Chapter 2: Perception, Personality, Emotion Flashcards
Perception is determining whether a given behaviour is
internally or externally caused.
Perception
how individuals organize and interpret their impressions to give meaning to their environment.
Importance of Perception (2)
- Behaviour based on perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.
- World as it is perceived is the world that is behaviourally important
Goals of Understanding Perception (3)
- Better understand how people make attributes about events
- We don’t see reality; we interpret what we see and call it reality
- Attribution process guides our behavior, regardless of truth of attribution
Perceptual Errors
Perception is susceptible to influence of external and internal factors
Attribution Theory
and pay attention to 3 things
How individuals should make attributions by paying attention to distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency
Distinctiveness
What does it assess?
External Attribution
Internal Attribution
- “How often does the person do this in other situations?”.
- External attribution: Not Often = high distinctiveness and thus situation is likely responsible for behavior
- Internal attribution: Very Often = low distinctiveness and thus person is likely responsible for behavior
Consensus
What does it assess?
External Attribution
Internal Attribution
“How often do other people do this in similar situations?”.
External attribution: Very Often = high consensus and thus situation is likely responsible for behavior
Internal attribution: Not Often = low consensus and thus person is likely responsible for behavior
Consistency
What does it assess?
External Attribution
Internal Attribution
“How often did the person do this in the past?”.
External attribution: Not Often = low consistency and thus situation is likely responsible for behavior
Internal attribution: Very Often = high consistency and thus person is likely responsible for behavior
Attribution for Self-Serving-Bias
Example
Tendency to attribute one’s success to internal factors and blame for failures on external factors
Example: if I get A+ then attribute to talents, hard work, smartness (internal) but if F then attribute to exam hard, professor didn’t explain (External)
Attribution for others – Fundamental Attribution Error
Example
Tendency to underestimate external factors and overestimate internal factors when making judgements about other’s behaviors.
Example: if John gets A+ I attribute to his luck or the easy test (External) and if gets an F I attribute to his lack of talent (Internal)
Selective Perception:
people’s tendency to selectively interpret what they see based on interests, background, experience and attitudes
Halo Effect
tendency to draw a general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic, such as intelligence, like-ability, or appearance, first impression
Contrast Effect
person’s evaluation is affected by comparisons with other individuals recently encountered
Phenomenon:
fact or situation that is observed to exist or happen, especially one whose cause or explanation is in question.
Projection
Example
Tendency to attribute one’s own characteristic to other people. Project our preferences on others.
Example: If I like this food then others should as well
Stereotying
Negative
Positive
Tendency to judge someone on basis of our perception of the group to which they belong. Etc by race, sex, religion, ethnicity, culture, their job.
Negative aspect: Judge in negative view, perspective, excluded for their identity
Positive aspect: Useful when under time pressure to get to know someone.
Prejudice and how it is different than stereotyping
unfounded dislike of a person or group based on their belonging to a particular stereotyped group. Prejudice is always negative views whereas stereotyping can be negative, neutral and positive
Is It Possible to Eliminate Perceptual Errors?:
Errors are cognitive shortcuts for people to make quick decisions so unlikely to remove errors entirely. Must be aware of them when bias decisions are likely to cause significant damage
Personality
Stable patterns of behaviour, internal states that determine how an individual reacts and interacts with others
Why Is Personality Important?
Useful in hiring decisions, help manager forecast who fits job
How to measure personality:
Self-Report Survey and 2 main ones
Individuals evaluate on series of factors etc Big 5 Personality, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Myers-Briggs: 4 vs categories
- Extroverted or Introverted
- Sensing or Intuitive
- Thinking or Feeling
- Perceiving or Judging
Myers-Briggs: Descriptions
1. extroverted or Introverted
2. Sensing or Intuitive
3. Thinking or Feeling
4. Perceiving or Judging
- Outgoing/Social vs Quiet and Shy
- Order and Detail vs unconscious and big picture
- Reason and Logic vs values and emotions
- Control and order vs flexible and spontaneous
Big 5 Personality: 5 vs categories
- Openness to Experience
- Conscientiousness
- Extraversion
- Agreeableness
- Neuroticism (Emotional Stability)
Big 5 Personality categories descriptions
1. Openness to Experience
2. Conscientiousness
3. Extraversion
4. Agreeableness
5. Neuroticism (Emotional Stability)
- Unimaginative, dull VS. Creative, artistic
- Distracted, disorganized, unreliable VS. Responsible, organized, dependable
- Reserved, timid, quiet VS. Assertive, Sociable
- Cold, disagreeable VS. warm, empathetic, and trusting
- Anxious, depressed, insecure VS. Calm, self-confident, and secure
Observer Rating Surveys
`which is more accurate, observer or self survey?
Assessment of personality through unobtrusive observation of target individuals
More accurate than self-survey
What determines personality (3)
Heredity, Environment, Situational
Heredity:
Individuals personality is molecular structure of genes in chromosomes
Environment
Culture, location, early conditioning, family norms, friends and social groups, and other influences shape our personality
Situational (Influences heredity and environment)
Examples
Personality subdued in situations so cannot look at personality patterns in isolation.
Ex act different in job interview vs out with friends.
Other Personality Attributes Influencing OB: Machiavellians
High mach example:
individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, believes ends justify the means
High Machs: Win more, manipulate more, persuaded less, persuade more
Other Personality Attributes Influencing OB: Narcissism
Arrogant, sense of importance, seek admiration, entitlement. Think they are better but actually rated worse
Other Personality Attributes Influencing OB: Psychopathy
Lack of concern for others, lack of guilt, lack of remorse when one’s actions cause harm to others
Other Personality Attributes Influencing OB: Proactive Personality
person who identifies opportunities, shows initiative, and takes action until change occurs
Other Personality Attributes Influencing OB: Core Self-Evaluations
how people evaluate themselves. People perform better as they set ambitious goals, committed to their goals, persist to achieve goals
Core Self-Evaluations: Self-Esteem
People like or dislike themselves
Core Self-Evaluations: Self-Efficacy
People see themselves as effective, capable and in control of environment
Other Personality Attributes Influencing OB: Self-Monitoring (2)
- Person ability to adjust behaviour to external situational factors
- pay close attention to behaviour of others, more capable of conforming low self-monitors, mobile in careers, receive promotions
Emotions
what is it caused by?
features of it
- Intense feelings directed at someone or something
- Caused by event, brief duration, action oriented in nature, facial expressions
Moods
what is it caused by?
features of it
- Feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions, lack contextual stimulus
- Cause is general and unclear, last longer than emotions, more general, not indicated by facial expressions, cognitive in nature
Affect:
Covers a broad range of feelings from people’s experience, including emotions and mood
Where do emotions come from?
Positive
Negative
Positive: Desired events, make difficult challenges feel more achievable
Negative: Undesired events, precursor to conflicts & deviance at work
Why do emotions matter? (3)
- information on how we understand the world
- people who know their emotions are good at reading other’s emotions and effective in jobs
- Emotional Contagion
Emotional Contagion
negative emotions last longer than positive
Emotional Regulation
Process by which people identify and modify their emotions
Emotional Regulation - Surface acting
People don’t change emotions they feel but change emotions they display through facial expressions -> least regulation
Surface Acting: emotional labour
displayed emotions are inconsistent with felt emotions etc nurses, doctors, teachers
Emotional Regulation - Deep Acting
change of emotions come internally. People change emotions they experience as well as they display -> less psychologically demanding than surface acting
Emotional Regulation - Cognitive Reappraisal
people acknowledge rather than suppress their emotions. make sense of and re-evaluate the triggers behind emotions
Emotional Regulation - Venting:
express emotions rather than bottling it up, goal of reducing negative emotions. Listener shifts focus away from triggers of emotions
Emotional Intelligence:
impact on work if high emotional intelligence
individual’s ability to be self-aware, detect emotions in others, manage emotional cues and information
Impact on work is you are more effective
Reasons for Emotional Intelligence (3)
- people who can detect emotions in others, control their emotions, and handle social interactions well to perform better in the business world.
- Evidence suggests that people high in emotional intelligence tend to perform better on the job.
- biological evidence for the existence of emotional intelligence.
Reasons against Emotional Intelligence (3)
- No definition of emotional intelligence that researchers of emotional intelligence can agree on.
- No consensus on the best way of measuring emotional intelligence
- Emotional intelligence in some aspect is very similar to personality
