How do perceptions and attributions help organize, understand and perceive? - Chapter 4

This chapter deals with how perceptions and attributions help to organize, understand and interpret what is observed and how managers can increase their skills by paying attention to the way they perceive and interpret. Furthermore, steps are discussed for the effective management of a diverse work floor.

What is perception?

Perception is the process of selecting, organizing and interpreting information that comes through the senses, to understand it and to form an opinion about it.

Perception consists of three components:

1. receiver: he tries to understand the observations,

2. the target of the perception: this refers to the subject that the receiver tries to understand, such as a person, a group, an event, a sound, an idea or whatever is being watched,

3. situation: the environment/situation in which the perception takes place.

The disadvantage of perception is that it isn't always 100% accurate because what is seen depends on how the person interprets the information.

Accurate perceptions are perceptions that come as close as possible to the truth which is the objective nature of the goal of perception but why are these so important? First and foremost, it is important for motivation and work performance, because if a manager observes accurately, he can respond well to his employees and in this way, he knows what leads to better performance and higher motivation. A second point is honesty and equality because you as an individual only perform at a high level if you feel that you are treated fairly and equally. The last argument is ethical accountability.

Objective observation is necessary to combat discrimination. This is especially important in today's global economy, where companies attract and employ workers from around the world.

What are the characteristics of the perceiver?

Information recipients do not passively process new information. Their experiences and knowledge (schemas), their needs and wishes ('motivational states') and their feelings ('moods') influence their perception of the goal.

A schema is an abstract knowledge structure that is in your memory and that makes it possible to organize and store the perceived subject ('target'). Newly perceived information about a particular topic activates the existing schemas on this topic and influences the processing of this new information. In addition, the schemas also determine what new information we pay attention to. They are very useful to process the incoming perceptions in a functional way but one has to look out for either making incorrect conclusions or making them too quickly as we trust past experience too much. Another disadvantage of schemas is that it takes a long time to change them.

A stereotype is a good example of a dysfunctional schema. A stereotype is a set of over-simplified and often inaccurate convictions about the typical behaviors attributed to a particular group. Employees must be careful not to stereotype.

The 'perceiver's motivational state' refers to the needs, values, and wishes of the perceiver at the time of perception. For example, perceiver's can see what they want to see through their motivation state, or hear what they want to hear. This often results in false perceptions.

The 'perceiver's mood' can also influence how something is understood. If the perceiver is in a good mood, he/she also perceives other people and situations as more positive.

What are the characteristics of the perceived target and environment?

As the characteristics of the perceiver influence the observations, the characteristics of the target and the environment also influence the perception.

The ambiguity of the target

Ambiguity provides too little clarity and thus makes it difficult to form a correct perception. The more unclear the observed subject, the greater the chance of errors in perception. When targets are ambiguous, members of an organization must be careful not to rely too much on the accuracy of their perceptions, and to collect as much information as possible to form an accurate perception.

The social status of the target

Social status refers to someone's real or perceived place in society or in an organization. If someone has a higher status, it is expected that the person is smarter, more responsible, has more input and more knowledge than someone with a lower status. This may also cause errors in perception.

Impression management by the target

Impression management is the attempt to control the perceptions and impressions of others. If this is done by the target of perception, it can cause errors in the perception. There are a number of ways in which a target can manage impressions:

• Behavioral matching; the target impersonates the behavior of the perceiver.

• Self-promotion; the target tries to present themselves in the most positive way.

• Conform to situational norms; a target follows the agreed rules for behavior in a given situation.

• Appreciating or flattering others; complimenting the perceiver. Works best if it is not too extreme and the perceiver is complimented on dimensions that are important to the perceiver.

• Stay consistent; what you say/believe you really have to do/believe. The verbal must correspond to the non-verbal.

Influence of the characteristics of the situation on perception

The situation and salience of the target of perception are important factors to provide the rest of the information in order to perceive the target correctly. The target can stand out because the target is an exception ('novel'), for example, one man in a whole group of women. The target can also stand out figuratively because everyone, for example, wears white and the target is wearing red. Finally, the target can stand out due to inconsistency because the target does not behave as everyone expects the person to, for example, they are normally very shy but at a party, they are very spontaneous.

What are the biases and problems in person perception?

Biases and problems with perception ensure that perception is never 100% objective. A bias is a systematic tendency to use or interpret information in a wrong way, resulting in false perceptions.

It is important for members of an organization to be aware of prejudices to avoid errors in evaluations and to be able to better understand each other and to better interact with each other. A number of common prejudices are discussed below:

• The primacy effect; the first piece of information that a recipient receives on the target (for example a gossip) has a large effect on the target's perception of the target.

• The contrast effect; the biased observation that arises when the perception of a target person is disturbed by perceptions that the observer has of others in the same situation.

• The halo effect; the general perception of a receiver over a target being in the way of the perception of the target on other dimensions. For example, someone can be very nice, but at the same time the person is always late because of this halo effect, an employer may, for example, make a mistake in giving them a promotion.

• Similar-to-me effect; the tendency of people to generally find people who look like them nicer. These people are seen more positively and are therefore more positively responded to.

• Average tendency Bias; the tendency to see everyone as average. A disadvantage of this bias is that good employees are not rewarded and poor employees receive no feedback. A too strict approach can also have a demotivating effect. This is the 'bias due to the tendency to be strict or indulgent'.

• Knowledge-of-predictor bias; the favored perception that arises from the perceiver on the basis of certain information previously received and this influenced his/her perception of the target. As a result, this bias can have a self-fulfilling prophecy.

• Self-fulfilling prophecy; A prediction that comes true because the perceiver had already expected it to come true. The target will then act according to what was expected.

Attribution Theory

The Attribution Theory describes how people explain the causes of their own behavior and the behavior of others. People generally attribute behavior to external and internal causes.

External attributions are forces from the outside which affect behavior such as "I did not succeed, because the teacher did not allow me". Under internal attributions, causes are attributed to characteristics that a person attributes to himself, such as ability, effort, and personality.

The attributions that people make for their own behavior and that of others have much influence on their future behavior. Just as errors creep in with perception, there are also errors in attributions. Below are three attribution biases:

• Actor-observer effect; the tendency of people to attribute their own behavior mainly to external causes and the behavior of others due to internal causes.

• Fundamental attribution error; the tendency to attribute the behavior of others mainly to internal rather than to external causes.

• Self-serving attribution; the tendency of people to take credit for their success and not for their failure. People are more inclined to turn to their mistakes if they can prevent them in the future, for example, working harder or planning better.

How does effective management of a diverse work floor work?

There are four steps to make a diverse work floor work more effectively:

1. Ensuring diversity in top management; top managers have a lot of authority, power, and status within the organization, so if they support diversity, they encourage other employees to also stand behind diversity.

2. Training in diversity; there are many different types of diversity training programmes but they all come down to:

• Breaking through stereotypes.

• Bringing different backgrounds, experiences, and values of employees to attention.

• Showing employees how to deal with diversity-related conflicts.

• getting employees to understand each other.

3. Education; offering additional education to be capable enough to manage, communicate and work with different employees and customers.

4. Mentoring; a process in which an experienced member of an organization (the mentor) gives advice to a less experienced member (the protégé) and helps him/her to do the right things for the organization.

There are two types of sexual harassment in the workplace. The first is 'quid pro quo sexual harassment'. In this kind of harassment, the employee is asked or forced to perform sexual acts in exchange for a reward or to avoid a negative consequence. The second form of sexual harassment is hostile work environment sexual harassment. This type of harassment is the constructing and maintaining a work environment that is intimidating and abusive. For example, sexually tinted insinuations are made on the work floor or sexual jokes are made etc.

In the workplace, steps must also be taken to prevent sexual harassment such as, 

• Developing a regulation against sexual harassment that is supported by top management.

• Making this regulation clear to all members of the organization.

• Investigating sexually intimidating behavior with a fair complaints procedure.

• Taking proper action if sexual harassment has taken place.

• Providing training and information about sexual harassment.