Lesson 3

Question 1

Self-concept

Answer 1

An individual’s self-beliefs and self-evaluations.

It is the “Who am I?” and “How do I feel about myself?” that people ask themselves and that guide their decisions and actions.

Question 2

An individual’s self-concept can be described by three characteristics:

Answer 2

• Complexity
• Consistency
• Clarity

Question 3

Self-concept - Complexity

Answer 3

Refers to the number of distinct and important roles or identities that people perceive about themselves.

Question 4

Self-concept - Consistency

Answer 4

High internal consistency exists when most of the individual’s self-perceived roles require similar personality traits, values, and other attributes. Low consistency occurs when some self-perceptions require personal characteristics that conflict with characteristics required for other aspects of self.

Question 5

Self-concept - Clarity

Answer 5

The degree to which you have a clear, confidently defined, and stable self-concept.

Question 6

Self-enhancement

Answer 6

A person’s inherent motivation to have a positive self-concept (and to have others perceive him/her favour- ably), such as being competent, attractive, lucky, ethical, and important.

Question 7

Four processes that shape self-concept and motivate a person’s decisions and behaviour:

Answer 7

• self-enhancement
• self-verification
• self-evaluation
• social self (social identity)

Question 8

Self-verification

Answer 8

A person’s inherent motivation to confirm and maintain his/her existing self-concept.

Question 9

Self-evaluation

Answer 9

This self-evaluation is mostly defined by three elements: self-esteem, self-efficacy, and locus of control.

Question 10

Self-esteem

Answer 10

The extent to which people like, respect, and are satisfied with themselves.

Question 11

Self-efficacy

Answer 11

A person’s belief that he or she has the ability, motivation, correct role perceptions, and favourable situation to complete a task successfully.

Question 12

Locus of control

Answer 12

A person’s general belief about the amount of control he or she has over personal life events.

Question 13

Social self (social identity)

Answer 13

Everyone has a self-concept that includes at least a few identities (manager, parent, golfer, etc.) and each identity is defined by a set of attributes. These attributes highlight both the person’s uniqueness (personal identity) or association with others (social identity).

Question 14

Personal identity (also known as internal self-concept)

Answer 14

Consists of attributes that make us unique and distinct from people in the social groups to which we have a connection.

Question 15

Social identity theory

Answer 15

A theory stating that people define themselves by the groups to which they belong or have an emotional attachment.

Question 16

Perception

Answer 16

The process of receiving information about and making sense of the world around us.

Question 17

Selective attention

Answer 17

The process of attending to some information received by our senses and ignoring other information.

Question 18

Confirmation bias

Answer 18

The process of screening out information that is contrary to our values and assumptions and to more readily accept confirming information.

Question 19

Categorical thinking

Answer 19

Organizing people and objects into preconceived categories that are stored in our long-term memory.

Question 20

Mental models

Answer 20

Knowledge structures that we develop to describe, explain, and predict the world around us.

Question 21

Stereotyping

Answer 21

The process of assigning traits to people based on their membership in a social category.

Question 22

Stereotyping - Categorization

Answer 22

Social identity is a comparative process, and the comparison begins by categorizing people into distinct groups. By viewing someone (including yourself) as a Nova Scotian, for example, you remove that person’s individuality and, instead, see him or her as a prototypical representative of the group called Nova Scotians. This categorization then allows you to distinguish Nova Scotians from people who live in, say, Ontario or Alberta.

Question 23

Stereotyping - Homogenization

Answer 23

To simplify the comparison process, we tend to think that people within each group are very similar to each other. For instance, we think Nova Scotians collectively have similar attitudes and characteristics, whereas Ontarians collectively have their own set of characteristics. Of course, every individual is unique, but we tend to lose sight of this fact when thinking about our social identity and how we compare to people in other social groups.

Question 24

Stereotyping - Differentiation

Answer 24

Along with categorizing and homogenizing people, we tend to assign more favourable characteristics to people in our groups than to people in other groups.51 This differentiation is motivated by self-enhancement because being in a “better” group produces higher self-esteem. Differentiation is often subtle, but it can escalate into a “good guy–bad guy” contrast when groups engage in overt conflict with each other. In other words, when out-group members threaten our self-concept, we are particularly motivated (often without our awareness) to assign negative stereotypes to them. Some research suggests that men have stronger differentiation biases than do women, but we all differentiate to some extent.

Question 25

Attribution process

Answer 25

The perceptual process of deciding whether an observed behaviour or event is caused largely by internal or external factors.

Question 26

Attribution Theory Rules

Answer 26

Internal Attribution - Behaviour is attributed to personal factors

External Attribution - Behaviour is attributed to situational factors

Consistency
Did this person act this way in this situation in the past?
Yes (high consistency) - Internal Attribution
Yes (high consistency) - External Attribution

Distinctiveness
Does this person act this way in other situations?
Yes (low distinctiveness) - Internal Attribution
No (high distinctiveness) - External Attribution

Consensus
Do other people act this way in this situation?
Yes (high consensus) - Internal Attribution
No (low consensus) - External Attribution

Question 27

Self-serving bias

Answer 27

The tendency to attribute our favourable out- comes to internal factors and our failures to external factors.

Question 28

Fundamental attribution error

Answer 28

The tendency to see the person rather than the situation as the main cause of that per- son’s behaviour.

Question 29

Self-fulfilling prophecy

Answer 29

The perceptual process in which our expectations about another per- son cause that person to act more consistently with those expectations.

Question 30

The Self-Fulfilling- Prophecy Cycle

Answer 30

1. Supervisor forms expectations about the employee
2. Supervisor’s expectations affect his/her behaviour toward the employee
3. Supervisor’s behaviour affects the employee’s ability and motivation (self-confidence)
4. Employee’s behaviour becomes more consistent with the supervisor’s initial expectations

4 back to 1 - repeat

Question 31

Positive organizational behaviour

Answer 31

A perspective of organizational behaviour that focuses on building positive qualities and traits within individuals or institutions as opposed to focusing on what is wrong with them.

Question 32

Halo effect

Answer 32

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.

Question 33

False-consensus effect

Answer 33

A perceptual error in which we overestimate the extent to which others have beliefs and characteristics similar to our own.

Question 34

Primacy effect

Answer 34

A perceptual error in which we quickly form an opinion of people based on the first information we receive about them.

Question 35

Recency effect

Answer 35

A perceptual error in which the most recent information dominates our perception of others.

Question 36

Three potentially effective ways to improve perceptions include:

Answer 36

• awareness of perceptual biases
• self-awareness
• meaningful interaction

Question 37

Johari Window

Answer 37

A model of mutual understanding that encourages disclosure and feed- back to increase our own open area and reduce the blind, hidden, and unknown areas.

Question 38

Contact hypothesis

Answer 38

A theory stating that the more we interact with someone, the less prejudiced or perceptually biased we will be against that person.

Question 39

Empathy

Answer 39

A person’s understanding of and sensitivity to the feelings, thoughts, and situations of others.

Question 40

Global mindset

Answer 40

An individual’s ability to perceive, appreciate, and empathize with people from other cultures, and to process complex cross-cultural information.