Psychology of Sensation, Perception, and Job Satisfaction

Sensation and Perception Fundamentals

• Sensation: The process of receiving information about the physical world through our sensory receptors.
• Perception: The process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting information from our sensory receptors.
• Sensory Receptors: Specialized cells responsible for transduction, converting physical energy into nerve impulses.
• Transduction: The conversion of physical energy into electrical signals by receptor cells.
• Absolute Thresholds: The smallest amount of a stimulus one can detect 50% of the time.
• Signal Detection Theory: Suggests that absolute thresholds for sensation are dependent on both physical energy and internal factors.
• Difference Threshold: The minimum amount of change in a stimulus required for a person to detect a difference.
• Sensory Adaptation: The decrease in sensitivity to stimuli that remain unchanged over time.
• Subliminal Perception: The ability to perceive a stimulus that is below the threshold of conscious experience.
• Senses: Vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.
• Gestalt Principles of Organization: Includes figure-ground, law of similarity, law of proximity, law of closure, and law of simplicity.
• Perceptual Constancy: The tendency to perceive an object as stable despite changing conditions.
• Size Constancy: The tendency to perceive a physical object as maintaining the same size.
• Brightness Constancy: The tendency to perceive objects as having constant brightness even under different lighting.
• Color Constancy: The perception that colors do not change significantly despite varying light conditions.

Workplace Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

• Attitudes Toward Work: The general assessment people make regarding objects, issues, ideas, or other people.
• Influencing Factors: Cognitive dissonance theory, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.
• Major Work-Related Attitudes: Trust, involvement, commitment, and job satisfaction.
• Commitment Types: Affective commitment, normative commitment, and continuance commitment.
• Job Satisfaction: A pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the subjective perception of one's work experience. It is a positive, multidimensional construct.
• Key Findings: Significant relationships exist between job satisfaction, organizational learning, and organizational commitment, acting as a mediator between job performance and commitment.
• Herzberg’s Theory: Motivators (satisfaction vs. no satisfaction) and Hygiene factors (dissatisfaction vs. no dissatisfaction).
• Associative Variables: Working conditions, job characteristics, salary, supervision, coworker relationships, and demographic variables.
• Consequences of Job Satisfaction: Impact on performance, absenteeism, turnover, and stress.