Chapter 4: SELF CONCEPT, PERCEPTIONS AND ATTRIBUTIONS

Self-concept, perceptions and attributions are important factors that impact an employee’s view of his
work environment. Understanding these individual characteristics will surely aid managers and non-
managers in performing their respective roles and jobs more efficiently and effectively.

SELF-CONCEPT

People do not have common self-concept. They always think of themselves in numerous manners in
different circumstances. Self-concept refers to how a person thinks about, evaluates or perceives
himself. It is an important and useful way to understand and improve performance and welfare.

There are three conceptual dimensions of self-concept which influences a person’s adaptability and
well-being.

They are: complexity-a person’s self-concept has higher complexity when it consists of many
categories

Consistency-a person has high consistency when similar personality traits and values are required
across all aspects of self-concept

Clarity-this means the level of a person’s self conceptions are clearly and confidently described,
internally consistent and stable across time

So, people perform better when with their each self-concepts other (high consistency) have many and
elements are relative (high complexity) that are well-matched clear.

Self-Enhancement
Of course, everyone desires to feel that they are valued. People are also by nature inspired to promote
and care for themselves. Self-enhancement is a desire to magnify positive aspects of self-conceptions
while isolating oneself from negative feedback and information.

Most often people desires to rate themselves as above average, selectively recall positive feedback
while forgetting negative ones, attribute their success to personal inspiration or ability while pointing to
others for mistakes and believe that they have a great possibility of being successful.

Positively when people see their self-concept in a positive light, they have better mental and physical
health. On the negative side, self-enhancement can result in bad decisions such as overestimation of the
success in investment decisions by managers. Self-Verification

People are also inspired to verify and maintain their self-concepts. Self-verification assumes that people
work to preserve their self-views by seeking to confirm them. It stabilizes a person’s self-concept which
helps guide his thought and actions.

Self-verification has numerous implications in organizational behavior, which are:

1. It affects the perceptual process because employees are likely to remember information that is
consistent with their self-concepts

2. The more confident employees are in their self-concepts, the less they accept feedbacks
whether positive or negative, that is at odds with their self-concepts

3. Employees are motivated to interact with others who affirm their self-concepts and this affect
how well they get along with their boss and with co-employees in teams.

Self-Evaluation

A positive self-concept is what almost everyone endeavors to have. However, some people have more
positive evaluation of themselves than do others. Self-evaluation is an individual’s honest and objective
assessment of himself. The self-evaluation is usually defined by three concepts which are self-esteem,
self-efficacy and locus of control.
1. Self-Esteem is the extent to which a person has generally positive feelings about himself. People
with high self-esteem view themselves in a positive light, are confident, and respect themselves.
On the other hand, people with low self-esteem experience high levels of self-doubt and have
less self-worth. High self-esteem is linked to higher levels of satisfaction with one’s job and
higher levels of performance on the job . People with low self-esteem are fascinated In
situations in which they will be comparatively indistinguishable , like large companies. It may be
challenging to manage employees with low self-esteem, because negative feedback given with
the intention to develop performance may be regarded as a judgment on their value as an
employee. As a result, effectively managing employees with quite low self-esteem needs
diplomacy and presenting many positive feedback when conversing performance incidents.

2. Self-Efficacy is a personal belief on competencies and abilities. In other words, it is a person’s

belief of his ability to do a definite task fruitfully. Self-efficacy differs from other personality
traits in that it is job specific. A person may have high self-efficacy in being successful
academically, but low self-efficacy in relation to his ability to fix his own car. At the same time,
people have a certain level of generalized self-efficacy and they have the belief that whatever
task or hobby they tackle, they are likely to be successful in it. Self-efficacy at work is associated
to job performance. This relationship is most likely a result of people with high self-efficacy
setting higher goals for themselves and being more obligated to these goals, whereas people
with low selfefficacy tend to procrastinate. Giving people opportunities to test their skills so that
they can see what they are capable of doing (or empowering them) is also a good way of
increasing self-efficacy.

3. Locus of control deals with the degree to which people feel answerable for their own behaviors.
People with high internal locus of control or internals believe that they can influence their own
destiny and what happens to them is caused by their own doing. While, those individuals with
high external locus of control or externals suppose that things happen to them because of other
people, luck, or a powerful Being. Internals feel greater control over their own lives and so they
act in ways that will add to their chances of success. They demonstrate higher levels of
motivation and have more positive experiences at work. Interestingly, internal locus is also
related to one’s subjective well-being and happiness in life, while being high in external locus is
related to a higher rate of depression. Internals thrive in contexts in which they have the ability
to influence their own behavior. Successful entrepreneurs are likely to have high levels of
internal locus of control. Externals on the other hand, believe that what happens to them is the
result of luck or fate. They perceive modest association between their own behavior and success
or failure. They are more conforming, less argumentative and easier to supervise. Self-
monitoring
Self-monitoring refers to the level to which a person is able of checking his actions appearance in social
situations. In other words , people who are social monitors understand what the situation demands and
act accordingly. Their greater ability to modify their behavior according to the demands of the situation
and to manage the; impressions effectively is a great advantage for them. In general, they tend to be
more successful in their careers. They are rated as higher performers, and emerge as leaders While they
are effective in persuading other people and get things done by managing their impressions, this
personality trait has some disadvantages. First, when evaluating the performance of other employees,
they tend to be less precise. They may avoid giving correct feedback to their subordinates to shun from
confrontations. Second high social monitors are likely to experience high incidence of stress, probably
due to behaving in ways that disagree with their true feelings. Finally, high social monitors are inclined
to be less committed to their companies. They may see their jobs as a way for greater things, which may
avoid them from forming strong connections and loyalty to their present employer. On the other hand,
low social monitors are likely to act the way they feel. Perceptual Selection

Human beings are simultaneously exposed to different stimuli in his environment. Owing to the fact,
that the various stimuli cannot be taken care of or processed at the same time, people become selective
in their approach. They would choose some simulator further processing. Perceptual selection is the
choice of the stimuli that would depend on what people feel is pertinent for them and or appropriate for
them. It is driven by internal and external factors. Internal factors include:

Personality – Personality traits influence how a person selects perceptions. For example, conscientious
people tend to pick details and external stimuli to a greater degree.

Motivation – People will choose perceptions based on what they need in the moment. They will support
selections that they think will aid them with their present needs, and be more likely to disregard what is
immaterial to their needs.

Experience – The patterns of incidences or associations one has learned in the past affect current
perceptions. The person will choose perceptions in a way that matched with what they found in the
past.

External factors include:

Size – A larger size makes it more likely an object will be selected. The larger the size of the stimuli, the
more likely it is to be perceived like headlines in the newspaper; brand name on the packaging of a
product.
Intensity- Greater intensity, in brightness, for example, also increases perceptual selection. The larger
the force or power of a stimuli, the greater the chances of it getting perceived like strong smell or a loud
noise; flashy colors on the packaging or in the advertisement; strong aroma of food.

Contrast – When a perception stands clearly out against a background, there is a greater likelihood of
selection. Any stimuli that stands out from the rest of the environment is more likely to be noticed; like
capital and bold letters; a black and white advertisement amongst colored ads on TV; or a colored
advertisement in the black and white newspaper.

Motion – A moving perception is more likely to be selected. Anything that moves has greater chances of
being perceived like a scroll advertisement.

Repetition – Repetition increases perceptual selection. A repeated stimuli is more likely to be noticed;
like advertisements in audio-visual media are more likely to be noticed than in the print media.

Novelty and Familiarity – Both of these increase selection. When a perception is new, it stands out in a
person’s experience. When it is familiar, it is likely to be selected because of this familiarity. A new
stimulus in a familiar setting.

Perceptual Organization

When exposed to a large number of stimuli simultaneously, people may often block the various stimuli,
as they get stressed out. This is because the body cannot cope up with so many stimuli at the same time.
The people thus, blocks out the various stimuli from their conscious awareness. This is called perceptual
blocking. After certain perceptions are selected, they can be organized differently. The following factors
are those that determine perceptual organization:

1. Figure-Ground – Once perceived, objects stand out against their background. This can mean, for
instance, that perceptions of something as new can stand out against the background of
everything of the same type that is old.

2. Perceptual Grouping – Grouping is when perceptions are brought together into a pattern.
 3. Closure – This is the tendency to try to create wholes out of perceived parts. Sometimes this can
result in error, though, when the perceiver fills in unperceived information to complete the
whole.

4. Proximity – Perceptions that are physically close to each other are easier to organize into a
pattern or whole.

5. Similarity – Similarity between perceptions promotes a tendency to group them together.

6. Perceptual Constancy – This means that if an object is perceived always to be or act a certain
way, the person will tend to infer that it actually is always that way.

7. Perceptual Context – People will tend to organize perceptions in relation to other pertinent
perceptions, and create a context out of those connections.

Each of these factors influence how the person perceives their environment, so responses to their
environment can be understood by taking the perceptual process into account.

Visual Perception

Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding environment by processing information that
is contained in visible light. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight, or vision (adjective
form: visual, optical, or ocular).

In order to receive information from the environment people are equipped with sense organs like eye,
ear and nose. Each sense organ is part of a sensory system which receives sensory inputs and transmits
sensory information to the brain. Sensory inputs are somehow converted into perceptions of desks and
computers, flowers and buildings, cars and planes; into sights, sounds, smells, taste and touch
experiences.
Visual perceptual processing is subdivided into categories including visual discrimination, visual figure
ground, visual closure, visual memory, visual sequence memory, visual form constancy, visual spatial
relationships, and visual-mor integration.

1. Visual discrimination is the ability of the child to be aware of the distinctive features of forms
including shape, orientation, size, and color. Visual discrimination, figure ground, and closure
problems may result in person confusing words with similar beginnings or endings and even
entire words

2. Visual figure ground is the ability to distinguish an object from irrelevant background
information.

3.Visual closure is the ability to recognize a complete feature from fragmented information.

3. Visual memory is the ability to retain information over an adequate period of time. Obtaining
maximum information in the shortest possible time provides for optimal performance and is
essential for reading comprehension and spelling. Dysfunctions in visual memory may cause
prolonged time in copying assignments, difficulty recognizing the same word on the next page,
and difficulty retaining what is seen or heard.

4. Visual sequential memory is the ability to perceive and remember a sequence of objects, letters,
words, and other symbols in the same order as originally seen.

5. Visual form constancy is the ability to recognize objects as they change size, shape, or
orientation.

6. Visual spatial skills refer to the ability to understand directional concepts that organize external
visual space. These skills allow an individual to develop spatial concepts, such as right and left,
front and back, and up and down as they relate to their body and to objects in space. A visual
spatial deficit may contribute to poor athletic performance, difficulties with rhythmic activities,
lack of coordination and balance, clumsiness, reversals of forms and letters, such as ‘b’ and ‘d’
and words such as ‘on’ and ‘no’ and ‘was’ and ‘saw,” and a tendency to work with one side of
body while the other side does not participate.
Social Perception

Social perception is the study of how people form impressions of and make inferences about other
people. People learn about others’ feelings and emotions by picking up on information gathered from
their physical appearance, and verbal and nonverbal communication.

There are includes three domains of competence on being competent in social perception which are:

1. Knowing that other people have thoughts, beliefs, emotions, intentions, desires, and the like

2. Being able to “read” other people’s inner states based on their words, behavior, facial
expression and the like

3. Adjusting one’s actions based on those “readings”. That is, a socially competent person can
make note of other people’s facial expressions, tone of voice, posture, gestures, words, and the
like, and on the basis of these clues, make reasonably accurate judgments about that person’s
state of mind, emotions, and intentions. Socially competent people then use these inferences
about other people’s inner states to make good decisions about how to behave socially. Social
perception is one important component of social competence and social success (including peer
acceptance and friendship). In addition to social perception, socially competent people must
have knowledge of social rules, roles, routines, and scripts in their social lives. Furthermore, they
must make use of this knowledge in their decision making and acting. They also have a concern
for other people and make it a habit to adjust their behavior based on the needs of others.
Finally, they have the confidence needed to interact socially and accept the vulnerability
associated with potential rejection.

Perceptual Errors

In the workplace the process of making evaluations, judgments or ratings of the performance of
employees is subject to a number of systematic perception errors. They are the following:

1. Central tendency – Appraising everyone at the middle of the rating scale.

 2. Contrast error – Basing an appraisal on comparison with other employees rather than on
established performance criteria.

3. Different from me – Giving a poor appraisal because the person has qualities or characteristics
not possessed by the appraiser.

4. Halo effect – Appraising an employee undeservedly on one quality (performance, for example)
because s/he is perceived highly by the appraiser on another quality (attractiveness).

5. Horn effect – The opposite of the halo effect. Giving someone a poor appraisal on one quality
(attractiveness) influences poor rating on other qualities. (performance).

6.Initial impression – Basing an appraisal on first impressions rather than on how the person has
behaved throughout the period to which appraisal relates.

6. Latest behavior – Basing an appraisal on the person’s recent behavior.

7. Lenient or generous rating – Perhaps the most common error, being consistent!. Generous in
appraisal mostly to avoid conflict.

8. Performance dimension error – Giving someone a similar appraisal on two distinct but similar
qualities, because they happen to follow each other on the appraisal form.

9. Same as me – Giving a good appraisal because the person has qualities or characteristics
possessed by the appraiser. Spillover effect: Basing this appraisal, good or bad, on the results of
the previous appraisal rather than on how the person has behaved during the appraisal period.

10. Status effect – Giving those in higher level positions consistently better appraisals than those in
lower level jobs.
 11. Strict rating – Being consistently harsh in appraising performance.

Attribution is the process through which individuals link behavior to its causes to the intentions,
dispositions and events that explain why people act the way they do. It is simply the process of attaching
or attributing causes or reasons to the actions and events people see. Attribution theory can be divided
up into two different sections, internal and external attributes. Internal attributes means that the
behavior is being caused by something inside the person. Conversely, external attributes point to the
cause of the behavior to be the situation, not the person.

There are two significant models of attribution namely that of Kelley’s and Weiner’s. Kelley’s Attribution
Theory

According to the attribution process involves reasoning backward from the observation of an event or
behavior to a judgment about its cause. Different from a prediction, the attribution process attempts to
offer an explanation for an event that has already happened. The best known work on attribution is
Kelley’s theoretical approach that is based on two important contributions to the understanding of
cognitive processes associated with forming causal beliefs. First, the principle of covariance states that a
behavior will be attributed to a cause with which it covaries over time. Second, he identified three
sources of information people can use in analyzing covariance and thus arriving at a causal judgment.
More specifically, he suggested that individuals form causal beliefs by (see analyzing Table 2).the
consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness of a response or behavior

1 Distinctiveness-This is the degree in which a person behave the same way across different situations. If
Angie only smokes when she is out with friends, her behavior is high in distinctiveness. If she smokes at
any time or place, distinctiveness is low.

2. Consistency- This is the degree in which a person behave the same way in different occasions in
the same situation. If Angie only smokes when she is out with friends, consistency is high. If she only
smokes on one special occasion, consistency is low.

4. Consensus- This is the degree in which other people behave the same way. If Angie smokes a
cigarette when she goes out for a meal with her friend. If her friend smokes, her behavior is high
in consensus. If only Angie smokes it is low.
According to Kelley people fall back on past experience and look for either:

Multiple necessary causes – For instance, people see an athlete win a marathon and they reason that
she must be very fit, highly motivated, have trained hard etc. and that she must have all of these to win

Multiple sufficient causes – To illustration, people see an athlete fail a drug test and they reason that she
may be trying to cheat, or have taken a banned substance by accident or been tricked into taking it by
her coach. Any one reason would be sufficient.

Bernard Weiner’s Model of Attribution,

Bernard Weiner proposed a theory that looked at how people interpret success and failure. According to
Weiner, humans feel the need to explain both success and failure, although this need is more prevalent
in situations in which the outcome was not unexpected. People attribute their successes and failures to
four things:

1. Ability: i.e. ., “I have always been a good teacher.”

2. Effort: i.e. ., “I worked hard and studied those lessons for hours.”

3. Task difficulty: i.e. ., “Those lessons were really easy.”

4. Luck:” I was lucky that I was already familiar with those lessons before.”

In addition he categorized attribution characteristics into three causal dimensions which are locus,
stability, and controllability.

1. Locus – This refers to whether the cause of the event is perceived as internal to the individual or
external. If a learner believes that she failed an exam because she lacks ability, she is choosing
an internal cause because ability is internal to the learner. In contrast, if a learner believes that
 he failed an exam because The teacher is incompetent, he is choosing an external cause because
teacher incompetence is external to the student.

2. Stability – This refers to whether the cause is stable or unstable across time and equations. If a
learner believes that he failed a science exam because he lacks ability in science, then his cause
is stable, particularly if he believes that his lack of ability in science is a permanent quality. In
contrast, if a learner believes that he failed the exam because he was ill at the time of the exam,
then the cause in unstable cases in which the illness is a temporary factor. When a student
experiences success, attributions to stable causes lead to positive expectations for success in the
future. In the face of failure, however, attributions to stable causes can result in low
expectations for the future.

3. Controllability – refers to whether the cause of the event is perceived as being under the control
of the individual. If a runner believes that he lost a race because he did not get enough practice
before the event, the cause is controllable because he could have decided to spend more time
practicing; in contrast, if he feels that he lost the race because he simply lacks ability as a runner,
then the cause is uncontrollable. By definition, only internal attributions can be considered
controllable.

Attribution Biases

Attribution bias is when individuals make an assumption about others without having all the data they
need to be accurate. In the business environment, this is a challenge because this would lead to a great
deal of confusion and miscommunication, which would impact how the company operates. It would also
cause or support politics when individuals would take what they assumed and act on it without taking
the time to think through the issue and get the real facts.

There are two different types of bias errors. First is self-serving bias, where individuals attribute positive
dealings to their own character and negative dealings to external factors. It’s easy to see why this is
viewed as self-serving. For example, smokers believe they are less likely than other smokers to get lung
cancer. The other one is the fundamental attribution error when a person assign blames or a cause of
something to the person themselves and does not take into account external issues. For example, if a
with person overeating is overweight, or are a lazy person’s and not first that assumption they might
have be a that medical they have a problem reason for being heavier set.