Perception, Decision-Making, Emotions Flashcards
Perception
Process by which individuals organise and interpret their sensory impression in order to give meaning to their environment.
Factors that influence perception:
1. Perceiver
- when you look at a target and attempt to interpret what you see, your interpretation is heavily influenced by your personal characteristics
- Target
- characteristics of the target also affect what we perceive - Context/situation
- relationship of a target to its background also influences perception
- our tendency to group close things and similar things together
Person Perception: Making Judgements About Others
Attribution Theory
Tries to explain the ways in which we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we attribute to a given behaviour.
Main premise: when individuals observe behaviour, they attempt to determine whether it is internally or externally caused
Internally caused: behaviours are those we believe to be under the personal control of the individual
Externally caused: behaviour is what we imagine the situation forced the individual to do
3 Determining factors
1. Distinctiveness: whether an individual displays different behaviour in different situation
- Consensus: same behaviour is others in same situation
- Consistency: same behaviour over time
Fundamental attribution error:
- we tend to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal or personal factors
- we blame people first, not the situation
Self-serving bias:
- the tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes into internal factors, while blaming failure on external factors
People also tend to attribute ambiguous information as relatively flattering and accept positive feedback while rejecting negative feedback.
Commonly Used Short Cuts in Judging Others
Selective perception:
- tendency to selectively interpret what one sees on the basis on ones interests, background, experience and attitudes
- we use this because we cannot observe everything going on about us, we select according to our contexts
- allows us to speed-read others, but not without the risk of drawing an inaccurate picture
Halo effect:
- we draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristics, our general view contaminate our specific ones
Contrast effect:
- evaluation of a person characteristics is affected by comparison with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristic
- happens because we don’t evaluate a person in isolation
Stereotyping:
- judging someone based on one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs to
- we rely on generalisations because they help us make decisions quickly, also called heuristics
Specific Application of Shortcuts in Organisations
Interviewers:
- make perceptual judgement that are often inaccurate and draw early impression that quickly become entrenched
- impressions formed in a single glance - 1/10 of a second
Performance expectations:
- self-fulfilling prophecy and pygmalion effect describe how an individual’s behaviour is determined by others’ expectations
Performance evaluations:
- appraisals are often the subjective perceptions of appraiser of another employee’s job performance
- critical impact on employees
- subjective evaluations are problematic because all the errors we’ve discussed affect them
Link Between Perception and Individual Decision Making
Individuals in organisations make decision, choices from among two or more alternatives. The way individuals make decisions and the quality of their choices are largely influenced by their perceptions.
Decision making occurs as a reaction to a problem. Every decision requires us to interpret and evaluate information. We typically receive data from multiple sources and need to screen, process, and interpret them, which data are relevant to the decision depends also on our perceptions.
Common Biases and Errors in Decision Making
Availability shortcut:
1. retrievability bias:
- making frequency judgements based on the ease with which examples are retrieved
2. anchoring bias
- tendency to fixate, on initial information, from which one then fails to adequately adjust for subsequent information
3. representativeness bias
- tendency to overestimate frequency of representative ones
4. availability bias
- tendency for people to base their judgements on information that is readily available to them, emotional heavy memory tend to be more available
Self enhancement bias:
1. escalation of commitment:
- refers to staying with a decision even when there is clear evidence that it’s wrong
2. better than average affect:
- that people believe they are better than average
3. confirmation bias:
- tendency to seek out information that reaffirms past choices and to discount information that contradicts them
4. egocentric accounting:
- occurs when people claim more responsibility for themselves for the result of a joint action that an outside observer would credit them
5. overconfidence bias:
- we are more certain in the truth of our assumption that we have reason to be
Illusion of control:
1. overconfidence bias
2. illusory correlation:
- relationship one expects in a set of data when no such relationship exists
3. victim blaming:
- holding the victims of a crime or any type of abusive maltreatment to be entirely or partially responsible for the unfortunate incident
Other biases:
1. randomness error:
- tendency to believe we can predict the outcome of random events
- risk aversion:
- tendency to prefer a sure thing over a risky outcome
- people will more likely engage in risk seeking behaviour for negative outcomes and risk averse behaviour for positive outcomes when under stress - hindsight bias:
- tendency to believe falsely after the outcome is know that we’d have accurately predicted it
- reduce ability to learn from the past, let us think we’re better predictors than we actually are and makes us false confident
Reducing bias and errors:
1. focus on goals
2. look for information that disconfirms your beliefs
3. don’t try to create meaning out of random events
4. increase your options
Decision Making in Organisations
Rational (Normative) Model
- makes consistent, value-maximising choices within specified constraints
- steps:
1. define the problem
2. identify the decision criteria
3. allocate weights to the criteria
4. develop the alternatives
5. evaluate the alternatives
6. select the best alternative
- assumptions: decision maker has complete information, able to identify all relevant options in unbiased manner, chooses the option with highest utility
- however, our limited information-processing capability makes it impossible to assimilate and understand all the information necessary to optimise, so most people respond to a complex problem by reducing it to a level at which they can readily understand it
Bounded rationality
- process of making decisions by constructing simplified models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all their complexities
- it saves time energy and money
- 3 main constraints:
1. limited, often unreliable information about alternatives and consequences
2. limited cognitive capacity to tend a process available information
3. limited time for decision
Intuitive decision making
- least rational
- making an unconscious process created out of distilled experience
- occurs outside of conscious thought, it relies on holistic association, it is fast and affectively charged
- intuition is complex and based on years or experience of learning
Individual Differences
Individual differences create deviations from the rational model
Personality:
- achieving striving people were more likely to escalate commitment wheres dutiful less likely
- people with high self-esteem are strongly motivated to maintain it, so they use self-serving bias to preserve it
Gender:
- women are more likely to overanalyse problems before making decisions and to rehash a decision once it is made
Mental ability:
- more intelligent people learn more quickly to avoid decision making errors, they are also able to avoid logical errors like incorrect interpretation of data
Cultural differences:
- cultural background of a decision make can significantly influence the selection of problems, depth of analysis, the importance placed on logic and rationality, and whether they are individualistic or collectivistic
Organisational Constraints
Organisations can constraint decision makers, creating deviations from the rational model.
Performance evaluation:
- managers are influenced by the criteria on which they are evaluated
Reward systems:
- influenced decision makers by suggesting which choices have better personal payoffs
Formal regulations:
- all but the smallest organisations create rules and policies to program decisions and get individuals to act in the intended manner, which limits decision choices
System-imposed time constraints:
- almost all important decisions come with explicit deadlines makes it difficult for managers to gather all the information they might like before making a final choice
Historical precedents:
- individual decisions are points in a stream of choices, choices made today are largely a result of choices made over the year
Emotions and Moods
Affect: generic term that covers a broad range of feeling that people experiences, umbrella that encompasses both emotions and moods
Emotions: intense feelings that are directed at someone or something
Mood: feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions and that often lack a contextual stimulus
Emotions are more likely to be caused by a specific event than moods. Emotions are also seen as more action-oriented (lead to immediate action) than moods.
Ethics in Decision Making
Three ethical decision criteria
- Utilitarianism
- decisions are made solely based on their outcomes or consequences
- goal is to provide the greatest good for the greatest number
- consistent with goals such as efficiency, productivity, and high profits - Use of rights
- protects whistle blowers individuals who report unethical practices by their employer to outsiders
- an emphasis on rights in decision making means respecting basic rights of individuals - Justice
- requires individuals to impose and enforce rules fairly and impartially so that there is an equitable distribution of benefits and costs
- protects underrepresented and less power
- could reduce risk, innovation and productivity
Emotions
The Basic Emotions:
1. Anger
2. Fear
3. Sadness
4. Happiness
5. Disgust
6. Surprise
Culture impact on emotions:
- frequency and intensity varies across cultures for both positive and negative emotions
- some cultures value certain emotions more than others
- whether emotions are positive or negative can also be culturally determined
Function of emotions:
- emotions are actually critical to rational thinking
- emotions developed over time help humans solve problems and motivate people to engage in actions that are important to survival
Sources of emotions and moods:
- personality
- affect intensity
- time of day
- day of the week
- weather
- stress
- social activities
- sleep
- exercise
- age
- gender
The Basic Moods: Positive and Negative Affect
Positive affect: mood dimension consisting of positive emotions such as excitement, alertness, and cheerfulness at the high end and boredom sluggishness and tiredness at the low end
Negative affect: mood dimension that consists of emotions such as nervousness, stress and anxiety at the high end of relaxation, tranquility, and poise at the low end
Positivity offset: tendency of most individuals to experience a mildly positive mood at zero input
Emotional Labour
Situation in which an employee expresses organisationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work
Emotional dissonance: inconsistencies between the emotions people feel and the emotions they project
Felt emotions: individual’s actual emotions
Displayed emotions: emotions that are organisationally required and considered appropriate in a given job
Surface acting: hiding ones inner feelings and forgoing emotional expression in response to display rules
Deep acting (mindfulness): trying to modify one’s true inner feelings based on display rules
Affective Events Theory
Model which suggests that workplace events cause emotional reactions on the part of employees which then influence workplace attitudes and behaviours. There is an influence on job performance and job satisfaction. The emotional episode is a series of emotional experiences caused by a single event. The effect of moods and emotions fluctuates over time. In most cases, emotions have a negative impact on job performance.
Emotional Intelligence
Person’s ability to be emotionally self-aware, detect the emotions of others and manager emotional cues and information
Emotion Regulation
- the central idea behind this is to identify and modify the emotions you feel, managing your emotions well is a sign of good task performance for some jobs and organisational citizenship behaviours
3 strategies:
1. venting
2. surface acting
3. deep acting
OB Application of Emotion and Moods
Emotional intelligence should be a significant factor during the process of selecting and hiring employees, especially for jobs that require high levels of social interactions.
In general, emotions and moods affect the decision-making process significantly.
