Chapter 4

Perceptions, Attributions,
and Emotions

McGraw-Hill/Irwin Copyright © 2008 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Learning Objectives
 Explainhow primary emotions can be
observed or determined
 Discuss
the potential problems one faces
when using stereotypes to make judgments
 Describethe role that perception plays in
organizing stimuli
 Explain
why and where impression
management tactics are used

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Learning Objectives
 Discuss why emotional intelligence has
potential for managerial use, but should
be treated cautiously
 Describe how attribution can be used in
evaluating individual and group performance

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The Perceptual Process

 Perception, attribution, and emotion

 These are not concepts a manager can directly
access or fix in others
 What a manager needs is an understanding of
how these factors impact a person’s view of
the work environment

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Perception

 Perception is based on prior experience

 Itis the cognitive process by which one
selects, organizes, and gives meaning to
environmental stimuli
 Each person gives his or her own meaning to
stimuli, so each perceives things differently

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Perception

 We are constantly bombarded by

environmental stimuli
 Which stimuli a person focuses on is
determined by what he/she chooses to pay
attention to
 There are three internal responses: attitudes,
feelings, and motivation
 Generally,people perceive stimuli that satisfy
needs, emotions, attitudes, or self-concept
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The Perceptual Process

Environment
Organizing, Translating, and Selection Response
Stimuli
• Manager style • Attitudes
• Technology Observation Selection Translation • Feelings
• Noise • Sight • Intensity • Stereotyping • Motivation
• Peers • Learning • Size • Self-concept • Behavioral
• Reward system • Taste • Impatience • Emotions

• Compensation • Smell
plan
• Career
opportunities

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The Perceptual Process
 Misinterpreting stimuli can result in
perceptual errors
 Similar-to-me errors, snap impressions
 Each person selects cues that influence the
perception of …
 People

 Objects

 Symbols

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The Perception Gap

How Often Subordinates

How Often Supervisors Say Supervisors
Say They Acknowledge Acknowledge Good
Types of Recognition Good Performance Performance

Gives privileges 52% 14%

Gives more responsibility 48% 10%

Gives a pat on the back 82% 13%

Gives sincere and thorough 80% 14%

praise

Trains for better jobs 64% 9%

Gives more interesting work 51% 3%

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Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

 The tendency for someone’s expectations

about another to cause the individual to
behave in a manner consistent with those
expectations
 Pygmalion effect: the positive case
 Golem effect: the negative case

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The Pygmalion and Golem Effect

Expectations Support Granted Experience Performance

• Positive • Positive • More • More
• Negative • Negative • Less • Less

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Perceptual Grouping

 Once selected, stimuli are categorized and

grouped so they make sense
 Based on the laws of nearness, similarity,
closure, and figure and ground
 A person who creates faulty groupings faces
perceptual inaccuracies or distortions

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Schemas

 A schema is a framework embodying

descriptions of people, situations, or objects
 It helps us make better sense of information
 Schemas are person-, role-, self-, or events-based
 Managers use schemas to examine or prepare
for a situation
 Thisallows the chance to think, organize, and
compare before acting

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Schemas

 While perceiving, grouping, and creating

schemas, inaccuracies and distortions can
result from…

Stereotyping

Similar-To-Me
Halo Effect
Errors

Situational Needs and Attribution

Factors Perceptions Theory

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Stereotyping

 A translation step in the perceptual process

 Ithelps people deal with massive information-
processing demands
 Itis a useful, even essential, way to categorize
individuals, events, or other things on the basis
of limited information or observation
 Stereotyping is not inherently bad or wrong

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Stereotyping and Prejudice
 It is important to distinguish between a
stereotype and a prejudice
 Prejudice is a stereotype that doesn’t change when
given information showing the stereotype is
inaccurate
 An extreme form of prejudice is scapegoating

 Prejudice is often the result of direct experiences

with members of the rejected group
 Once formed, positive experiences with the persons,
group, or unit usually do not reverse the prejudice
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Stereotyping and Prejudice

 Two sources of prejudice

 Personal prejudice occurs when something, or
someone, is perceived as a threat to one’s own
interest
 Group prejudice occurs when a person
conforms to the norms of a group to which
he or she belongs

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Stereotyping and Prejudice

 Negative consequences of stereotyping

 Social injustice
 Poor decision making
 Stifled innovation
 Under-utilization of human resources
 Ineffectiveness and inefficiency
 Holding back of talented, qualified people
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Stereotyping

 Paying attention to one’s stereotyping

 Remember that stereotypes are frequently
based on little or inaccurate information
 Be willing to change or add information that
improves the accuracy of your stereotypes
 Understand that stereotypes rarely accurately
apply to a specific individual

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Selective and Divided Attention
 Selective attention means giving some messages
priority and putting others on hold
 A bottleneck or narrowing in the information
channel linking the senses to perception
 Divided attention occurs when mental efforts are
divided among tasks (multitasking)
 Some stimuli (e.g., employees) require more attention
than others

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Halo Effect
 Occurs when one important or noticeable
characteristic of another person biases your
evaluation, perception, or impression of that
person
 Presuming someone is hard working because they
arrive early and stay late
 Considering someone with piercings wild and
unreliable
 One trait or characteristic can’t predict a
person’s performance
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Halo Effect

 An individual’s attractiveness can

significantly influence managerial decisions
 Attractiveness increased evaluations, pay
raises and promotions for women in non-
managerial positions
 Theopposite was true for women in
managerial positions
 Both outcomes stem from the halo effect

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Similar-to-Me Errors
 People frequently use themselves as
benchmarks in perceiving others
 Knowing oneself makes it easier to see others
accurately
 Persons who accept themselves are more likely
to see the favorable aspects of others
 Choosing subordinates who are similar to
ourselves may not be appropriate to the
situation
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Situational Factors

 Perceptual accuracy can be affected by…

 The press of time
 The attitudes of subordinates
 Other situational factors

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Needs and Perceptions

 Perceptions are influenced by needs and

desires
 In other words, people see what they want to
see
 The hungrier people were when viewing
ambiguous drawings, the more they saw
them as articles of food

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Attribution Theory

 Behavior is greatly influenced by our

personal interpretation of reality
 Therefore,perceptual processes are potent
determinants of behavior
 Attribution theory attempts to explain the
why of behavior, based on people’s attributions
of the causes of events that happen to them

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The Attribution Process

Event Analysis of what Reinforcement or Choices regarding

caused the event modification of future behavior
previous
assumptions of
causality

Example:
I received a raise I received the raise Hard work leads to I value these
because I am a hard rewards in this rewards, so I will
worker organization continue to work
hard in the future

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Internal and External Attributions

Distinctiveness Consistency Consensus

Does this person Does this person Do other people
behave in this same behave in this same behave in this same
manner in other manner at other manner?
situations? times?

YES YES NO INTERNAL

INTERNAL
Low Distinctiveness High Consistency Low Consensus ATTRIBUTION
ATTRIBUTION

NO NO YES
EXTERNAL
EXTERNAL
High Distinctiveness Low Consistency High Consensus ATTRIBUTION
ATTRIBUTION

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Attribution Theory

 Behavior can be examined on the basis

of its…
 Distinctiveness,the degree to which a person
behaves similarly in different situations
 Consistency, the degree to which a person
engages in the same behaviors at different
times
 Consensus, the degree to which other people
are engaging in the same behavior
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Attribution Theory

 Systematic errors or biases can distort

attributions
 Fundamental attribution error: under-
estimating the importance of external factors
and over-estimating internal factors when
making attributions about the behavior of
others
 Self-serving
bias: taking credit for successful
work and denying responsibility for poor work
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Attribution Theory

 In order to influence employee behavior,

the manager must understand the
attributions employees make
A manager’s attributions may be different
from those of subordinates

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Attribution Theory
 Managerial implications of an attributional
approach to understanding work behavior
 In order to influence employee behavior, the manager
must understand the attributions employees make
 A manager must be aware that his own attributions
may be different from employees’ attributions
 Managers cannot assume that their own attributions
are error free

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Impression Management

 Impression management is the attempt to

influence others’ perceptions of oneself
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Impression Management

 The attempt to influence the perceptions

that others have of us
 How we talk
 Our overall style
 Office locations and furniture
 All people and organizations engage in
impression management

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Impression Management

 Impression management is an
interpersonal process
 Goffman
proposed that impression
management is a dramaturgical process
 Inthe presence of others, there is a reason
to mobilize resources, style, and creativity in
order to create a positive impression

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Impression Management

 Reasons to use impression management

 Allows one to convey a desired identity
 After
the identity is established, it allows
congruence with the impression
A particular situation requires a significantly
different behavior than other situations.

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Impression Management

 People engage in five impression

management tactics…
 Ingratiation

 Self-promotion

 Exemplification

 Supplication

 Intimidation

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 Ingratiation: people seek to be viewed positively by
flattering others or offering to do favors for them.
 Self-promotion: positively describing oneself (I work
hard every day).
 Exemplification: they seek to be viewed as dedicated.
 Supplication: they seek to be viewed as needing help
because of limitations.
 Intimidation: they seek to be viewed as powerful and
threatening.

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Impression Management

 Research shows that men and women try

to create impressions in different ways
 Women use less aggressive behaviors than
do men
 Women are less likely than men to use
impression management tactics
 Generating a positive or good impression
is the goal of most people
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Emotions
 An emotion is a state of physiological
arousal accompanied by…
 Changes in facial expressions
 Gestures

 Posture

 Subjective feelings
 Emotional expressions are visible or
audible signs of what a person is feeling
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Primary Emotions

 Fear
 Surprise
 Sadness
 Joy
 Disgust
 Anger
 Anticipation
 Acceptance
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Emotions

 Broader emotions include…

 Aggression

 Love
The mildest forms of
 Awe emotion are moods, a
low-intensity, long-
lasting emotional
 Remorse state

 Optimism

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Expressions

 Emotional expressions are innate

 Other facial expressions are learned and/or
unique to a national culture
 Expressions of fear, anger, happiness and
sadness are universal
 How often they are expressed varies
 Women are more emotionally expressive than
are men
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Body Language

 Kinesics is the study of communication

through body movement, posture, gestures,
and facial expressions
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Body Language: Mimicking

 The “chameleon effect”

 People often unconsciously mimic the
postures, mannerisms, and facial expressions
of other people
 Ifanother person copies your gestures and
postures, you are more likely to like them

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Facial Feedback

 Emotional activity causes innately

programmed changes in facial expressions
 Ekman believes that “making faces” can
cause emotion
A study suggests that emotions influence
expressions and expressions influence
emotions

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Emotional Labor

 Managing emotions for compensation

 Enhancing, faking, or suppressing emotions
 It is stressful and may cause burnout
 Two ways to manage emotions…
 Surface acting: regulating emotional
expressions
 Deep acting: modifying feelings in order to
express a desired emotion
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Emotional Intelligence

 An Illusive Construct
 EIis a form of intelligence that is still not fully
developed as a construct
 Intelligence is a goal-directed mental
activity marked by…
 Efficient problem solving
 Critical thinking
 Abstracting reasoning
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Gardner’s View of Intelligence

Verbal

Mathe-
Spatial
matical

Multiple
Intelligence

Inter-
Musical
personal

Intra-
personal

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Emotional Intelligence

 Goleman’s Theory of Emotional

Intelligence
 We have two brains, two minds, and two kinds
of intelligence (rational and emotional)
 Thebalance and management of emotions
determines how intelligently we act and how
successful we will be in life

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Emotional Intelligence

 Salovery and Mayer proposed that

emotional intelligence (EI) emphasizes four
cognitive components…
A capacity to perceive emotion
 To integrate emotion in thought
 To understand emotion
 To manage emotion effectively

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Emotional Intelligence

 Even if EI is important for career success, it

works in conjunction with other factors…
 Integrity

 Persistence

 Passion

 General intelligence
 Over the course of a career, EI increases
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The Next Generation of EI

 Many question the soundness of the notion

of emotional intelligence
 The next generation of EI work needs to…
 Conceptualize EI in a manner that is concise and
meaningful
 Develop more precise, concise EI measures
 Determine if there is practical value in the EI
concept for managers

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