Chapter 3 Perceiving Ourselves and Others in Organizations Flashcards
Self concept
An individual’s self-beliefs and self-evaluations
Our self concept is defined at 3 levels
individual, relational, and collective
An individual’s self-concept can be described by three characteristics
1) Complexity
2) Consistency
3) Clarity
Complexity
refers to the number of dis- tinct and important roles or identities that people perceive about themselves
Self-concept complexity is defined by more than just the number of identities a person has; it is also defined by the separation of those identities
Consistency
is the degree to which a person’s identities require similar personal attributes
Clarity
refers to the degree to which a person’s self-concept is clear, confidently defined, and stable
Self Concept Processes
1) Self enhancement
2) Self verification
3) Self evaluation
4) Social Self
Self Enhancement
A person’s inherent motivation to have
a positive self-concept (and to have others perceive them favourably), such as being competent, attractive, lucky, ethical, and important.
Self verification
A person’s inherent motivation to confirm and maintain their existing self-concept.
Self evaluation is defined by
1) Self esteem
2) Self efficacy
3) Locus of control
Self esteem
the extent to which people like, respect, and are satisfied with themselves—represents a comprehensive self-evaluation.
Self efficacy
A person’s belief that they have the ability, motivation, correct role perceptions, and favourable situation to complete a task successfully.
Locus of control
A person’s general belief about the amount of control they have over personal life events.
Social identity theory
A theory stating that people define themselves by the groups to which they belong or have an emotional attachment.
Selective Attention
The process of attending to some information received by our senses and ignoring other information.
Confirmation bias
The process of screening out information that is contrary to our values and assumptions, and to more readily accept con- firming information.
Categorical Thinking
Organizing people and objects into preconceived categories that are stored in our long-term memory.
Stereotyping
The process of assigning traits to people based on their membership in a social category.
Why do people stereotype
1) it saves energy
2) fills in the missing pieces
3) helps with social identity and self enhancement
Stereotype threat
An individual’s concern about confirming a negative stereotype about their group
Attribution theory
The perceptual process of deciding whether an observed behaviour or event is caused largely by internal or external factors.
3 Attribution rules
1) Consistency
2) Distinctiveness
3) Consensus
Self serving bias
The tendency to attribute our favourable outcomes to internal factors and our failures to external factors.
Fundamental Attribution error
(also called correspondence bias), is the tendency to overemphasize internal causes of another person’s behaviour and to discount or ignore external causes of their behaviour.
