Perception in the Decision Making Process

Perception in the Decision Making Process

Perception plays a significant role in the decision making process. It plays a vital position in the choices that all humans make. Perception is defined as our awareness of our world, and all of its contents through sensory experience. It involves both our reaction to external objects through senses, and our ability to bring these objects under concepts. We then use this to understand our environment (Bunnin, nd.)

Humans interpret what they hear, taste, touch, smell and see into something that makes logical sense to them. Each individual hears, tastes, touches, smells and sees something different. Therefore, perception varies. However what an individual perceives could be extremely far from what is in fact reality (Valerie, 2007).

Perception can be influenced by many things. For example, the appearance, personality, and attitude of an individual can be perceived one way by some, and different by other perceivers (Valerie, 2007).

A person’s perception of others can impact an organizations behavior in many ways. For example, say the CEO of a successful corporation is extremely biased towards foreign competitors, because he is racist. This could effect the entire organization. The organization will not trade or do business with companies in other countries or organizations run by minorities, and it will lose out on a lot of profit by doing so. Also, the organization will be looked at as being close-minded because it does not branch out. Everyone who works for this company could be seen as having the same viewpoints as the CEO. If the CEO of the company also believed that women should not hold high positions within the company, this could also affect the rest of the company. If men are the only people who hold high positions, the entire organization could be seen as being sexist. The women who are within the company, who may hold lower-end positions, will feel inadequate.

There are both positive and...