Explain the nature of perceptual selection, and comment on how the factors that influence it may have been involved in affecting Patricia's fears for her job in the following scenario:

Patricia is a 63-year-old administrative manager in the Training and Development Department of a mid-sized federal agency, known for its highly political climate and unexpected employee turnover. Her supervisor of 10 years, Austin (also age 63, the previous director of Training and Development), has just accepted a transfer to become Director of Procurement for the same agency. Austin had always been very protective of Patricia, since she occasionally had personal conflicts with other members of the agency staff. For years, Patricia has experienced significant stress and anxiety relating to her job, but felt very comfortable working with Austin. Austin' replacement was Jeff, an enthusiastic, 20-year veteran of the agency in his mid-forties, who in the past had been on opposite sides of several political battles with Austin. Jeff wanted to develop a new direction for the Training and Development Department in order to boost productivity and staff member satisfaction throughout the agency, a goal endorsed by his boss, the Agency Director.

During his first few months on the job, Jeff found considerable reluctance on the part of Patricia to take on new tasks as assigned, since she was already overloaded with existing work. Budget shortfalls had left the department understaffed, and Jeff knew that he would need to add staff if the planned revamping of the Department was to be effective. Six months after taking over the department, he scheduled a meeting with the agency's Director of Human Resources and his boss (the Agency Director), along with Patricia, to outline his plans for the future and make an argument for bringing on an additional staff member to provide assistance to Patricia immediately. However, when Patricia heard about the meeting, she refused to attend unless Austin accompanied her. She apparently feared that she was going to be fired. Jeff had no intention of replacing Patricia, since her knowledge of agency processes was unavailable anywhere else, and her ability to perform her job with minimal supervision was excellent. However, Patricia had consistently felt that Jeff was not satisfied with her work, in spite of being told otherwise on many occasions.

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gulsoom muhammadi · Accepted Answer

Final Answer :

Perceptual selection is the process by which people filter out most stimuli so that they can deal with the most important ones. Perceptual selection depends on several factors, some of which are in the external environment and some of which are internal to the perceiver. External factors are characteristics of the environment outside of the person, which influence whether the stimuli will be noticed. They include: size, intensity, contrast, motion, repetition, novelty, and familiarity. Internal factors are aspects of the perceiver that influence perceptual selection. These consist of personality, learning, and motivation.

Student responses to this question should provide the above background on the nature of perceptual selection. Their analyses should comment on both internal and external factors that could be influencing Patricia's fears for her job. The internal factors are perhaps the most obvious. These might include personality (Patricia has experienced significant stress and anxiety related to her job for years), learning (Patricia has observed the highly political climate and unexpected turnover), and motivation (Patricia apparently does not want to lose her job, as evidenced by her request to have Austin along as a personal advocate in the presumed upcoming confrontation). Among the external factors, the meeting includes manifestations of intensity, novelty, and contrast (in that Patricia is suddenly meeting with two top organizational officials with whom she has rarely met before--the Director of Human Resources and Agency Director--in a situation that could be appropriate for discussing either the addition of staff or the reasons for her termination). Given the situational background, her personal characteristics, and her manifest reluctance to take on the additional tasks Jeff hoped to assign to her, Patricia apparently chose the latter interpretation rather than the former. Students may also comment on age differences, problems associated with organizational change, and many other factors in their responses to this item.

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