percp & attr
TRANSCRIPT
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
1/50
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
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
2/50
Perception. The process by which people select, organize,
interpret, retrieve, and respond to information.
Perceptual information is gathered from: Sight.
Hearing.
Touch.
Taste.
Smell.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 2
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
3/50
Factors influencing the perceptual process.
Characteristics of the perceiver.
Characteristics of the setting.
Characteristics of the perceived.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 3
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
4/50
Characteristics of the perceiver.
The perceptual process is influenced by the
perceivers:
Past experiences.
Needs or motives.
Personality.
Values and attitudes.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 4
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
5/50
Characteristics of the setting.
The perceptual process is influenced by the
settings:
Physical context.
Social context.
Organizational context.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 5
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
6/50
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.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 6
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
7/50
Stages of the perceptual process.
Information attention and selection.
Organization of information.
Information interpretation.
Information retrieval.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 7
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
8/50
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.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 8
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
9/50
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.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 9
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
10/50
Information interpretation.
Uncovering the reasons behind the ways stimuli
are grouped.
People may interpret the same information
differently or make different attributions about
information.
10
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
11/50
Information retrieval.
Attention and selection, organization, and
interpretation are part of memory.
Information stored in memory must be retrieved
in order to be used.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 11
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
12/50
Response to the perceptual process.
Thoughts.
Feelings.
Actions.
12
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
13/50
Common perceptual distortions include:
Stereotypes or prototypes.
Halo effects.
Selective perception. Projection.
Contrast effects.
Self-fulfilling prophecy.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 13
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
14/50
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.
14
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
15/50
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.
15
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
16/50
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.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 16
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
17/50
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.
17
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
18/50
Contrast effects.
Occur when an individual is compared to other
people on the same characteristics on which the
others rank higher or lower.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 18
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
19/50
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.
19
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
20/50
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.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 20
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
21/50
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.
21
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
22/50
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.
22
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
23/50
Internalversus externalattributions of
causes of behavior.
Internal causes are under the individualscontrol.
External causes are within the persons
environment.
23
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
24/50
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.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 24
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
25/50
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.
25
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
26/50
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.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 26
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
27/50
Attributions across cultures.
The fundamentalattribution error and self-
serving bias operate differently in differentcultures.
Organizational Behavior: Chapter 5 27
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
28/50
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
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
29/50
1.) What are the main characteristics of
attributions?
2.) How are attributions are made?
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
30/50
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. )
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
31/50
- 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
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
32/50
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)
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
33/50
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
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
34/50
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)
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
35/50
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)
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
36/50
Observation
of poorperformance
Attribution of poor
performance
Internal causes
External causes
Information cues
Consensus
Consistency
Distinctiveness
Perceived source
of responsibility
Behavior in
responseto attribution
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
37/50
Mentoring a work relationship thatencourages development and career
enhancement for people moving through
the career cycle
Four phases
initiation
cultivation
separation
redefinition
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
38/50
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?
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
39/50
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?
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
40/50
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
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
41/50
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
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
42/50
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
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
43/50
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?
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
44/50
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?
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
45/50
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
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
46/50
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)
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
47/50
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
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
48/50
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
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
49/50
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!!
-
8/3/2019 Percp & Attr
50/50
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