The present work is an attempt to relate the psychological phenomenon of perception with a specific situation of organizations such as intergroup conflict; and with a phenomenon of personal repercussions such as stress.
Keywords
Perception, conflict, intergroup conflict, stress, stressors.
The author of this writing as a neophyte in what to do in psychology but with the intention of achieving an adequate understanding of the perceptual process and its repercussions, intends to be able to elucidate the way in which the perceptual process is related to situations and processes that occur at the level. organizational and personal.
In this sense, we have chosen to study the relationship between perception and two aspects that have important implications at the organizational and personal level.
Initially as part of our approach to the subject, we present a brief theoretical introduction to the perceptual process, its most outstanding characteristics and two very interesting aspects such as: perception as a transformer of reality and perception and uncertainty.
The first of the relationships to be studied is the relationship between perception and intergroup conflict. Intergroup conflict is a characteristic that generally occurs in organizations, and its repercussions on the behavior of the organization are very important, to the point that an inadequate management of the conflict can seriously compromise the organization.
Then we will address perception and stress, how perception is involved in the physiological process of reaction to stress and what are its consequences for our quality of life, they are part of the aspects that we will study.
Our intention is that by understanding the role that perception plays as a causal agent of intergroup conflicts and stress, we could approach the understanding of its importance in the personal and organizational environment.
2. What is perception?
Our senses provide us with raw data from the outside world, these initial data are completely meaningless so a process of interpretation is required to find the relationship with us.
Gibson et al. (1990) propose that "perception is the process by which the individual connotes meaning to the environment." one
Giving meaning to the environment requires the integration of sensory information with cognitive elements such as with our memories, with our basic assumptions about what the world is, with our ideal models, etc., with the ultimate goal of building the world. around us.
Perception mainly comprises two processes: 1. The recoding or selection of all the information that comes to us from outside, reducing the complexity and facilitating its storage in memory; 2. An attempt to go further to predict future events and thereby reduce surprises.
These two processes give a structure to our perceptual process, in the sense that our perception does not constitute a continuous processing of chaotic stimuli that are stored in memory without order; but on the contrary, when we perceive a person or an object, we create an order in all that flow of information.
This order allows us to reexamine the information in order to add more information of interest to us and to infer behaviors and situations.
The behavioral and cognitive aspect of perception.
Indeed, perception has cognitive implications 2 because it requires the use of our relevant knowledge of the past, our experiences, etc., in order to interpret the symbols, objects and people that surround us in order to originate behaviors or learning around the fact of interest. The relevant knowledge for each individual in general is different, so consequently, the perception of an event may be different.
Another element involved in the perceptual process is behavioral, in the sense that perception is capable of generating behaviors, depending on how the individual perceives a situation, it will manifest a certain behavior, whether the person perceives the situation as potentially dangerous or not..
Perception as a transformer of reality
Through the perceptual process we are able to transform or alter reality by adding information that does not come with the stimulus.
When we see a dog, for example, we are not only perceiving the animal, but we are adding other components such as, let's say, all our memories in which some dog participated in some way; If in the past we were bitten by a dog, possibly the act of perceiving the current dog is associated with fear. Consequently, the act of perceiving the dog has an emotional component that is part of our perception, but that is not involved in the stimulus itself.
Perception and uncertainty
Uncertainty is a particular case within the perceptual process that occurs when we face a situation whose meaning is not clear, and which consequently creates doubt and insecurity; we cannot say how it can affect us, if it is dangerous, neutral or benign.
Uncertainty has important effects on the individual, which in general are negative, because among other things it disorganizes and upsets him 3, since by not knowing what the potential connection between the object or the situation with us is like, we cannot generate a behavioral element or cognitive relevance.
- Perception and conflicts.
Every organization is characterized by having a central objective which unifies the actions and resources of the organization based on its achievement; Achieving this goal is the reason for being the organization and therefore, the achievement of the objective influences how the organization is structured and how it is managed 4.
The way in which individuals and groups understand the central objective is decisive in explaining their actions within the organization. As we will present below, precisely in the difference in how the central objective of the organization is understood is an important element for the generation of conflict.
What is the conflict?
The conflict in the organization is a widely studied topic and the available material is abundant; The conflict has been studied in its intra and interpersonal dimension and also intra and intergroup.
To make our analysis manageable, we will limit ourselves to addressing the conflict in its intergroup dimension.
A functional definition of conflict is one that states that conflict is the antagonistic action between two or more people 5. Then we can argue that intergroup conflict is the set of antagonistic actions between sets of individuals (groups) that for some reason have associated with each other.
The organization has limited resources to achieve the objectives, therefore, the groups that make up the organization in general do not have sufficient resources to satisfy their internal needs 6.
This limitation of existing resources in the organization favors a competitive relationship for the achievement of said resources, this competition has different ways of influencing organizational behavior, and naturally is a source of conflicts.
Perception and its relationship with conflicts.
The way in which the objective of the organization is related to perception is that although the goal or central objective of the organization may seem very clear due to the fact that it is written in view of everyone, we must say that each person and / or group within the organization proceeds to do their own reading of it. The reading that each group and / or individual does of what the organization's objective is is mediated by the perceptual process.
Perception is a determining element because although the goal of the organization is one, each group in the organization has a perception of what the goal is; It may even be the case that each group that makes up the organization has a different idea of the purpose of the organization and consequently, there will be a distorted idea of the purpose of that group and its importance within the organization.
The reason for the difference in perception is determined by aspects such as personal interests, inadequate intergroup integration work, inequality in the distribution of resources, ambition for power, difference between personal and / or group goals, etc.
The effect of conflict on the organization is very varied, it can establish a healthy situation of demand for better performance to achieve adequate treatment when allocating resources; On the contrary, it can be an insurmountable barrier to the achievement of goals.
Conflict in the organization is unavoidable and is not always counterproductive 7, although managers try to eradicate all types of conflict.
- L to perception and stress.
The ways of defining stress are abundant, we will take the one proposed by Ivancevich and Matterson (1992) which postulates that "stress is an adaptive response, mediated by individual characteristics and / or psychological processes, which is at the same time a consequence of some action, a situation or an external event that poses special physical or psychological demands on the person ” 8.
As we will see shortly, the mediating psychological process between the stimulus and the response is the perceptual process.
The physiology of stress.
The initial stage of the response to stress begins in the brain, with the process of perceiving the stressor (almost any event, situation or person can be considered a stressor); This takes place in the cerebral cortex, which is responsible for conscious mental processes and behavior.
Likewise, the cerebral cortex controls the hypothalamus, which controls visceral processes and also controls the pituitary gland, which is a central gland of the endocrine system 9.
The endocrine system plays a major role in responding to stress. This system is made up of numerous glands, of which the pituitary and the adrenal glands are of special interest. When the pituitary detects, through the hypothalamus and the autonomic nervous system, that there is a stress situation, it releases hormones into the bloodstream that prepare the body to adapt to the stressor, increasing blood flow, respiratory rate, etc.
The adrenal glands are put to work by the adrenocorticotropic hormone produced by the pituitary and are responsible for producing adrenaline and norepinephrine, which have important effects on increasing the muscle power of the individual, and allows to be alert.
This is a part of the complex of events that occur in front of a stressor, which require a large amount of energy. If we are continuously subjected to stimuli that originate this response for long periods of time, the results for our immune system and our physical health in general are negative for our quality of life.
The high correlation between high levels of stress and various diseases is a well-studied fact, among these diseases we can mention: hypertension, flu, cardiovascular diseases, etc.
Stress and perception
The stress response is the effort of our body to adapt to change, or more accurately, the effort to maintain or regain homeostasis or balance. Then if we cannot maintain this personal balance we will experience stress. If no external threat is perceived, there will be no need to adopt an adaptive posture and there will be no stress.
As we presented in the previous section, the initial phase of generating the stress response is the perception process; Through it, it is determined whether the situation, object or person is a stressor or not. In other words, through the perceptual process we will decide what is going to cause us stress to become a stressor.
There are, let's say, universal stressors, in the sense that most people can generate stress when exposed to them, for example: light, noise, heat, cold, etc., but the impact of these stressors on our life is short. In this sense, the perceptual process is not so influential, because we process less complex stimuli; that is, we process stimuli with fewer cognitive components
There are other types of stressors, more subtle, but with much more damaging effects than the previous ones: traffic jams, role conflicts, intergroup conflicts, financial difficulties, etc., fall into this line. For these, the perceptual process is very relevant, because interpretations of the world around us, actions, situations, etc. are involved.
It is our beliefs and / or assumptions, which in a word are learning, which in a good proportion turn situations or objects into stressful elements, because they are the basis of our attitudes, preferences and behaviors.
In this sense, the perceptual process acts as a moderating agent of stress, because it incorporates the personal characteristics of the subject to the situation.
5. Conclusions
Essentially perceiving is making hypotheses about a person's behavior or the situation of interest; And this is because one of the principles of our daily life is to predict behaviors, thoughts, feelings and reactions of other people.
This principle is the key to explain why we survive as a species.
Uncertainty produces generally undesirable effects on the individual, so it is advisable to avoid ambiguous situations.
The perception-conflict-stress triad is an everyday thing at the organizational and personal level; the wrong perception of a situation can generate a conflict that can be personal or interpersonal, and the conflict in turn can generate stress.
In organizations, conflict and stress are common and perception is the process that mediates between situations and these two effects.
Based on this, much of the medical and behavioral research has attempted to link stressors to outcomes. Some of the conclusions in this regard is that whether or not a stimulus causes stress depends largely on the perception of the individual exposed to it.
Understanding the perceptual process can be so important that it can give us clues about specific problems. For example, to understand Venezuelan resistance to organ donation, the National Transplant Organization of Venezuela - with funding from Conicit - asked the Institute of Psychology of the Central University of Venezuela to carry out a perception study 10 of organ donation. organs in the population of young people between 19 and 24 years old. The results could explain why we are one of the countries with the fewest organ donors; since distrust and fear are the main reasons why this act is not practiced.
This is an example of how understanding perception can explain behaviors, not at the level of the organization, but of a country.
Perception as a psychological process that, from the collection of information from our sensory organs, organizes it considering our beliefs, values, fears, assumptions, etc., is of indisputable importance in the organizational and personal sphere, as it is the process that determines the production of stress and the generation of conflicts and consequently the generation of behaviors.
Knowing what are the elements that influence the formation of perception in individuals within the organization, allows to be able to adequately attend to them.
6. Bibliography
- Alvarez, Guillermo. The perception of the organization: key to understanding the behavior of the individual in the organization. Inter-American Journal of Occupational Psychology. Vol 11, Numbers 1 and 2, 1992 Gibson, James L. and others. Organizations Conduct, structure, process. Mexico: McGraw Hill / Interamericana de Mexico, 1990.Ivancevich, John M., and Matteson Michael T. Stress and work. Mexico: Editorial Trillas, 1992. Morales, Francisco J, and Olza, Miguel. Psychology and Social Work. Spain: Edit. Mac Graw Hill, 1996 Davies, Vanessa. Life after life: a pending account (II): Survey reveals that organ donation produces fear and mistrust in Venezuelans. El Nacional On-Line
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1 GIBSON, James L. and others. Organizations Conduct, structure, process. Mexico: McGraw Hill / Interamericana de Mexico, 1990. p 69.
2 Ibid, p 69.
3 ALVAREZ, Guillermo. The perception of the organization: key to understanding the behavior of the individual in the organization. Inter-American Journal of Occupational Psychology. Vol 11, Numbers 1 and 2, 1992. p 16
4 ALVAREZ, Guillermo. The perception of the organization: key to understanding the behavior of the individual in the organization. p 11
5 IVANCEVICH, John M., and MATTESON Michael T. Stress and work. Mexico: Editorial Trillas, 1992. p 146.
6 Ibidem p 146.
7 GIBSON, James L. and others. Organizations Conduct, structure, process. p164
8 IVANCEVICH, John M., and MATTESON Michael T. Stress and work. Mexico: Editorial Trillas, 1992. p 98.
9 Ibidem p99
DAVIES 10, Vanessa. Life after life: a pending account (II). El Nacional ON-Line
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