Organizational Behavior Ch. 4

Leniency

A personal characteristic that leads an individual to consistently evaluate other people or objects in an extremely positive fashion. ex: Rating high bc the rater hates to say negative things about others,

Halo

A rater forms an overall impression about an object and then uses that impression to bias ratings about the object. ex: rating a prof high bc we like him.

Perception

Cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings.

Consistency

Determined by judging if the individual's performance on a given task is consistent over time.

Stage 2

Encoding and Simplification -interpretation and categorization

Attributional Tendencies

Fundamental Attribution Bias, and Self-Serving Bias

Salient

Something that stands out from context.

Internal Factors

Within a person, ability

External Behavior

Within the environment (a difficult task)

Stereotype

An individual's set of beliefs about the characteristics or attributes of a group. -not always negative -may or may not be accurate.

Kelly's Model of Attribution

Behavior is attributed either to: internal factors or external behaviors

Semantic Memory

General knowledge about the world, mental dictionary of concepts.

Managerial Implications: Leadership

Good leaders exhibit the following behaviors: - assigning specific tasks to group members - telling others they had done well - setting specific goals for the group

Perceptual Errors

Halo effect, Leniency, Central Tendency, Recency effects, contrast effects

Stereotyping Process

Maintained by overestimating the frequency of stereotypic behavior exhibited by others. -incorrectly explaining expected and unexpected behaviors. -Differentiating minority individuals from oneself.

Attention-Stage 1

Process of becoming consciously aware or something or someone.

Fundamental Attribution Bias

Reflects one's tendency to attribute another person's behavior to his or her personal characteristics, as opposed to situational factors.

Schema-Stage 2

Represents a person's mental picture or summary of a particular event or type of stimulus.

Implicit recognition

Represents any thoughts or beliefs that are automatically activated from memory without our conscious awareness.

Self-Serving Bias

Represents one's tendency to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure.

Stage 4

Retrieval and Response -judgments and decisions. decisions are based on the process of drawing on, interpreting, and integrating categorical information stored in long-term memory. -retrieving a summary judgment that was already made.

Stage 1

Selective Attention/Comprehension -Competing environmental stimuli o People o Events 0 Objects

Stage 3

Storage and Restoration -memory

Causal Attributions

Suspected or inferred causes of behavior.

Central Tendency

The tendency to avoid all extreme judgments and rate people and objects as average or neutral. ex: rating a prof average regardless of performance.

Contrast Effects

The tendency to evaluate people or objects by comparing them with characteristics of recently observed people or objects. ex: rating a good pro average bc you compared his performance with your 3 best profs ever.

Recency Effects

The tendency to remember recent info. If the recent info is negative, the person or object is evaluated negatively. ex: although a pro has good lectures for 12/15 weeks they are evaluated bc the last 3 lectures were poor.

Managerial Implications: Performance Appraisals

Important for managers to accurately identify the behavioral characteristics and results indicative of good performance. -Characteristics serve as the benchmarks for evaluating employee performance.

Event Memory

Info about both specific and general events

Person Memory

Information about a single individual or groups of people.

Managerial Implications: Hiring

Interviewers make hiring decisions based on their impression of how an applicant fits the perceived requirements of a job on the basis of implicit recognition.

Consensus

Involves a comparison of an individual's behavior with that of his peers.

Distinctiveness

Involves comparing a person's behavior on one task with the behavior from other tasks.