Perception and Individual Decision Making Flashcards
6-1 Explain the factors that influence perception
Perceiver, target, and situation or environment
Perception
A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions to give meaning to their environment
Factors that influence perception
Factors in the perceiver, target, and situation
Factors in the perceiver
Attitudes
Motives
Interests
Experience
Expectations
Factors in the situation
Time
Work setting
Social setting
Factors in the target
Novelty
Motion
Sounds
Size
Background
Proximity
Similarity
Perception concepts most relevant to OB
Person perceptions
Person perceptions
Perceptions people form about each other
Attribution theory
An attempt to explain the ways we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we attribute to a behavior, such as determining whether an individual’s behavior is internally or externally caused
Factors determining internal or external causation
Distinctiveness
Consensus
Consistency
Internally caused behaviors
Those an observer believes to be under the personal behavioral control of another individual
Externally caused behaviors
What we imagine the situation forced the individual to do
Distinctiveness
Refers to whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations
Is the employee who was late to work today the type to “blow off” other commitments?
Is the behavior unusual?
Consensus
Everyone who faces a similar situation responds in the same way
If all employees who take the same route to work were also late, it would meet this criterion
If consensus is high, one would give an external attribution to this tardiness
If the other employees who take the same route were on time, the lateness of one employee would be attributed to an internal cause
Consistency
Does the person respond the same way over time?
The more consistent the behavior, the more we are inclined to attribute it to internal causes
Fundamental attribution error
The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others
Self-serving bias
The tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors and put the blame for failures on external factors
Selective perception
The tendency to choose to interpret what one sees based on one’s interests, background, experience, and attitudes
Halo effect
The tendency to draw a positive general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic
Horns effect
The tendency to draw a negative general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic
Contrast effect
Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that is affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics
Stereotyping
Judging someone based on one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs
Heuristics
Stereotypes or shortcuts used to make fast decisions about people and groups around us
Applications of shortcuts in organizations
Employment interview
Performance expectations
Performance evaluations
Self-fulfilling prophecy (or Pygmalion effect)
A situation in which a person inaccurately perceives a second person and the resulting expectations cause the second person to behave in ways consistent with the original perception
True or False: All stereotypes are negative
False
6-3 Explain the link between perception and decision making
The way individuals make decisions and the quality of their choices are largely influenced by their perceptions
Decisions
Choices made from among two or more alternatives
Decision making occurs as a reaction to a problem
Discrepancy exists between the current state of affairs and some desired state
Problem
A discrepancy between the current state of affairs and some desired state
Perceptual issue
The awareness that a problem exists and that a decision might or might not be needed
6-4 Contrast the rational model of decision making with bounded rationality and intuition
Generally accepted constructs of decision making are employed by each of us to make determinations
Though their processes make sense, they may not lead to the most accurate (or best) decisions
More important, sometimes one strategy may lead to a better outcome than another in a given situation
Rational
Characterized by making consistent, value-maximizing choices within specified constraints
Rational decision-making model
A decision-making model that describes how individuals should behave to maximize some outcome
Steps in the rational decision-making model
Define the problem
Identify the decision criteria
Allocate weights to the criteria
Develop the alternatives
Evaluate the alternatives
Select the best alternative
Bounded rationality
A process of making decisions by constructing simplified models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all their complexity
Satisficing
Seeking solutions that are satisfactory and sufficient
Satisficing choice
The first acceptable one we encounter
Intuitive decision making
An unconscious process created out of distilled experience
Anchoring bias
A tendency to fixate on initial information and fail to adequately adjust for subsequent information
Confirmation bias
The tendency to seek out information that reaffirms past choices and to discount information that contradicts past judgments
Availability bias
The tendency to base judgments on readily available information
Escalation of commitment
An increased commitment to a previous decision despite negative information
Randomness error
The tendency of individuals to believe that they can predict the outcome of random events
Risk aversion
The tendency to prefer a sure gain of a moderate amount over a riskier outcome, even if the riskier outcome might have a higher expected payoff
Hindsight bias
The tendency to believe falsely, after an outcome of an event is actually known, that one would have accurately predicted that outcome
Explain how individual differences and organizational constraints affect decision making
Individual differences- The decision-making process consists of features like intuitions, the presence of errors and biases, and bounded rationality. Several individual differences influence the decision-making process, including personality, gender, cultural differences, and mental ability.
Contrast the three ethical decision criteria
The three ethical decision criteria are utilitarianism, rights and justices. Utilitarianism criterion in decisions is on their outcomes, which has a goal such as efficiency, productivity, and high profits.
Utilitarianism
Making decisions solely based on outcomes
An ethical perspective in which decisions are made to provide the greatest good for all
Whistle-blowers
Individuals who report unethical practices by their employer to outsiders
Deonance
A perspective in which ethical decisions are made because you “ought to” in order to be consistent with moral norms, principles, standards, rules, or laws
CSR
Corporate social responsibility
Behavioral ethics
Analyzing how people behave when confronted with ethical dilemmas
Creativity
The ability to produce novel and useful ideas
Describe the three-stage model of creativity
Causes of creative behavior –>
Creative behavior –>
Creative outcomes (innovation)
Problem formulation
The stage of creative behavior that involves identifying a problem or opportunity requiring a solution that is yet unknown
Information gathering
The stage of creative behavior when possible solutions to a problem incubate in an individual’s mind
Idea generation
The process of creative behavior that involves developing possible solutions to a problem from relevant information and knowledge
Idea evaluation
The process of creative behavior involving the evaluation of potential solutions to problems to identify the best one
Causes of creative behavior
Intelligence and creativity
Personality and creativity
Expertise and creativity
Ethics and creativity
Expertise
The foundation for all creative work, thus the single most important predictor of creative ptential
IAT
Implicit Association Test
Examine how quickly people make prejudicial associations vs. nonprejudicial associations
