CHAPTER 3: PERCEIVING
OURSELVES AND OTHERS
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
3.1 Perceives Ourselves
3.1.1 Self-Concept
3.1.2 Self-Enhancement
3.1.3 Self-Verification
3.1.4 Self-Evaluation
3.1.5 The Social Self
3.2 Perceiving The World Around Us
3.2.1 Model of The Perception Process
3.2.2 Specific Perpetual Processess And Problems
(Errors/Distortion in Perception )
3.3 Improving Errors in Perception
3.1 SELF-CONCEPT: HOW WE
PERCEIVE OURSELVES
What is selfconcept?
An individual’s
self-belief and
self evaluation
3.1.1 SELF-CONCEPT: HOW WE
PERCEIVE OURSELVES (CONT)
3 characteristics
of self-concept
Complexity –
different roles
at various time
Clarity – the
degree to which
you have clear
and confidently
defined selfconcept
Consistency – individual’s
self- perceived roles
require similar
personality traits, values
and other attribute
SELF-CONCEPT: HOW WE PERCEIVE
OURSELVES (CONT)
4. Social self
Set of attribute that
highlight the personal
identity and social identity
3. Self-evaluation
The way you value
yourself base on your
self-esteem, selfefficacy and locus of
control
Self-esteem – the
extent to which
you like, respect
and satisfied
with yourself
Self-efficacyperson’s belief
that he/she can
successfully
complete a task
1. Self-enhancement
Motivation to have a
positive self-concept and
improve themselves
4 processes
that shape
self-concept:
2. Self-verification
A person’s inherent
motivation to confirm and
maintain the existing selfconcept
Locus of control – belief about
the amount of control he/she
has in personal life
SELF-CONCEPT: HOW WE PERCEIVE
OURSELVES (CONT)
Implication of self-concept
in organizational behavior
Decision process and bias
Understanding employee’s perception
Employee motivation
Team dynamics
Leadership development
Job stress
Job performance
3.2 PERCEIVING THE WORLD
AROUND US
What is
perceptual
process?
Process of receiving
information about
and making sense of
the world around us
3.2.1 MODEL OF PERCEPTUAL
PROCESS
Environmental stimuli
Selective attention and
emotional marker response
Perceptual organization and
interpretation
Attitudes and behavior
MODEL OF PERCEPTUAL
PROCESS (CONT)
Environmental stimuli
 Perception begins when environmental stimuli are
received through our senses such as feeling, hearing,
seeing, smelling, tasting
Selective attention and emotional marker response
 Process of attending to some info received by our
senses and ignoring info.

E.g.: attention towards flashing red light, awareness
Perceptual organization and interpretation
 Interpretation is process of making sense of the world
around us which include the categorical thinking
(organizing people and objects into preconceived
categories that are stored in our long-term memory)
MODEL OF PERCEPTUAL
PROCESS (CONT)
Perceptual organization and interpretation (cont)
 In the making sense process, it’s require a mental
model (knowledge structures that we develop to
describe, explain, and predict the world around
us).
3.2.2 PERCEPTUAL PROCESS AND
PROBLEMS
Perceptual process are specific
sub processes and associated
biases and other errors
Stereotyping in organization
Attribution theory
Self-fulfilling prophecy
Other perceptual effect
STEREOTYPING IN ORGANIZATION
What is
stereotyping?
Process of assigning
traits to people based
on their membership
on a social category
STEREOTYPING IN ORGANIZATION (CONT)

Occurs because:
Categorical thinking (nonconscious process of
organizing people and object into preconceived
categories that are stored in long term memory)
 Innate drive to understand and anticipate others’
behaviour
 Enhances our self-concept (self-enhancement and
social identity):

Categorization – categorising people into distinct group
 Homogenization – to simplify the comparison process, we
tend to think that people within each group are very similar
 Differentiation – we tend to assign more favourable
characteristic to people in our group that to people in other
group

STEREOTYPING IN ORGANIZATION (CONT)

Problem with stereotyping:
Overgeneralises, i.e. does not represent everyone in
the category
 Basis of systemic and intentional discrimination


Overcoming stereotype biases
Difficult to prevent stereotype activation
 Possible to minimise stereotype application
 Increase awareness and understanding about people
differences

ATTRIBUTION THEORY
What is
attribution
process?
A perceptual process of
deciding whether and
observed behavior/event
is caused largely by
internal and external
factors.
ATTRIBUTION THEORY (CONT)

Attribution process refers to a belief about the
causes of behavior/event is due to:
Internal factors – person’s characteristic, ability
 External factors – resources, coworker support etc


Importance to understand the attribution theory:
To understand the cause-and-effect relationship to
ensure the effectiveness of teamwork
 Avoid perceptual error
 Improve and make correction

ATTRIBUTION THEORY (CONT)
Internal factors
High consistency
Low
Distinctiveness
Low consensus
Consistency in
performing the
work in the
same situation/
material/
equipment
Distinctiveness
in performing
the work in
different
situation/
material/
equipment
Do other people
performing the
same
performance?
High consistency
High
Distinctiveness
High consensus
External factors
Performance
ATTRIBUTION THEORY (CONT)
Attribution errors:
Self-serving bias
The tendency to
attribute our
favorable outcome
to internal factors
and our failures to
external factors
Fundamental attribution
error
Tendency to see people
rather than the situation
as the main cause of the
person’s behavior
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY
What is selffulfilling
prophecy?
The perceptual process in
which our expectations
about another person
cause that person to act
more consistently with
those expectation
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY (CONT)

Self-fulfilling prophecy circle:
SELF-FULFILLING PROPHECY (CONT)

Contingencies of selffulfilling prophecy:
Beginning of relationship
 When several peoples hold
the same expectation
 Among people with a
history of low achievement
because they are more
easily influenced by others

OTHER PERCEPTUAL
EFFECTS
HALO EFFECT
When our general impression
of a person, usually based on
one prominent characteristic,
distorts our perception of other
characteristic of that person
Halo effect is reinforced by the
primacy effect
OTHER PERCEPTUAL
EFFECTS (CONT)
FALSE CONSENSUS
EFFECT / SIMILAR-TO-ME
EFFECT
People overestimate the extent
to which others have similar
beliefs/behavior to our own
OTHER PERCEPTUAL
EFFECTS (CONT)
PRIMACY EFFECT
Perceptual error in which we
quickly form an opinion of
people based on the first
information we receive about
them
OTHER PERCEPTUAL
EFFECTS (CONT)
RECENCY ERROR
Perceptual error in which the
most recent information
dominates our perception of
others
3.3 IMPROVING ERROR IN
PERCEPTION
Knowing about the
perceptual bias.
Awareness of
perceptual bias
HOW TO
IMPROVE
PERCEPTION
??
Any activity in which
people engage in
valued activities which
indirectly improve selfawareness and mutual
understanding
Increase awareness
through training,
sharing knowledge
Improving selfawareness
Aware about our belief,
values and attitudes
Meaningful
interactions
Increase selfawareness by applying
the Johari Window
IMPROVING PERCEPTION
Johari Window Model of
Self-Awareness and
Mutual Understanding


The Johari Window is a
communication model
that is used to improve
understanding between
individuals.
The word 'Johari' is
taken from the names of
Joseph Luft and Harry
Ingham, who developed
the model in 1955.