Understanding Individual Differences & Perception

1. Understanding Individual Differences & Perception Perception is Reality

2. 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

3. 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

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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. 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

11. 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