What is perception and why is it important?

What are the common perceptual

distortions?

What is the link between perception,

attribution, and social learning?

What is involved in learning by reinforcement?

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-2

Perception
 Process by which people
select, organize, interpret,
retrieve, and respond to
information from the
world around them.

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What do you see?

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Influence Response
Stages of Perception (Feeling, thinking,
Factors acting)

Attentionand
Attention
Attention and
and
Organization
Organization Retrieval
Selection
Selection
Selection

Schemas/Scripts

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Attention and selection
 Selective screening
 Lets in only a tiny portion of all the information
available.

 Two types of selective screening

 Controlled processing

 Screening without conscious awareness

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-7

Schemas
 Cognitive frameworks that represent organized
knowledge developed through experience about a
given concept or stimulus.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-8

Script schemas
 A knowledge of framework that describes the appropriate
sequence of event in a given situation.

Self schema
 Contains information about a person’s own appearance,
behavior, and personality.

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Person schemas
 Refer to the way individuals sort
others into categories such as
types of groups in terms of
similar perceived features.

Person-in-situation schema
 Combines schemas built around
persons and events.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-10

You have just been told that your job has been
‘down-sized’. This has never happened to you
before. Now what?
 1) Take cues from your environment.

 2) Pay attention to salient cues.

 3) Create a new mental category (laid off).

 4) Consider how others have responded.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-11
 Interpretation
 Uncovering the
reasons behind
the ways stimuli
are grouped.

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Retrieval
 Attention and selection, organization, and
interpretation are part of memory.
 Information stored in memory must be retrieved in
order to be used.

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Impression Management
 Systematic attempt to behave in ways that will create and
maintain desired impressions in the eyes of others.
 When well done, impression management can help us to
advance in jobs and careers, form relationships with people
we admire, and even create pathways to group memberships.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-14

Stereotypes
 Occur when we identify someone with a group or category, and
then use the attributes perceived to be associated with the group
or category to describe the individual.
 Individual differences are obscured.

 Managers may not accurately understand the needs, preferences,

and abilities of others in the workplace.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-15

Common Stereotypes
 Racial

 Ethnic

 Gender

 Ability

 Age

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Halo effects
 Occur when one attribute of a person or situation is
used to develop an overall impression of the
individual or situation.

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Selective perception
 The tendency to single out those of a situation,
person, or object that for attention those aspects of a
situation, person, or object that are consistent with
one’s needs, values, or attitudes.

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Projection
 The assignment of one’s personal attributes to other
individuals.

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Contrast effects
 The meaning or interpretation of something is arrived
at by contrasting it with a recently occurring event or
situation.

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Self-fulfilling prophecy
 The tendency to create or
find in another situation or
individual that which one
expected to find

in the first place.

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Think about the self-fulfilling prophecy. Which of the
following would not be a good idea?
a. Instill confidence in your staff.
b. Identify errors in employee’s performance and refer to
them often.
c. Treat all new employees as if they are star performers.
d. Set high performance goals.

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Attribution
 Process of developing explanations or assigning perceived
causes for events. Can be classified as internal or external:
 Internal causes – Believed to be under an individual’s
control.

 External causes – Seen as coming from outside a

person.

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Distinctiveness
 Consistency of a person’s behavior across different
situations.

Consensus
 Likelihood of others responding in a similar way.

Consistency
 Whether an individual responds the same way across time.

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Fundamental attribution error
 Tendency to underestimate the influence of situational
factors and to overestimate the influence of personal
factors when evaluating someone else’s behavior.

 “Your poor performance is caused by you!”

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Self-serving bias
 Tendency to deny personal responsibility for
performance problems but to accept personal
responsibility for performance success.
 I received an “A” because I studied.

 I received a “D” because the exam was too hard.

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 Do not overlook the external causes of others’ behaviors.
(Identify and confront your stereotypes, your biases, your
preconceived notions.)

 Evaluate people based on objective factors.

 Do not rush to judgment

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5ZljnMmrIs
(5.13 sec)

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Cultural differences in attributions :
 Individualistic cultures - managers more likely to attribute
employee poor performance to internal causes.
 Negative attributes – blame team-mates for subordinates for
performance problems.

 Collectivist cultures – overemphasize self-serving bias;

managers blame themselves for group’s failure.

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Social learning theory
 Describes how learning takes place through the
reciprocal interactions among people, behavior, and
environment.

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Self efficacy
 A person’s belief that he or she can perform
adequately in a situation.
 Key factor in self-control.

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Reinforcement
 The administration of a consequence as a result of a
behavior.
 Proper management of reinforcement can change the
direction, level, and persistence of an individual’s
behavior.

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Classical conditioning
 A form of learning through association that involves
the manipulation of stimuli to influence behavior.

Stimulus
 Something that incites action and draws forth a
response.

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Operant conditioning
 The process of controlling behavior by manipulating
its consequences.
 Considered ‘learning by reinforcement’.

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Law of effect
 Behavior that results in a pleasant outcome is likely to be
repeated while behavior that results in an unpleasant outcome is
not likely to be repeated.

Extrinsic rewards
 Positively valued work outcomes that are given to the individual
by some other person.

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You work really hard at your job, and are not
rewarded. The “law of effect” would suggest
that you will
a. Quit

b. Keep trying to impress the right people

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Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-39
Organizational Behavior Modification
(OB Mod)
 Involves the use of four basic reinforcement strategies:

 Positive reinforcement

 Negative reinforcement (avoidance)

 Punishment

 Extinction

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-40

Positive reinforcement
 Administration of positive consequences that tend to
increase the likelihood of repeating the desirable behavior
in similar settings.
 Law of contingent reinforcement – states a reward should
be given when the desired behavior occurs.

 Law of immediate reinforcement – states a reward should

be given as soon as possible after the desired behavior occurs.

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Shaping
 Creation of a new behavior by the positive
reinforcement of successive approximations to it.

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Continuous reinforcement
 Administering a reward each time the desired
behavior occurs.

Intermittent reinforcement
 Rewards behavior only periodically.

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Negative reinforcement
 Uses withdrawal of negative consequences to increase
the likelihood of repeating the desirable behavior.
 Also known as avoidance learning.

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Punishment
 The administration of negative consequences or the
withdrawal of positive consequences to reduce the
likelihood of a behavior being repeated.

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Extinction
 The withdrawal of the reinforcing consequences in
order to weaken undesirable behavior.

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Behavior modification techniques, when utilized
positively in organizations, can be very powerful
and effective in encouraging desired
performance.
 Because of their potential power, they may lend
themselves to inappropriate or even unethical uses.

Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 4-48