ORGANIZATIONAL

PSYCHOLOGY

QUESTION REVIEWS
ETHICAL DILEMMA
CASE STUDY
 PERCEPTION AND INDIVIDUAL DECISION
MAKING
QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW
1 What is perception, and what factors influence our perception?

Answer: Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. What one perceives can be
substantially different from objective reality. Perception is important in the study of OB because
people’s behavior is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.

Factors in the perceiver such as attitudes and motives; factors in the situations such as time,
work or social setting; and factors in the target such as proximity, sounds, motion are all
factors that can influence our perception.

2 What is attribution theory? What are the three determinants of attribution? What are its
implications for explaining organizational behavior?

Answer: Attribution theory suggests that when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt
to determine whether it was internally or externally caused. That determination depends
largely on three factors:

1. Distinctiveness
2. Consensus
3. Consistency.

An implication for managers is that errors or biases distort attribution. For example, while
making judgments about the behavior of other people, we tend to overestimate the influence of
personal factors or internal factors and underestimate the influence of external factors.

3 What shortcuts do people frequently use in making judgments about others?

Answer:
SELECTIVE PERCEPTION - People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of
their, background, experience, and attitudes
HALO EFFECT - Drawing a general impression about an individual on the basis of a
single characteristic
CONTRAST EFFECTS - Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that are affected by
comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the
same characteristics
STEREOTYPING - Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to
which that
PERSON BELONGS – a prevalent and often useful, if not always accurate,
generalization

4 What is the link between perception and decision making? How does one affect the other?

Answer: Individuals must make decisions at work. Decision-making occurs as a reaction to a

problem, which is a discrepancy that exists between the current state of affairs and a desired
state. The perception of problems differs between people. The awareness of whether a problem
exists and subsequently whether a decision needs to be made is a perceptual issue. Perceptual
distortions also affect decision-making.

5 What is the rational model of decision making? How is it different from bounded rationality
and intuition?

Answer: The optimizing decision maker is rational. He/she makes consistent, value-maximizing
choices within specified constraints. The Rational Model—six steps listed in Exhibit 6–3.
a. Define the problem.
b. Identify the decision criteria important to solving the problem.
c. Weight the previously identified criteria in order to give them the correct priority in the
decision.
d. Generate possible alternatives that could succeed in resolving the problem.
e. Critically analyze and evaluate each alternative.
f. Compute the optimal decision.
g. Evaluate each alternative against the weighted criteria, and select the alternative with the
highest total score.
The rational model differs in that bounded rationality is the “real world” model: that seeks
satisfactory and sufficient solutions from limited data and alternatives. Intuition is a non-
conscious process created from distilled experience that results in quick decisions. It relies on
holistic associations and is affectively charged.
6 What are some of the common decision biases or errors that people make?

Answer:

Escalation of Commitment - Increasing commitment to a decision in spite of evidence that it is

wrong, especially if responsible for the decision!

Randomness Error - Creating meaning out of random events – superstitions

Winner’s Curse - Highest bidder pays too much due to value overestimation

The likelihood increases with the number of people in auction

Hindsight Bias - After an outcome is already known, believing it could have been accurately
predicted beforehand.

7 What are the influences of individual differences, organizational constraints, and culture on
decision making?

Answer: Individual differences can result in deviations in decision-making. A person’s personality

can influence his/her decision-making. Achievement striving people may fall prey to a hindsight
bias. Gender may also impact decisions such as the concept of rumination whereby women in
general reflect at length about possible decisions. Organizational constraints can include:
1. Performance Evaluation - managerial evaluation criteria influence actions
2. Reward Systems - managers will make the decision with the greatest personal payoff for
them
3. Formal Regulations - limit the alternative choices of decision makers
4. System-imposed Time Constraints - restrict ability to gather or evaluate information
5. Historical Precedents - past decisions influence current decisions
Cultural differences also impact decision-making based on traditions, customs, religion, etc.

8 Are unethical decisions more a function of an individual decision maker or the decision
maker’s work environment? Explain.

Answer: This answer will vary according to the situation. Ethical criterion is essential in
decision-making. The ethical criteria discussed are utilitarianism – providing the greatest good
for the greatest number, ethical criterion based on rights, which are fundamental liberties and
privileges, and justice, which imposes rules fairly and impartially. The ultimate decision is
always an individual one although work environments can influence decisions both positively
and negatively.

9 What is creativity, and what is the three-component model of creativity?

Answer: Creativity is the ability to produce novel and useful ideas The three-component model
includes: expertise as the foundation; creative thinking skills are the personality characteristics
associated with creativity and intrinsic task motivation is the desire to do the job because of its
characteristics.

ETHICAL DILEMMA (Do Unethical Decisions Come from

Bad Character?)
1. Do you think people see themselves as more ethical than they really are? And you?

According to the information gave by the Ethical dilemma I believe that people see themselves
as more ethical than they really are.  We first we do it when it’s hard to find out and to verify,
when we have insufficient time or information.  Evidence suggests that when we fail to notice
decision has an ethical component, it enables us to behave in a self-interest manner without
having to feel badly about it(p.193).The self-perspective is another reason because people do
care about their appearance, and it need to be in a positive way. I will also see myself as more
ethical that I am because I can be the one who will break a rule to help my teammates , and I
won’t see myself as unethical because it is something  that they will do for me in the same
situation. If I go back to the book we can see that it say that own perception of what we do
“what is right” depend on such thing as situation, expectation of other, and more.

2. The authors of one study noted that “disclosures can exacerbate [unethical behavior] by
causing people to feel absolved of their duty to be objective.” Do you agree? Why or why not?

I agree about the study made by the authors because people can think that people can think
that they did their job by disclosing to made interest. By consequences this can made them to
achieve goals or objective that are not in the right way.  Then this disclosing could be an
argument and it won’t be a problem no more, so they excuse will be on interest being faced in
that situation.

3. Do you think if we admitted it to ourselves times when we behaved unethically we would be

less likely to behave unethically in the future?

I think it will be a good idea to make ourselves admit, so we can realize how often we are
acting unethically and how poorly we are actually acting ethically. That will make own self look
miserable and by consequence we will be more honest in the future decision and behavior. At
this point we won’t have any excuse to made unethical choices. By being honest we will build a
strong positive and a leadership character that will allow us to be in great service for us
personally, but also for the business that we are working for.

CASE INCIDENT 1 ( computerized decision making)

1. What are the specific advantages of using computerized decision making? How can computers
be better decision makers than humans?
Advantages of computer decision making are Faster and efficient in processing of information,

Automatic generation of accounting documents like invoices, cheques and statement of account.

With the larger reductions in the cost of hardware and software and availability of user-

friendly accounting software package, it is relatively cheaper like maintaining a manual

accounting system. More timely information can be produced. No more manual processing of

the data- all automatically been posted to the various ledgers/accounts and Many types of

useful reports can be generated for management to make decisions. Limitations in memory are

the crucial aspect of human cognition that impinges on decision making. People were severely

limited in terms of the amount of information they could process at any particular moment in

time. Given that limited capacity processing is seen as a primary constraint some have argued

that computers should be used to support decision making, since they can provide the extra

computational power needed to retain all the information about every available alternative and

to undertake the complex calculations that underpin the rational model. , computers can

acquire and hold more information about a particular decision domain than. In addition,

computers recall precisely what they store in terms of both the data themselves and their

format so are not subject to the human memory.

2. What are the weaknesses of using computers as decision tools? Are computers likely to have
any specific problems in making decisions that people wouldn’t have?

The cost of computer and associated equipment’s is falling steadily. Still this equipment’s are

and continue to be much more costly as compared to manual processing equipment’s. Also

technological complexity of this equipment makes it more difficult to learn and maintain these

equipment’s as compared to equipment’s of manual information processing. Use of computers

require additional infrastructure, such as power supply and software back up. This increases the

chances of problems due to failure of infrastructure. For example, a computer will not work

where there is no electric power supply. Even a laptop with a battery will work without power

supply only for a limited period. Failures of computer system can be more serious and difficult

to correct. For example, one scratch on a hard disk can make the complete data on the disk

inaccessible. In comparison, manual system faults have comparatively limited impact. One page

torn from a cabinet full of documents has no impact on other documents. A computer generally

reduces the errors of processing. However if there is an error in input data, it can result in
major blunders in the processing which the computer system is unable to detect. In manual

systems the chances of such blunders passing undetected and corrected is much less.

3. Do you think computer decision making systems can effectively take ethical issues into
account? What is the role of human decision makers in creating ethical choices?

Ethical decision-making is a very important part of the business environment because often a

situation may come along. Computer ethics deals with the issues that relate to the moral

implications of the way decisions are being made in regarding to the computer domain. It also

refers to the morality of the computer professionals, and their usage to computers Human

decision makers in creating Ethical decision making deals with preferences, utilities, costs,

benefits, goals, and objectives. One must take all of these into account in order to define the

problem and determined the desired end result. Basically, it is "the process of identifying a

problem, generating alternatives, and choosing among them so that the alternatives selected

maximized the most important ethical values while also achieving the intended goal"

4. Are there advantages to completely disconnecting from the wired world when possible? What
can you do to try to retain your ability to focus and process information deeply?

In many ways, it is. Computers, smart phones and other digital devices perform countless

wonderful tasks for us, and have enormous potential to enrich our lives in the decades to come.

Without depth, everything we do suffers - from the smallest everyday task, to the personal

relationships that matter most to us, to how we think and work. In technologically advanced

societies around the world, workers now sit at their desks all day shuttling computer. This

endless cycle of distractions is making businesses, governments and other organization less,

rather than more, efficient - defeating the purpose the technologies were created for in the

first place.

General Discussion: The full potential of computer-based decision support can only be realized if

it is developed and evaluated in the context of a broad understanding of how decision makers

think. While limits in information processing can be overcome by drawing on the computational

power of computers, there is also a need to recognize that: there are occasions when simple

rather than complex rules are appropriate; beliefs and values are constructed during the process

of deliberation making them highly sensitive to the interfaces supporting this process; intuitive

thinking provides important insights and should be used alongside the outputs of formal
computer modeling to evolve a requisite decision model; the support mechanism should

complement existing forms of decisional thinking, particularly if these are known to be

functional. Similarly limitations in memory can be very usefully overcome by computer support,

but these must be developed to ensure that they do not exacerbate other thinking biases such as

confirmation and inside thinking. This may be achieved through training decision makers to

think smarter, the use of decision analysts or through the development of appropriate

interfaces between computer and decision maker.

CASE INCIDENT 2 (Predictions That Didn’t Quite Pan

Out)
1. Despite the difficulty of making predictions, many people confidently make assertions about
what will happen in the future. Why do you think this is?

Answer: The student’s answer should include discussion about the need many people feel for
guidance to reduce ambiguity or uncertainty in their lives. Those with a greater need, based on
their levels of confidence, self-esteem, and assertiveness, will most likely perceive that life
predictions help them to navigate a complicated world.

2. What perceptual or decision-making errors can you identify in these predictions?

Answer: Of the errors listed in the chapter, the case includes:

OVERCONFIDENCE BIAS: The “Experts” may not really have the intellectual capability to be
making such predictions.
ANCHORING BIAS: Fixating on initial information as a starting point and failing to adequately
adjust for subsequent information.
CONFIRMATION BIAS: Type of selective perception. Seek out information that reaffirms past
choices, and discount information that contradicts past judgments.
AVAILABILITY BIAS: Tendency for people to base judgments on information that is readily
available
ESCALATION OF COMMITMENT: Staying with a decision even when there is clear evidence
that it’s wrong.
RANDOMNESS ERROR: Decision-making becomes impaired when we try to create meaning
out of random events.
RISK AVERSION: Seeking risk aversion when it is difficult to predict and control.
3. Can you think of some predictions you’ve made that haven’t turned out the way you
expected?

4. Why do you think it’s so hard to make accurate predictions?

Answer: Simply because no one can ever know everything upon which to base the prediction.