Agenda – Perceptions and

Attributions
• Perceptions defined and influences on perceptions
• Stages of the perception process including
attention/selection, organizing (schema theories),
interpretation, and retrieval
• Perceptual distortions such as stereotyping,
prototypes, halo, selective perception, projection,
contrast, self-fulfilling prophecy
• Impression management/distortion
• Attribution theory and attribution errors
 Perception
• The process by which people select, organize, interpret, retrieve, and
respond to information from the world around them
– The perceptions of two people (of the same event) are not
identical
• Factors influencing Perception
– Factors in the Perceiver: experience, needs, values, attitudes,
motives, interests, expectations
– Factors in the Setting (Situation): physical setting, work setting,
social setting, time
– Factors in the Perceived (Target): contrast, figure-ground
separation, intensity, size, motion, repetition, novelty, sounds,
background, proximity

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 Figure 4.1-Managers’ and
subordinates’ perceptions of
PA Interviews

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 Figure 4.3

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5
6
 Figure 4.4: Stages of the
Perceptual Process

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 Stage 1: Attention and Selection

• Due to information overload, we filter

information
• Selective screening
– Lets in only a tiny portion all the information that is
available
• Two types of selective screening
– Controlled processing: Conscious
– Automatic processing: Screening without
perceiver’s conscious awareness

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 Stage 2: Organization
• Schemas
– Cognitive frameworks that represent organized
knowledge about a given concept or stimulus
developed through experience
• Self schemas
– contains information about a person’s own appearance,
behavior, and personality
• Person schemas
– refer to the way individuals sort others into categories in
terms of similar perceived features

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 Stage 2: Organization (cont.)

• Script schema
– a knowledge framework that describes the
appropriate sequence of events in a given
situation
• Person-in-situation schema
– combines schemas built around persons and
events
Choice of Schemas are dependent on the
goals of the individual, priming, & salience
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 Stages 3 and 4: Interpretation
and Retrieval
• Interpretation
– Uncovering the reasons behind the ways
stimuli are grouped
• 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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 Perceptual distortions
• Stereotypes or prototypes
– Combines information based on the category or
class to which a person, situation, or object
belongs
– Individual differences are obscured
– Strong impact at the organization stage
• 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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 Perceptual distortions (cont.)
• Selective perception
– The tendency to single out for attention those
aspects of a situation, person, or object that are
consistent with one’s needs, values, or
attitudes.
• Projection
– The assignment of one’s personal attributes to
other individuals

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 Perceptual distortions (cont.)
• Contrast effects
– Occur when an individual’s characteristics are
contrasted with those of others recently
encountered, who rank higher or lower on the
same characteristics
• Self-fulfilling prophecy
– The tendency to create or find in another
situation or individual that which one expected
to find

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 Management of Perceptions
• Impression management
– A person’s systematic attempt to behave in
ways that create and maintain desired
impressions in others’ eyes
• Distortion management
– Managers should:
• Balance automatic and controlled information
processing at the attention and selection stage
• Broaden their schemas at the organizing stage
• Be attuned to attributions at the interpretation stage

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 What is attribution theory?
Attribution theory focuses on how people
attempt to:
• Understand the causes of a certain event.
• Assess responsibility for the outcomes of
the event.
• Evaluate the personal qualities of the
people involved in the event.

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 Factors influencing internal
or external determination
• Distinctiveness
– consistency of a person’s behavior across
situations
• Consensus
– likelihood of others responding in a similar way
• Consistency
– whether an individual responds the same way
across time

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 Attribution Theory

External Internal
Distinctiveness high low
Consensus high low
Consistency low high
 Figure 4.6 – HC Managers’
attributions of causes for
poor performance

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 Attribution Errors
• Fundamental attribution error
– tendency to underestimate the influence of situational
(external) factors and to overestimate the influence of
personal (internal) factors in evaluating someone else’s
behavior
• Self-serving bias
– tendency to deny personal responsibility for performance
problems but to accept personal responsibility for
performance success OR tendency to attribute our own
successes to internal factors (such as ability or effort)
while putting the blame for failures on external factors
(such as luck)

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