Chapter 7 Perception & Attribution

Perception Cognitive process by which we interpret and understand our surroundings Social perception – how we make sense of ourselves and others

Perception: An Information Processing Model Competing environmental stimuli  People  Events  Objects Interpretation and categorization Stage 1 Selective Attention/Comprehension Stage 2 Encoding and Simplification Stage 3 Storage and Retention Stage 4 Retrieval and Response Memory Judgments and decisions ABCDEFABCDEF ACFACF C 7-3

Stage I: Selective Attention/Comprehension World is full of too much stimuli No one can pay attention to it all So, we select certain things to pay attention to and ignore the rest Salient Stimuli – different, novel, noticeable Tendency to pay more attention to negative stimuli

Stage II: Encoding & Simplification Raw sensory stimulus can’t be kept in memory – We have to encode it Schema – mental picture or summary – Kept in an orderly fashion in your head – Connect new information to what you already know

Why Individual Perceptions Differ Your previous experiences have influenced the schemata that you’ve developed Moods and emotions influence what we pay attention to and how we encode it Recent cognitions influence your encoding Individuals differences account for differences in encoding

Stage III: Storage & Retention Long term memory consists of related categories of thoughts Event Memory – Script Semantic Memory Person Memory

Stage IV: Retrieval & Response Use information processed through perception to make decisions Hiring decisions – Implicit cognition Performance Appraisal Leadership Communication Counterproductive work behaviors

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Perceptual Errors 7-10

Stereotypes An individual’s beliefs about the attributes of a group Help us deal with having too much information to process Can lead to poor decisions Influenced by the amount of info. available & motivation to accurately process info. Gender, age, race/ethnic, disability

Self-fulfilling Prophecy Pygmalion Effect – Someone’s high expectations for another person result in high performance Galatea Effect – An individual’s high self-expectations lead to high performance Golem Effect – Loss in performance due to low leader expectations

A Model of the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy Supervisor expectancy 6 3 Motivation 4 Performance 5 1 Leadership Subordinate self- expectancy

Causal Attributions People attempt to infer causes of observed behavior Tend to be self serving & invalid Behavior can be attributed to internal (something about the person) or external factors (something about the environment)

Causal Attributions cont’d Internal/external attributions are based on: – Consensus – comparison of an individual’s behavior with peers – Distinctiveness – comparison of an individual’s performance on one task vs. other tasks – Consistency – comparison of an individual’s performance on a task and previous performance on that task

Attribution errors Fundamental attribution bias – tendency to attribute other’s behavior to internal factors Self serving bias – Success – internal – Failure – external