Individual Factors, Personality and Perception: How Legislators Make Decisions

Concerning the legislative role of members of parliament in Iran, the present paper aimed to identify factors affecting their perception during passing laws through a behavioral approach. Sampling was carried out via judgmental method and was continued till reaching saturation. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with parliament member. The answers to interview questions in addition to documents such as negotiation proceedings were analyzed. Employing grounded theory, codes, concepts and categories were obtained as a result of data analysis. Five propositions were obtained after linking three categories at selective coding stage. Data analysis found personality, education, experience, personal feelings, emotions and feelings as individual factors affecting perception of MPs. Perceptions, the main category of research consists of direct and indirect perception as two subcategories and sense making, sense breaking, and sense giving as its concepts.