What is perception? Describe the attribution theory.
Perception
Perception is a process by which an individual organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment i.e. obtaining knowledge of external objects and events by means of sense, The knowledge is obtained by interpreting the sensory input and the sensory input supplied by sense organs and other receptors.
Attribution Theory
Attachment of cause and affect explanation by a human to their behavior is termed as attribution. The perception of people depends on whether he attributes the observed behavior to internal causes or external causes. In this regard attributions theory has been proposed to develop explanations of the ways in which we judge people differently, depending on what meaning we attribute to a given behavior. Basically, the theory suggests that we observe an individual’s behavior; we attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally caused.
As per this theory, in making attributes people primarily focus on three major factors explained below:
- Consistency: Consistency points out to the repetition of the same kind of behavior. In other words, consistency explains the extent to which an individual perceived behave in certain manner on other occasions when s/he comes up with the same situation.
- Distinctiveness: As one of the key elements of attribution theory, distinctiveness refers to the frequency in regard to similarity of behavior of a person In different settings. To simplify it further, distinctiveness is whether the observed person acts the same way in different types of situations. When a person shows different behavior in different settings, the distinctiveness is high.
- Consensus: Consensus refers to the extent to which other individuals in the same situations behave to the same way as the person under observation. In other words, consensus represents a scenario where individual behave (in same way) with the similar situation.
