Understanding Individual Differences & Perception Perception is Reality

Understanding Individual Differences & Perception Why is this topic worth studying?  Perception refers to the process through which we receive, organize and interpret information from the environment  If we understand ourselves and those around us, we can be more effective  If we integrate factual and perceptual inputs into our belief system, we can change the way we think and behave

Understanding Individual Differences & Perception What is perception?  Our interpretation of reality  A cognitive process of simplifying and mentally organizing the environment  A series of mental models of common characteristics  A series of scripts to make events predictable

Understanding Individual Differences & Perception What influences perception?  Cognitive functions  Personality  Past experiences  Education  Gender, age, ethnicity, culture

Understanding Individual Differences & Perception Our perception of a situation:  Affects how we view our managers, coworkers, and subordinates  Impacts the way we manage people  Affects how we make decisions  Can lead to inappropriate behavior

Understanding Individual Differences & Perception Common perceptual biases  Stereotyping: assumptions about others based on belonging to a certain category or group  Halo effect: one characteristic influences your overall evaluation of a person  Selective perception: tendency to consider information that reinforces your existing beliefs

Understanding Individual Differences & Perception Biases related to decision-making:  Availability bias: tendency to base decisions on information that is readily available  Representative bias: assessing the likelihood of an occurrence based on pre-existing data  Escalation of commitment: increasing the commitment to a decision in spite of negative information

Understanding Individual Differences & Perception So What?  Our perceptions in the workplace are biased by our experience, the culture, our education, and socialization  We tend to make assumptions and act on our perceptions as if they were objective truth that were obvious to everyone  We rarely check the accuracy or validity of our assumptions  People make inferences about others and situations without regard to factual information

Understanding Individual Differences & Perception What is personality?  Personality is the sum of total ways an individual reacts to and interacts with others  Understanding one’s personality can help a manger predict employee behavior

Understanding Individual Differences & Perception We can understand personality through testing  Myers Briggs Type Indicator, categorizes individuals into one of sixteen personality types, extroverted vs. introverted, sensing vs. intuitive, thinking vs. feeling, perceiving vs. judging  Big Five Model, five basic dimensions underlie all others and explain most of the variation in human personality, extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, openness to new experience

Understanding Individual Differences & Perception Why should you take this seriously?  There is irrefutable evidence that tests have predictive validity and can help us interpret performance  There is a link between personality dimensions and job performance  Whether you believe in this or not, many employers do