ie hapter
MOA ADL Bs os bis in Se 4h Mle, di, le is is Sis SB, i, Bs, Se, i Si, Si, i, in, i, hr, th di, Ml Le ty, 6 6Á,
218
PERCEPTION
AND ATTRIBUTION
OBJECTIVES By the end of this chapter, you should be able to: A Define perception and explain the perceptual process
B Identify the sources of misinterpretation in cross-cultural interactions C Understand both the benefits and the drawbacks of the perceptual process D Recognize common perceptual errors
E Describe the Johari window F Explain attribution theory
G Understand the relevance of perception and attribution for managers Tue BLIND MEN AND THE ELEPHANT John Godfrey Saxe
It was six men of Indostan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind), That each by observation Might satisfy his mind
The first approached the Elephant, And happening to fall
Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to baw!:
“God bless me! but the Elephant Is very like a WALL!”
The second, feeling of the tusk, Cried, “Ho! what have we here So very round and smooth and sharp? To me ’tis mighty clear
Trang 2ing (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996): 327-348; and W Gudykunst, and S Ting-Toomey, Culture and Interpersonal Communication (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1988); J A De Vito, The Interpersonal Communication Book (New York: Harper & Row, 1989): 197
29 Crainer and Dearlove, “Making Yourself Understood”: 24 30 Crainer and Dearlove, “Making Yourself Understood.” 3! Crainer and Dearlove, “Making Yourself Understood,” 23-27,
32 § Robbins, “Contexts of Uninhibited Online Behavior: Flaming in Social Newsgroups on Usenet,” Journal of the American Society for Information Science 49 (12) (1998): 1135-1141; L Sproull and S Kiesler, Connections: New Ways of Working in Networked Organizations (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992)
33 E V Wilson, “Email Winners and Losers,” Communications of the ACM 45(10) (October 2002): 121-126
34 J Brownell, “Preparing Students for Multicultural Environ- ments: Listening as a Key Management Competency,” Journal of Management Education 16 (1992): 81-93
35 Tid
36 For an in-depth look at active listening, see D Stone, B Patton, and S Heen, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (New York: Viking, 1999),
37 G Henderson, Our Souls to Keep: Black/White Relations in America (Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1999)
38D A Morand, “Politeness and the Clash of Interaction Orders in Cross-Cultural Communication,” Thunderbird Inter- national Business Review 45(5) (2003): 521-540
39 De Vito, The Interpersonal Communication Book: 179 40 G Klein, “Why Won’t They Follow Simple Directions?” Across the Board 37(2) (2000): 14-19
Trang 3The third approached the animal, And happening to take
The squirming trunk within his hands, Thus boldly up and spake:
“T see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a SNAKE!”
The fourth reached out an eager hand, And felt about the knee
“What most this wondrous beast is like Ts mighty plain,” quoth he:
“Tis clear enough the Elephant Is very like a TREE!”
The fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: “E’en the blindest man
Can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can,
This marvel of an Elephant Is very like a FAN!”
The sixth no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Than seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, “T see,” quoth he, “the Elephant Is very like a ROPE!”
And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong!
A Read “The Blind Men and the Elephant.”
B Think about an experience you’ve had or a situation you've observed when differing percep- tions were the source of problems or misunderstanding For example, have others ever falsely stereotyped you or have you ever had a mistaken impression about another person that was proved wrong?
1 Describe the situation
Trang 43 What was the impact of differing perceptions?
4, Were the differing perceptions ever discussed and resolved? If so, how did that come about? Who made that happen and how did they do it?
5 While did you learn about perceptions from this experience?
C While reading the chapter, make a list of the cues you should keep in mind regarding per- ception and attribution
THE KNOWLEDGE BASE
If somebody tells you that you have ears like a donkey, pay no attention But if two people tell you, buy yourself a saddle
Sholom Aleichem In every chapter so far, we learned about various kinds of individual differences and mental maps Yet another way in which people differ is the way we perceive the world No individuals perceive stimuli in the exact same fashion It is tempting to assume that human behavior is a response to an objective reality but, as the comedienne Lily Tomlin noted, “Reality is nothing more than a collective hunch.” The same stimuli may be present in our environment, but how we process and interpret the stimuli is affected by individual differences For example, if you talk with a rabid Republican and a fanatical Democrat the day after a U.S presidential debate, it may be difficult to believe they both watched the same debate Each claims his or her candidate “won” and the other candidate was a dis- aster The same is often true of diehard fans of different sports teams talking about yesterday’s game and why one team won At work, we might see two managers with completely different impressions of an employee’s performance; one manager wants to promote the employee, whereas the other rec- ommends firing How do we end up with such diverse and even contradictory impressions? Chalk it up primarily to individual differences in perception Perception is the process by which we select, organize, and evaluate the stimuli in our environment to make it meaningful for ourselves It serves as a filter or gatekeeper so that we are not overwhelmed by all the stimuli that bombard us The three stages of the perceptual process are explained below
Selection A key aspect of the perceptual process is selective attention, which is defined as the process of filtering the information our senses receive We simply do not see or hear everything that goes on around us For example, when you live in another country and have reached a mod- erate level of fluency in a foreign language, you occasionally stumble on a new word that you have never heard before Once you master the word, you realize to your chagrin that it is in fact a very common word—you just weren’t “hearing” or attending to it before
Trang 5speaker says caddy because we often hear what we want to hear People attend to only the stimuli that interest them or support what they are looking for, which explains the term selective attention Studies of both low-level supervisors and middle-management executives revealed that these indi- viduals perceived only those aspects of a situation that related to the goals and activities of their own departments.! Information that conflicts with what we believe is often ignored or distorted to con- form to our preconceptions and expectations Selective attention explains why two people can attend the same meeting or event and have contradictory stories about what occurred The fervent political supporters mentioned in the opening paragraph heard and saw only what they wanted to hear (great points made by their candidate, indications of strong leadership potential, etc.) and blocked out the strengths of the opposing candidate In this way, their preconceived attitudes about the debate affected their perception and interpretation of the actual event
The external factors that influence perception are characteristics of the target we perceive Our attention is drawn by motion, intensity, size, novelty, and salience We notice things that are moving, the way a bull notices the cape waved by the bullfighter Fire alarms grab our attention because the siren is loud, piercing (intensity), and rare (novel) in most neighborhoods Salience is the extent to which a given object or event stands out from the others around it The salient object or event is the “figure” that dominates what we see; the rest is “ground” or background in Gestalt psychology terms What do you see in the picture in Exhibit 9-1? What is figural to some people is merely background to others Furthermore, our perceptions tend to remain constant; once a perceived object is fixed in our minds, it is difficult to reinterpret the stimuli
Organization The second stage in the perceptual process is the organization of the stimuli that has been selected to make it simpler Our thought processes automatically structure stimuli into patterns that make sense to us Patterns of antithesis (opposites) and cause-and-effect relation- ships (“If then’) are two examples of common thought processes It is easier to see cause-and- effect relationships in the physical world than it is with social interactions and human behavior Nevertheless, we organize stimuli in the same patterns For example, if an organization is suc- cessful, people in the United States tend to attribute this success to the leader whether or not the leader really had an impact.”
According to social cognition theory, we organize stimuli into schemas.> Schemas are mental maps of different concepts, events, or types of stimuli that contain both the attri- butes of the concept and the relationship among the attributes Like geographical maps, schemas are representations of reality but not reality itself Everyone’s maps are different
EXHIBIT 9-1
Trang 6For example, each of us has a schema about “leadership” that includes the traits that we think describe a good leader We tend to see these traits as a package deal; if someone has a few of these traits, we assume they also possess the other traits Our leader schema might include attributes such as trustworthy, directive, courageous, enthusiastic, and value- driven If we see a leader who is trustworthy and directive, we may mistakenly assume he or she is also courageous, enthusiastic, and value-driven Once schemas have been estab- lished, they affect how we handle future information because they determine what we attend to and what we remember We are less likely to notice and remember free-floating stimuli than stimuli that fit into existing schemas
Evaluation The final stage in the perceptual process is evaluation or inference We interpret stimuli in a subjective rather than objective fashion Our conclusions are biased by our individual attitudes, needs, experiences, expectations, goals, values, and physical condition at the time Not only do interpretations differ from person to person, but the same person can have diverse per- ceptions of the same stimuli at different points in te When large organizations are involved in major change efforts, it is easy to see examples of differential interpretations of the same stim- uli in the diverse reactions to announcements about upcoming innovations No matter how care- fully such announcements are worded, employees reach vastly different conclusions, and harm- ful rumors are commonplace People who are frightened about the changes are more likely to make negative inferences about the announcements than people who are looking forward to what they see as a much-needed improvement
SociAL IDENTITY
Although no two people perceive the world exactly the same, social groups and cultures have shared perception “Other things being equal, the higher the degree of similarity of perception among individuals, the easier communication among them is likely to be, and the more commu- nication among them is likely to occur’? We communicate more with people we perceive to be like us This group identification aiso determines how we perceive the world because we learn to see things as they do and to pay attention to the stimuli they view as important Thus, social iden- tity and perception are closely related Social identity theory is based on the belief that people tend (1) to perceive themselves and others in terms of social categories rather than as individu- als (social categorization); (2) to assess the relative worth of groups as well as individuals by comparing them (social comparison); and (3) to perceive and respond to the world not as detached observers but in terms of their identity, which depends on the social groups to which they belong (social identification).> Sharing a social identity means that people perceive them- selves as similar along important dimensions (such as similar disposition, similar attitudes)® and define themselves in terms of the groups in which they are members For example, people may define themselves by their ethnic group, religion political party, fraternity or sorority, favorite sports team, and so on They see their own group as more homogeneous and in a more favorable light than it really is The more we perceive others as similar to us the more likely we are to trust them as well as cooperate and exchange information with them.’ However, the downside of this phenomenon is that when humans categorize others into groups, they tend to perceive other social groups as inferior.* This can lead to stereotyping
STEREOTYPING
Trang 7even when people sincerely believe that they are not racially biased, research studies find evi- dence that they are For example, one researcher created a video game with pictures of individu- als who were either holding a gun or other objects that were not dangerous Subjects had to decide under time pressure whether to react to the presence of a gun and “shoot” the individual in the video game When the individual was black, subjects were more likely to assume that he had a gun, even when he did not Subjects also were more likely to mistakenly perceive that whites were unarmed, even when they were actually holding guns This bias, which may be exac- erbated by media coverage, was found in both blacks and whites.” Although implicit bias is dif- ficult to eradicate completely, workplace efforts on managing diversity should cause people to challenge the incorrect stereotypes they hold about different groups in the workforce and be aware when biases from stereotypes might influence decisions
A fairly common stereotype in many countries is that older workers contribute less than younger workers This stereotype is reflected in European laws that encourage early retirement and in the lack of legal protection from discrimination in many countries In reality, U.S studies show that older workers are less likely to be absent, have half the accident rate of younger employees, and report higher job satisfaction.!° Researchers have found no evidence that older U.S workers are less productive than younger workers.!! They use information technology more slowly but make fewer errors, according to research.!” Although “conceptual innovators” are frame-breakers who do their best work when they are young (like physicists who dream of developing a major theory in their twenties), another group of “experimental innovators” are most creative when they are older and can rely on decades of experience and trial and error.!° The decreased cognitive functioning that accompanies some geriatric diseases has been pre- vented by modern medicine Older successful managers are actually experts at solving ill- defined problems using rules of thumb that “can’t be put down on paper.” What psychologist Colonia-Willner calls “practical intelligence” (like knowing how to deal with difficult bosses) seems to be expert intuition based on years of accumulated knowledge and judgment She found no age-related difference in practical intelligence in the 200 bankers she tested, which led her to conclude that this is not something that people lose as they age.'* Thus, when businesses opt to get rid of all managers over a certain age, they not only dismantle the institutional memory, but they are also dispensing with a great deal of wisdom and intellectual capital
According to research, stereotypes are based on relatively little information, resistant to change even in light of new information, and rarely accurately applied to specific individuals !5 For this reason, stereotyping is often viewed negatively as a source or excuse for social injustice Nevertheless, the process of stereotyping is “a neutral, subconscious cognitive process that increases the efficiency of interpreting environmental information.”!® Stereotypes can be helpful if they are used effectively According to Adler, helpful stereotypes are consciously held, descrip- tive rather than evaluative, accurate, and viewed as a “first best guess” about a group or person, which means they are subject to modification once we have firsthand experience with people.!7
The drawbacks to perception are that it prevents us from taking in everything we should, makes our interpretations open to question, and promotes stereotypes However, perception is an extremely useful process It helps us to make sense of a world full of stimuli in three ways: first, by limiting the amount of information that enters our mind to prevent overload; second, by selecting what input we will attend to; and, third, by organizing and classifying the input we receive so we do not waste valuable time trying to make sense of behavior and situations that are in fact similar
IMPACT OF PERCEPTION IN THE WORKPLACE
Trang 8productivity, and turnover Recent research showed that hospital employees who perceived their employer as unfair took more sick days Men who felt that decision making at work was arbitrary and did not take their views into consideration were 41 percent more likely to take sick days than men who did not have this perception.'®
The determination of employee job performance is vulnerable to subjective perceptions that have surprisingly little to do with how people do their job For example, two economists discov- ered that paychecks are correlated with beauty, particularly for men, which one scholar calls “the hunk differential.”!? People whose looks are above average are paid approximately 5 percent more than people whose appearance is average, and people with below-average looks receive 9 percent less than the average wage.” One of the economists, Daniel Hamermesh, decided to choose a profession where attractiveness should have no conceivable impact on productivity— college professors With a student researcher, he looked at teaching evaluations for 463 courses taught by 94 faculty members at University of Texas-Austin Six students rated the professors’ photos on a beauty scale; their scores correlated strongly so they had a similar view of which profs were attractive and which were not The highly attractive professors had average teaching evaluations of 4.5 on a five-point scale, whereas the least attractive had evaluations that averaged 3.5 Non-tenure-track faculty had higher evaluations than tenure track faculty, presumably because they are hired only for their teaching rather than both teaching and research Minority instructors had lower evaluations than majority members, non-native English speakers had lower evaluations than native speakers, and females had lower evaluations than males (No reasons were given for these differences, but we have to wonder whether stereotypes played a role in stu- dent perceptions.) However, good looks were more important in producing high teaching evalu- ations for men than women; men were more likely to get high evaluations if they were hunks and low evaluations if they were unattractive than women Because this research deals only with per- ceptions about teaching performance rather than an objective comparison of teaching abilities by a panel of objective judges, it is hard to say whether good looks are the cause of a perceptual bias in students or whether attractive profs actually do a better job in the classroom This is something for you to think about the next time you fill out evaluations!
PERCEPTUAL DISTORTIONS
Stereotyping is not the only perceptual distortion that influences how people are treated in the workplace Another distortion, the “halo effect,” occurs when our evaluation of others is domi- nated by only one of their traits For example, a U.S Army study showed that officers who were liked were evaluated as being more intelligent than those who were disliked.”! The halo effect does not always work to an employee’s advantage A perceived negative trait such as sloppiness can prevent a boss from seeing the other positive characteristics an employee may have
Two more perceptual distortions are also rooted in a limited consideration of the informa- tion The primacy effect means one’s perception is dominated by the first.impression of another person The initial impression of the person is never adjusted in light of more information about him or her In contrast, when one’s perception is overly dominated by the most recent interac- tions with a person, this is called the recency effect If an employee makes a major error the week before his performance appraisal interview and his boss focuses primarily on this mistake and pays less attention to all the employee’s other accomplishments during the year, the boss is biased by the recency effect
Trang 9Another type of perceptual distortion is projection, the tendency to attribute one’s personal attitudes or feelings to another person, thereby relieving one’s own sense of guilt or failure Pro- jection is a defense mechanism that protects people from confronting their own feelings It is most common in people who have little insight into their own personalities.2* Some multina- tional corporations (MNCs) have been reluctant to transfer female executives abroad on the grounds that a woman could not be effective in a traditional, male-dominated culture Some- times, however, the MNC management is simply projecting upon the foreign culture its own feel- ings and prejudices about female managers In reality, research has shown that female U.S expa- triates have been successful all over the world.”°
The final source of perceptual distortion is known as the perceptual defense These defenses act as a screen or filter, blocking out that which we do not want to see and letting through that which we wish to see.”4 The closer we get to schemas concerning our self-perceptions (self- image) and our relationships with important others, the more likely we are to call on these defen- sive screens.”> These defenses help to create self-fulfilling or circular perceptual processes like the ones shown in the following examples
A Gender Stereotype
1 Asa woman, I believe that men prefer women who are passive and unassertive
2 Since I would like to develop meaningful relationships with men, I behave in a passive and unassertive manner
3 I tend to develop relationships with or 3 Ido not approach and/or am not men who expect women to be pas- approached by men who expect a
sive and unassertive, woman to be active and assertive
4, I am confirmed in my belief that or 4 I do not have the opportunity to men prefer women who are passive develop my own assertiveness and unassertive
A Managerial Dilemma
1 Asa manager, I believe that subordinates are basically lazy and dislike work
2 I assume, therefore, that to get the most out of subordinates I must watch over their every move
3 I behave in a strict manner, delegating little responsibility, and demanding that everything be cleared through me first
4, My subordinates react to this parent-like stance by acting like rebellious teenagers I have to lean on them all the time, or they’ll never do what I tell them
5 Consequently, my original belief is confirmed; subordinates are basically lazy and dislike work The underlying pattern in these processes is one of (1) assumption or belief, (2) leading to behavior that is congruent with the assumption, followed by (3) observation of consequences, which, to the extent that selective perception is occurring, leads to (4) confirmation of the origi- nal assumption or belief Testing the validity or desirability of this conceptual pattern is difficult for several reasons
Trang 10an obstacle to our testing with others whether or not we are projecting the kind of self-image we think we are “Do you see me the way I see myself” When people present themselves as lead- ers, it is hard to tell them you do not feel like following Thus, we are denied information about others’ true thoughts and feelings by the face we present
THE JOHARI WINDOW
A theoretical conceptualization of this process is depicted in the matrix, in Exhibit 9-2 The Johari Window is an information processing model that consists of four regions determined by whether information about oneself is known or unknown to oneself and others.”
When a person’s arena is very small, communication is greatly hindered The more we know ourselves and allow others to know us, the greater the potential for effective communication There are two ways to increase our arena—self-disclosure and feedback from others Self-dis- closure means sharing information about oneself, which moves information from the facade to the arena Feedback from others about information in our blindspot also moves information into the arena Trust and psychological safety are prerequisites for both self-disclosure and feedback We instinctively hold back personal information from people we do not trust, and it is too risky to give feedback to people who might react defensively or angrily When we share a social iden- tity with others and see them as one of “us,” our arena is larger Our arena is smaller and our facade is larger when communicating with people with whom we do not identify.28
One of the basic competencies of effective managers is self-awareness This requires an ability to both seek feedback from others and to disclose one’s own feelings and thoughts Self-awareness is also important with regard to our perceptual biases If we understand in what situations we are likely to be biased and listen to feedback from others that we appear biased, we can avoid perceptual dis- tortions For example, a high-level manager was informed that an employee was guilty of sexually harassing a subordinate Because the manager herself had been falsely accused of harassment at one time, she was biased toward thinking that the employee, a good friend, also was innocent Unfortu- nately, she did not listen when other subordinates suggested she might be letting her own experience and her friendship cloud her judgment, and the guilty employee was never held accountable
Known to Self Not Known to Self Known to others Arena Blindspot
Not known to others Facade Unknown
Arena This cell includes information that | and others know about me—mutually shared
perceptions In other words, people see me the way | see myself (e.g., | feel confi- dent, and people see me as confident)
Facade This cell contains information that | know about myself but hide from others (e.g., | feel insecure, but | strive to project the image of a very secure person} In other words, people see a “false me,” and | must always be on guard to prevent them from seeing the “real me.”
Blindspot This cell consists of information or characteristics that people perceive in me but
that | do not see in myself (e.g., others see that my anxiety reduces my effective- ness, but | do not see—or will not admit to myself—that | am anxious) In other words, people know certain things about me that they may not tell me (like the old deodorant commercial, “Even your best friends won't tell you.”
Unknown This cell is made up of information and characteristics that neither | nor oth-
ers see in myself Psychoanalysis might be necessary fo unearth this type of information
Trang 11CULTURAL INFLUENCE ON PERCEPTION
We know what we perceive; we don’t know what we don’t perceive Since there is no way that we can know what we don’t perceive, we assume that we perceive “correctly” —even if we don’t
Marshall Singer Nowhere is it more obvious that different groups see and interpret the world in different ways than when we deal with people from different cultures or ethnic groups For example, a West African tribe lives in round houses and, as a result, does not perceive perpendicular lines The way that Africans do favors to gain allies conveys meaningful cues that are not even perceived, much less correctly interpreted by most non-Africans Perceptual patterns are both learned and culturally determined.*? They are also a barrier to effective cross- cultural communication when we fail to pay attention to cues that are important to another culture or when we misinterpret the behavior of a person from another culture Asians and Westerners think and perceive in different patterns Asians are more likely to “describe something in terms of what it is not,” like the space that is not the figure.°° Japanese sub- jects made 60 percent more references to objects they saw in the background of a fish tank (e.g., rocks, plants, small animals) than did U.S subjects There was no difference in their reports on the figure, the fish.”!
Adler has identified three sources of misinterpretation in cross-cultural interaction:32 1, Subconscious cultural blinders We use our own cultural assumptions to interpret the
events and behavior of a foreign culture
2 Lack of cultural awareness We are unaware of our cultural values and norms and the way that other cultures perceive us Without understanding our own culture, we cannot adapt our behavior so that it is perceived more accurately by others
3 Projected similarity We assume that people from other cultures are more similar to us than they really are or that situations are similar when they are not This is based on the ethno- centric view that there is only one way to be—like me
Đ.I1.E MoDpEL
The D.LE model was developed to teach more accurate perceptions and attributions in cross- cultural interactions.*? It stands for description, interpretation, and evaluation Description refers to what you see—only observed fact Interpretation refers to inferences, or what you think about what you see Evaluation refers to judgments, what you feel about what you think Evaluation can be positive or negative For example, two teana members, a Russian and an Israeli, are arguing in a team meeting A Japanese woman observing this interaction could apply this model in the fol- lowing fashion
Description: Ivan and Isaac are arguing vigorously and loudly about how the project report should be organized
Interpretation: | think that these two coworkers are very stubborn and might come to blows Evaluation: Violent arguments like this among teammates make me uncomfortable This is inappropriate behavior, which I don’t want any part of
Trang 12ATTRIBUTION
The most pertinent aspect of perception in terms of organizational behavior is social perception—how we perceive and judge other people Our behavioral responses to others are based on our inferences about their behavior According to attribution theory, when people observe behavior, they attempt to determine whether it is internally or externally caused >* For example, if a team member does not pull his weight on a project, other members may attribute his behavior to internal reasons that are under his control, such as “he’s irresponsible and lazy.” Or they may attribute it to external reasons, such as “he has too much other work to do a good job on this project.” These attributions then determine the way peers and managers behave toward the person If the employee is deemed irresponsible, his manager might take disciplinary measures or try coaching behavior If the external cause is accepted, his manager might reorganize his work assignments, send him to time management courses, or negotiate with his other project leaders for more release time
As shown in Exhibit 9-3, we use three types of information to help us make causal judg- ments about others:
1 Consensus refers to the extent to which others behave in the same manner
2 Consistency is the extent to which the person acts in the same manner at other times 3 Distinctiveness is the extent to which this person behaves in the same manner in other contexts
Let’s take the example of a human resources (HR) manager who is trying to figure out whether an employee complaint about his boss’s managerial style is valid The HR manager will consider whether other employees also have complained about this particular manager (consensus) She also will consider whether the employee has complained about this same boss on previous occasions (consistency) and whether the employee has a habit of complain- ing about all his bosses or just the current one (distinctiveness) If no one else has complained about the boss, and the employee’s evaluation of the boss has been inconsistent (sometimes positive, sometimes negative), and if the employee is a habitual whiner, the HR manager will probably conclude that the problem hes within the employee (internal attribution) rather than the manager (external attribution) If other employees also have complained about the boss, the employee’s complaints about this boss have been consistent over time, and the employee never complained about previous bosses, the HR manager is more likely to conclude that it is time to take steps to help the boss improve his style
There are biases that distort our attributions about success and failure The Chinese usually attribute personal success to luck and failures to personal failings.*> In contrast, when Americans succeed, they attribute it to personal, internal factors (e.g., hard work, intelligence, initiative) How- ever, when Americans fail they are more likely to blame it on external factors (such as tough compe- tition, poor leadership, interdepartmental problems) This is called the self-serving bias, the tendency
Distinctiveness
Consensus Consistency Does the person
Do others behave Did the person act this behave this way in P
similarly? way before? other contexts?
Ú
Causal Judgment
internal Causation External Causation
Behavior explained or Behavior explained
by internal factors by external factors
Trang 13
Jor people to attribute their successes to internal factors while blaming external factors for their fail- ures When some managers evaluate their employees, they are less generous and attribute low per- formance to the subordinates’ personal failings rather than external factors For example, rather than attributing low sales figures to being understaffed, a manager may attribute it to lack of motivation among the sales staff This form of perceptual distortion is called fundamental attribution error, the tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others.*
Given these natural tendencies, managers should make an extra effort to ensure that their attri- butions about employees are accurate Katherine Whitehorn, a British writer, showed her under- standing of human nature when she proposed the following conjugation of “irregular verbs.”
Tam firm You are obstinate He is a pig-headed fool
Perception plays a major role in communication and decision making in the workplace, par- ticularly in the areas of hiring and firing, performance appraisals, promotions, and work assign- ments Effective managers acknowledge that their own perceptions may be uniquely biased and work hard at gathering and understanding the perceptions of other people so there is a greater chance of approximating “reality.”
It is as difficult for humans to understand the impact of their own perceptual schema as it is for a fish to understand the concept of water Yet our perceptual maps and the fish’s water are equally important for survival Without a conceptual system to simplify and order our experi- ences, we would become overwhelmed by stimuli However, failure to recognize that our percep- tions are to some extent our own creation can leave us closed, defensive, and unable to profit from new experiences In the following Personal Application Assignment, an engineer analyzes his reactions to the perception chapter and struggles to understand his own way of perceiving others
STUDENT PERSONAL APPLICATION ASSIGNMENT Again it seems I am going to write a paper about myself rather than the suggested topic When- ever [ reflect on the subject matter we study, I can directly relate it to myself I have always con- sidered myself “free of hangups”; however, there are many things I do that I do not completely understand Previously I have never taken the time to question myself, but now, being forced to think about a concept, I can see how J have been influenced by that concept and can attempt to explain, but not always justify, the way I feel toward many things Well, here goes!
Tam the perfect example of a person blinded by his own perception of the world Not all of the time, mind you, but mainly in one case—the case being when I become “snowed” by a girl PU begin by relating my current project in this area—at least I think the project is cur- rent, although I’m not sure as of this moment because of a possible misperception on my part Being alone in a new city, I engaged in the well-known game of mixer this autumn in the hope of meeting someone interesting I accomplished my goal without any difficulties, and here is where my problem began—I committed my unpardonable sin of becoming snowed
Ido not have many difficulties with first perceptions I think I am pretty objective and usually make good judgments First impressions are almost solely objective! As long as I do not become emotionally involved, that is, as long as there is no filter between what I see and how I perceive what I have seen, I am quite able to understand what is communicated How- ever, once Iam personally involved with the reason behind the attempted communication, my vision of what is actually happening is, I believe, distorted
This weekend, for example, I did not take Mary (a fictitious name) out because of our last date and a phone call I made after the date Even though I wanted to take her out, I didn’t Con- sequently, [ have been asking myself all weekend what motivated me not to ask her out; and I do not have a specific answer—but I know it stems from how I perceived how she feels However,
Trang 14
maybe that’s not how she really feels, and I do not let myself comprehend that there may be a dif- ference between these two versions of the same feelings I guess I feel that my logical reasoning of what a particular look or remark means is the correct idea | completely leave out the possibil- ity that everyone does not (thankfully) think about everything the same way I do
Zalkind and Costello, in their article on perception, give five reasons why a person mis- perceives.” These are:
1 You are influenced by cues below your own threshold (i.e., the cues you don’t know you perceived)
You respond to irrelevant cues to arrive at a judgment
You are influenced by emotional factors (.e., what is liked is perceived as correct) You weigh perceptual evidence heavily if it comes from a respectable source
You are not able to identify all factors (i.e., not realizing how much weight is given to a single item)
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I feel I am guilty, if one can be “guilty,” of most of the mentioned means of mispercep- tion However, I feel that rather than imposing a perceptual defense on myself, I project a per- ceptual offense, and this greatly compounds my misperception Rather than looking for favor- able acts of communication and not allowing unfavorable perceptions, I am forever (when I become emotionally involved with a girl) on the lookout for any signs of displeasure And at the slightest hint, my mind begins to work on such questions as “What if that means .?”
For example, to the question, “Did you have a good time?” I got the reply, “Yeah, I guess so.” I did not perceive this as a positive statement My perceptual offense was quickly in play and I have since been analyzing that statement I don’t know Mary well enough to say what anything she says really means, but because I was afraid the reply meant “T had a bad time,” that is what I have convinced myself that she meant (although nothing else that was said even hinted at that idea; and to the friend who doubled with me, the opposite was obviously true) I didn’t ask her out this weekend for reasons mainly based on this one per- ception of how she feels about dating me Looking back on my action, I see I have commit- ted three of the Zalkind-Costello misperception errors
* I may have responded to an irrelevant cue—her remark probably just came out and didn’t really have any deep meaning behind it
® | was influenced by a (negative) emotional factor—I was so worried that she was not enjoying herself, and the impact this would have on my emotional happiness, that my per- ception might have been distorted
® | did not realize how heavily I weighted this single cue
Being apprehensive of how she felt, I ended up analyzing every little remark she made I did not take time to think that my ways of comprehending a perception may be inaccurate— the thought never seemed to enter my mind Our class handout on perception states, “These defenses act like a screen or filter blocking out that which we don’t want to see and letting through that which we wish to see.” I, however, feel that I block out that which I want to see and let in that which I don’t want to see This is a definite problem, but one that I never thought of before And to compound matters, the perceptions I let in are my own personal ver- sion of what is perceived and may be the opposite of what is being communicated
Ido not have this problem until I begin to like a girl Trained as an engineer, I think I am able to cope with objective matters; but when I try to understand another person, I seem to fail—especially when my perceptions pass through an emotional filter
Trang 15T will have to break down in order to have a better understanding of the people around me Right now the unknown (i.e., the human unknown—what people are thinking) confronts me and I am frustrated by it In response to this frustration, I set up a perceptual defense (I guess my perceptual offense is nothing but a type of perceptual defense—there is an old football theory that the best offense is a good defense), which-enly adds to my frustration Thus, to move from the unknown to perceptual understanding, I must first realize that I am reacting defensively to what is being com- municated to me
It seems I am now coming back to a familiar theme in all the topics we have covered so far Zalkind and Costello say, “The person who accepts himself is more likely to be able to see favorable aspects of other people.” I feel this is especially true of myself If I stop and realize that my date is probably thinking of the same things that I am (at the initial stages of human relations, most of the time is spent in the unconscious, hidden, and blind areas of perception), then I may prevent my perceptual defense from operating at its current level If I continually look at weak points and never strong points, and do not realize that I am doing this, I am not really aware of myself and, therefore, not aware of how others perceive me
I feel I can improve myself in a number of ways First, I must accept my own feelings and not worry or analyze them As is stated in chapter 10 of the workbook, “Each of us has both his tender and tough emotions.” Second, I should stop analyzing logically—it’s hard for me to accept the fact that all of my world is not logical Third, I should experiment more in the giving and receiving of perceptual feedback I spend too much time analyzing a date’s behavior and not enough time giving her feedback, thus blocking the understanding between us Finally, the fourth area of improvement, and the factor that this paper has led me to explore, is increasing my own awareness and under- standing of the causes of emotion I hope I can put these steps into action and then build on them
The following exercise is designed to help you develop perceptual skills that will be useful in the workplace
CLASS ACTIVITY: THE SELECTION
The purpose of this exercise is to understand the role of perception in personnel issues (Time allotted: 70 minutes)
STEP 1 Each class member will be assigned a role by your instructor, who will also assign you to groups composed of 4-6 other students who have been assigned the same role (10 minutes) Selection Committee:
Gerilyn, Senior Loan Officer Page 235
Mel, VP, Loans Page 236
Maria, HR Manager Page 237
Jason, Client Relations Supervisor Page 238 Charlie, Senior Manager, Auditing Page 239
Anne, Branch Manager Page 240
Observer Page 241
Trang 16The Situation
Metro Bank has just acquired a smaller local bank, and the primary strategic goal is to merge the banks effectively without losing any customers or valuable employees Most of the employees of the acquired bank are angry and afraid that they may lose their jobs One of their bank managers quit so there is a new opening for a branch manager Here is the job description followed by a list of general selection criteria for branch managers:
Branch managers have direct responsibility for managing and developing branch staff, supporting sales goals, and actively participating in the selling and delivery of all financial services They must maintain and develop business relationships in the community They report directly to the Regional Sales Manager and must ensure high quality customer service, which includes opening accounts, providing customers with information, and resolving banking problems In staffing emergencies, they have to help the staff with day-to-day branch operations They also ensure that the branch meets all regulatory compliance standards, develop the branch marketing plan, develop and exe- cute the business development plan, manage sales efforts to meet sales géals, develop and execute customer service initiatives, including the resolution of customer complaints
Selection Criteria for Branch Managers
1 Knowledge of sales, branch banking, and consumer lending
2 Strong business development skills
3 Excellent analytic skills
4 Strong written and verbal communication skills
5 Ability to oversee and administer human resource issues
6 Outstanding selling skills
7 Ability to build community relations
8 Strong interpersonal skills
Lou Welch has worked for 10 years at Metro Bank, beginning as a teller during college Lou was later promoted to credit analyst and client relations supervisor Lou has been working as a senior loan officer for the last year There is an opening for a branch manager, and Lou wants the job Below you will find a summary of Lou’s previous performance appraisals The bank uses a
1-5 scale, where 1 = unacceptable, 2 = poor, 3 = fair, 4 = good, and 5 = outstanding
2003 2004 2005 2006 Dependability 3 4 4 4 Initiative 4 4 5 5
Achieves work goals 4 A 5 5
Teamwork 2 3 3 3
Customer service 3 4 4 4A
Leadership 3 4 4 4
Overall rating 3 4 4 4
Trang 17ƒ
STEP 3 You will be assigned to a selection committee by your instructor, perhaps by count- ing off to form groups of six so that each committee has the same roster as the list shown in Step 1 Make a name tent (or tear out your role-play instruction sheet and fold it) so others can see your name
If there are not enough participants to form equal groups of six, the person taking Anne’s role can also speak for the missing person after reading his or her role instructions (For example, “ is not here but sent me an e-mail with his or her opinion, which is ’) If there are a few too many participants, they can be observers (5 minutes)
STEP 4 Your task as a selection committee is to determine whether or not Lou should be one of the finalists to be considered for a management position As branch manager, Anne will facilitate the meeting Your committee has 20 minutes to make a decision about Lou Mark your decision and list your reasons in the box below (20 minutes),
Decision: Select Lou as a finalist Don’t select Lou as a finalist
Reasons
STEP 5 Plenary Debriefing (20 minutes)
a What was the impact of discussing Lou’s application with other participants assigned to the same role before the selection committee meeting?
b What was your committee’s decision? Why?
c Did you observe any perceptual distortions in other committee members? In yourself? If so, what were they?
d Asa result of the selection committee’s discussion, did you change your impres- sion of Lou and whether Lou should be a finalist?
e How did your committee handle the members’ individual perceptions of Lou? Did you share all the information you had about Lou with one another?
Trang 25Observer
Unobtrusively observe the group discussion, considering the following questions: 1 To what extent did the group focus on the selection criteria?
2 Which members of the group had the most influence on the group decision? Why?
3 Did you observe any perceptual distortions? If so, what were they?
4, To what extent did the members share information with each other?
Trang 2610 11 12 13 14 1ã 16 17 =) LEARNING POINTS
Perception is the process by which we select, organize, and evaluate the stimuli in our environment to make it meaningful for ourselves
Selective attention means that people perceive only some of the stimuli that is actually present
Both internal factors (motives, values, interests, attitudes, past experiences, and expecta- tions) and external factors (motion, intensity, size, novelty, and salience) affect what we perceive
Perceived stimuli is organized into patterns, such as opposites, cause-and-effect relation- ships, and schemas
Schemas are cognitive frameworks that represent organized knowledge about a given concept, event, or type of stimulus Once established, they determine what stimuli we attend to and remember
People evaluate and interpret the stimuli they perceive in a subjective fashion
Social identity theory is based on the belief that people tend (1) to perceive themselves and others in terms of social categories rather than as individuals (social categorization); (2) to assess the relative worth of groups as well as individuals by comparing them (social comparison); and (3) to perceive and respond to the world not as detached observers but in terms of their identity, which depends on the social groups to which they belong (social identification)
Stereotyping occurs when we attribute behavior or attitudes to a person on the basis of the group or category to which the person belongs
The drawbacks to perception are that it prevents us from taking in everything we should, makes our interpretations open to question, and promotes stereotypes
On the positive side, the process of perception limits, selects, and organizes stimuli that would otherwise overwhelm us
There are numerous perceptual distortions to avoid: stereotyping, the halo effect, pri- macy and recency effects, central tendency, contrast effects, projection, and self-fulfill- ing perceptual defenses
The Johari window consists of four quadrants: the arena, blindspot, facade, and unknown It is an information processing mode! that distinguishes among information about oneself that is either known or unknown to the self or the other in a social interac- tion Good communication is most likely to occur when both parties are operating from their arena
Three sources of misinterpretation in cross-cultural interactions are (1) subconscious cultural blinders; (2) lack of cultural self-awareness; and (3) projected similarity The D.LE model teaches people to distinguish among description, interpretation, and evaluation of cultural behavior Description is the safest response because interpretation and evaluation are likely to result in misattributions or negative evaluations
Attribution theory contends that when people observe others’ behavior, they attempt to determine whether it is internally or externally caused We look for information about consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness to decide on causation
The self-serving bias occurs when people attribute their success to personal qualities while blaming their failure on external factors
Trang 27SCRIPTS
For EMPLOYEES
* Employees who are expert at perception are self aware and recognize their own biases They are able to put their biases aside in an effort to be more objective
* Experts are able to take the perspective of other people so they can imagine the types of perception that others hold
* They are also able to empathize with others, which allows them to understand the internal and external factors that influence other people’s behavior
° When people give them feedback, they understand that the other’s view of them may be distorted by personal perceptions Therefore, they check out feedback with more than one person to discover whether it is accurate
¢ Experts make an extra effort to clarify communication to and from others to ensure that perceptions are not acting as a barrier to understanding
* People who have a greater degree of self-understanding are less likely to view the world in black-and-white terms and to make extreme judgments about others.°8
* Experts understand that their own characteristics affect the characteristics they are likely to see in others Traits that are important to us are the ones we look for in others The tru- ism that we see in others that which we most dislike in ourselves applies to perception People who are self-critical are more likely to criticize others
FoR MANAGERS
* Managers who are expert at understanding the role perception plays in the workplace understand that no one’s perceptions are ever totally accurate or exactly the same There- fore, they are humble and willing to accept the possibility that their perceptions are mis- taken They don’t waste time arguing about what different people really saw or heard; they take a provisional approach that allows for different perceptions:
Not: “T know Im right; I heard him with my own ears!” But: “I thought he said that, but perhaps I’m mistaken.”
Not: “I’m positive the staff decided to approve my budget just as it is.”
But: “Well, if we have different perceptions about the outcome of the decision, we'd bet- ter check it out with the rest of the staff We both may have heard only what we wanted to hear.”
* Expert managers can distinguish between questionable perceptions that they need to verify with others and with solid, intuitive perceptions based on years of expertise
* They make every effort to be fair when evaluating employees and put aside personal biases
* They can readily recognize and warn against the different types of perceptual distortion they observe in others and themselves
* They know that they must deal with misperceptions as seriously as if they were true They take steps to prevent misperceptions by putting themselves in others’ shoes and communi- cating clearly
* Expert managers know how much self-disclosure is necessary to form relationships Self- disclosure is like a bell-shaped curve Too much disclosure scares people off and makes them nervous Too little disclosure doesn’t give others enough information about the per- son to form a relationship and they may fill in the gaps with their own projections * Expert managers don’t make attributions about cultural behavior they don’t fully under-
Trang 28FoR ORGANIZATIONAL ARCHITECTS
® Expert organizational architects provide diversity and performance appraisal training so employees can recognize the dangers of stereotyping others
® They provide training so that employees who make hiring, performance evaluation, and promotion decisions are trained to recognize the perceptual distortions that can influence these decisions
* They make efforts to remove hiring and promotion barriers for minorities that reflect bias ¢ Experts design training programs on cultural differences in the workplace to prevent mis-
interpretations about behavior
* To guard against against perceptual distortions, they develop performance appraisal sys- tems that rely on facts and the judgments of multiple raters
\\PERSONAL APPLICATION
=<) ASSIGNMENT
The topic of this assignment is to write about an experience that involved perception or attribu- tion Choose an experience that was significant to you and one about which you are motivated to learn more
A Concrete Experience
1 Objectively describe the experience (who, what, when, where, how) (2 points)
2 Subjectively describe your feelings, perceptions, and thoughts that occurred during (not after) the experience What did others seem to be feeling? (2 points)
B Reflective Observation
Trang 292 Why did the people involved (including you) behave as they did? (2 points)
C Abstract Conceptualization
1 Relate concepts or theories from the assigned readings or the lecture to the experience Explain thoroughly how they apply to your experience Please apply at least two concepts or theories and cite them correctly (4 points)
D Active Experimentation
1 What did you learn about perception or attribution from this experience? (1 point)
2 What did you learn about yourself? (1 point)
3 What action steps will you take to be more effective in the future? (2 points)
E Integration, Synthesis, and Writing
1 Did you integrate and synthesize the four sections? (1 point)
Trang 30ENDNOTES
1D, Dearborn and H Simon, “Selective Perception: A Note on the Departmental Identification of Executives,’ Sociometry 21 (1958): 142; and A Kofman, “Selective Perception Among First Line Supervisors,” Personnel Administrator 26 (September 1963) 2J.R Meindl and S B Ehrlich, “The Romance of Leadership and the Evaluation of Organizational Performance,” Academy of Management Journal 30 (1987): 91-109
3 § T Fiske and S E Taylor, Social Cognition (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1984)
4M R Singer, Perception and Identity in Intercultural Com- munication (Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press: 1998): 99 > 8 A Haslam, D V Knippenberg, M J Platow, and N Elle- mers (eds.), Social Identity at Work: Developing Theory for Organizational Practice (New York: Psychology Press, 2003): 6 6N_R Buchan, R T A Croson, and R M Dawes “Swift Neighbors and Persistent Strangers: A Cross-Cultural Investi- _gation of Trust and Reciprocity in Social Exchange,”
American Journal Of Sociology 108 (2002): 168-206 TR Cross, R Rice, and A Parker “Information Seeking in Social Context: Structural Influences and Receipt Of Informa- tional Benefits.” EEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics—Part C: Applications and Reviews 31 (2001): 438448; D J McAllister “Affect- and Cognition-Based Trust as Foundations for Interpersonal Cooperation in Organi- zations,” Academy of Management Journal 38 (1995): 24-59; G R Jones and J M George, “The Experience of and Evolu- tion of Trust: Implications for Cooperation and Teamwork,” Academy of Management Review 23 (1998): 531-546 8 J.C Turner, M A Hogg, P J Oakes, 8 D Reicher, and M Wetherell, Rediscovering the Social Group: A Self-Catego- rization Theory (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987); S Haslam, P Oakes, K Reynolds, and J Turner, “Social Identity Salience and the Emergence of Stereotype Consensus.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25 (1999): 809-818
9 J Correll, B Park, C M Judd, and B Wittenbrink, “The Police Officer’s Dilemma: Using Ethnicity to Disambiguate Potentially Threatening Individuals,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83(6) (2002):1314-1329
10 W Keichel ITT, “How to Manage Older Workers,” Fortune 122(12) (November 15, 1990): 183-186
|G M McEvoy and W F Cascio, “Cumulative Evidence of Relationship between Employee Age and Job Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology 74(1) (February 1989): 11-17 ?P Coy, “Old Smart Productive.” BusinessWeek 3939 (Tune 27, 2005): 83
1D W Galenson Old Masters and Young Geniuses (Prince- ton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006)
4 Coy, “Old Smart Productive”: 82
5D Christensen and R Rosenthal, “Gender and Nonverbal Decoding Skill as Determinants of Interpersonal Expectancy Effects,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 42 (1982): 75-87; and C McCauley, C L Stitt, and M Segal, “Stereotyping: From Prejudice to Prediction,” Psychological Bulletin 29 (1980): 195-208
'6L Falkenberg, “Improving the Accuracy of Stereotypes Within the Workplace,” Journal of Management 16(1) (1990): 108
NJ Adler, International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior (Cincinnati, OH: South-Western, 2002) '8 K B Christensen, M L Nielsen, R Rugulies, L Smith- Hansen, T S Kristensen, “Workplace Levels of Psychosocial Factors as Prospective Predictors of Registered Sickness Absence,” Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medi- cine 47(9) (September 2005): 933-940,
'9 H Varian, “The Hunk Differential.” New York Times (August 28, 2003) http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/ ~hal/
people/hal/N Y Times/2003-08-28.html Accessed 7/3/06
0 Tid
21'S S Zalkind and T Costello, “Perception: Implications for Administration,” Administrative Science Quarterly 7 (Sept- ember 1962): 218-235
?2 Tbid.: 226
3N Adler and D N Izraeli, Women in Management World- wide (Armonk, NY: M E Sharpe, 1988); and M Jelinek and N Adler, “Women: World Class Managers for Global Competi- tion,” Academy of Management Executive 2(1) (1988): 11-19 2M, Haire and W F Grunes, “Perceptual Defenses: Processes Protecting an Organized Perception of Another Personality,” Human Relations 3 (1950): 403-412; and M Rokeach, The Open and Closed Mind (New York: Basic Books, 1960) > For two excellent collections of material relevant to this point, see W G Bennis et al., Interpersonal Dynamics, rev ed (Homewood, IL: Dorsey Press, 1968), and R Wylie, The Self Concept (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965) ?6 E, Goffman, “On Face Work: An Analysis of Ritual Ele- ments in Social Interaction,” Psychiatry 18 (1955): 213-231 27 J Luft, “The Johari Window,” Human Relations and Train- ing News January 1961): 6-7
28M R Singer, Perception and Identity in Intercultural Com- munication (Yarmouth, ME: Intercultural Press, 1998) ?? Adler, International Dimensions of Organizational Behavior 30 |, Varner and L Beamer, Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004): 34 31 R Nisbett, The Geography of Thought (New York: Free Press, 2004)
22 Thid.: 78-84,
33 M Bennett, J Bennett, and C Stiller, “The D.LE Model.” http://www.intercultural org/pdf/die.pdf Accessed 10/31/05,
34H H Kelley, “Attribution in Social Interaction,” in E E Jones et al (eds.), Attribution: Perceiving the Causes of Behavior (Morristown, NJ: General Learning Press, 1972) 35L, Pye, Chinese Negotiating Style (Cambridge, MA: Oelgeschlager, Gunn, & Hain, 1982)
*6L Ross, “The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings,” in L Berkowitz (ed.), Advances in Experimental Social Psychol- ogy 10 (Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1977): 174~220: and A G Miller and T Lawson, “The Effect of an Informational Option on the Fundamental Attribution Error,’ Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 15 (Jane 1989): 194-204 37 Zalkind and Costello, “Perception.”