Textbook - Chapter 4

Organizational behavior is a broad area of management that studies how people act in organizations. Managers can use theories and knowledge of organizational behavior to improve what?

Management practices for effectively working with and influencing employees to attain organization goals.

Decisions and problems pose challenges because of what reason?

Managers may have incomplete information or may be unable to process all of the information related to the problem, goals and priorities may be unclear or in dispute, and results of alternatives may be uncertain.

__?__ and __?__ are automatic processes to notice, select, and organize information in order to respond. People vary greatly in what they notice and what draws their focused attention. Their attention processes are filtered by their assumptions, expectations, values, knowledge, goals, past experiences, and other personal differences. As a result, they will only take in part of the information they are presented with and subsequently act upon partial information. Additionally, the partial information taken in is subject to other mental processes that can create other distortions.

Attention; perception.

__?__ refers to the mental processes involved in thinking, including perceiving and attending to information, processing information, and ordering information to create meaning that is the basis for choosing, acting, learning, and other human activities.

Cognition.

At its simplest, thinking can be depicted as processing information, much like a computer. However, human thinking is extremely complicated, and we must deliberately process or "do" something with information to understand, organize, and retain it. Building on the above foundation of mental representation (which informs all stages of thinking), the thinking process begins with __?__ (i.e., noticing) and perceiving (i.e., receiving sensory input). So much information is available in a situation that we cannot absorb it all. Instead, we automatically use attention processes to focus on information and selectively perceive a subset of informational cues.

Attention.

What do Schemas contain?

Knowledge of the concept's attributes, connections among those attributes, and examples of the concept.

Firms that effectively manage employees have a competitive advantage in their field. Pfeffer (1998) estimates that organizations can reap a __?__ gain by managing people in ways that build commitment, involvement, learning, and—ultimately—organizational competence and performance. In short, as noted previously, the so-called "__?__ __?__" matter.

40%; soft skills.

The growth mindset manager believes what?

All employees can succeed and helps all employees grow. The fixed mindset manager focuses attention and resources on those employees believed to have talent, to the detriment of the total workforce.

How are organizational behaviors typically examined?

At different levels—individual behavior, group behavior, and collective behavior across the organization—with different topics prominent at each level. Studying individual behavior helps managers understand how assumptions (i.e., unexamined beliefs), perceptions (i.e., impressions), and personality influence work behavior, motivation, and other important work outcomes like satisfaction, commitment, and learning.

The purpose of thinking is to inform our actions—our choices, decisions, interactions, and behaviors. Organization science explanations of human behavior increasingly draw upon human thinking, especially cognitive psychology and social cognition. In the cognitive framework, all behavior is inextricably tied to thinking, social interactions, and emotions. However, human thinking that affects life in organizations often goes unnoticed, why?

Because much thinking is beyond one's own awareness and unspoken—residing in our "hidden brain".

Organizational behavior, whether in a health care organization or another type of organization, is concerned with what?

Behavior that occurs under the conditions found in the organizational setting.

The work of health care is carried out against the backdrop of rapidly shifting demands. Yet every day, the health care manager must orchestrate the collective work of employees and colleagues to achieve organizational goals. Managers with organizational behavior skills can do what?

Boost the talents of others to help their organizations thrive in a demanding industry. In just one chapter we cannot examine the many fascinating topics in organizational behavior such as personality, conflict, communication, or culture. Instead, we will focus on the foundations of behavior found in management thinking—the "inner game" of organizational behavior.

Existing knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs are structures that do what?

Both guide and filter how we perceive, interpret, and judge a situation, others, and even ourselves. Think of them as preconceptions—useful yet imperfect templates for taking in and integrating what we know and believe. As you already know from your own experience, everyone's knowledge structures are unique—we start at different points of "knowing" and follow our own paths to greater understanding.

Understanding the ways others think and applying cognition principles, especially to achieve group and collective understanding, is a __?__ skill for managers to master.

Challenging.

Next we organize new information using the principle of __?__ __?__ to compare it to prior knowledge (in the form of the mental representations described previously). Consistency means we integrate new information with existing information by subjectively deciding how well it fits our categories and existing knowledge and beliefs. The brain wants to know how it fits what is known, is it the same or does it add something new? In general, new information that conforms to existing beliefs is more readily integrated (and thus remembered), while information that does not fit our beliefs is harder to integrate and may not be stored in memory (and thus forgotten). Our brains naturally prefer ease of processing and agreement with what we already know. Finally, our behaviors occur as a result of perceiving, evaluating, and checking the consistency of information about the situation.

Cognitive consistency.

What are interpretative schemas?

Commonly called "frames" or "framing"—are the primary lenses guiding how individuals interpret new information. Frames focus our attention on certain elements and organize our understanding of the social world. Frames act as filters by structuring how we see things. Frames make it easier to handle complex information yet can restrict our capacity to understand something in a new way.

The net effect of interaction between the two systems is that automatic thinking occurs when?

Continuously, setting in motion preconscious forces (beliefs, preconceptions, and biases arising from our mental representation of knowledge). When our deliberate reasoning takes over, it is often unaware of prior automatic processes, so we never realize that our thinking begins with faulty information.

When has the field of organizational behavior has evolved from the scientific study of management?

During the industrial era to administrative theories of the manager's role, principles of bureaucracy, human relations studies of employees' needs, and new insights from human cognition and complexity theory.

Mindsets have been studied extensively in many settings, including what?

Education, athletics, business, and politics. Studies show developing a growth mindset improves outcomes in math, science, sports training, interpersonal relationships, and intergroup ethnic conflict. A growth mindset can also improve business outcomes from employee hiring, training, performance appraisal, and interpersonal relations, to business innovation, negotiation, and change management.

Health care managers, like managers in other industries, are responsible for what?

Effectively using the informational, financial, physical, and human resources of their organizations to deliver patient services.

Health care organizations are staffed with a professional workforce and impose what?

Exacting requirements on how work is organized and accomplished.

In fact, our __?__ are a major reason why much of our thinking is non-rational, and emotions also contribute to biases.

Emotions.

The relationship between emotions and cognition is complex, and __?__ are interwoven into our thinking in countless ways.

Emotions.

__?__ can influence what we notice, perceive, and recall; how we make decisions; and distort our reasoning. Emotions can affect whether we think deliberately or reactively, and our moods can affect how we make judgments (i.e., positive moods foster positive judgments). Under stress, strong emotions can even "hijack" our reasoning brain: the more emotionally charged a situation the harder it is to be rational.

Emotions.

__?__, our feelings towards people, things, or events, are not separate from thinking.

Emotions.

The most successful organizations make the best use of their what?

Employees' talents and energies.

Perhaps the most important work of any manager is to do what?

Ensure decisions are made and problems are resolved. For health care organizations, decisions can be both risky and consequential. Experts identify multiple tasks in making decisions and resolving problems. The two main phases are (1) recognizing and understanding the decision situation, and (2) then choosing a course of action. The recognition phase of decision making involves recognizing and identifying the decision or problem and its causes, setting goals, and generating options. Defining the decision need or problem is considered the more important phase because it helps identify goals, underlying causes, barriers, and information needs. It is a learning process, and yet habitual thinking narrows our capacity for new information. The choice phase of decision making involves assessing options and choosing, implementing, and evaluating the chosen solution.

__?__ __?__ dictate one's expected "scripts" for how certain events should unfold (e.g., taking final exams, interviewing for a job, going to the dentist, conducting a performance evaluation).

Event schemas.

We usually see thinking as a way to gain knowledge. Yet pre-existing knowledge—especially how we represent what we know and believe—is really the starting point for how we think. Were our brains to store knowledge and beliefs as perfect, complete facts, our brains would be overwhelmed. Instead, we store them in memory as simplified __?__ __?__ that only approximate the real world.

Mental representations.

Daniel Kahneman's best-selling 2011 book, Thinking, Fast and Slow, popularized a well-established principle in cognition, dual mode thinking. Human thinking occurs along a continuum of two modes or speeds—one mode is more automatic, and one is more deliberate. The automatic system (also called System 1) is what?

Fast, unconscious, effortless, reactive, sees patterns, and uses intuition and heuristics; it includes both innate and learned skills. However, it is primed to jump to conclusions and to believe things we recall are likely to be true. The deliberate system (also called System 2) is slow, analytical, conscious, controlled, effortful, and uses reasoning. However, it is "lazy" and often does not challenge automatic thinking patterns. These two modes jointly run our thought processes, directing what we perceive and pay attention to, and how we make decisions.

Managers have multiple tasks at work. Their tasks can be divided into three main kinds of work, comprised of three key roles and ten areas within those roles. What are the three main kinds of work?

First is the informational role, where the manager acts as monitor, disseminator, and spokesperson. Second is the decisional role, where the manager acts as entrepreneur, disturbance handler, and resource allocator. Third is the interpersonal role, where the manager acts as negotiator, leader, liaison, and figurehead.

The complex work of health care has a high risk of serious or deadly error, which necessitates extremely reliable systems of practice at all organization levels. Complex technical and medical systems demand sophisticated technical expertise, which requires a highly educated, efficient, and well-coordinated workforce. Professional workers, especially physicians, work with a great deal of autonomy and control over the technical and clinical aspects of care delivery. As a result, health care managers are responsible for what?

For facilitating the delivery of complex medical services that must be carefully coordinated by autonomous professionals over whom the manager has little direct authority—all within an industry system that faces extreme technical, financial, and policy challenges.

Shared organizational schemas support member collaboration on organizational goals and initiatives that are consistent with the schemas. Conversely, when members have conflicting schemas, collaboration on organizational goals and initiatives will be hindered. How managers frame or present an important idea or major change to the organization can influence what?

How the idea or change is interpreted and how well it is accepted. For example, when introducing a patient safety initiative, managers need to legitimatize key elements of the new schema (e.g., the safety initiative, its purpose, how it works, how it changes daily work, etc.) and reduce barriers posed by beliefs of the old schema (e.g., individuals are to blame for medical errors, it is not okay to challenge authority or question clinical experts, the work of independent units is more important than the work of the entire system).

Psychologist Carol Dweck popularized one specific set of mindsets. What was her theory?

Her theory of growth mindsets and fixed mindsets demonstrates the power of our fundamental beliefs about our own and others' abilities and personality traits. People with a growth mindset believe their intelligence and abilities are malleable, that they can be developed through learning, practice, and hard work. On the other hand, people with a fixed mindset believe their intelligence and abilities are fixed traits that cannot be cultivated or increased. The growth mindset person is curious, values learning, and strives to overcome challenges. The fixed mindset person fears failing and tries to avoid situations with the potential for failure, which undermines growth and achievement. However, the National Study of Learning Mindsets demonstrated that children's mindsets can be changed from fixed to growth mindsets with specific interventions tailored to the student population.

Not surprisingly, a third set of cognitive factors can sabotage the decision-making and problem-solving process, especially when we face ambiguous and complex information inherent in important decisions. Individuals compensate for their limited capacity to effectively process information with unconscious judgment shortcuts that simplify the decision process and create serious biases that distort their judgments. Our brains simplify the difficult task of judging complex, uncertain, and numeric or probabilistic information by using __?__—mental or cognitive shortcuts. Heuristics can be useful because they simplify assessing information and making judgments, often through automatic processing. Heuristic principles can often lead to incorrect conclusions, creating __?__ or systematic errors in perception, thinking, and judgment.

Heuristics; heuristics.

Studying collective organization-wide behavior (sometimes referred to as organization theory) helps explain what?

How to organize work; how to structure authority and power relationships; how to use organizational systems for decision making and control; how to design human resource activities (staffing, training, appraisal, compensation); how organization culture affects behavior; how organizations learn; and how they adapt to changing competitive, economic, social, and political conditions.

The second set of factors that affects thinking in organizations is what?

How we actually process information and our thinking habits.

Schemas are cognitive simplifications of what we know and believe. They are the scaffold that directs what?

How we perceive, classify, store, and act upon schema-relevant information. They organize what we know and guide how we use our knowledge. However, because they are simplifications they are incomplete and may be inaccurate.

A manager's day-to-day effectiveness in these informational, decisional, and interpersonal roles largely depends on what?

Human thinking processes and social interactions.

This wide range of ideas __?__ a manager's insight into employee and organizational performance.

Increases.

A special branch of social psychology, social cognition provides what?

Insight into how we understand and process social situations. At work, as in other settings, our thinking patterns affect how we perceive others and make judgments about them. Additionally, socio-emotional intelligence and competencies impact all our relationships.

Examining interactions in the group setting provides what?

Insight into the challenges of leadership, teamwork, decision making, power, and conflict.

The human capacity to adapt is rooted in what?

Learning new ways of thinking and acting, which depends upon how we perceive the facts of a situation, act upon them, and rewire our brains to retain new ways of doing things. Contrary to the idea that organizations are well-oiled machines that respond perfectly to every management command, studies of thinking teach managers that humans have a limited capacity to process information and that organizations are enterprises of human connections.

Human understanding and resulting organizational behaviors from this understanding are largely based upon how a person perceives and thinks about situations. This informs the saying, "perception is reality," and means what?

Means that we act as if our perceptions were true. People make sense of a situation using their perceptions which in turn, shapes their attitudes, attributions (explanations of causes), and behaviors. However, because perceptions are our mental impressions of the situation, rather than a complete, accurate representation of the world, our subjective perceptions can be quite different from objective "reality". When we react to a situation, we are really reacting to our own unique impression of the situation; and at the same time others are reacting to their own unique impression of the same situation.

Scholars call mindsets "lay" theories or implicit (i.e., unconscious) theories. These implicit theories, thus, are abstract frameworks about how people behave and how the world works. Like schemas, these mindsets are abstract frameworks. What are mental models?

Mental models are initially flexible and become resistant to change over time. People are usually unaware that "implicit" mental models guide their actions, so they also fail to see when mental models limit their point of view. Managers can change and improve organizations by discovering, sharing, challenging, and changing the mental models and mindsets—both their own and others'.

What are four key areas of thinking in organizational life?

Mental representation, information processing, decision making, and social cognition—are especially relevant to the manager's organizational roles

What do mental representations contain?

Mental representations contain concepts (about objects, causal reasoning, our identity, and relationships) that translate into our knowledge and experience. While they are fast and efficient storage devices, they operate unconsciously and automatically, which can cause us to miss important information.

We use __?__ __?__ to classify and organize what we "know" and to create meaning as we interpret our world. These representations are created by automatic filtering that reduces information. They act like unconscious templates guiding what we expect to see in similar situations and directing our inferences and interpretations about similar situations.

Mental representations.

__?__ matters. Years of research show that this fundamental belief dramatically affects how hard we work, our drive for challenge, and our resilience in the face of setbacks. Our ultimate success in our careers and happiness in life depend more upon the mindset we adopt—and how we apply it—than our natural abilities and intellect

Mindset.

Collectively, cognitive psychology and social cognition principles demonstrate the power of thought, showing that how people view a situation has a strong effect on how they respond to and act upon that situation. They also remind managers that what?

Much of organizational behavior lies in each individual's inner game of thinking. And as we shall see, much of that inner game is unconscious, occurring outside the awareness of the individual. We often do not know why we think the way we do, nor can we really explain why we act the way we act. After-the-fact explanations tend to create plausible reasons or explanations for what we thought or did, rather than tracing our actual thought processes.

What does Non-rational simply mean?

Much of the time our brains do not engage in active, conscious deliberation, and instead rely on intuition. Non-rational, intuitive thinking is normal, useful, and necessary to help us cope with the large volume of information streaming through our daily lives.

Schemas, mental models, and mindsets are networks of associated concepts that become more elaborate (though not necessarily more accurate) when we map what?

New experience and learning onto our existing mental representations.

What can mental representations (like other cognitive biases) can lead to?

Thinking errors because we notice some information while overlooking other information, resulting in imperfect information. We often move through the world acting upon inferences and hidden mental processes.

__?__does not mean erratic or illogical thinking, and it is not inherently "bad" thinking.

Non-rational

The second set of factors that affects thinking in organizations is how we actually process information and our thinking habits. The use of two different thinking speeds and the sequence of processing steps contribute to what?

Non-rational thinking in several ways.

While we like to assume thinking is a rational process, in reality, much thinking is __?__.

Non-rational.

The cognitive sciences examine what?

Numerous areas where thinking and how we see our world play a prominent role in organizational life.

__?__ __?__ is a broad area of management that studies how people act in organizations.

Organizational behavior.

__?__ __?__ is concerned with creating working conditions that foster employee effectiveness and organizational productivity.

Organizational behavior.

We know thinking is an individual process and can also be a collective one. As collectives of individuals, organizations are often viewed as perceiving, thinking, and learning—though collective thinking operates differently than individual thinking. While an organization does not literally think, its capacity to take collective action depends upon the degree to which organization members share a common viewpoint or common way of thinking about a situation. __?__ __?__ are patterns of shared thinking and shared assumptions specific to an organization that operate like collective thinking. For managers, organizational schemas foster common understanding and shared thought processes to mobilize members and coordinate organization-wide action.

Organizational schemas.

In short, mental representations (schemas, mental models, mindsets) are our stored interpretations of the world that automate much of our thinking. They act as automatic filters to simplify our what?

Our knowledge, and unconscious templates or patterns for understanding how the world works and how we expect others to behave. It is important to realize that while this is how our brains work, the automatic filtering and unconscious patterning functions of our mental representations may also be inaccurate, creating preconceptions and assumptions that distort our view of the world and bias our thinking.

We all want to understand ourselves and others, especially in the workplace. As the Bard was wont to remind us, that "the fault lies not in our stars, but in ourselves" events in our lives do not originate "out there," caused by circumstances beyond our control. Instead they depend on what?

Our own actions and, as we shall see, on our own thinking—much of which is beyond our awareness.

The bottom line is that while our fundamental thinking habits do an admirable job of processing large amounts of information about our world, what we believe we know is really incomplete and imperfect. We each bring a lot of cognitive "baggage" to the workplace, complicating the work of thinking. When we process information, irrelevant information and misperceptions may affect what?

Our thinking and judgments. When working and communicating with others, we do not automatically begin with a common meaning and a shared reality.

The automatic, unconscious mode is powerful, efficient, and rational, performing some kinds of tasks better than the slow conscious mind. The unconscious mind discerns what?

Patterns, grasps more environmental cues than the conscious mind, and can handle many problems that the conscious mind cannot. However, automatic mode is a form of habitual thinking that is also good at making "snap judgments" and cognitive errors. Automatic mode can interfere with our ability to be rational, because it can fail to detect something unique in a familiar situation or consider alternatives. This mode often relies on implicit assumptions and our mental representations, reacts to our emotions, and may stereotype others.

This selective __?__ is guided by our own unique expectations, beliefs, existing knowledge, experiences, and by striking cues in the situation itself. In __?__ __?__, we categorize the new information by grouping it with similar concepts or knowledge based upon common characteristics. This sorting process of classifying and categorizing concepts and objects lies at the core of all thinking. Early on we learn to make automatic, yet meaningful, distinctions that become increasingly elaborate and abstract. The brain asks whether this is new information or is it related to something known or familiar (e.g., tables, horses, zebras, and chairs all have four legs in common, yet represent unique examples of specific categories that we developed over time).

Perception; cognitive evaluation.

This focus on thinking highlights the importance of what?

Perceptions, assumptions, expectations, individual identity, and judgments. In addition, it calls attention to hidden thinking (our unconscious processes), biases in information processing, and barriers to creating common meaning during communication. Finally, thinking sets the stage for individual and organizational learning.

__?__ __?__ characterize a certain person's traits and actions (e.g., Dad will loan me his car if I mow the lawn).

Person schemas.

The conscious rationality of the deliberate mode is highly valued; we are urged to reason carefully. We need the deliberate mode to apply controlled, focused thinking to a situation or problem such as what?

Planning, accomplishing a goal, or making a decision—from getting directions or scheduling a vacation, to taking exams or buying a house. In deliberate mode, our intentions direct our thinking process and we are consciously aware of our thinking. However, the deliberate mode is slow, with limited processing capacity, and depends on attention—which is easily distracted by other stimuli. Deliberate processing requires effort and self-control to do its work.

A critical workplace challenge is how to do what?

Reconcile all our different ways of knowing and thinking, including the inevitable inaccurate and irrelevant preconceptions that affect judgments and actions.

Knowledge of your mental processes gives you the ability to what?

Refine your own thinking and find ways to work more effectively with others—and thus develop your own skills for managing employee behavior in organizations.

__?__ __?__ define appropriate behaviors and expectations for a social category (e.g., grandmothers bake cookies, professors should grade fairly).

Role schemas.

What are three forms of mental representation that organize our knowledge and experience and underlie our knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions?

Schemas, mental models, and mindsets.

Experts have identified predictable habits of the mind based on the power of our perceptions and patterns of thinking. Those with particular relevance for managers and organizations include what?

Schemas, mental models, mindsets, attention, perceptions, automatic processing, cognitive heuristics (thinking shortcuts), cognitive biases (systematic thinking errors), attributions, social biases, and social motivations.

__?__ are mental representations of one's general knowledge and expectations about a concept.

Schemas.

You may find that sometimes you approach challenges with a fixed mindset. Just as personal traits really can be developed, a fixed mindset can also be changed. First notice your__?__ __?__—that internal coach (or critic) in your head that injects your unconscious beliefs into your conscious thoughts—and recognize when you are using the self-defeating fixed mindset. Then confront the fixed mindset messages with growth mindset arguments to find your inner potential to stretch and learn.

Self-talk.

__?__ __?__ "is the study of how people make sense of other people and themselves."

Social cognition.

In addition to individual expectations, expectations can also arise from __?__ __?__ between people. At an extreme, expectations about another's behavior can create a "self-fulfilling prophecy." For example, classroom teachers who expect students to perform a certain way may verbally and nonverbally transmit their expectations to students in a way that increases the likelihood that the expected effect will occur. A nurse who believes a dementia patient is aggressive may try to overcontrol the patient and increase the patient's agitation and resistance. Similarly, a manager who believes that a certain employee has an "attitude problem" may treat that person in a way that elicits the very behavior that is objectionable.

Social interactions.

In today's job market, technical skills alone are not enough. Employers seek job candidates who also have well developed __?__ __?__.

Soft skills.

Organization behavior leverages these "__?__ __?__"—arguably the hardest skills of all to master.

Soft skills.

__?__ __?__ are interaction and relationship skills and include both thinking skills (critical thinking, reasoning, problem solving, decision making, and flexibility) and socio-emotional skills (interpersonal relations, teamwork, communication, empathy, self-awareness, and self-discipline).

Soft skills.

__?__ __?__ are organizational behavior skills and developing them is advantageous for initial hiring and future advancement in management. They can make the difference between being a manager and being a leader.

Soft skills.

We learn that humans engage in an ongoing construction of their world by using what?

Stored information structures to guide perception and interpretation of events and information, that individuals' actions are largely determined by how they perceive the world, and that human brains simplify and take shortcuts to handle large amounts of information.

Schemas, mental models, and mindsets are all forms of mental representation that organize our knowledge and experience and underlie our knowledge, beliefs, and assumptions. These mental representations serve as what?

Stored templates that automate much of our thinking. They are also the source of our preconceptions, beliefs, and assumptions about how we see the world, how the world works, and how we expect others to behave. The terms schemas, mental models, and mindsets reflect different ways they are studied and used by experts.

Cognitive sciences have taught us what?

That information processing capacities and mental habits shape and govern one's perceptions, assumptions, and ultimately one's behaviors.

Understanding schemas, mental models, and mindsets leads to what?

The important conclusion that a manager's assumptions and beliefs in the workplace are key determinants of how the manager behaves. Arguably the first step to managerial success begins with awareness of one's own ways of seeing the world and the ability to critically reassess our own views. Learn to recognize your personal perceptions and beliefs, to critically reassess their accuracy and usefulness, and to know when they distort your thinking and judgment.

One of the most important elements of automatic and deliberate processing is what?

The interaction between the two modes. We want to believe the deliberate mode is the ultimate authority over how we think. In reality, unconscious automatic processing plays a prominent role in our decisions and reasoning. Our automatic system keeps tabs on our world, so things run smoothly, and the deliberate system steps in to handle challenges and exceptions noticed by the automatic system. Brooks called the conscious mind a "general" directing from afar and the unconscious mind "a million little scouts" reacting immediately and continuously feeding information to the conscious mind.

When we appreciate how we ourselves think—our own mental processes, we will be better prepared to understand the behaviors and actions of others in organizations. As an aspiring manager, you will be expected to think clearly and keep learning. Clear thinking means knowing what?

Why you think what you think, why you believe what you believe, and how you know what you know. Much of what you "know" is based on your prior life experiences, which most people seldom examine critically.

Attention and perception are guided by what?

The stored mental representations or preconceptions discussed earlier. Because they are thinking templates, preconceptions signal the brain what to perceive or expect in a situation. For example, assumptions and beliefs ("my boss won't like my idea") or situational cues ("organic chemistry is a difficult course," or "that teacher is a tough grader") influence how we perceive, remember, judge, and act in certain situations and events. In short, preconscious, automatic thoughts can focus attention and set perceptual expectations, creating a situation in which "believing is seeing" that again confounds deliberate processing and rational thinking.

We cannot fully understand behavior—our own and others'—without understanding what?

The thoughts, assumptions (i.e., what one takes for granted), and perceived attributes of a situation that precede behavior and its consequences.

In today's world, we all are called upon to think deeply. By examining your own thinking and reconsidering unexamined notions and habitual thought patterns, you can become more aware and deliberate in future thinking. You discover what?

The world anew when you take charge of your own thinking.

Organizational behavior is an interdisciplinary field that draws on the ideas and research of many disciplines concerned with human behavior and interaction. What are examples of these?

These include psychology, social psychology, industrial psychology, sociology, behavioral economics, communications, anthropology, and, increasingly, neuroscience, which reveals images of our neurological responses to cognitive, emotional, and social stimuli.

Collectively, cognitive psychology and social cognition principles demonstrate the power of what?

Thought, showing that how people view a situation has a strong effect on how they respond to and act upon that situation.

While a specific organizational setting may create unique challenges or certain sets of problems, the behaviors of interest in health care organizations are similar to what?

To those of individuals, groups, and organizations in other settings or industries. Thus, health care organizational behavior does not create unique management issues so much as certain issues are more prevalent in health care and can occur along with other challenges.

Organizational behavior is an interdisciplinary field that draws on the ideas and research of many disciplines concerned with what?

With human behavior and interaction.

Much of our life is negotiated using the automatic, unconscious mode—it works continuously to sense what?

What is happening around and to us, and often functions without conscious thought. The deliberate, conscious mode is reserved for the heavy lifting—understanding complex information or situations, solving problems, making thoughtful decisions. The automatic mode helps us move easily though the day to handle routine actions and choices quickly without consciously thinking—making breakfast, driving to work, or operating a computer. Automatic mode also includes instinctive reactions: hitting the brakes when a car runs a red light, grabbing the toddler when she crawls towards the fireplace, or halting the water cooler chat when the boss frowns your direction. We could not function without the automatic mode to efficiently process information; our brains would be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information and stimuli encountered daily.

What do schemas tell us?

What to do and expect in many situations without having to think deeply. In health care organizations, members may hold schemas about strategies to attract and retain nurses, the patient's role in deciding about treatment, or how to work with other health care organizations in the local market.

Recent efforts to understand individual and group psychology have led to the study of individual and group "mental models" and "mindsets," two popular terms that are often used interchangeably. Mental models are abstract frameworks that depict how the world functions, especially the dynamics of cause and effect. They are "deeply ingrained assumptions, generalizations, or even pictures and images that influence how we understand the world and how we take action". Mindsets are assumptions about personal abilities and characteristics. While schemas are concerned with how we take in and integrate information, mental models and mindsets are concerned what?

With our "worldview"—the lens through which we see how the world operates and how we interact with it. These beliefs and assumptions shape our attitudes, interpretations, behaviors, and actions

Because employees drive an organization's success, how well the manager interacts and works with a variety of individuals is key to the manager's success. The manager who is skilled in organizational behavior will be able to do what?

Work effectively with employees and colleagues across the organization, assisting and influencing them to support and achieve organization goals.

How is the brain is like a muscle?

You need to use it properly to gain strength. Consider the four factors discussed below as different types of thinking muscles, then become your own coach to train your thinking brain. The first two factors (mental representation and information processing) are the small, seemingly insignificant muscles that are often neglected when training—yet their role in thinking is much greater than we realize. Mental representation and information processing perform crucial tasks that the next two factors—or large "muscle" groups of the brain (decision making and social cognition) use when performing major thinking tasks. These four cognitive features are all used while thinking: learn to recognize and work with all four of them.

Just as individuals may see their own personality traits as either changeable or fixed, they may also see others' traits as changeable or fixed. Managers' mindsets towards employees have a major impact on what?

on how they manage. Believing others have the potential to grow is critical to success in coaching and performance appraisal. Managers who believe employees' traits are fixed do not value coaching, and they may not recognize when an employee's performance changes, for good or bad. On the other hand, the growth mindset manager is more apt to offer fair appraisals and coaching, thus increasing employee performance and commitment.