What Is the Difference Between Perception and Attitude?
The difference between perception and attitude is that perception is the use of the mind or the senses to comprehend or understanding a person’s surroundings while attitude is the person’s actual feeling or way of thinking about something or someone based on their perceptions. There is an intrinsic link between perception and attitude.
Perception and attitude are two factors that influence a person’s every day life including their workplace and organizational performance. An example of a negative attitude would be a person leaving work early or taking extra long breaks. However, this person might not see this activity as a negative attitude towards work because they may have perceived the work to be dull or their situation at their workplace to be unfair due to long hours or perhaps low pay. This results in the justification that leads to the individual taking extra long breaks or leaving work early. Other coworkers may agree with this individual’s actions and others may not. The different perceptions from coworkers lead to different attitudes about the person’s absence.
Generally, attitude is broken into two constructs: positive and negative. The positive attitude means that a person sees life through a “glass half full” mentality while the negative attitude means that a person sees life through a “glass half empty” mentality. Perception and attitude are also two constructs that have cultural, religious, traditional and ethnic biases for many people.
