1. Perception, Personality, and Emotions
Chapter 2
Perception, Personality, and Emotions

2. Chapter Outline What Is Perception, and Why Is It Important?
Factors Influencing Perception
Perception and Judgement: Attribution Theory
Frequently Used Shortcuts in Judging Others
Personality
Emotions
This material is found at the beginning of the chapter.

3. Perception and Personality, and Emotions
Questions for Consideration
Questions for Consideration
What is perception, and why is it important for understanding the workplace?
To what extent does personality affect behaviour?
Does understanding emotions lead to better understanding of how people interact?

4. Perception What Is Perception? Why Is it Important?
A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.
Why Is it Important?
Because people’s behaviour is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.
The world as it is perceived is the world that is behaviourally important.
This material is found on pages 34.
Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. What one perceives can be substantially different from objective reality. Understanding perception is important because people's behaviour is based on their perception of what reality is, not reality itself.

5. Why We Study Perceptions
We study this topic to better understand how people make attributions about events.
We don’t see reality. We interpret what we see and call it reality.
The attribution process guides our behaviour, regardless of the truth of the attribution.
An extra slide to help motivate the lecture.

6. Factors Influencing Perception
The Perceiver
The Target
The Situation
This material is found on pages
A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception.
the Perceiver who is affected by personal characteristics such as attitudes, motives, interests, past experience, and expectations.
the Target who is affected by "what we see," attractive or unattractive individuals, motion, sounds, size, and other attributes of a target shape the way we see it
the Situation which is the context in which we see objects or events. The situation is important as elements in the surrounding environment influence our perceptions.

7. Exhibit 2-1 Figure-Ground Illustrations
The material for this illustration is found on page 35.

8. Exhibit 2-2 Factors that Influence Perception
The Target •
Novelty
Motion
Sounds
Size
Background
Proximity
The Perceiver
Attitudes
Motives
Interests
Experience
Expectations
The Situation
Time
Work setting
Social setting
The material for this illustration is found on page 36.

9. Factors Affecting Judgment
Attribution Theory
Perceptual Errors
Selective Perception
Halo Effect
Contrast Effects
Projection
Stereotyping
This material is found on pages

10. Attribution Theory
When individuals observe behaviour, they attempt to determine whether it is internally or externally caused.
Distinctiveness
Does individual act the same way in other situations?
Consensus
Does individual act the same as others in same situation?
Consistency
Does the individual act the same way over time?
This material is found on pages
Attribution Theory says we judge people differently depending on what meaning we attribute to a given behaviour.
We attempt to determine whether the behaviour was internally- or externally-caused.
Externally-caused refers to the environment, while internally-caused behaviour is attributed to those events that are believed to be under the personal control of the individual.
Our determination of internally or externally caused behaviour depends on three factors:
Distinctiveness; whether an individual displays different behaviour in different situations
Consensus: If everyone who is faced with a similar situation responds in the same way, we can say the behaviour shows consensus.
Consistency. Is the person’s actions consistent over time.

11. Attribution Theory Fundamental Attribution Error Self-Serving Bias
The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behaviour of others.
Self-Serving Bias
The tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors.
This material is found on pages 39.

12. Exhibit 2-3 Attribution Theory
Observation
Interpretation
of cause
High
External
Distinctiveness
Low
Internal
High
The material for this illustration is found on page 38.
External
Individual
Consensus
behaviour
Low
Internal
High
Internal
Consistency
Low
External

13. Perceptual Errors Selective Perception Halo Effect Contrast Effects
People selectively interpret what they see based on their interests, background, experience, and attitudes
Halo Effect
Drawing a general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic
Contrast Effects
A person’s evaluation is affected by comparisons with other individuals recently encountered
This material is found on pages

14. Perceptual Errors Projection Stereotyping
Attributing one’s own characteristics to other people
Stereotyping
Judging someone on the basis of your perception of the group to which that person belongs
This material is found on pages

15. Personality Personality Determinants Personality Traits
The sum total of ways in which an individual react
and interacts with others.
Personality Determinants
Heredity
Environment
Situation
Personality Traits
Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behaviour
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
The Big Five Model
This material is found on pages
Personality Determinants
(1) Heredity - an approach that argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual's personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes. The most persuasive research on this comes from studying monozygotic twins who were separated at birth and raised in very different environments. Different research studies with these kinds of twins have determined that genetics accounts for about half of the personality differences in people.
(2) Environment - the culture in which we are raised, our early conditioning, the norms among our family, friends, and social groups, and other influences that we experience play a critical role in shaping our personalities.
(3) Situation - which influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality. Personality can be subdued in some situations. A person will be different in a job interview as compared to being at dinner with friends. We cannot look at personality patterns in isolation.

16. Exhibit 2-4 Sixteen Primary Personality Traits1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
Reserved
Less intelligent
Affected by feelings
Submissive
Serious
Expedient
Timid
Tough-minded
Trusting
Practical
Forthright
Self-assured
Conservative
Group-dependent
Uncontrolled
Relaxed
vs.
Outgoing
More intelligent
Emotionally stable
Dominant
Happy-go-lucky
Conscientious
Venturesome
Sensitive
Suspicious
Imaginative
Shrewd
Apprehensive
Experimenting
Self-sufficient
Controlled
Tense
The material for this illustration is found on page 45.
This exhibit shows a list of 16 traits that have been found to be generally steady and constant sources of behaviour, allowing prediction of an individual’s behaviour in specific situations by weighing the characteristics for their situational relevance.

17. Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Personality test to determine how people usually act or feel in particular situations
Classifications:
Extroverted (E) or introverted (I)
Sensing (S) or intuitive (I)
Thinking (T) or feeling (F)
Perceiving (P) or judging (J)
Combined to form types, for example:
ESTP
INTJ
This material is found in more detail on pages
Some examples of types:
INTJs are visionaries.
They usually have original minds and great drive for their own ideas and purposes.
They are characterized as sceptical, critical, independent, determined, and often stubborn.
ESTJs are organizers.
They are realistic, logical, analytical, decisive, and have a natural head for business or mechanics.
They like to organize and run activities.
ENTP types are conceptualizers.
He or she is innovative, individualistic, versatile, and attracted to entrepreneurial ideas.
This person tends to be resourceful in solving challenging problems but may neglect routine assignments.
There is no hard evidence that the MBTI is a valid measure of personality.

18. The Big Five Model Classifications Extroversion Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Emotional Stability
Openness to Experience
This material is found on pages 47.
Extroversion: This dimension captures one’s comfort level with relationships. Extroverts (high in extroversion)tend to be friendly and outgoing and to spend much of their time maintaining and enjoying a large number of relationships. Introverts tend to be reserved and to have fewer relationships, and they are more comfortable with solitude than most people are.
Agreeableness: This dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to others. High agreeable people value harmony more than they value having their say or their way. They are cooperative and trusting of others. People who score low on agreeableness focus more on their own needs than on the needs of others.
Conscientiousness: This dimension refers to the number of goals on which a person focuses. A highly conscientious person pursues fewer goals, in a purposeful way, and tends to be responsible, persistent, dependable, and achievement-oriented. Those who score low on this dimension tend to be more easily distracted, pursuing many goals, and more hedonistic.
Emotional stability: This dimension taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be characterized as calm, enthusiastic, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, depressed, and insecure.
Openness to experience: The final dimension addresses one’s range of interests. Extremely open people are fascinated by novelty and innovation. They tend to be imaginative, artistically sensitive, and intellectual. Those at the other end of the openness category appear more conventional and find comfort in the familiar.

19. Exhibit 2-6 Big Five Personality Factors and Performance
Relationship to Job Performance
Relationship to Team Performance
Extroversion
* Positively related to job performance in occupations requiring social interaction
* Positively related to training proficiency for all occupations
* Positively related to team performance
* Positively related to degree of participation within team
Agreeableness
* Positively related to job performance in service jobs
* Most studies found no link between agreeableness and performance or productivity in teams
* Some found a negative link between person’s likeability and team performance
Conscientiousness
* Positively related to job performance for all occupational groups
* May be better than ability in predicting job performance
The material for this illustration is found on page 48.

20. Exhibit 2-6 Big Five Personality Factors and Performance
Relationship to Job Performance
Relationship to Team Performance
Emotional Stability
* A minimal threshold amount may be necessary for adequate performance; greater degrees not
related to job performance
* Positively related to performance in service jobs
* May be better than ability in predicting job performance across all occupational groups
Openness to Experience
*Positively related to training proficiency
*Data unavailable
The material for this illustration is found on page 48.

21. Major Personality Attributes Influencing OB
Locus of Control
Machiavellianism
Self-Esteem
Self-Monitoring
Risk Taking
Type A Personality
Type B Personality
This material is found in more detail on pages
There are self-awareness exercises in the chapter for each of these traits.

22. Locus of Control
The degree to which people believe they are in control of their own fate
Internals
Individuals who believe that they control what happens to them
Externals
Individuals who believe that what happens to them is controlled by outside forces such as luck or chance
This material is found on pages
If you believe you control your own destiny you are labelled internal; and you see your lives as being controlled by outside forces you are labelled external. Research shows internals are more satisfied with their jobs, have lower absenteeism, and perform better on certain types of jobs. A self-assessment for locus of control is found at the end of the chapter.

23. Machiavellianism
Degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means
This material is found on pages 49.
Machiavellianism (Mach) —The degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means. This personality attribute is named after Nicoló Machiavelli, the 16th century author of The Prince. A self-assessment for Machiavellianism is found at the end of the chapter.

24. Self-Esteem Individuals’ degree of liking or disliking of themselves
This material is found on pages
Self-esteem —An individual's degree of like or dislike for himself or herself. A self-assessment for self-esteem is found at the end of the chapter.

25. Self-Monitoring
A personality trait that measures an individual’s ability to adjust behaviour to external situational factors
This material is found on pages 50.
Self-monitoring —A personality trait that measures an individual's ability to adjust his or her behaviour to external situational factors. A self-assessment for self-monitoring is found at the end of the chapter.

26. Risk-Taking Refers to a person’s willingness to take chances or risks
This material is found on pages 50.
Risk Taking —The individual's willingness to take chances. A study of two groups of managers showed that high-risk-taking managers make more rapid decisions and use less information in making their choices than low-risk-taking managers. Interestingly, the decision accuracy was the same for both groups. A self-assessment for risk taking is found at the end of the chapter.

27. Type A Personality Always moving, walking, and eating rapidly.
Feel impatient with the rate at which most events take place.
Strive to think or do two or more things at once.
Cannot cope with leisure time.
Are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success in terms of how many or how much of everything they acquire.
This material is found on pages
Type A Personality —This type of individual is "aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time. A self-assessment for type A or B is found at the end of the chapter.

28. Type B Personality
Never suffer from a sense of time urgency with its accompanying impatience.
Feel no need to display or discuss either their achievements or accomplishments unless such exposure is demanded by the situation.
Play for fun and relaxation, rather than to exhibit their superiority at any cost.
Can relax without guilt.
This material is found on pages
Type B Personality - just the opposite of Type A. They are rarely harried by desires to obtain a wildly increasing number of things or participate in an endlessly growing series of events in an ever decreasing amount of time. A self-assessment for type A or B is found at the end of the chapter.

29. Achieving Personality Fit
Person-Job Fit
Identifies six personality types and proposes that the fit between personality type and occupational environment determines satisfaction and turnover.
Person-Organization Fit
Argues that people leave organizations that are not compatible with their personalities
This material is found on pages
John Holland's personality-job fit theory is based on the notion of a fit between a person's interests and his or her occupational environment. Holland presents six personality types and proposes that satisfaction and the propensity to leave a job depends on the degree to which individuals successfully match their personalities with a congruent occupational environment.

30. Exhibit 2-7 Personality-Job Fit
Type
Personality
Characteristics
Congruent
Occupations
Realistic
Shy, genuine,
persistent
Mechanic, drill
press operator
Investigative
Analytical,
original, curious
Biologist,
economist
Social
Sociable,
friendly
Social worker,
teacher
Conventional
Conforming,
efficient
Accountant,
corporate
manager
Enterprising
Self-confident,
ambitious
Lawyer, real
estate agent
Artistic
Imaginative,
disorderly
Painter,
musician
This material is covered on pages
This concern with matching the job requirements with personality characteristics is best articulated in John Holland’s personality-job fit theory. The theory is based on the notion of fit between an individual’s personality characteristics and his or her occupational environment. Holland presents six personality types and proposes that satisfaction and the propensity to leave a job depend on the degree to which individuals successfully match their personalities to an occupational environment.

31. Exhibit 2-8 Relationships Among Occupational Personality Types
Realistic
(R)
Social
(S)
Investigative
(I)
Enterprising
(E)
Artistic
(A)
Conventional
(C)
The material for this illustration is found on page
Holland has developed a Vocational Preference Inventory questionnaire that contains 160 occupational titles. Respondents indicate which of these occupations they like or dislike, and their answers are used to form personality profiles. Using this procedure, research strongly supports the hexagonal diagram in Exhibit 2-8. This figure shows that the closer two fields, or orientations, are in the hexagon, the more compatible they are. Adjacent categories are quite similar, whereas those diagonally opposite are highly dissimilar.
The theory argues that satisfaction is highest and turnover lowest when personality and occupation are in agreement.

32. What Are Emotions? Three related terms: Affect Emotions Moods
A broad range of feelings that people experience.
Emotions
Intense feelings that are directed at someone or something.
Moods
Feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions and that lack a contextual stimulus.
This material is found on pages 57.
Employees bring an emotional component with them to work every day, and no study of OB could be comprehensive without considering the role of emotions in workplace behaviour.
Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. Emotions are reactions to an object, not a trait. They're object-specific. Research has identified six universal emotions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise.

33. Choosing Emotions: Emotional Labour
When an employee expresses organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal interactions.
Employees can experience a conflict between
Felt emotions
An individual’s actual emotions
Displayed emotions
Emotions that are organizationally required and considered appropriate in a given job.
This material is covered on pages
Felt emotions are an individual's actual emotions. In contrast, displayed emotions are those that are organizationally required and considered appropriate in a given situation. For instance, most of us know that we’re expected to act sad at funerals, regardless of whether we consider the person's death to be a loss; and to pretend to be happy at weddings, even if we don't feel like celebrating. The key point here is that felt and displayed emotions are often different.
Emotional Labour Examples:
Effective managers have learned to be serious when giving an employee a negative performance evaluation and to cover up their anger when they've been passed over for promotion.
The salesperson who hasn't learned to smile and appear friendly, but instead reveals his or her true feelings at the moment, isn't typically going to last long on most sales jobs.

34. Gender and Emotions Differences
Women show greater emotional expression than men
Women experience emotions more intensely
Women display more frequent expressions of all emotions, except anger
This material is found on pages 59.
When the genders are contrasted, women show greater emotional expression than men; they experience emotions more intensely; and they display more frequent expressions of both positive and negative emotions, except anger. In contrast with men, women also report more comfort in expressing emotions. Finally, women are better at reading nonverbal and paralinguistic cues than are men.

35. Gender and Emotions Explanations Men and women socialized differently
Men: tough and brave; Women: nurturing.
Women may have more innate ability to read others and present their emotions than do men.
Women may have a greater need for social approval and thus show more positive emotions like happiness.
This material is found on pages 59.
What explains these differences? Three possible answers have been suggested.
The different ways men and women have been socialized. Men are taught to be tough and brave; and showing emotion is inconsistent with this image. Women, on the other hand, are socialized to be nurturing.
Women may have more innate ability to read others and present their emotions than do men.
Women may have a greater need for social approval and, thus, a higher propensity to show positive emotions like happiness.

36. Emotional Intelligence
Noncognitive skills, capabilities, and competencies that influence a person's ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures
Five dimensions
Self-awareness
Self-management
Self-motivation
Empathy
Social skills
This material is covered on pages 60.
Self-awareness. Being aware of what you're feeling. It is exhibited by self-confident, realistic self-assessment, and a self-deprecating sense of humour.
Self-management. The ability to manage one's own emotions and impulses. It is exhibited by trustworthiness and integrity, comfort with ambiguity, and openness to change.
Self-motivation. The ability to persist in the face of setbacks and failures. It is exhibited by a strong drive to achieve, optimism, and high organizational commitment.
Empathy. The ability to sense how others are feeling. It is exhibited by expertise in building and retaining talent, cross-cultural sensitivity, and service to clients and customers.
Social skills. The ability to handle the emotions of others. It is exhibited by persuasiveness, and expertise in building and leading groups and teams.

37. Negative Workplace Emotions
Negative emotions can lead to a number of deviant workplace behaviours. They fall in categories such as:
Production (leaving early, intentionally working slowly)
Property (stealing, sabotage)
Political (gossiping, blaming co-workers)
Personal aggression (sexual harassment, verbal abuse)
This material is covered on pages
Negative emotions can lead to a number of deviant workplace behaviours. Anyone who has spent much time in an organization realizes that people often engage in voluntary actions that violate established norms and threaten the organization, its members, or both.
These actions are called employee deviance: voluntary actions that violate established norms and that threaten the organization, its members or both.

38. Summary and Implications
Perception
Individuals behave based not on the way their external environment actually is but, rather, on what they see or believe it to be
Evidence suggests that what individuals perceive from their work situation will influence their productivity more than will the situation itself
Absenteeism, turnover, and job satisfaction are also reactions to the individual’s perceptions
This material is found on pages

39. Summary and Implications
Personality
Personality helps us predict behaviour
Personality can help match people to jobs, to some extent at least
Emotions
Can hinder performance, especially negative emotions
Can also enhance performance
This material is found on pages