Role of Perception in the Decision Making Process

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What is perception?

Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment" (2005, p.134). Humans habitually interpret what they see, hear, touch, taste, and smell into something that makes logical sense. Each individual sees, hears, touches and smells things differently. Thus, people vary in perception. People see what they want to see; hear what they want to hear; smell what they want to smell; feel what they want to feel; and taste what they want to taste not what is, in fact, there. Human behavior is shaped by their perceptions not on facts. There are also multiple factors that influence one's perceptions.

Organizations heavily rely on the choices made for their accomplishments. The right choices can bring victory and negative choices can cause disaster. Perception plays a vital role in the choices humans make. People make decisions every day, every hour and every minute based on the perceptions they construe. Each individual perceives situations, places, people and so forth with one's own five senses. However, what one perceives is not always accurate. People's perceptions can be misleading and can cause negative effects. Perception can cause numerous people to make the wrong choices based on non-factual information. In organizations wrong decisions can cause a tremendous amount of negative effects. Therefore, it is extremely important to understand perception; how one's perception of others impacts an organizations behavior; the positive and negative effects of using perceptive "shortcuts" when judging others; how decisions in real world organizations are made; and how perceptions shape one's ethical decisions

Perception can be influenced by the time, environment, mind-set, personality, intentions, and history of the perceiver. Perception can be influenced by the appearance, personality, attitude, and situation of the person, place, or object being perceived. There are numerous details that one can notice or dismiss in the perception process. One's perception of individuals effects the decisions of organizations.

One's perceptions of others effects organization ...