Factors Influencing Perception Analysis

INTRODUCTION

Perception can be defined as a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. Perception is not just what one sees with eyes. It is a much more complex process by which an individual selectively absorbs or assimilates the stimuli in the environment, cognitively organizes the perceived information in a specific fashion and then interprets the information to make an assessment about what people select, organize, and interpret or attach meaning to events happening in the environment.

Perception is subjective process, different people may perceive the same environment differently based on what particular aspects of the situation they choose. For example,

Covert response will be reflected in the attitudes, motives, and feelings of the perceiver and overt responses will be reflected in the actions of the individual.

Factors Influencing Perception: Several factors influence how we process the perceptual inputs and transform them into outputs. There are three broad categories: Characteristics of Perceiver, Characteristics of Target, and Characteristics of Situation.

Characteristics of Perceiver: A person’s needs and motives, self-concept, past experience, emotional state, and personality aspects strongly influence the perceptual process. Needs and Motives: Unsatisfied needs or motives stimulate individuals and may exert a strong influence on their perception. For examples, two groups of subjects – One group who is deprived of food for about 24 hours and the other group which had food enough were shown the blurred pictures and asked to explain the contents. The first group perceived the blurred image as food far more frequently than the other group. People needs and motives thus play a big part in the perceptual

For example, a person is more likely to notice the operations along an assembly line if this is first time that person has seen an assembly line. In 1970’s women police officers are highly visible because traditionally Police Officers positions were predominantly held by males.

Personality Characteristics: There is a strong relationship between personality factors and perception. For example, secure people tend to perceive others as warm supportive than those, who are more cold and indifferent. Similarly, self-accepting persons perceive others as lining and accepting them. Those who are not self-accepting tend to distrust others. Insecure, thoughtless or non self-accepting persons are less likely to perceive themselves and those around them accurately. In all probabilities, they are likely to distort, misinterpret or in other ways defensively perceive the