ch3: perceiving ourselves and others Flashcards
self-concept
an individual’s self-beliefs and self-evaluations
which levels is the self-concept defined at
individual (personal traits), relational (connections to friends and coworkers) and collective (other entities)
what are the three components of an individual self
complexity, consistency, clarity
complexity
the number of distinct and important roles or identities that people perceive about themselves
Everyone sees themselves in different roles at various times
Self-expansion – increasing one’s complexity by seeking out new opportunities and social connections
Also defined by the separation of different identities – if they’re highly interconnected that might lead to low self-esteem
Complexity is higher when the multiple identities have a low correlation with one another (distinct spheres of life)
A particular self-view is usually domain specific – more likely to be activated in some settings than others
consistency
the degree to which the individual’s identities require similar personal attributes
High consistency – individual’s identities are compatible with one another and with their actual personality traits, values and other attributes
Low consistency – when some self-views require personal attributes that conflict with attributes required for other self-views + when an individual’s dominant self-concept identities are incompatible with their personal attributes
clarity
the degree to which a person’s self-concept is clear, confidently defined, and stable
When someone is confident about who they are, can describe their important identities to others, and provide the same description of themselves across time
Increases through self-reflection, people who live in other cultures engage in more self-reflection + clearer when a person’s multiple selves have higher consistency (low consistency produces ambiguity about a person’s underlying characteristics)
when’s psychological well-being higher
among those with distinct multiple selves (complexity), that are well-established (clarity) and require similar personal attributes that are compatible with the individual’s character (consistency)
o Self-concept complexity protects self-esteem when some roles are damaged or threatened
o Self-concept complexity helps people adapt, but too much variation causes internal tension and conflict
- Well-being also increases with self-concept clarity
o Those who’re unsure of their self-views are more easily influenced by others, experience more stress when making decisions, and feel more threatened by social forces that undermine their self-confidence and self-esteem
how are employees with complex identities
more adaptive decision making and performance – multiple selves generate more diverse experiences and role patterns (can alter their thinking and behaviour to suit new tasks and work environments)
problem with high complexity
complex self-concepts require more effort to maintain and juggle which can be stressful
Low complexity (define themselves by their work) – better performance due to more investment in skill development, longer hours, more concentration on work, lower absenteeism and turnover
why does clarity improve performance and why is it bad for it
o Less threatened by interpersonal conflict (more constructive problem-solving behaviours)
o High clarity may lead to role inflexibility
four selves
self-enhancement, self-verification, self-evaluation, social self
self-enhancement
- People are inherently motivated to perceive themselves and be perceived as competent, attractive, lucky, ethical and important – self-enhancement
- Individuals tend to rate themselves above average, believe that they have a better than average probability of success, and attribute their successes to personal motivation or ability while blaming the situation for their mistake
o Ex: 70% of students believe their academic performance is above average, 62% say that they have above-average leadership ability - Individuals tend to experience better mental and physical health when they amplify their self-concept + “can-do” attitude
o Negative side: self-enhancement causes people to overestimate future returns in investment decisions and engage in unsafe behaviour + responsible for executives repeating poor decisions, launching misguided corporate diversification strategies, acquiring excessive corporate debt
self-verification
a person’s inherent motivation to confirm and maintain their existing self-concept
- When a person’s identity as a leader is questioned by others, the leader applies self-verification strategies (making their role performance more visible, adopting a les threatening style of that self-view, directly confronting those who doubt or disagree with their identity as a leader)
- Unlike self-enhancement, self-verification includes seeking feedback that isn’t necessarily flattering
o Do we prefer compliments rather than accurate critique about weaknesses that we readily acknowledge?
- Affects the perceptual processes because employees are more likely to remember information that is consistent with their self-concept and nonconsciously screen out information that seems inconsistent with it
- People with high self-concept clarity will consciously dismiss feedback that contradicts their self-concept
- Employees are motivated to interact with others how affirm their self-views
self-evolution
- Defined by self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control
- Self-esteem – the extent to which people like, respect, and are satisfied with themselves
o People have degrees of self-esteem for each of their various roles – form an overall evaluation of themselves (global self-esteem)
o High self-esteem – less influenced by others, tend to persist in spite of failure, have higher propensity to think logically - Self-efficacy – a person’s belief that they have the ability, motivation, correct role perception, and favorable situation to complete a task successfully
o High self-efficacy leads to a “can-do” attitude – believe they possess the energy (motivation), ability, clear expectations (role perceptions) and resources (situational factors)
o Often task specific, but it can also be more generalized - Locus of control – a person’s general belief about the amount of control they have over personal life events
o Internal – believe that life events are caused mainly by their personal characteristics
More positive self-evaluation + perform better in most employment situations, are more successful in their careers, earn more money, are better suited for leadership positions
More satisfied with their jobs, cope better in stressful situations, and are more motivated by performance-based reward systems
o External – events are mainly due to fate, luck, other external factors
o Most apparent in new situations where their ability to control events is uncertain
the social self
- Two opposing human motives that influence how humans view themselves
- Motivation to be distinctive and different from other people
o Personal identity/internal self-concepts – fulfils the need for distinctiveness because it involves defining ourselves by our personality, values, abilities, qualifications, achievements, other personal attributes - Motivation for inclusion and assimilation with other people
o The relational and collective self-concepts fulfil the fundamental need for affiliation – involve both interaction and interdependence with others
o Social identity or external self-concept - Social identity theory – a theory stating that people define themselves by the groups to which they belong or have an emotional attachment
- One factor that determines importance of memberships – how easily you’re identified as a member of the reference group + your minority status in the group + the group’s status
perception
– the process of receiving information about and making sense of the world around us
o Determining which information to notice, how to categorize this information, how to interpret it within the framework of our existing knowledge
when does perception begin
when environmental stimuli are received through our senses, some things are screened out, the rest are organized and interpreted
selective attention
the process of attending to some information received by our senses and ignoring other information
o Influenced by characteristics of the person or object being perceived (size, intensity, motion, repetition, novelty)
o Characteristics of the perceiver also influence – without the perceiver’s awareness – our brain quickly and nonconsciously assesses whether it’s relevant or irrelevant and then attaches emotional markers (help us store information in memory)
confirmation bias
the processing of screening our information that is contrary to our values and assumptions, and to more readily accept confirming information
o Pay attention to information that supports that decision, ignore information that questions the wisdom of the decision, and more easily recall the supportive than the opposing information
o Ex: student pilots became unsure of their location – tried to find their true location by relying on less reliable information that was consistent with their assumptions
categorical thinking
organizing people and objects into preconceive categories that are stored in our long-term memory
o People are usually grouped together based on their observable similarity + by their proximity to one another
what’s the second perceptual grouping process
organizes incoming information – fills out in the missing pieces of the puzzle
o Everyone has a need for cognitive closure -> assumptions about missing information by relying on past images and experiences in those situations
example for a tendency to see patterns in random events
incorrectly believe that a sports player or gambler with a string of wins is more likely to win the next time as well
trustworthiness experiment
o We make judgements about another individual’s trustworthiness after viewing a facial image for as little as 50ms
o Whether we see a face for a minute or just 200ms our opinion about their trustworthiness stays the same
mental models
knowledge structures that we develop to describe, explain, an predict the world around us
o Partly rely on the process of perceptual grouping to make sense of things, fill in the missing pieces (including the causal connection among events)
o Make it difficult to see the world in different ways – block our recognition of new opportunities
changing mental models
– being aware of and frequently questioning them – ask ourselves about the assumptions that we make
o Also working with people from diverse backgrounds
stereotyping
the process of assigning traits to people based on their membership in a social category
o The assigned characteristics tend to be difficult to observe (personality traits and abilities)
explanations for stereotyping
- Stereotyping is a nonconscious “energy-saving” process – simplifies our understanding of the world
o Easier to remember features of a stereotype than characteristics unique to everyone we meet - People have an innate need to understand and anticipate how others will behave – the higher the perceiver’s need for cognitive closure, the higher the reliance on stereotypes
- Third explanation – motivated by the observer’s need for social identity and self-enhancement
categorization
the comparison with others begins by categorizing people into distinct groups, see others as a prototypical representative of the group
homogenization
to simplify the comparison process, we tend to think that people within each group are very similar to one another
differentiation
assign more favourable characteristics to people in our groups than to people in other groups – motivated by self-enhancement
problems with stereotypes
inaccurate – more characteristics are distorted and embellished
stereotype threat
an individual’s concern about confirming a negative stereotype about their group so they end up displaying that stereotype trait
o People anxiously try to avoid conforming the undesirable traits and try to push the negative image from their mind – divert energy and attention + weaken self-efficacy (difficult to be confident in your ability when your group’s stereotype suggests otherwise)
stereotype threat experiment
women perform worse on math and science tests when sensitized to the belief that women perform worse in these subjects + lower scores when there are few women in the group being tested
o Much higher scores when the gender stereotype isn’t salient
o Observed for women, African Americans and other minority groups, and older people
unintentional systemic discrimination experiment
science faculty from several research intensive universities – given the application materials of an undergraduate student who was applying for a science lab manager job – half were male applicant, half female applicant
o Much higher ratings for the male applicant and a 4000 dollars higher starting salary
intentional discrimination or prejudice
hold unfounded negative attitudes + deliberately puts the target person at an unfair disadvantage
minorities stats
need to submit 50% more job applications to receive the same amount of interviews
o French code of BBR – bleu-blanc-rouge
can specialized training programs minimize stereotype activation
to some extent, but the process is mostly hardwired in our braincells
o Better to prevent the application of stereotypes and not activation
attribution process
the perceptual process of deciding whether an observed behaviour or event is caused largely by internal or external factor
three attribution rules
consistency, distinctiveness, consensus
o Consistency is high for both internal and external attributions (low consistency weakens our confidence about what the source of the problem is)
o Distinctiveness and consensus determine whether the attribution should be internal or external, consistency determines our confidence
self-serving bias
the tendency to attribute our favourable outcomes to internal factors and our failures to external factors
o We take credit for our successes and blame others or the situation for our mistakes
fundamental attribution error
the tendency to see the person rather than the situation as the main cause of that person’s behaviour
o Observers can’t easily see the external factors that constrain another person’s behaviour + people like to think that human beings are the prime sources of their behaviours
o Less apparent in Asia and other cultures that encourage people to be mindful of the context of behaviour
self-fulfilling prophecy
the perceptual process in which our expectations about another person cause that person to act more consistently with those expectations
the process of self-fulfilling prophecy
o The supervisor forms expectations about the employee’s future behaviour and performance (sometimes inaccurate)
o These expectations influence their behaviour toward employees – high-expectancy employees receive more emotional support through nonverbal cues, more frequent and valuable feedback and reinforcement, more challenging goals, better training, more opportunities to demonstrate good performance
o High-expectancy employee learns more skills + the employee has higher self-efficacy which results in higher motivation and willingness to set more challenging goals
o Employee’s behaviour becomes more consistent with the supervisor’s initial expectations
self-fulfilling prophecy - Israeli army
told that 1/3 of the incoming trainees had high command potential, 1/3 had normal potential and the rest were unknown
o High-expectancy soldiers performed significantly better by the end of the course
when’s self-fulfilling prophecy stronger
at the beginning of a relationship + when several people hold the same expectations of the individual + among those with a history of low achievement
positive organizational behavior
a perspective of organizational behaviour that focuses on building positive qualities and traits within individuals or institutions as opposed to focusing on what’s wrong with them
training programs for self-fulfilling prophecy
- Training programs that make leaders aware of the power of positive expectations – minimal effect
o Hiring supervisors who’re inherently optimistic – increasing the positive self-fulfiling prophecy
halo effect
a perceptual error whereby our general impression of a person, usually based on one prominent characteristic, colours our perception of other characteristics of that person
o Most likely to occur when important information about the perceived target is missing or we’re not sufficiently motivated to search for it
false-consensus effect
a perceptual error in which we overestimate the extent to which others have beliefs and characteristics similar to our own
o Reasons: comforted by the belief that others are similar to us (especially with regard to less acceptable or divisive behaviour), we interact more with people who have similar views and behaviours, we’re more likely to notice and remember information that is consistent with our own views, we engage in the process of homogenizing people within groups
recency effect
a perceptual error in which the most recent information dominates our perception of others
o Most common when people make a decision involving complex information
primacy effect
a perceptual error in which we quickly form an opinion of people based on the first information we receive about them
awareness of perceptual bias training
- Diversity awareness training – making people aware of systemic discrimination and prejudices + dispel myths about people from various cultural and demographic groups
o Only has a limited effect – teaching people to reject incorrect stereotypes has the unintended effect of reinforcing rather than reducing reliance on those stereotypes
o Ineffective for people with deeply held prejudices against those groups
Johari window
a model of mutual understanding that encourages disclosure and feedback to increase our own open area and reduce the blind, hidden and unknown areas
o Open – known both to you and others
o Blind – known to others but not to you
o Hidden – known to you but not to others
o Unknown – nobody knows them
Johari window - increasing the size of the open area
o Disclosure – informing others of your beliefs, feelings, experiences that may influence the work relationships
o Feedback from others about your behaviour – reduces your blind area
contact hypothesis
contact hypothesis
the more we interact with someone, the less prejudiced or perceptually biased we will be against that person
when are meaningful interactions the strongest
when people work closely and frequently with one another on a shared goal that requires mutual cooperation and reliance
o Reduces dependence on stereotypes – diminishes psychological distance, improves our knowledge about individuals, helps us to observe their unique attributes in action
empathy
understanding and being sensitive to the feelings, thoughts and situations of others
o Empathize when they visualize themselves in other person’s place – cognitive, emotional, experiential
o Improves our sensitivity to the external causes of another person’s performance and behaviour
global mindset
an individuals’ ability to perceive, appreciate, and empathize with people from other cultures, and to process complex cross-cultural information
four elements of the global mindset
o Adopting a global perspective – global rather than a local frame of reference about their business and its environment – accumulating knowledge and appreciation of many cultures without judging the competence of others by their nationality
o Empathizing and acting effectively across cultures
o Processing complex information about novel environments
o Developing new multilevel mental models
what are people with a global mindset good at
- Form better relationships across cultures by understanding and showing respect + can sift through ambiguous and novel information + capacity to form networks and exchange resources more rapidly
how does the global mindset begin
with self-awareness -> more open minded and non-judgemental when receiving and processing complex information
