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

2. Perception and Personality, and Emotions
Questions for Consideration
Questions for Consideration
What is perception?
What causes people to have different perceptions of the same situation?
Can people be mistaken in their perceptions?
Does perception really affect outcome?
What is personality and how does it affect behaviour?
Can emotions help or get in the way when dealing with others?

3. Perception What is Perception? Why Is it Important?
The 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 31.
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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. Exhibit 2-1 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 32.

7. Perceptual Errors Attribution Theory Selective Perception Halo Effect
Contrast Effects
Projection
Stereotyping
This material is found on pages

8. 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.

9. 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

10. Exhibit 2-2 Attribution Theory
Observation
Interpretation
of cause
High
(Seldom)
Distinctiveness
External
(How often does the
person do this in
Internal
other settings?)
Low
(Frequently)
High
(Frequently)
Consensus
External
Individual
(How often do other
The material for this illustration is found on page 36.
behaviour
people do this in
Internal
similar situations?)
Low
(Seldom)
High
(Frequently)
Consistency
Internal
(How often did the
person do this in
External
the past?)
Low
(Seldom)

11. Additional Perceptual Errors
Selective Perception
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
Selective Perception
–    People selectively interpret what they see based on their interests, background, experience, and attitudes
–    A group’s perception of organizational activities is selectively altered to align with the vested interests they represent. Managers view the organization from their perspective, employees often have a very different view, which is demonstrated in union conflicts.
–    Selectivity works as a shortcut in judging other people by allowing us to “speed-read” others, but not without the risk of drawing an inaccurate picture. Because we see what we want to see, we can draw unwarranted conclusions from an ambiguous situation.
Halo Effect
–    Drawing a general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic
–    This phenomenon frequently occurs when students appraise their classroom instructor.
–    Students may give prominence to a single trait such as enthusiasm and allow their entire evaluation to be tainted by how they judge the instructor on that one trait.
Contrast Effects
–    A person’s evaluation is affected by comparisons with other individuals recently encountered
–    For example, an interview situation in which one sees a pool of job applicants can distort perception. Distortions in any given candidate’s evaluation can occur as a result of his or her place in the interview schedule.

12. Additional Perceptual Errors
Projection
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
Projection
–   Attributing one’s own characteristics to other people
–   When managers engage in projection, they compromise their ability to respond to individual differences. They tend to see people as more homogeneous than they really are.
Stereotyping
–   Judging someone on the basis of your perception of the group to which that person belongs
–   In organizations, we frequently hear comments that represent stereotypes based on gender, age, race, ethnicity, and even weight.
–   From a perceptual standpoint, if people expect to see these stereotypes, that is what they will perceive, whether or not they are accurate.

13. Personality Personality Determinants Personality Traits
The sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others.
Personality Determinants
Heredity
Environment
Situation
Personality Traits
Enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behaviour
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.

14. Exhibit 2-3 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
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.

15. The Big Five Model Classifications Extroversion Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Emotional Stability
Openness to Experience
This material is found on pages
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.

16. Exhibit 2-5 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

17. Exhibit 2-5 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

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

19. 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 45.
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.

20. Machiavellianism
Degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means
This material is found on pages
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.

21. Self-Esteem Individuals’ degree of liking or disliking of themselves
This material is found on pages 46.
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.

22. Self-Monitoring
A personality trait that measures an individual’s ability to adjust behaviour to external situational factors
This material is found on pages 46.
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.

23. Risk-Taking Refers to a person’s willingness to take chances or risks
This material is found on pages 47.
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.

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. 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 49.
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.

27. Exhibit 2-6 Emotion Continuum
Happiness
Surprise
Fear
Sadness
Anger
Disgust
This material for this exhibit is found on pages

28. Choosing Emotions: Emotional Labour
When an employee expresses organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal interactions.
Employees can experience a conflict between what they feel, and what’s expected of them.
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.

29. 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
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.

30. 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.

31. 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 page 52.

32. 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 page 52.

33. OB at Work

34. For Review 1. Define perception.
2. What is attribution theory? What are its implications for explaining organizational behaviour?
3. How are our perceptions of our own actions different from our perceptions of the actions of others?
4. What is stereotyping? Give an example of how stereotyping can create perceptual distortion.
5. Give some positive results of using shortcuts when judging others.
This material is found on page 53.

35. For Review
6. What behavioural predictions might you make if you knew that an employee had (a) an external locus of control? (b) a low-Mach score? (c) low self-esteem? (d) a Type A personality?
7. What are the personality dimensions of the Big Five Model?
8. What is emotional labour and why is it important to understanding OB?
9. What is emotional intelligence and why is it important?
This material is found on page 53.

36. For Critical Thinking
1. How might the differences in experience of students and instructors affect their perceptions of students’ written work and class comments?
2. An employee does an unsatisfactory job on an assigned project. Explain the attribution process that this person’s manager will use to form judgments about this employee’s job performance.
3. One day your boss comes in and he’s nervous, edgy, and argumentative. The next day he is calm and relaxed. Does this behaviour suggest that personality traits are not consistent from day to day?
4. What, if anything, can managers do to manage emotions?
5. Give some examples of situations where expressing emotions openly might improve job performance.
This material is found on page 53.

37. Breakout Group Exercises
Form small groups to discuss the following topics.
1. Think back to your perception of this course and your instructor on the first day of class. What factors may have affected your perceptions of what the rest of the term would be like?
2. Describe a situation where your perception turned out to be wrong. What perceptual errors did you make that might have caused this to happen?
3. Compare your scores on the Learning About Yourself Exercises at the end of the chapter. What conclusions could you draw about your group based on these scores?
This material is found on page 63.

38. Supplemental Material
Slides for activities I do in my own classroom

39. Personality Inventory
In groups:
Quickly determine the means for each of the personality items
Develop a summary statement of your group based on the means for each of the items
What are the implications for the workplace of scoring either high or low on these dimensions? (Your group will be asked to examine one of the dimensions)
I have the students complete the personality inventories before coming to class, and then ask them to aggregate and analyze the information in class.
Individuals who rate high in externality are less satisfied with their jobs, have higher absenteeism rates, are more alienated from the work setting, and are less involved on their jobs than are internals. Internals generally perform better on their jobs and do better with jobs that have less structure. Externals, however, are more compliant and willing to follow directions.
High Machs manipulate more, win more, are persuaded less, and persuade others more than do low Machs.
High SEs are more satisfied with their jobs than are low SEs. In managerial positions, low SEs will tend to be concerned with pleasing others and, therefore, are less likely to take unpopular stands than are high SEs.
High self-monitors may be more successful in managerial positions in which individuals are required to play multiple, and even contradicting, roles. The high self-monitor is capable of putting on different “faces” for different audiences.
Type A’s tend to trade off quality of effort for quantity.

40. Perception Exercise
In the new OB project team, two members obviously have different perceptions on just about everything the team does. Kevin ‘sees’ the project one way; Kim ‘sees’ it differently. They have different perceptions about team goals, methods, values and the roles team members should play. Kevin gives the impression he wants “to be in charge” and he argues aggressively to get his way. Kim, who is more reserved, offers thoughtful ideas in rebuttal, and usually consults with the other group members for their views and support. Privately, Kevin bad-mouths Kim to anyone who will listen. He says that he has been on successful teams many times and ‘knows’ the best ways to operate the team. He says that Kim is a “control freak” and “the only one on the team holding up progress”. Kim, on the other hand, only conveys her feelings about Kevin when team members are present, but she has repeatedly said out loud, “There are more ways of getting this team started than just yours! Too bad you have a closed mind!” For the most part, the other team members perceive Kim and Kevin to have a “personality conflict”, and they are avoiding getting involved. The team is ineffective so far, and there’s pressure to get the team on track because of the impending class assignment deadline.
I have the students read this exercise, and then discuss the questions on the following slide. Many thanks to Larry Anderson, a sessional at UBC, for suggesting this exercise.

41. In Groups
Agree on answers to the following questions, then report back on your group’s conclusions. Time: 30 minutes.
What main factors may account for the different perceptions held by Kevin and Kim?
In each perceiver?
In the targets?
In the current situation?
What are some ‘short cuts’ each may be taking in judging the other? Are these judgements correct?
To what extent might the current situation be affecting the different perceptions?
To what extent might each person’s apparent personality be the cause for the current conflict? Define their respective personalities.
If behaviour such as this happens often, how can perceptions be changed to that people in conflict like Kevin and Kim can reach consensus? List some ideas.
Source: Larry Anderson, Faculty of Commerce, UBC
Perceiver: personal characteristics, attitudes and motives, interests, and past experiences all shape the way we perceive an event, and expectations.
Target: target’s characteristics can affect what is perceived, relationship of a target to its background influences perception, as does our tendency to group close things and similar things together.
Situation: The context in which we see objects or events is important.
Selective Perception: interpret what they see on the basis of their interest, background, experience, and attitudes.
Halo Effect: Drawing a general impression from a single characteristic.
Contrast Effects: Comparing with others
Projection: Attributing one’s own characteristics to other people
Stereotyping: Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs.