percp & attr

8/3/2019 Percp & Attr

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Study questions.

What is the perceptual process?

What are common perceptual distortions? How can the perceptual process be managed?

What is attribution theory?

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 1


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Perception. The process by which people select, organize,

interpret, retrieve, and respond to information.

Perceptual information is gathered from: Sight.

Hearing.

Touch.

Taste.

Smell.



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Factors influencing the perceptual process.

Characteristics of the perceiver.

Characteristics of the setting.

Characteristics of the perceived.



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Characteristics of the perceiver.

The perceptual process is influenced by the

perceivers:

Past experiences.

Needs or motives.

Personality.

Values and attitudes.



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Characteristics of the setting.

The perceptual process is influenced by the

settings:

Physical context.

Social context.

Organizational context.



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Characteristics of the perceived.

The perceptual process is influenced by

characteristics of the perceived person,

object, or event, suchas:

Contrast.

Intensity.

Figure-ground separation.

Size.

Motion.

Repetition or novelty.



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Stages of the perceptual process.

Information attention and selection.

Organization of information.

Information interpretation.

Information retrieval.



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Information attention and selection.

Selective screening.

Lets in only a tiny proportion all the information that

bombards a person. Two types of selective screening.

Controlled processing.

Screening without perceivers conscious awareness.



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Organization of information.

Schemas.

Cognitive frameworks that represent organized

knowledge about agiven concept or stimulusdeveloped through experience.

Types of schemas.

Self schemas.

Person schemas.

Script schemas.Person-in-situation schemas.



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Information interpretation.

Uncovering the reasons behind the ways stimuli

are grouped.

People may interpret the same information

differently or make different attributions about

information.

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Information retrieval.

Attention and selection, organization, and

interpretation are part of memory.

Information stored in memory must be retrieved

in order to be used.



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Response to the perceptual process.

Thoughts.

Feelings.

Actions.

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Common perceptual distortions include:

Stereotypes or prototypes.

Halo effects.

Selective perception. Projection.

Contrast effects.

Self-fulfilling prophecy.



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Stereotypes or prototypes.

Combines information based on the category or

class to whicha person, situation, or object

belongs.

Strong impact at the organization stage.

Individual differences are obscured.

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Halo effects.

Occur when one attribute of a person or situation

is used to develop an overall impression of the

individual or situation. Likely to occur in the organization stage.

Individual differences are obscured.

Important in the performance appraisal process.

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Selective perception.

The tendency to single out those aspects of a

situation, person, or object that are consistent

with ones needs, values, or attitudes. Strongest impact is at the attention stage.

Perception checking with other persons can help

counter the adverse impact of selective

perception.



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Projection.

The assignment of ones personalattributes to

other individuals.

Especially likely to occur in interpretation stage. Projection can be controlled throughahigh

degree of self-awareness and empathy.

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Contrast effects.

Occur when an individual is compared to other

people on the same characteristics on which the

others rank higher or lower.



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Self-fulfilling prophecy.

The tendency to create or find in another

situation or individual that which one expected

to find. Also called the Pygmalion effect.

Can have either positive or negative outcomes.

Managers should adopt positive and optimistic

approaches to people at work.

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Impression management.

A persons systematic attempt to behave in ways

that create and maintain desired impressions in

others eyes. Successful managers:

Use impression management to enhance their own

images.

Are sensitive to other peoples use of impression

management.



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Distortion management.

Managers should:

Balance automatic and controlled information

processingat the attention and selection stage.

Broaden their schemas at the organizing stage.

Be attuned to attributions at the interpretation stage.

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Attribution theory aids in perceptual

interpretation by focusing on how people

attempt to:

Understand the causes of a certain event. Assess responsibility for the outcomes of the

event.

Evaluate the personal qualities of the people

involved in the event.

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Internalversus externalattributions of

causes of behavior.

Internal causes are under the individualscontrol.

External causes are within the persons

environment.

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Factors influencing internaland external

attributions.

Distinctiveness consistency of a persons

behavior across situations. Consensus likelihood of others responding in a

similar way.

Consistency whether an individual responds

the same way across time.



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Fundamentalattribution error.

Applies to the evaluation of someones else

behavior.

Attributing success to the influence of situationalfactors.

Attributing failure to the influence of personal

factors.

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Self-serving bias.

Applies to the evaluation of our own behavior.

Attributing success to the influence of personal

factors.

Attributing failure to the influence of situational

factors.



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Attributions across cultures.

The fundamentalattribution error and self-

serving bias operate differently in differentcultures.



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Attribution theory - The conceptual framework withinsocial psychology dealing with lay, or common senseexplanations of behaviour.

Through life we gradually construct explanations/theoriesof why people behave in certain ways

1.) Nave psychologist (Heider, 1958)

2.) Correspondent inference (Jones & Davis, 1965)

3.) Kelleys model


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1.) What are the main characteristics of

attributions?

2.) How are attributions are made?


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Sets out the foundations of attribution theorycommon sense psychology

Individual as a Nave Scientist Two important contributions

1.) Proposed the idea of internal& external causes of behaviour

2.) Perceivers ignore part or all situationalfactors when explaining behaviour.

(Later theorists who expanded on anddeveloped Heiders ideas: Kelley,1967;Jones & Davis,1965; Weiner, 1979. )


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- When judging anothers behaviour we use

information to draw a correspondent inference

where the behaviour is attributed to a

disposition/personality characteristic

- Use various characteristics to do this including:

- Social desirability

- Non-common effects

- Important historically, but its impact has been

limited


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What information is used to arrive at a causal

attribution?

Developed a logical model for judging

whether a particular action should beattributed to some characteristic (internal) of

the person or the environment (external)


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Attribution Theory explains howindividuals pinpoint the causes of theirown and others behavior

Consensus the extent to which peers in

the same situation behave the same wayDistinctiveness the degree to which the

person behaves the same way in othersituations

Consistency the frequency of aparticular behavior over time


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Customer has complainedabout John

There are no complaints

about other employees

(low consensus)

John has received similar

complaints in the past

(low distinctiveness)

Complaints about John

have been coming in steady

(high consistency)

Internal attribution(John's behavior stems

mainly from internal causes)


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Mary has performed

poorly on collections

Other employees are

performing poorly

on collections

(high consensus)

Mary only performs

poorly on this task

(high distinctiveness)

Most of the time

Mary handles collections well

(low consistency)

External attribution

(Mary's behavior stemsmainly from external causes)


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Observation

of poorperformance

Attribution of poor

performance

Internal causes

External causes

Information cues

Consensus

Consistency

Distinctiveness

Perceived source

of responsibility

Behavior in

responseto attribution


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Mentoring a work relationship thatencourages development and career

enhancement for people moving through

the career cycle

Four phases

initiation

cultivation

separation

redefinition


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e.g. The majority of the studentsfell asleep in Dr. Sheppardslecture on theories of attribution.

They also fell asleep during herother lectures, but not lecturesgiven by other teaching staff.

High consensus

High consistencyHigh distinctiveness Boring

lecturer?


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e.g. The majority of the students

fell asleep in Dr. Sheppards

lecture on theories of attribution.

They never fell asleep during herother lectures, or in lectures

given by other teaching staff.

High consensus

Low consistencyHigh distinctiveness Day after formal

ball?

Hot lecture theatre?


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Works well for person and entity

No single clear pattern which can lead to

circumstance attributions. These seem to bemaximised when consistency is low(Forsterling, 1989; Hewstone & Jaspars, 1987)

This can be seen as a limitation to the model


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1.) Doesnt work well for circumstance attributions

2.) Covariation does not mean causality

3.) Participants are given pre-packaged info which they

might not seek or use in everyday situations (modelidealised/normative)

4.) Evidence suggests people are poor at assessingcovariation between events (Alloy & Tabachnik, 1984)

5.) It may appear that the covariation principle was used,

but the processing used may be completely different(e.g. Nisbett & Ross, 1980)

6.) Requires multiple observations over time- which isnot always possible to do


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Causal Schemata Preconceptions or theories

built up from experience about how certain kinds

of causes interact to produce a specific effect

(abstract-content free i.e. general & apply across

content areas)

Allows one to interpret information quickly by

comparing and integrating it with a schema

E.g. multiple sufficient cause schema any of

several causes can produce the same effect


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Each Schema is associated with a number ofprinciples set out by Kelley

Discounting principle if different causes can

produce the same effect, the role of a givencause in producing the effect is discounted ifother plausible causes are present

e.g. Why is your flatmate

doing the washing up?


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Augmentation principle The role of a given

cause is increased (augmented) if an effect

occurs in the presence of an inhibitory cause.

e.g. Why did the man in the

chicken costume win therace?


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1.) The existence and functioning of

causal schemata has not been

successfully demonstrated researchsupporting it is artificial cant prove

2.) The idea of schemata is content

free and thus too abstract


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Statements implying internal attributions can be

rephrased to imply external & vice versa

Students asked to write down why they had chosen

their degree subject at uni (Nisbett et al, 1973)

Statements such as I want to make a lot of money

were coded as internal while statements such as

Chemistry is a high paying field were external

Criticised internal/external categories for being very

broad and too heterogeneous (Lalljee,1981)

Participants have difficulty understanding the

distinction (Taylor & Koivumaki, 1976)


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Other categorisations of attributions e.g.

multidimensional approach (Weiner, 1986)

Locus internal or external?

Stability is the cause a stable or unstable one (over time)

Controllability to what extent is future task performance

under the actors control?

Ability Mood

Unusual

help/hindrance

from others

Luck

Unusual

effort

Typical

effort

Task difficulty

Consistent

help/hindrance

from others

Controllable

Uncontrollable

Internal

Stable Unstable

External

Stable Unstable


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Individual differences & attributional style

Rotter (1966) argues people differ in terms of the amount of

control they believe they have over reinforcements &

punishments received measures of locus of control relatedto range of behaviour e.g. political beliefs, achievement

Internals high personal control over destiny

Externals fatalistic, things occur by chance

Attributional style questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982)

sorts explanations on 3 dimensions: internal/external,stable/unstable, global/specific

Those who view aversive events as caused by internal,

stable, global factors = depressive attributional style


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Interpersonal relationships

Most commonly used in relation to marital success

e.g. Fincham & OLeary, 1983

happily married individuals tend to credit partners for positive

behaviour by citing internal, stable, global & controllable

factors to explain them

Negative behaviour is explained away by ascribing to external,

unstable, specific & uncontrollable causes

Distressed couples do the opposite

Women continuous engage in attributional thought

about relationships men only do so when

dysfunctional!!


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Theories of attribution claim we aim to attribute

behaviour to either internal (person) or external

(situation) causes

Kelley proposed models of covariation (data

driven) & configuration (theory driven)

In reality these may interact i.e. our expectations

(schemata) may influence what data are

processed i.e. what observations made

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