Chapter 2: Perception, Concepts, and Attitudes

• Chapter 2 discusses perception, concepts, and attitudes.

Introduction to Concepts and Attitudes

• No two individuals are the same; organizations consist of individuals with varied personalities, attitudes, values, perceptions, motives, aspirations and abilities.
• Organizations expect hired individuals to possess certain skills, abilities, personalities and values.
• Understanding human behavior is essential because an organization's existence depends on its employees/individuals.
• Early organizational and management theories treated people as the same, focusing on worker similarities through scientific management.
• Modern theories of human behavior consider differences among people and how these differences impact organizational performance.

Perception

• Perception involves organizing, identifying and interpreting sensory information to understand the presented information or environment.
• Signals going through the nervous system are involved in all perceptions, resulting from either physical or chemical stimulation of the sensory system.
• Perception is the process individuals use to receive, organize and interpret sensory impressions to give meaning to their environment.

Social Identity Theory

• Social identity is a key concept for understanding ourselves and navigating the world.
• Social identities answer the question, "Who are you?".
• Social identities are groups based on physical, social, and mental characteristics.
• Social Identity groups can be visible/obvious or less so and are created together as a society.

Social Identity and Perception

• Social perception is the process of combining, integrating, and interpreting information about others to understand them.
• Social Identity refers to who someone is based on membership in social groups like class, company, or country).
• Personal Identity encompasses the characteristics that identify an individual (e.g., appearance, skills).

The Attribution Process

• Attribution helps understand others' and own behaviors by focusing on perceptions about the reasons behind successes and failures.
• The theory posits that when we see behavior, we try to understand if it's due to internal (individual's responsibility) or external (outside causes) factors.
• Internally caused behavior is seen as under personal control, while externally caused behavior results from situational forces.

Judging Behavior

• The attribution process is how people judge the causes of others' behavior.
• Judgements in behavior are made in two ways:
• Making correspondent inferences by matching observed actions to personality traits.
• Causal attribution of responsibility bases judgments on internal and external causes.

Internal vs. External Causes

• Two main reasons for someone’s behavior are:
• Internal causes are actions a person is responsible for.
• External causes are situations beyond the individual's control.
• Attributing a student's lateness to partying and oversleeping is an internal attribution.
• Attributing the same lateness to a traffic accident is an external attribution.

Kelly's Theory of Causal Attribution

• People attribute actions to internal or external factors using these types of information:
• Consensus: The extent to which others behave similarly.
  • High consensus: Others behave similarly.
• Consistency: The extent to which the person acts the same at other times.
  • High consistency: The person acts the same way at other times.
• Distinctiveness: The extent to which the person behaves the same way in other situations.
  • Low distinctiveness: The person behaves the same way in other situations.

Example of Kelly’s Theory

• Scenario: Ali and Amr were late to the lecture.
• Ali: No one else was, always late, late to other lectures indicating irresponsibility (internal attribution).
• Amr: Several others were late, doesn't usually come late, not late to other lectures indicating external causes.

Kelly's Theory Summary

• Low consensus + high consistency + low distinctiveness points to internal attribution.
• High consensus + high consistency + high distinctiveness suggests external attribution.

Perceptual Biases

• Halo Effect is where overall impressions affect specific trait evaluations.
• Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to attribute actions to internal traits, disregarding external influences.
• Similar-to-me effect is the tendency to perceive those like us more positively.
• Selective perception involves focusing on some environmental aspects while ignoring others.

More Perceptual Biases

• First impression error is basing judgments on initial impressions.
• Stereotyping is the belief that group members share similar traits/behaviors.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy is where expectations cause behavior consistent to those expectations.

Effects of Prophecy

• Two effects may result from self-fulfilling prophecy:
• The Pygmalion effect is improved performance resulting from positive expectations.
• The Golem effect is poorer performance resulting from negative expectations.

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy in Organizations

• General case: Managers’ expectations of workers cause them to behave accordingly, affecting workers' responses.
• Pygmalion effect: Positive expectations lead to emotional/professional support, boosting experience/confidence and improving performance.
• Golem effect: Negative expectations result in withheld support, limiting experience/confidence, leading to poor performance.