisal and PDR
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

15. 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

16. 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

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