Perceptions and Attributes Flashcards
What is Perception?
Process used to organize and interpret sensory impressions to give meaning to the environment.
Why Do We Care About Perception?
Perception drives all of our behavior
BUT our perception is often biased/flawed
Perception is not the same as reality
People’s behavior is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.
Employee perception of organization:
influences behaviour, attribute, performance (perception of climate, trust, organziational support)
What influences perception: factors -
The context: time, work setting, social setting
The perciver: attitudes, motives, experiences, expectations, interests, social identity
The target: size, background, proximity, similarity, motion
Perceptual Biases/Errors
- selective perception
- primacy effects
- recency effects
- halo/horn effect
- projection
- conformation biases/ errors
Selective Perception
Tendency to “see things” based on our own frame of reference
Brain takes the things that seem important - can be different per person
Primacy Effects
Tendency to rely on first impressions or cues
Recency Effects
Tendency to rely on last impressions or recent cues
Halo/Horn effect
Form a general characteristic based on one thing (appearance)
- having a positive impression in one area, which leads to a positively influenced feelings in another area
Projection
Tendency to attribute one’s own thoughts and feelings to others
Conformation Biases/ Errors
Tendency to only seek out confirmatory information, not disconfirming information
- Information that confirms what you have already decided
Implicit Bias
nonconscious (implicit) thought
Allows us to quickly make sense of our environment
occurs automatically and unintentionally, affects our behaviour and judgment
Efficient
Saves time… saves resources…
We couldn’t function if everything was conscious
Stereotypes
an overly-generalized belief about a category of people
- Basically, very broad concepts that we associate with a group
- Stereotypes are often wrong.
Some Consequences of Stereotyping
Can result in unfairness for individuals
Fewer opportunities
Unfair allocation of resources (e.g., money)
Can negatively affect how we treat individuals (may lead to self-fulfilling prophecies), etc.
Some Consequences of Stereotyping: Can result in decreased organizational performance
Interferes with accurate selection/hiring decisions
Interferes with accurate assessment of performance
Interferes with performance management
Can decrease diversity , etc.
Social Identity Theory
Individuals form perceptions of themselves based on both personal attributes/dispositions and group memberships
Attribution Theory
When individuals observe behavior, they attempt to determine whether it is internally or externally caused (i.e., is it dispositional or situational).
Disposition
internal
Situational
external
Distinctiveness
Does individual act the same way in other situations?
Consensus
Does individual act the same as others in same situation?
Consistency
Does the individual act the same way over time?
Fundamental Attribution Error
Tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about others.
Actor-Observer Effect
The tendency for actors and observers to view the causes of the actor’s behavior differently.
Self-serving bias
Tendency to attribute our own successes to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors.
How can we avoid perception and attribution bias/errors
- knowledge/ awareness
- check assumptions
Increase personal interaction
Use processes/systems which decrease the chance of implicit biases manifesting
Use objective and valid measures, behaviorally anchored rating scales, structured interviews, etc.
Perceptual defence
is the tendency for the perceptual system to defend the perciver against unpleasant emotions (see what we want to see)
The Situation
every instance of perception occurs in some situational context, and this context can affect what one perceives
The most important effect that the situation can have is to add information about the target
personal identity
is based on out unique personal characteristics such as our interests, abilities, and traits
Social identity
is based on our perception that we belong to various social groups, such as our gender, nationality, occupation, etc.
perceptual process
When the perceiver encounters an unfamiliar target, the perceiver is open to informational cues contained in the target and the situation surrounding it
central traits
which are personal characteristics of the target that are of special interest to them
Implicit personality theories
personal theories that people have about which personality characteristics go together
Attribution
is the process by which we assign causes or motives to explain people’s behaviour, the attribution process is important because many rewards and punishments in organizations are based on judgments about what causes a target person to behave in a certain way
Dispositional attributions
are explanations for behaviour based on an actor’s personality or intellect
Suggests that some personality or intellectual characteristics unique to the person is responsible for the behaviour and that the behaviour thus reflects the “true person”
Situational attributions
are exlpanations for behaviour based on an actor’s external situation or environment
Suggest that the external situation in which the target person exists was responsible for the behaviour and that the person might have had little control over the behvaiour
Stereotype threat
members of a social group feel they might be judged or treated according to a sterotype and that their behaviour and/or performance will confirm the stereotype
Organizational climate:
the shared perceptions that employees have about the organization’s policies, practices, and procedures and the behaviours that are expected, supported, and rewarded
Safety climate
shared perceptions of safely related events, practices, and proeciders as well as the types of safety oriented behaviours that are expected, supported, and rewarded
Trust perceptions: trust
a psychological state in which one has a willingness to be vulnerable and to take risks with respect to the actions of another party
Ability
employee perceptions regarding management competence/ skills
Benevolence
extent that employees perceive management as caring
Integrity
management adheres to and behaves according to a set of values and principles that employees find acceptable
Perceived organizational support (POS) -
employees general belief is that their orgnaization values their contributions and cares about their well-being
Organizational support theory (OST)
a theory that states that employees who have strong perceptions of organizational support feel an obligation to care about the organization’s welfare and help to achieve its objections
Norm of reciprocity
a felt obligation to help the organization achieve its goals and objectives in return for various resources obtained from the organization
Persevered Supervisor Support (PSS):
employees’ general belief that their supervisor values and their contribution and cares about their well-being
Signalling theory,
job applicants interpret their recruitment and selection experiences as cues or signals about unknown characteristics of a job and an organization and what it will be like to work in an organization
Contrast effects
previously interviewed job applicants affect an interviewer’s perception of a current application, leading to an exaggeration of differences between applicants
Perceptions and the Performance Appraisal
The orgaization will want some index of the person’s job performance for decisions regarding pay rises, promotions, tranfers and training needs
Objective and subjective measures
because of the difficlutues that objective performance indicators present, organizations must often rely on subjective measures of effectiveness, usually provided by managers
Rater Errors
a number of perceptual tendencies that occur in performance evaluation
Leniency
is the tendency to percive the job performance of rates as especially good
Harshness
is the tendency to perceive the job performance of ratees as especially ineffective
Central tendency
is the tendency to assign most ratees to middle-range job performance categories
Halo effect
is the rating of an individual on one trait or characteristic tends to colour ratings on other traits of characteristics
Behaviourally anchored rating scale (BARS)
a rating scale with specific behavioual examples of good, average, and poor performance
Frame-of-reference (FOR) training
a training method to improve accuracy that involves providing raters with a common frame of reference to use when rating individuals
