Unit 4 (part 2)

What Is Adams' Equity Theory?

Adams' Equity Theory of Employee Motivation (also known as the Equity Theory of
Motivation) posits that employees are motivated when they believe they are receiving a
fair reward for their work. This theory was developed by J. Stacey Adams in 1963 and
has since been used to explain employee behavior and motivation.

Adams' Equity Theory suggests that employees compare their own inputs and outputs
(e.g., effort and rewards) to those of others, and when there is a perceived imbalance,
they will act to restore equity. It states that employees are motivated to keep their own
perceived fairness levels in balance with those around them. This means that if they feel
they are being treated unfairly, they will be less motivated to work hard.

What is reinforcement theory?

Reinforcement theory is a psychological principle suggesting that behaviors are shaped by
their consequences, and that individual behaviors can be changed through reinforcement,
punishment and extinction.

Behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner was instrumental in developing modern ideas about
reinforcement theory. According to Skinner, a person's internal needs and drives are not
important areas of concern because their current behaviors follow the law of effect and are
based on the consequences of former behaviors. This means that behaviors can be altered
or manipulated over time.

How can managers use reinforcement theory to motivate

employees?
The reinforcement theory of motivation aims to motivate staff through reinforcement, punishment
and extinction. Reinforcement theory in the workplace can be positive or negative as long as it
reinforces the desired employee experience and behavior. Managers using reinforcement theory
to motivate staff should explain to employees which behaviors will result in positive feedback.

Here are several behavioral concepts that are common in business management, human resources
management, marketing, social media, website and user experience design, and end-user training.
Positive reinforcement

A key idea in the reinforcement theory of motivation is that positive reinforcement with rewards
reinforces desired behaviors. For example, providing an employee with extra days off for good
performance in their job.

Negative reinforcement

Negative reinforcement involves the removal of aversive stimuli to reinforce the target behavior.
For example, a manager can stop assigning tedious tasks to an employee when the employee
starts meeting deadlines.

Punishment

Positive punishment involves the delivery of an aversive stimulus, such as criticism, to affect
behavior. Meanwhile, negative punishment removes a pleasant stimulus -- flexible work hours,
for example -- to do the same.

Extinction

Like punishment, the goal of extinction is to lower the occurrence of undesired behaviors. In this
scenario, valued consequences can be withheld to reduce the probability of a specific learned
behavior from continuing. The idea is to stop a learned behavior over time. For example, an
organization might stop paying overtime to discourage employees from staying late and working
too many extra hours.

What is Vroom’s Expectancy Theory?

This theory is given by Victor Vroom. He believed that people’s motivation is influenced by
the type of reward they expect to receive for performing their tasks well. People in the
organization determine how much effort they should put to get the required rewards.
Humans are rational beings so, they always attempt to increase the perceived worth of
such rewards. People get highly motivated if they believe that behaving in a particular way
will lead them to their preferable rewards. In Vroom’s model, three variables are involved
and these are Valence, Expectancy and Instrumentality. Following is the relationship
among these variables.
 Motivation = Valence * Expectancy * Instrumentality
All of the three variables are highly positive variables. And, if value of any variable is zero,
motivated performance becomes zero.
Following is an explanation of the variables:
1. Valence
 Valence refers to the ‘value of the rewards’ which results from performance.
 Whenever an individual has a preference for any reward, valence indicates the value of
that preference.
 Every person has a different perception towards valence. As, what is valuable for one
person might not be for others. So, some might find it valuable and some may not. For
example, employees interested in promotion and recognition will not have any valence
for cash rewards.
 Valence is the attraction or repulsion of an outcome.
 Valence is not the actual value of the reward rather it is the perceived value of the
reward which they expect to receive after attaining the goals.
 Valence can also be zero when the employees are indifferent about the outcomes they
receive. Valence can also be defined as how much an individual really wants a reward.
2. Expectancy
 It indicates the extent to which a person believes that his efforts will result in the first-
level outcome, like task completion.
 Expectancy is the likelihood that a specific action will result in a specific outcome.
 It is the individual’s perception of the probability that a particular action or behaviour will
result in a certain outcome.
 For this reason, it also refers to as ‘Effort-Performance Probability’. It explains the
association between efforts and performance.
 The value ranges from 0 to 1. So, assuming that employees feel the likelihood to attain
an outcome is zero, the efforts would also be 0. Also, if employees feel the likelihood to
attain an outcome as 1, then they will put in more effort to achieve the outcomes.
 Expectancy can be affected by various factors like appropriate skills, right resources,
social support, access to information, etc.
3. Instrumentality
 The term “instrumentality” refers to a person’s expectation and belief that his
performance will result in a specific desired reward. It is the degree to which a first-level
outcome will lead to a desired second-level outcome.
 It is based on the fact that if employees will perform well, then a valid outcome can be
expected.
 For example, if someone desires a promotion and believes that superior performance is
crucial to getting the promotion. Then, superior performance will be considered the first -
level outcome and promotion as the second-level outcome. So, here superior
performance will be instrumental in attaining the promotion.
 The value for instrumentality ranges from 0 to 1.
 It reflects the relationship between performance and reward. For this reason, it refers to
‘Performance-Reward Probability’.
 Instrumentality is also dependent on various factors like who is receiving the outcome,
clarity among performance and reward etc.

Critical Evaluation of Vroom’s Expectancy Theory

Following are some of the points in regard to the Vroom Expectancy theory:
1. Not many research studies have been involved while designing or testing Vroom’s
theory. So, this theory is difficult to research and apply in practice.
2. The major assumption under this theory is that humans are rational beings. So, every
decision is rational and based on conscious thoughts. But, in reality, there can be cases
where human beings react intuitively or irrationally. Decisions might involve an
unconscious thinking process.
3. Vroom’s theory is undoubtedly considered an important theory of motivation. But at the
same time, it is very complex. And, when it comes to organizational situations,
managers do not have the required time to put such a complex theory into use.
4. But this theory has been really helpful in comprehending organizational behaviour. It
clearly explains how an individual is goal-directed and how his individual efforts help
the organization to achieve its goal.
5. This theory has given due importance to human values and human dignity. As it
believes that human is a rational being and can decide their future depending on their
beliefs and expectations. And, managers with their efforts can attain satisfying rewards.

Perception
The word ‘perception’ can be used in two different ways. It can refer to our experience of seeing,
hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling objects and individuals around us. It can also refer to the
processes that allow us to extract information from the patterns of energy that impinge on our
sense organs.
Process of Perception
1. Reception: In this process, a person receives the information through stimuli.
 2. Selection: This is governed by two types of factors:

o External factors: These are size, intensity, proximity, motion and novelty.
o Internal factors: These are attitude, motives, experiences, interests and expectations.

3. Organization: It is the process by which we sort stimuli into a meaningful pattern. It

involves the following:

o Grouping: Assembling of stimuli on the grounds of similarity.

o Proximity: This is the closeness of stimuli to one another that affects perception.
o Closure: It is the ability to organize stimuli so that together they form a whole pattern.

4. Interpretation: It is the formation of an idea about the information that is sensed,

selected and organized. It involves the following phenomena: primacy effect, selective
perception, stereotyping, halo effect, projection and expectancy effect. They are the
types of perceptual errors.

o Primacy/ Recency Effect: The first impression is given the most important which is
known as the primacy effect. Recency effect, on the other hand, is that human beings
remember latest events more than the less recent ones.
o Stereotyping: It is the effect caused by forming a certain belief about a category of
stimuli and generalizing that notion to encounters with each member of that category. In
reality, there is a difference between the perceived notion of each category and the
actual traits of the members. It may affect the interview process in an organization.
o Halo effect: It is the process of generalizing from a comprehensive analysis to a single
attribute or trait. A negative halo effect is known as the reverse halo effect. It affects the
performance appraisal of employees in a company.
o Projection: It is a psychological defence mechanism which makes a person compare
his negative traits with other people and conclude that they are better off than others.
Perceptual checking minimizes the negative effects of projection.
o Selective Perception: This means a person sees, feels or hears what he wants to and
skips other information which are inconsistent to his view.
o Expectancy effect: It is the tendency of an individual to interpret any person or object
based on how he expects the person or object to be in the first place. It is also called as
Pygmalion effect.

Managerial & Behavioural Applications of Perception

Managerial applications of perception

1. Employment Interview

A major input into who is hired and who is rejected in any organization is the employment
interview. Evidence indicated that interviewers often make inaccurate perceptual judgements.
Interviews generally draw early impressions that become very quickly entrenched. If negative
information is exposed early in the interview, it tends to be more heavily weighted than if that
same information comes out later. As a result, information elicited early in the interview
carries greater weight than does information elicited later. A “good applicant” is probably
characterized more by the absence of unfavourable characteristics than by the presence of
favourable characteristics.

The employment interview is an important input into the hiring decision and a manager must
recognize that perceptual factors influence who is hired. Therefore, eventually the quality of
an organization’s labour force depends on the perception of the interviewers.

2. Performance Evaluation

An employee’s performance appraisal very much depends on the perceptual process. The
performance appraisal represents an assessment of an employee’s work. While this can be
objective, many jobs are evaluated in subjective terms. Subjective measures are, by
definition, judgemental.

The evaluator forms a general impression of an employee’s work. What the evaluator
perceives to be “good” or “bad” employee characteristics will, significantly influences the
appraisal outcome. An employee’s future is closely tied to his or her appraisal -promotions,
pay raises and continuation of employment are among the most obvious outcomes.

3. Performance Expectations

A manager’s expectations of an individual affect both the manager’s behaviour towards the
individual and the individual’s response. An impressive amount of evidence demonstrates
that people will attempt to validate their perceptions of reality, even when these perceptions
are faulty. This is particularly relevant when we consider performance expectations on the
job.

The term self-fulfilling prophecy or Pygmalion effect have evolved to characterize the fact
that people’s expectations determine their behaviour. Managers can harness the power of the
Pygmalion effect to improve productivity in the organization. It appears that high
expectations of individuals come true. Managers can extend these high expectations of
individuals to an entire group. When a manager expects positive things from a group, the
group delivers. Similarly, if a manager expects people to perform minimally, they will tend to
behave so as to meet these low expectations. Thus, the expectations become reality.

4. Employee Loyalty

Another important judgement that managers make about employees is whether they are loyal
to the organization. Few organizations appreciate employees, especially those in the
managerial ranks openly disparaging the firm.

BEHAVIOURAL APPLICATIONS OF PERCEPTION

Individual does not always perceive the events freely from the environment. She/He selects
the stimuli from the environment which can satisfy her/his needs, desires and expectations
because of the dominance of needs in individual. Individual selects the stimuli on the basis of
certain guidelines which are termed as principles of perceptual selection. Here, each principle
is not significant alone in making perception. Basic principles of perceptual selection are
discussed below:

1. Principle of Intensity

According to intensity principle of perceptual selection, the more intense the external
stimulus, the more likely it is to be perceived. Loud sound, dark color, strong smell, bold and
italic letters etc. are perceived more easily and quickly in comparison to the soft sound, light
color, soft smell. This principle is used frequently in advertisement like bright color in
packaging, loud sound in television commercials. Supervisors sought loudly to get attention.

2. Principle of size

The size principle of perceptual selection states that the larger size of stimulus, the more
likely it is to be perceived. This means that the stimulus with larger size is easily perceived
than the stimulus having small size. Normally, supervisors and managers with large body size
can command more strictly to their subordinates because of positive perception of
subordinates towards them. Large billboards are used in advertisement to draw the attention
of perceivers. Full page advertisement gets more attention of readers. In the given figure,
bigger circle is likely to be perceived quickly which draws the attention of viewer.

3. Principle of contrast

Contrast stands for dissimilarity or uniqueness against all other stimulus or objects standing
out. This principle states that the stimulus which is different or unique in comparison to the
nearby and common objects, that will be perceived easily and quickly. For example, person
wearing different color dress in a group can perceive the attention. Employees with different
sound or vision are perceived quickly. Likewise the word DANGER written with red letter on
while background draws quick attention. Cricketers wear different color sun glasses to get
attention. In the adjacent figure, though all the circles have equal size, but central circle is
easily perceived than other because of its contrast color.

4. Principle of Novelty and Familiarity

Novelty is newness and familiarity is commonness or known to the perceiver. This principle
states that perceiver perceive easily and quickly to novel (new) or familiar stimulus
depending upon circumstances. For instance, new person in locality draws more attention
while familiar face can easily be recognized. New design of vehicle or machine or dress can
be perceived fast.

5. Principle of repetition

Repetition or frequency plays vital role to select the perception. Highly repeated stimulus gets
more attention than none repeating or single one. For example, producers or suppliers repeat
advertising materials to their prospect customers to get attention. Supervisors and managers
give directions again and again to their subordinates so that they can remember. Refreshment
training are given to employee to refresh the knowledge or skill of employees.

6. Principle of Motion
This principle states that the moving objects draw more attention than the stationary objects.
For instance, advertisement of a car or motorcycle uses the running (moving) state to attract
perceivers. Likewise, trainers, teachers and supervisors keep on moving while instructing or
observing their trainees, students and subordinates so that perceiver gets more attention in
moving.

7. Principle of learning motivation and personality

This principle states that individual perceive the stimulus which compatible to their learning,
motivation and personality. Learning creates certain expectancy so that individual perceive in
certain manner. Motivation itself helps to draw attention towards stimulus and the personality
affects the way of perceiving the stimulus.