In which way can “spot the dog” help us understand the impact
and significance of perception in team dynamics?
1. Introduction
This picture is just one of the pictures representing optical illusions but it is a useful example when considering perceptions. Perceptions are our way to understand the reality. Somebody sees the dalmatian dog at the first glance, when somebody sees something else. This demonstrates that each person has different perceptions to the same stimulus, in this case a visual stimulus. The perception of the dog is straightforward if it is already known that this picture represents a dog, but if the picture is not known it is difficult to understand how the original picture looks like. This process leads to conclusions that can be different from one person to another. In other words, diversity is the main concept, it is perceived differently.
This diversity is based on how the human brain works, and when there is interaction between people this is even more noticeable. Working in teams brings this condition to team members’ attention, and in which way this is handled is important for the success of the team.
As previously mentioned, perceptions are the natural response to stimuli. The world is full of information and, consequently, people perceive it. For some of this information there is only one simple response (e.g. the sky appears to be blue), but when it results to form a perception of a person, there is an internal cognitive process that is much more complex.
2. Perceptions: how we form them
In the process of forming an impression about a person there are cues that are usually used. First of all the appearance, the position, the posture and, most of all, clothes, accessories and style. In fact, these last ones are the most reliable indicators available before talking begins (Guirdham, 1990, p.71). As soon as the discussion is engaged the process of gathering clues continue (the words used, the tone, movements of the body, etc…).
Furthermore, an important influence to opinions comes from external factors, references, external opinions, or stereotypes. Especially stereotypes are quite interesting, men are usually associated to independence, self-confidence. But there are more, just think to all the stereotypes linked to a countries’ inhabitants.
There is a large amount of information that needs to be processed in order to obtain a perception. The first step the brain does is simply being selective about the information received, and after this there is the comprehension stage. If it is understood that what is perceived is indeed a quality of the subject and not due to the situation, this quality is attributed to him.
This is the basic process of categorization, the tendency to categorize people. At the end of this process of categorization, the interpretation of new cues dramatically decreases. Therefore it is more likely to see in a subject just what it is wanted, seeking confirmation of what it is already known. There is a sort of blindness and the first impression becomes an anchoring bias for any further evaluations.
Being aware of this makes the pitfalls of this system become avoidable and it offers the possibility to make all the perception process works better.
3. How this impact in the team
The team is a form of social group, and the process of perceiving is carried out within each member of the team. The quality of the relationships in the team surely depends on good and well-formed perceptions of other members.
Building an effective team is a very difficult task, and this is why so few achieve the excellence. At the beginning there is a tendency, due to the defensive position, for negative points about a person to be given more weight than positive ones (Argyle, 1994, p. 93). This is why is so important to have a correct perception of the others, and to integrate all this, conscious of our diversities, in a successful team.
When there is a correct integration of the team, individuals’ diversities are known, accepted and used in order to have different prospectives about the same problem, different ideas on how to solve it and go further. This interaction in teams represents the value of a team. The outcome of the team is more than the sum of outcomes of the singles. This is the synergy, the real advantage of the team.
On the other hand, when perceptions and diversity are badly integrated, the team does not work properly, and bad emotional responses can be triggered (fear, anger, anxiety, etc…). As a result of poor teamwork the decision quality degrades, along with problem-solving abilities, and new ideas and information are seen as something that is going to undermine the already unstable basis of the team.
The reasons for bad integration can result from the attribution of incorrect qualities to individual team members, such as using stereotypes, or making incorrect assumptions on educational or work background.
The bad integration due to misperceptions will lead the team to feel unmotivated, and this is the reason why people will tend to stick to themselves, withhold new ideas, intimidate each other, and, last but not least, break off.
4. Conclusions
To sum up, introducing the “spot the dog” picture is used as a trick to notice how we perceive things differently. People’s perceptions are different because people is diverse. A person is a complex system, and when there is an interaction between people there is a complex procedure to extract the information needed to evaluate the other. This procedure is complex and prone to errors, although it is possible to improve. When people work in teams, there are continuous multiple interactions and so it is easier to misinterpretate. Being aware of these perception errors, it is possible to avoid them and achieve a correct interpretation. With the correct perceptions it is possible to use each individual’s strengths to have a synergistic integration of types, utilizing different views and achieving better solutions to the problems submitted to the team.
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