Perceptions are an important part of organizational behavior. Almost without exception an integral part of organizations are their ability to recognize individual differences and promote an objective and unbiased environment. Integral within the organizational environment is interviews, performance development reviews, staff ratings and the making of important decisions based on interpretation of issues and behaviors. All of these activities generally undertaken by management have an inherent perceptive component involved. Robbins, Millet, Cacioppe and Marsh (5) (2001) define perception as the way individuals process their respective sensory impressions in order to define their environment.

In an organizational sense, Robbins and colleagues (2001) identified selective perception, stereotyping, contrast effect, projection and the halo effect, as five frequently used shortcuts, used by managers, to judge others. Because perceiving and interpreting others is a rather tiresome task shortcuts are employed to assist with the process. Whilst these shortcut techniques can be valuable in the sense that they allow perceptions to be made quickly, it is not without problems. Two

Another example of projection in organizational behavior is the manager who assumes that the needs of subordinates are the same as his or her own. The manager may enjoy responsibility and achievement in the work place but have subordinates whose work is viewed by the manager as dull and routine. There may be a strong desire in this case for the manager to redesign these jobs and help the subordinates achieve higher-level satisfactions in order that they experience things that the manager personally values in work.

Similarly, we also have positive traits, which we like in ourselves, which can also be projected. An example of this is a manager attributing future success to an interview applicant due to his or her resume indicating particular attention to spelling, presentation and neatness. (Tosi, Mero & Rizzo, 2000) (6) In this case the manager sees a resume reflecting qualities that the manager believes he or she possesses and extrapolates that to the applicant achieving similar heights within the organization as the manager has achieved.

It was so named due to the perfection associated with angels. The term is described in Chaplin’s (1) (1975) dictionary of psychology as

Projection occurs when a person unknowingly attributes his own instinctual impulses or threats of his own conscience to other people or to the external world. It is then easier to deal with an anxiety that arises from these internal impulses and threats. All of us have undesirable traits or qualities that we do not acknowledge even to ourselves and projection helps us deal with this. Projection originated from the writings of the famous psychological theorist Sigmund Freud. Freud postulated that projection was one of the important defense mechanisms within human beings used to cope with anxieties. Freud maintained that all defense mechanisms have two characteristics in common. One is that they deny falsify or distort reality and secondly they operate unconsciously so that the person is not aware of what is taking place. (Hall, 1954)

Some topics in this essay:
Freitz Heider, Entrekin Stening, Cacioppe Marsh, Mero Rizzo, Freud Freud, Lee Thorndike7, Projection Perceptions, halo effect, individual differences, projection halo effect, objective unbiased, BEHAVIOUR Halo, projection halo, manager dull routine, perceiving interpreting, style decision-making, impulses threats, outstanding trait, perception process, effect projection,