Organisational Behaviour Thiccie Flashcards
To get High Distinctions
Define OB.
The study of what people think, feel and do in and around organisations
Define Work Design.
The content of tasks, activities and responsibility in a job and now those, tasks, activities and responsibilities are organised
Define Specific Management.
A set of principles and practices stressing job simplification and specialization
List the 4 Principles of Scientific Management.
- Replace rule of thumb with the scientific method
- Select, train, teach and develop your personnel
- Strict division of labour: “managers plan the work workers work the plan”
- Compensation is based on work output
List the positives (4) and negatives (5) of the Scientific Method.
Positives: • Less time changing activities • Lower training costs • Job mastered quickly • Better person–job matching
Negatives: • Loss of control • Repetitive, boring tasks • Meaningless, monotonous work • High job dissatisfaction • Little or no opportunity to develop and acquire new skills
Explain the Job Characteristic Model (STTAT)
- Skill variety - The opportunity to do a variety of job activities using various skills and talents.
- Task identity – The extent to which a job involves doing a complete piece of work, from beginning to end.
- Task significance – The impact that a job has on other people.
- Autonomy – The freedom to schedule one’s own work activities and decide work procedures.
- Feedback – Information about the effectiveness of one’s work performance.
Explain Work Re-Design (Job Rotation)
- Periodically moving workers from one specialised job to another
- Exposes employees to new knowledge, skills and perspectives
- Useful if high degree of physical demand or a high degree of repetitive tasks that can become extremely tedious.
- Increases organisational adaptivity and flexibility
Explain Work Re-Design (Job Enlargement)
- Increasing the number of tasks performed by a worker to add greater variety to activities, thus reducing monotony
- Horizontal restructuring method (More tasks at the same responsibility)
- Increased work flexibility
Explain Work Re-Design (Job Enrichment)
• Assigning additional responsibility and authority to an employee’s tasks
• Vertical restructuring method (Same task but more responsibility)
• Enrichment methods
o Granting additional authority to employees in their activities
o Giving a person a complete, natural unit of work
o Introducing new and more difficult tasks not previously handled
What are the three types of work re-design?
- Job Rotation
- Job Enrichment
- Job Enlargement
How do you make jobs more pro-socially motivating?
• Connect employees with the beneficiaries of their work
o Meet beneficiaries firsthand
• Allows employees to see that their actions affect a real, live person, and that their jobs have tangible consequences.
• Customers or clients more emotionally vivid leads employees to consider the effects of their actions more.
• Allow employees to easily take the perspective of beneficiaries higher commitment.
• Example
o Call centre, low morale, high turnover
o 5-minute conversation with university scholarship recipients
o Increased productivity and motivation
What are the three categories for the consequences of distress?
- Physiological
- Psychological
- Behavioural
Define Stress
An adaptive response to a situation that is perceived as challenging or threatening to the person’s wellbeing
Explain the Job Demand-Control Model
• Best known model
• Emphasises two aspects:
o Level of strain (demands)
Aspects of the job that require sustained physical and/or psychological effort
time pressure, emotional labour, workload
o Decision latitude (control)
The freedom an employee has to control and organise his own work.
What are the three levels of OB?
- Individual level
- Group level
- Organisational level
Name three behavioural sciences studied in OB.
- Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Sociology
- Anthropology
Give three dot points regarding Taylorism (1910s)
- Taylor believed that man’s worth depended on his level of productivity
- Obsessed about increasing the level of output
- People should specialise in jobs for maximum productivity
- The period didn’t last long
List three subjective measures.
• By researcher o Over/Covert • By Other o Supervisor or co-workers report • By Participant o Self-report o May be favoured
What was the Hawthorne Effect?
• Hawthorne Effect: When people know they are being watched they will naturally increase their productivity
What is poly-motivation?
• Discovered poly-motivation
o Not just financially driven
o People are complex
o Social, emotional and other intangibles are important to individuals
What is knowledge by intuition?
- Intuition is defined as the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.
- Intuition is not always correct
- Subject to bias and errors
- Cannot solve complicated problems
What is knowledge by experience?
- Intuition is defined as the ability to understand something instinctively, without the need for conscious reasoning.
- Intuition is not always correct
- Subject to bias and errors
- Cannot solve complicated problems
What is knowledge by tradition?
• Traditions… o Differ between cultures o Change over time o Can be manipulated • Tradition truisms (folk wisdom) can be contradictory o “Out of sight, out of mind” o “Absence makes the heart grow fonder”
What is knowledge by listening to authoritative sources?
- Authorities are not always well informed
* Which authority do you support?
What is casual benchmarking?
• Doing what others seem to be doing
• United Airlines mimicked Southwest Airlines approach
o Not successful due to cultural differences
• Instead conduct your own research and derive your own methods
What is critical thinking?
- Ask questions
- Examine available evidence (do your own research)
- Avoid oversimplifying
- Avoid emotional reasoning
What is evidence based management?
- Using data changes the power dynamic
- People often don’t want to hear the truth (don’t like their beliefs to be challenged)
- People don’t believe the evidence
What is empirical research?
Based on the careful study of data:
• Learn the mechanisms of behaviour without relying on common sense/introspection
• Cannot base OB on folk wisdom or personal beliefs
• Must have testable hypotheses
What is a theory?
• Set of propositions that describe inter-relationships among several concepts
• Generic but needs to be testable
• 2 types of possible relationships
o Correlation
o Causation
• For example: Fatty, greasy foods are linked to obesity and poor health
What is a hypothesis?
- A specific, testable statement explaining the condition under which something occurs.
- Derived from a theory
- For example: Eating McDonalds for a month will lead to weight gain and increased levels of cholesterol
What is experimental design?
• The researcher randomly assigns participants to different conditions and ensures that these conditions are identical except for the independent variable.
• Determining if X caused Y- Requirements
o The variables are related
o Temporal order, cause must precede effect (can’t measure at the same time)
o Eliminate alternate explanations
o Requires control groups (placebo)
o Time consuming
What is Quasi-Experimental design?
• Participants are not assigned randomly to conditions
• Naturally occurring groups or pre-existing teams used
• For example
o Different leadership styles
• More common but less concrete
What are cross-sectional designs?
- All data collected at once
- Most common in OB
- Often done with surveys
- Cannot determine causality- no temporal separation
- Cheap and efficient
- Alternative explanations (variables) are not eliminated
What is Agreeableness?
• A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative
Explain Correlation Coefficients
• Sign (+/-) indicates the direction of the relationship o Positive (+) ‘A’ increases, ‘B’ increases ‘A’ decreases, ‘B’ decreases o Negative (-) ‘A’ increases, ‘B’ decreases ‘A’ decreases, ‘B’ increases • Magnitude (0 – 1) o 1.00 or -1.00 = perfect relationship o 0.0 = no relationship at all o 0.80 or -0.70 = strong relationship o 0.15 or -0.09 = weak relationship
Define Moderation
Moderation means one variable qualifies the relationship between the other variables
• One variable indicates the circumstances under which the relationship between the other variables exists
Explain mediation (explanatory mechanism)
- A mediator is a variable or construct that facilitates the relationship between the 2 variables
- Below: Rumination is the mediator between stress and depression
Define Individual Differences
• Each person is different, one’s identity is defined by a combination of traits and characteristics
Define Personality
• Relatively enduring pattern of thoughts, emotions, and behaviours that characterise a person, along with the psychological processes behind those characteristics
What are personality traits
• Traits are distinguishing personal characteristics
• Relatively stable
• How an individual reacts to and interacts with others
• Difficult to measure
o Not reliable
o Not accurate
Where does personality originate?
Nature: Genetics
Nurture: Life experiences, relatively fixed by age 30
What does OCEAN Stand for?
Openness to experience Conscientiousness Extraversion Agreeableness Neuroticism
What is a proactive personality?
- Tendency to engage in proactive behaviour
- Initiative
- Related to job performance and career success
What is Conscientiousness?
- Tendency to plan and be self-disciplined
* Planned rather that spontaneous
What is extraversion?
• Tendency to enjoy human interaction
What is Agreeableness?
• A tendency to be compassionate and cooperative
What is Neuroticism?
- A tendency towards negative moods
* Experience unpleasant emotions easily
Describe Shwartz’s value model
- Openness to Change (Motivation to pursue innovative ways)
- Conservation (motivation to preserve status quo)
- Self-enhancement (motivated by self-interest)
- Self-transcendence (motivation to promote welfare of others)
Values oppose each other
- Openness to change opposes conservation
-Self-enhancement opposes self-transcendence
What is the HEXACO Personaliy model?
- Honesty/Humility
- Emotionality (Neuroticism)
- Extroversion
- Agreeableness
- Conscientiousness
- Openness to Experience
What is the dark triad of personality?
Machiavellianism • Pragmatic • Maintains emotional distance • Believes ends can justify means Narcissism • Arrogant • High sense of self importance • Requires excessive admiration Psychopathy • Lack of concern for others • Lack of guilt or remorse • Lack of empathy
What is the Myer-Briggs Type Inventory
• Most widely used • 100 questions • 4 main categories • 16 different personalities • Problems: o Not consistent o Predictive validity- no solid evidence o Construct validity- lack of empirical evidence o Incomplete- leaves out important traits (neuroticism)
Identify and explain 4 situational factors
• Clarity o Cues are available and clear o Not ambiguous • Consistency o Cues all point in the same direction • Constraints o How much freedom is there to act as one wishes? • Consequences o Are there consequences of not acting according to the norms?
What are core self-evaluations?
Core self-evaluations
• Views about one’s capabilities, competence and self-worth
o Sense of worthiness
• The effect you have on the environment or vice versa
• Critical predictor of performance (stronger than the big 5)
• Too much is bad
o Over confident
What is self-monitoring?
Self-monitoring
• One’s ability to adjust to external situational factors
• Better performance and more likely to be promoted
• Adaptive and more mobile
o Less committed to the organisation
What is a proactive personality?
- Tendency to engage in proactive behaviour
- Initiative
- Related to job performance and career success
What are Hindrance Stressors?
- Constrain / interfere with and individual’s work achievement
- Do not tend to be associated with potential gains for the individual
- Role conflict, role ambiguity, role overload, job insecurity, and daily hassles
What are Challenge Stressors?
- Demands or circumstances that, although potentially stressful, have associated potential gains for individuals
- Time pressure, work complexity
What is Psychological Harassment?
- One of the fastest growing sources of workplace stress
- Repeated and hostile comments, actions and gestures that affect an employee’s dignity or integrity
- Workplace bullying, sexual harassment
What is Work Overload?
- Working long hours
- Exacerbated by technology, consumerism and globalisation
- Undermines work-life balance and psychological detachment
List ways to manage stress.
- Job redesign
- Flexible worktime
- Job Sharing
- Child care support
- Transfer
- Holidays / Personal leave
- Recovery /Detachment
List 3 alternative work arrangements.
- Flexible work time
- Job Sharing
- Telecommuting
List the advantages (5) and disadvantages (1) of flexible work time.
Advantages • Reduced absenteeism • Increased productivity • Reduced overtime expenses • Reduced hostility toward management • Increased responsibility for employees
Disadvantages
• Not applicable for all workers
List the advantages (3) and disadvantages (3) of job sharing
Advantages
• Increases flexibility and can increase motivation and satisfaction
• Declining in use
• Can be difficult to find compatible pairs of employees
Disadvantages
• Administrative costs
• Training costs
• Staffing issues
List the advantages (4) and disadvantages (4) of telecommuting
Advantages • Larger labor pool • Higher productivity • Improved morale • Reduced office-space costs
Disadvantages
(Employer)
• Less direct supervision of employees.
• Difficult to coordinate teamwork.
• Difficult to evaluate non-quantitative performance.
Employee)
• May not be noticed for his or her efforts.
Define Employee Involvement.
A participative process that uses employees’ input to increase their commitment to the organization’s success.
What is self-concept?
• Complexity
o Number and distinctiveness of the roles or identities that you perceive about yourself
o You have multiple self-views
• Consistency
o Extent to which you exhibit similar personalities or values across multiple selves
• Clarity
o Extent to which you are clearly and confidently defined
• All are assumed to facilitate leader development and help leaders better adjust to cultural settings
Explain Representative Management
• Workers are represented by a small group of employees who actively participate in decision making.
• Almost every country in Western Europe requires representative participation.
• The two most common forms:
o Works councils [nominated/elected]
o Board representatives
• The overall influence of representative participation seems to be minimal!
What are the 4 aspects of self-evaluation?
Self-Esteem
• Extent to which people like, respect and are satisfied with themselves
• High Esteem - Less influenced, more persistent and logical
Self-Efficacy
• Belief in one’s ability, motivation, role perceptions and situation to complete a task successfully
Locus of Control
• General belief about personal control over life events
• Internal v External factors
Emotional Stability
• Tendency to be confident, secure and steady
• Opposite of neuroticism
Explain hygiene factors (Herzberg)
• Job Context • Presence causes low dissatisfaction, absence causes high dissatisfaction • Examples o Salary o Benefits o Working conditions o Supervision
Explain Adam’s Equity Theory
Employees are motivated by a desire to be treated fairly
Perception of equity stems from a comparison of the inputs one invests in a job and the outcomes one receives in comparison with the inputs and outcomes of another person or group.
Explain Compensation (Pay)
Setting someone’s pay is a complex process that entails balancing
• Internal Equity
o The worth of the job to the organisation
o Usually established through a technical process called job evaluation
• External Equity
o The external competitiveness of an organisation’s pay relative to pay elsewhere in its industry
o Usually established through pay surveys
Explain Variable Pay Programs (Price-Rate Plans)
• A pure plan provides no base salary and pays the employee only for what he or she produces.
o Fruit picking, pay is determined by the volume picked
• Not a feasible approach for many jobs.
• The main concern for both individual and team piece-rate workers is financial risk
o Modified: Base hourly wage + a piece-rate differential
Explain Variable Pay Programs (Merit-Based Plans)
• Merit-based pay plans pay for individual performance based on performance appraisal ratings.
• Relationship between performance and rewards.
• Limitations
o Based on performance appraisals
These must be accurate
o Merit pool fluctuates
Based on economic conditions
o Union resistance
Advocate for seniority-based pay where all employees get the same increases
Explain Variable Pay Programs (Bonuses)
• An annual bonus is a significant component of total compensation for many jobs.
• Increasingly include lower-ranking employees.
• Bonuses reward employees for recent performance rather than historical performance (advantage over merit-based pay)
• Drawbacks:
o Employees’ pay is more vulnerable to cuts
o When bonuses are a large percentage of total pay
o Employees may just take bonuses for granted
Explain Variable Pay Programs (Profit Sharing)
• Organization-wide programs that distribute compensation based on some established formula centered around a company’s profitability.
• Appear to have positive effects on employee attitudes at the organizational level.
o Employees have a feeling of psychological ownership.
What are 4 Variable Pay Programs?
- Price Rate Plans
- Merit Based Plans
- Bonuses
- Profit Sharing
Explain Flexible Benefits
• Allow each employee to choose the compensation package
• Recall the “Valence” dimension of the Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
• Flexible benefits individualise rewards
o They replace the ‘one-benefit-plan-fits-all’ programs
Explain Employee Recognition Programs
• Important work rewards can be both intrinsic and extrinsic.
• Rewards
o Intrinsic in the form of employee recognition programs
o Extrinsic in the form of compensation systems.
• Some studies suggest:
o Financial motivators work in the short term
o Non-financial motivators work in the long term
Define Decision Making
Identifying and choosing alternative solutions that lead to a desired end result
Explain Decision Making
- Decision making is a conscious process of making choices among one or more alternatives, with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs.
- A problem is defined when there is a gap between an actual and a desired situation
List 4 characteristics of a decision maker
• Decision makers: o are objective o have complete information o consider all possible alternatives & their consequences o select the optimal solution
Define Homo Economicus
People can gather and process information without costs and are perfectly logical with only one criterion: economic gain.
What are the problems with the rational choice paradigm
- Rarely possible to consider all alternatives
- Impractical to consider all consequences
- Estimation process costs time & effort
- Information is rarely complete & accurate
- Lack mental capacity
Explain non-rational decision making (Simon Normative Model)
• Bounded rationality: constraints that restrict rational decision making
o We construct simplified models that do not capture the complexity of a problem
• Satisficing: choosing a solution that meets a minimum standard of acceptance
o Finding solutions that are good enough
• Intuition is possibly the least rational way to make decisions
• As a result
o People don’t always follow logical steps when making decisions
o We use shortcuts when judging others
What are Heuristics
Mental Shortcuts: for coming to a conclusion or decision
Rule of Thumb: people use to make decisions and judgments quickly and efficiently
List 8 biases in decision making
- Overconfidence
- Anchoring bias
- Confirmation bias
- Availability heuristic
- Escalation of commitment
- Randomness error
- Risk aversion
- Hindsight bias
What is overconfidence bias?
o The tendency to be overconfident about estimates or forecasts
What is anchoring bias?
o Occurs when decision makers are influenced by the first information received about a decision
What is confirmation bias?
o Tendency to seek out information that reaffirms past choices or to discount info that contradicts past judgements
What is availability heuristic bias?
o Tendency to base decisions on information that is readily available in memory
What is escalation of commitment bias?
o Tendency to stick to an ineffective course of action even when the cost of continuing outweighs expected benefit
o Main causes of escalation:
Self-justification (reducing dissonance: decision couldn’t be bad, just a question of time)
Prospect theory effect (More dissatisfaction from losing rather than breaking even)
Gamblers fallacy (Getting close!)
Consistency norm (I’m not a quitter!)
Closing costs (cost of ending project)
o How to avoid escalation:
Encourage continuous experimentation with reframing the problem.
Set specific goals for the project in advance
Place emphasis on how decisions are made and not on their outcomes
Separate initial and subsequent decision making.
What is randomness error bias?
o Tendency of individuals to see patterns in random data/events
o Superstition
What is risk aversion bias?
o Tendency to prefer sure gain of moderate amount over a riskier outcome
o Even if the riskier outcome might have a higher expected pay-off
Hindsight bias?
o Tendency to believe falsely, after an outcome of an event is known, that one would have accurately predicted that outcome
o Reading answers before answering the question
Define emotional contagion
Emotions expressed by one person are ‘caught’ by another.
• Can occur on both conscious and sub conscious levels
• Mimic emotional states
• Primitive explanation- yawning shows empathy
What are values and what do they tell us?
• Values are stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our preferences, actions and behaviours • Values tell us what is o Right or Wrong o Good or bad o Moral or Immoral
What is the difference between personality and values?
Personality Traits 1. What we tend to do 2. Do not oppose each other 3. More innate (nature) (50% genetic) Values 1. What we ought to do 2. Are opposed to another 3. Formed through socialisation (experiences)
What are terminal values?
o Desirable end states of existence o Ultimate long-term goals o For example An exciting life Equality Freedom Happiness Self-respect Friendship
What are instrumental values?
o Preferable modes of behaviour o Means of achieving one’s terminal values o For example Cheerful Helpfulness Respect Creativity Responsible
Describe Shwartz’s value model
- Openness to Change (Motivation to pursue innovative ways)
- Conservation (motivation to preserve status quo)
- Self-enhancement (motivated by self-interest)
- Self-transcendence (motivation to promote welfare of others)
Values oppose each other
- Openness to change opposes conservation
-Self-enhancement opposes self-transcendence
What is the personality-job fit theory
• 6 personality types 1. Realistic 2. Investigative 3. Artistic 4. Social 5. Enterprising 6. Conventional • Satisfaction and turnover intentions depend on fit between personality and job
What is person-organisation fit
• People are attracted to and selected by organisations that match their values
• Value congruence: similarity between person and organisation value hierarchy. Values are congruent when hierarchies are similar.
o Leads to:
Greater job satisfaction
Loyalty
Citizenship (going above and beyond what is expected) behaviours
Lower stress and turnover intentions.
• Value-based management helps in ambiguous situations and guides how decision should be made
What is value congruence?
• Values are stable so select people accordingly
• Value incongruence may be beneficial
o Diverse values result in different perspectives
o Better decision making
• Too much congruence creates a “corporate cult”
o Undermine creativity and flexibility
What are generation values?
- 3-4 generations in the work force
* Values are formed through socialisation and thus people view the world based on different experiences
What are cultural values?
• Values differ between countries and cultures • MNC’s must consider this • Hofstede’s Value Dimensions o Power Distance o Individualism/Collectivism o Masculinity/Femininity o Uncertainty Avoidance o Long-term/Short-term Orientation
Define power distance?
• The degree to which people in a culture accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally
Define individualism
• Individualism is the degree to which people in a culture prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups
Define Collectivism
• Collectivism emphasizes a tight social framework in which people expect others in groups in which they are a part to look after them and protect them
Define masculinity and femininity
- Masculinity is the degree to which values such as the acquisition of money and material goods prevail
- Femininity is the degree to which people value relationships and show sensitivity and concern for others
Define Uncertainty avoidance
• The degree to which people in a country prefer structured over unstructured situations
Define long and short-term orientation
- Long-term orientations look to the future and value thrift and persistence
- Short-term orientation values the here and now; they accept change more readily and don’t see commitments as impediments to change
Describe the affective events theory
- This is the new view (traditionally job satisfaction is seen as an attitude)
- Structure, causes, and consequences of affective experiences at work
Describe the process of perception
- Selection
- Salience: Degree to which something attracts our attention
- Unusual events
- Selective Perception: We pay attention to what we are familiar with or what is important
- Organisation
- Structuring the information selected into a coherent pattern
- Interpretation
- Schemas: Expectations that we hold about people/events
- Attributions: Explaining other’s behaviours
o Internal (personality/character)
o External (environment/situation)
What are the three components of perception
Perceiver
• Past experiences can lead to expectations
• Interests/values lead to us focusing on certain pieces of information
Situation
• Tells you if the target’s behaviour is acceptable/appropriate
• It can blur the characteristics of the target or make some of them stand out more
Target
• Ambiguous targets are more susceptible to interpretation and distortion
• The perceiver tries to resolve ambiguities (fill in the gaps)
• Less elements results in ambiguous targets
What is your personal self?
- Characteristics/traits that define you
- Relies on interpersonal comparison
- Motive of protecting and enhancing personal image
What is your relational self?
- Characteristics or traits that are shared with your relationship partner
o Define your role or position in that relationship - Personalized bonds of attachment
- For example
o Parent and child relationship
o Student and teacher relationship
o Motive of protecting the significant other and maintaining the relationship.
What is your collective self?
- Characteristics or traits that differentiate in-group members from members of relevant out-groups.
- Impersonal bonds, derived from common identification with a group
- Relies on intergroup comparison processes
- Motive to protecting the group you belong to
What is the process of self-evaluation?
Self-Assessment
• Desire to have accurate information about oneself
• Once you know yourself you can set realistic goals
• Foundation to grow and change
Self-Enhancement
• Drive to promote or perceive a positive self-view
• Better mental and physical health
• Inflates personal causation
• Blames situation for mistakes
Self-Verification
• Motivation to confirm and maintain our pre-existing self-concept
• Stabilises our self-concept
• People prefer feedback consistent with their self-concept
• Information is selected that is consistent with our self-concept
What are the 4 aspects of self-evaluation?
Self-Esteem
• Extent to which people like, respect and are satisfied with themselves
• High Esteem - Less influenced, more persistent and logical
Self-Efficacy
• Belief in one’s ability, motivation, role perceptions and situation to complete a task successfully
Locus of Control
• General belief about personal control over life events
• Internal v External factors
Emotional Stability
• Tendency to be confident, secure and steady
• Opposite of neuroticism
What are schemas?
Schemas: Mental representations we use to organise our knowledge.
• Help us process information through attention and memory
• Tend to notice and accept things that fit into our existing schemas
• Ambiguous information will be interpreted within the confines of the existing schemas
• Contradicting information will confuse us
What is attribution theory?
Attribution Theory: Suggests that when we observe an individual’s behaviour, we attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally caused.
• Internally caused: behaviours under the control of the individual
• Externally caused: behaviours seen as a result of outside causes- that is behaviour due to the situation
What is distinctiveness?
- If Franky only laughs at this comedian, the distinctiveness is high.
- If Franky laughs at everything, then distinctiveness is low.
What is consensus?
- If everyone in the audience is laughing, the consensus is high.
- If only Franky is laughing consensus is low.
What is consistency?
- If Franky always laughs at this comedian, the consistency is high.
- If Franky rarely laughs at this comedian, then consistency is low.
What is fundamental attribution error?
Tendency to overemphasize dispositional causes for behavior at the expense of situational explanations when judging the behavior of others.
Self-serving bias?
Tendency to take credit for successes and to deny responsibility for failures.
• Succeed: make dispositional attributions.
• Fail: make situational attributions.
• For example, school marks
What is the actor-observer effect?
Tendency for actors and observers to focus on different causes for behaviour.
• Actors make more situational attributions.
• Observers make more dispositional attributions.
What is selective perception?
Any characteristic that makes a person/object/event stand out increases the probability it will be perceived.
• Primacy: Opinions based on first impressions
• Recency: Most recent information dominates perceptions
• Start/End of lecture or Job Interview
