A variety of factors affects our perceptions. Our atti-
tudes and motives, interests, and past experiences all shape
the way we perceive an event.^6 When Chief Commissioner
Michelle Falardeau-Ramsay suggested that employees’
complaints about the CHRC were simply a matter of their
perception, she was thinking about her own interests and
motives in the situation. As head of the agency, she did
not want to believe that she was responsible for any of
the problems the employees reported.
We often interpret others’ behaviours based on our
own characteristics. People who take an optimistic
approach to life act as if others will be just as upbeat,
while those who are dishonest suspect others are equally
dishonest.
Expectations can also distort our perceptions—we
see what we expect to see. For example, if you expect
police officers to be authoritarian, young people to have
no ambitions, human resource directors to like people,
or politicians to be unethical, you may perceive indi-
viduals from these categories in this way, regardless of
their actual traits.
Finally, perceptions are likely to vary cross-culturally.
Thus, something that you do in a friendly way may be
viewed as too aggressive, or too informal, by someone
from another country.
The Target
A target’s characteristics can affect what is perceived. Loud people are more likely to be
noticed in a group than are quiet ones. So, too, are extremely attractive or unattractive
individuals. Novelty, motion, sound, size, and other attributes of a target shape the way
we see it.
Because targets are not looked at in isolation, the relationship of a target to its back-
ground influences perception. Objects that are close to each other will tend to be per-
ceived together rather than separately. Events that are close in time may also be seen
as related, even if they are not. Employees in a particular department are seen as a
group. If two people in a four-member department suddenly resign, we tend to assume
that their departures were related when, in fact, they may be totally unrelated. Timing
may also imply dependence when, for example, a new sales manager is assigned to a ter-
ritory and, soon after, sales in that territory skyrocket. The assignment of the new sales
manager and the increase in sales may not be related—the increase may be due to the
introduction of a new product line or to one of many other reasons—but people would
tend to see the two occurrences as related.
Persons, objects, or events that are similar to each other also tend to be grouped
together. The greater the similarity, the greater the probability that we will tend to per-
ceive them as a common group. People who are female, black, or members of any other
clearly distinguishable group will tend to be perceived as similar not only in physical
terms but in other unrelated characteristics as well.
The Situation
The context in which we see objects or events is important. Elements in the surrounding
environment influence our perceptions. For instance, it might be entirely appropriate
to wear shorts and T-shirts in a social setting, but not appropriate in a work setting.
Chapter 2Perception, Personality, and Emotions 33People’s expectations about what employees working for a full-service
web development agency should look like often leave them startled
when they meet Jason Billingsley (left) and Justin Tilson (foreground),
two of the founders of Vancouver-based Elastic Path Software (formerly
Ekkon Technologies). Both men are in wheelchairs after a skiing accident
for Billingsley and a mountain bike accident for Tilson. “It’s an eye-
opener sometimes,” says Billingsley. “You’ve been talking on the phone
for two or three weeks before you meet someone and they have no clue,
and they kind of walk in and you see a little ‘oh.’”