OB chapter 4 notes

Perception is key to resolving the above questions. perception is a cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings. recognition of objects is one of this processes major functions. but because of organizational behaviors principal focuses on people our discussion will emphasize social perception rather than objective perception

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Takeaway for managers

1. Because managers make many types of judgments about people, it's important to try to make these judgments without being biased or using stereotypes. This can be difficult because such cognitive errors are in natural normal part of how we process information 2. The fundamental attribution bias can lead to an accurate interpretations of someones susceptibility for a job or a performance evaluation. Be aware of this attributional error and try to consider both personal and situational factors when evaluating other 3. Managing diversity is good for individual employees, managers, and organizations as a whole. Whether local or global, organizations will compete more effectively when all employees feel included, supported, and valued. We all should try our best to be understanding and supportive of people who are different from the majority

Stereotype formation and maintenance: four step process

1. Categorization: we categorize people into groups according to a criteria such as gender, age, race, and occupation 2. Inferences: next, we infer that all people within a particular category possess the same traits or characteristics such as women are nurturing, older people have more job related accidents, African-Americans are good athletes. 3. Expectation: we form expectations of others and interpret their behavior according to our stereotypes 4. Maintenance- we maintain stereotypes by overestimating the frequency of stereotypical behaviors exhibited by others, incorrectly explaining expected and unexpected behaviors, and differentiating minority individuals from ourselves

3 dimensions of behavior

1. Consensus- compares an individual's behavior with that of his or her peers. There is high can senses when someone acts like the rest of the group and low consensus when he or she acts differently 2. Distinctiveness-compares a persons behavior on one task with his or her behavior on other task. High distinctiveness means that the individual has performed the task in a significantly different manner then he or she performed other tasks 3. Consistency-judges whether the individual's performance on a given task is consistent over time. Low consistency is undesirable for obvious reasons and implies that a person is unable to perform certain tasks at some standard level. High consistency implies that a person performs certain task the same way, with little or no variation every time

Most common barriers to implementing successful diversity programs

1. Inaccurate stereotypes and prejudice- Mistaken Perceptions manifest themselves in the belief that differences are weaknesses and that diversity hiring means sacrificing competence and quality. As a reporter for the Wall Street Journal studies noted the negative stereotypes about aging for example that older people inevitably grow less productive and more depressed- or as pervasive as they are in accurate. Inaccurate stereotypes like this limit the promotability and job satisfaction of older workers 2. Ethnocentrism- The ethnocentrism barrier is based on the feeling that are cultural rules and norms are superior to or more appropriate than rules and norms of another culture. 3. Poor career planning- lack of opportunities for diverse employees to get work assignments that qualify them for senior management positions can stunt careers

Explain what organizations are doing to manage diversity effectively

1. Include/ exclude - review and revise its current policies regarding discrimination and to provide training tips to its employees, supervisors, managers, and investigators on how to keep the workplace free of harassment, discrimination, and retaliation 2. Deny- and example is the company admits no liability and continues to deny the allegations but will require to hold new training for all hiring managers regarding non-discriminatory recruiting, interviewing, and hiring 3. Assimilate-in a period of time all diverse people will learn to fit in or become like the dominant group. Usually through recruitment practices and orientation program 4. Suppress- Managers and peers to employees to quit whining and complaining about issues. Saying that they have to pay their dues which is another way to suppress differences and promote the status quo 5. Isolate- managers can isolate people and entire teams in departments by putting them on special projects, creating functional independent entities often referred to as silos 6. Tolerate-Toleration entails acknowledging differences but not valuing or accepting them 7. Build relationships-based on the premise that good relationships can overcome differences among diverse groups- acceptance and understanding 8. Foster mutual adaption- Mutual adoption allows people to change their views for the sake of creating positive relationships with others Overall choosing how to best manage diversity is a dynamic process and is influenced by the context

Managerial challenges and recommendations

1. Managers should educate people about stereotypes and how they can influence our behavior and decisions. Make many people may not understand how stereotypes unconsciously affect their perception. For example, in a recent LinkedIn report on gender insights, data revealed that when recruiters are searching for job candidates and they see list of men and women, they tend to open the men's LinkedIn profiles more frequently than women's profiles. To combat the initial selection bias, more companies are implementing a anonymous hiring and removing key identifiers for example names and photos from candidates application 2. Manager should create opportunities for diverse employees to meet and work together in cooperative groups of equal status. Social scientists believe positive interpersonal contact among mixed groups is the best way to reduce stereotypes because it provides people with more accurate data about the characteristics of others. 3. Managers should encourage employees to increase awareness of stereotypes. Awareness helps reduce the application of stereotypes when making decisions and interacting with others

Takeaways

1. Remember your personal and professional success depends on others perceptions of you. Because perceptions can override your good work, it is important to gather feedback on what others think of you. 2. It is normal to be affected by stereotypes. It would be helpful to reflect on your serial types and try to avoid letting them bias your decisions and perceptions of others 3. Consider how you will respond when you hear negative or disparaging things about diverse people. It's going to happen, and your response can make the difference in stopping such comments 4. Celebrate your uniqueness, but remember some people are uncomfortable with individual differences among people. We encourage you to just be yourself

Managerial applications and implications

1. We tend to disproportionately attribute behavior to internal causes. This bias can result in an inaccurate evaluation of performance, leading to reduce employee motivation. The organizing framework for understanding and applying OB offers a simple solution for overcoming this tendency. You must remind yourself that behavior and performance are functions of both person and situation factors 2. Other attribution bias is may lead managers to take inappropriate actions such actions can include promotions, transfers, layoffs, and so forth. Inappropriate responses can dampen motivation and performance 3. An employees attributions for his or her own performance have dramatic affects on motivation, performance, and personal attitudes such as self-esteem. For instance, people tend to give up, lower their expectations expectations of future success, and experience decrease self-esteem when the atribute failure to lack of ability. Employees are more likely to display high performance and job satisfaction when the atribute success to internal factors such as a ability

Stererotype

A stereotype is an individual set of believes about characteristics or attributes of a group. We need to recognize how stereotypes affect our perception because we use them without intending to or even being consciously aware that we are. Stereotypes are not always negative. For example, the belief that engineers are good at math is surely part of a stereotype and is positive. Stereotypes also may or may not be accurate. Engineers may in fact be better at math and than the general population

Diversity climate

A sub component of an organizations overall climate is defined as the employees aggregate perceptions about the organizations diversity related formal structure characteristics and informal values

Stage 1: Selective Attention/Comprehension

Attention is the process of becoming consciously aware of someone or some thing. research has shown that people tend to pay attention to salient stimuli that is something that stands out from its context. For example 250 pound man would be salient in woman aerobics class but not A football meeting

Managerial applications and implications

Attribution models can explain how managers handled poorly performing employees. One study revealed that managers gave employees more immediate, frequent, negative feedback when they attributed their performance to low effort. Another indicates that managers tended to transfer employees whose performance was poor which they attributed to lack of ability. These managers also decided to take no immediate action when poor performance was attributed to external factors beyond an individuals control

attributuion theory

Attribution theory is based on a simple premise. Rightly or wrongly, people infer causes for their own and others' behavior. Formally defined, casual attributions are suspected or inferred causes of behavior. Managers need to understand how people formulate these attributions because they are profoundly affect organizational behavior. Consider in which the managers understanding of observed behavior leads to very different actions

Characteristics of the situation

Context of interaction: perceptions are affected by the social context in which the interaction occurs. For example, your parents will likely perceive you eating food from the kitchen when you visit him differently then will a coworker whose food you take from the office refrigerator. Texting someone while eating dinner with friends is perceived differently than texting during the business meeting. Context matters! Culture and race consistency: we more accurately recognize emotions displayed by people from our own culture or from other familiar cultures. We also better understanding remember facial expressions displayed by people from our own race. For instance both authors do consulting around the world, and we find it harder to accurately perceive group dynamics in foreign than in US companies. Angelo recalls telling a joke to a group of Finnish managers. No one laughed made any facial expressions, and he thought the joke had bombed until someone told him at break that he was really funny, what a perceptional surprise he had

Six key perceiver characteristics that affect our perceptions of others

Direction of gaze: Gaze is the first step in the perception process because it focuses your attention and tells your brain what you think is important in the immediate environment. When scanning people, we also tend to pay attention to others who are gazing at us. We usually remember people when we make direct eye contact with them. Needs and goals: we are more likely to perceive whatever is related to our goals and needs. For example, we perceive examples of food if we are hungry. If we are looking for a friend at a party, we scan the room for familiar faces and fail to perceive strangers Experience with target: our perception of a target is influenced by our past experience with him or her. You might perceive someone's firm handshake negatively, for instance, if you know this person has attempted to exert power and control over you in the past. However The same handshake is positively if you remember that the target is a caring friendly person Category based knowledge: category based knowledge consist of perceptions, including stereotypes, that we have stored in memory about various categories of people (professors, singers, artist, police, politicians and so on). We use this information to interpret what we see and hear, for instance, if you believe professors in general are intelligent, you are more likely to perceive that those teaching your current courses are intelligent. if your memory tells you that people who Iie cannot be trusted you are likely to perceive a politician as untrustworthy who is caught in a lie, we discussed stereotypes in the next section Gender and emotional status: Women recognize emotions more accurately than men, in both men and women are more likely to recognize the targets emotions when they're consistent with their own. Experiencing negative emotions such as anger and frustration is likely to make your perceptions more negative. The opposite is true for positive emotions such as optimism and love Cognitive load: cognitive load represents the amount of activity going on in your brain. If you are tired and distracted after working a long day, your perceptions are more likely distorted and susceptible to stereotypical judgments

Characteristics of the target

Direction of gaze: we form different perceptions of people based on whether they are looking at us while conversing. Direct eye contact suggest interest, whereas eyes darting across the room suggest the opposite. Facial features and body shape: we often use faces as markers for gender, race, and age, but face and body characteristics can lead us to fall back on cultural stereotypes. For example, height has been associated with perceptions of prosperity-high income-and occupational success. Excessive weight can be stereotypically associated with negative traits such as laziness, incompetence, and lack of discipline Nonverbal cues: Communication experts tell us that nonverbal actions are highly influential in perception. Gestures, touching, facial expression, eye contact, and body movements like slouching all convey messages. You might perceive that someone is defensive if you observe folded arms, facial scowl, or crossed legs. In many cultures appropriate touching conveys an impression of warmth and caring Appearance or dress: we are all susceptible to being influenced by appearance. We may conclude someone who shows up for work with tattoos or other body art may not be serious about doing a good job or may wonder how the person even got hired. However, research doesn't support this perception. In recent survey more than 2000 individuals, those with tattoos are no less likely to be unemployed than their uninked counterparts and average earnings were the same for both groups Physical attractiveness: While attractiveness is culturally determined, The beauty-is-good stereotype leads us to perceive attractive people positively. High attractiveness has been associated with but better job opportunities, higher performance, ratings and the potential for increased earnings. One team of researchers concluded, the effects of facial attractiveness are robust and attractiveness is a significant advantage for both children and adults in every domain of judgment treatment and behavior

Stage 3: Storage and Retention

Event memory: this long-term memory compartment includes categories with information about both specific events relying on unique details in general events as well as relying on Schemata. These memories describe the sequence of events unfamiliar situations: going to a restaurant, on a job interview, going to a movie Semantic memory: this refers to general knowledge about the world, as a kind of mental dictionary of concepts. Each concepts includes a definition for example a good leader and associated traits like outgoing, emotional states, physical characteristics, behaviors. These concepts are stored as schemata and are often subject to cultural differences Person memory: categories within this compartment supply information about a single individual like your professor or groups of people (professors). You are more likely to remember information about a person, event, or advertisement if it contains characteristics that are similar to something stored in the compartments of memory

Kelley's model of attribution

Fritz heider The foundry of attribution theory, proposed that behavior can be attributed either to internal factors within a person such as ability or the external factors within the environment such as a difficult task. Following Heiders work, Harold Kelly attempted to pinpoint some specific antecedents of internal and External attributions. Kelly hypothesize that people make casual attributions by observing three dimensions of behavior: consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency. These dimensions very independently, forming various combinations and leading to differing attributions

Glass ceiling

Identifies an invisible but absolute barrier that prevents women from advancing to higher level position

Example of managers attribution

If an employee fails to meet minimum standards and manager will take a look at his attribution and if it is because of lack of effort the manager will reprimand the employee but if it is because of lack of ability he would implement training for the employee

implicit cognition

Implicit cognition represents any thoughts or believes that are automatically activated from memory without our conscious awareness. The existence of implicit cognition, or implicit bias, leads people to make biased decisions without realizing they're doing so. Recent study of letters of recommendation for academic job positions, for instance, demonstrated that people recommend female versus male candidates in different ways, probably based on gender role stereotypes. The letters described female applicants as carrying, friendly, and nice, while male applicants were strong, decisive, and outstanding

Stage 2: Encoding and Simplification

Our brains interpret and translate raw information into mental representations to accomplish this individuals assign pieces of information to cognitive categories -groups of objects that are considered equivalent. for example categories are generally designated by names for example a dog is an animal In social information processing theory. a schema represents a persons mental pictures or a summary of a particular event or type of stimulus

Americans with Disabilities Act

Passed by Congress in 1991, this act banned discrimination against the disabled in employment and mandated easy access to all public and commerical buildings.

Stage 4: Retrieval and Response

People retrieve information from memory when they make judgments and decisions, and they ultimately come in about one of two ways the first way is we draw on , interpret, and integrate categorical information stored in long-term memory and the second we retrieve a summary judgment that has already been made

Perception

Perception is influenced by three key components the characteristics of the perceiver, of the target-the person or group being observed- and of the situation

On-ramping

Programs that encourage people to reenter the workforce after a temporary career break

Psychological safety

Reflects the extent to which people feel free to express their ideas and beliefs without fear of negative consequences

Fundamental attribution bias

Reflects the tendency to attribute another person's behavior to his or her personal characteristics, rather than to situation factors. This bias causes perceivers to ignore important enviorment all factors again refer to the organizing framework, which often significantly affect behavior. Such biases lead to an accurate assessment of performance, which in turn Foster's inappropriate responses to poor performance

self-serving bias

Represents our tendency to make more personal responsibility for success than for failure

Characteristics of the situation

Shows two key situational characteristics that affect perception. The context of the interaction, and the culture and race consistency between perceivers and targets

Avoid making perceptual errors. using the four stages of social perception

Stage 1: selective attention/ comprehension Stage 2: encoding and simplification Stage 3: Storage and retention Stage 4: retrieval and response