...Perceptions and Attributions Please respond to the following: • Analyze the way you perceive your coworkers or classmates and the perceptual or attribution errors you are likely to make, and discuss what steps you could take to address those errors. Provide specific examples to support your response. Being in accounting and based on my years of experience, I have developed my own style of working and require things to be done in a certain way. But when I saw that they are not getting done in the way that I want them to, I would get annoyed and uneasy even when people around me were doing things in a more efficient way than I was used to doing. I always believed that I was a perfectionist and expected people to be at par with me when they worked with me. I always had bias over people who had similar traits like mine, though they might not have been the brightest among the pack (similarity error). But with time and education, I have realized that many things have changed with time and I have to adapt to the new ways of doing things even if it meant that I had to put in a lot of effort to learn these new skills. I now have a different view when I see and work with people around me and try to acknowledge good and efficient work when I see one. When I interviewed and selected people to work in my organization, during orientation of the employees, I would give examples of people whose work I had liked and would make recommendations to the new employees to follow in their footsteps...
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...Perception and Attribution Theory Understanding how people form perceptions and attributions is a necessary skill in order to succeed in communications and long lasting business relationships. In the study of social psychology person perception is defined as the process in which humans form impressions of one another which encompasses the perceptions and judgments people develop every day. A new acquaintance is encountered everyday especially when one works in the business arena and impressions are created due the persons attire, language, body language, and especially how well they communicate. Based on all these characterisis conclusions are drawn even tough not much is known about the other. Learning how people can form perceptions of one another can prevent a business professional from having their customers from forming negative impressions which may jepordize future relationships or even prevent a business transaction from occurring. Attributions the keys in understanding how an individual perceives the cause of events and behaviors of others. A persons actions are questioned at times and often times explications are necessary. Negative events and behaviors are associated with negative perceptions of an individual. For example when a person answers his cellphone during a meeting with an important client he is automatically perceived as a person who is irresponsible and disrespectful, even though his close friends and coworkers see otherwise. People often try to related...
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...Review Author(s): Susan H. Gray Review by: Susan H. Gray Source: Teaching Sociology, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Jul., 1989), pp. 416-418 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1318129 Accessed: 09-09-2015 19:22 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/ info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Teaching Sociology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 197.220.150.185 on Wed, 09 Sep 2015 19:22:08 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 416 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY place of a consultant.Yet if the user does not have the statistical language necessary to answer the questions Ex-Sample asks, the program cannot reduce itself to a lower level, as a consultantcan. I believe that this latter point is a serious one, especially in using the programwith undergraduate students. On the other hand, if students have a strong background in statistics and if the research or statisticsclass includes a lab, the programmight...
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...Organizational Managers judge employees according to their own perceptions. Sometimes, the misunderstanding of the causes behind employees’ behaviour affects decision making and leads to incorrect judgments. Attribution theory illustrates the different causes of behaviour. Applying attribution theory in any work place reduces some passive managerial outcomes which could lead to high absences and turnover. Additionally, a good awareness of attribution theory helps in achieving goal oriented organizational behaviour such as increasing the levels of productivity and achieving appropriate perception, job satisfaction, motivation and organizational citizenship among employees. Through this essay an example of a salesperson who is recently shifted from the warehouse department to the sales department and fails in achieving his monthly target will be applied. Heider who was the founder of attribution theory concentrated on internal and external causes of behaviour (Martinko, Harvey & Douglas, 2007; Harvey & Martinko, 2009). Accordingly, the internal causes of the salesperson’s failure to achieve his monthly target could be his laziness, his absence or failure to target the right customers, while the external reasons behind failing could be national economic status, the product failure to cover the customers’ needs or that product was competing with a new one. Moreover, another important behavioral cause is relational attribution which means that the cause of a situation can be analyzed...
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...BUSN2007 Lecture-3 Lecture outline 1. Outline the perceptual process. 2. Explain how we perceive ourselves and others through social identity. 3. Discuss the accuracy of stereotypes. 4. Describe the attribution process and two attribution errors. 5. Diagram the self-fulfilling prophecy process. 6. Discuss three types of diversity initiatives. 7. Explain how the Johari Window can help improve our perceptions. 8. Identify the ‘Big Five’ personality dimensions. 9. Discuss the psychological dimensions identified by Jung and measured in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. Perception and personality in organisations Why do so few women opt for careers in Engineering and Information Technology? •Sex-role stereotyping •Fewer role models •Low self-confidence •Image of industry Perceptual process model Environmental stimuli Feeling Hearing Seeing Smelling Tasting Selective attention Organisation and interpretation Emotions and behaviour © Ian Cugley/News Limited Selective attention • Characteristics of the object –size, intensity, motion, repetition, novelty Perceptual organisation/interpretation • Perceptual grouping principles –trends –similarity/proximity –closure • Perceptual context • Characteristics of the perceiver –values and attitudes –perceptual defence –expectations − condition us to expect events • Mental models –broad world-views or ‘theories-in-use’ –can blind people to potentially better perspectives 1 Social identity theory ACME...
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...Attribution Theory and Depression Mike E. Calderin Christopher Newport Attribution Theory and Depression Baron, Branscombe, and Byrne (2009) explain the attribution theory as not wanting to just know how ourselves and others act, but why we and others act that way. People assign attributes or reasons to why something happens to better perceive, justify, and understand why people act the way they do. The Attribution Theory can be applied to many different areas of peoples’ lives. In recent years the attribution theory has been applied to different areas including Depression (Baron, Branscombe, & Byrne, 2009). According to the Mayo Clinic Staff depression is defined as, “a medical illness that causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest” (2013). Depression affects how you act and how you think. It is long-term and not just a momentary feeling. A variety of factors are linked to causing depression and a great deal of variance exists amongst the different variables (Mayo Clinc, 2013). Many different variables are linked to depression and treatment works different for different individuals. Depression covers a wide spectrum in both causes and treatment. The Attribution theory relates to how we see others’ behaviors in an effort to understand people’s motives, goals and intentions (Baron, Branscombe, and Byrne, 2009). The attributions we assign to others may be bias or misinformed based on other variables. Attributes can be stable...
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...employers and employees are constantly posed with challenges of making the rational decisions so as to reach an optimal outcome for the business. However, research has repeatedly demonstrated that in the real world, most decision making in organizations are not completely rational. Person perception is the main issue in organizational behavior and decision making for the fact that based on M.J. Martinko et al.’s (2007) assertion the limited information or immediate impressions of employee performance could result in an inaccurate perceptual judgment made by the employers. In an attempt to explain the ways in which people form perceptions about each other, this essay will examine the influence of the attribution theory towards decision-making and illustrate three common biases and errors that distort the attribution formation through the application of three mini-case. This essay will also discuss the importance of attribution theory in relation to organizational behavior as well as decision-makers in organizations. Attribution theory is concerned with how individuals perceive and infer causality (Robert E. Ployhart and Crystal M. Harold, 2004). Johns et al. (2007) also state that the attribution theory is an attempt when individuals observe behavior to determine whether it is internally or externally caused. Internally caused behaviors refer to the behaviors which are under individual control while externally caused behaviors are the result of outside causes (Johns et al. 2007)...
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...Kelley’s Attribution Theory Essay In this essay, readers will be presented with the literature review of Kelley’s attribution theory (1967), which was developed after the research done by Fritz Heider on attribution theory (1944, 1958). Moreover, a real world example relating to the theory will also be discussed along with the limitations and the three elements of the theory, which are consistency, distinctiveness and consensus. With that, recommendations will be given on how my experience can be improved with the chosen theory. There have been a great number of research done on perception over the last decade and social psychology had been primarily focused, perceiving causes of a person’s behavior (Kelley and Michela, 1980). In Kelley (1973), it is mentioned that Heider (1958) research has played a major role in contributing to the origination of attribution theory and it is still the major source cited in publications. Kelley’s attribution theory was also built onto Heider’s (1958) theory with an understanding that humans are “naïve psychologists” determining behaviors based on causes and effects (Hewstone and Jaspars, 1987). In Kelley (1973), it was mentioned that the central idea of attribution theory is the causal concept where human’s behavior relies on either the characteristics of the person (internal attribution) or the environment (external attribution). To determine whether a person’s behavior is caused by internal or external attribution, Kelley’s theory requires...
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...Perception and Individual decision-making (Robertson) Perception Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. However, what we perceive can be substantially different from objective reality. People’s behaviour is based on their perception of what reality is, not reality itself. Factors that influence it Attribution theory The attribution theory is an attempt to determine whether an individual’s behaviour is internally or externally caused. Internally caused behaviours are those we believe to be under the personal control of the individual whereas externally caused behaviour is what we imagine the situation forced the individual to do. * Determinants of attribution 1. Distinctiveness: what we want to know is whether behaviour is unusual, if so we are likely to give it an external attribution. If not we will probably judge the behaviour to be internal. 2. Consensus: behaviour shows consensus when everyone who faces a similar situation responds in the same way. If consensus is high you will probably give an external attribution to the individual’s behaviour whereas if the consensus is low it will be attributed to an internal cause. 3. Consistency: does the person respond the say way over time? The more consistent the behaviour is the more we are inclined to attribute it to internal factors. ...
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...behaviour come from making attributions. Attributions are when we assign a causal meaning behind behaviour (Michael A. Hogg, 2014). For example, someone may attribute being given a compliment to dispositional factors such as them looking good or to external factors such at the other person being friendly. Attribution theories are not necessarily the actual cause of behaviour, but scientific theories behind what humans perceive to be the cause of behaviour (Försterling, 2013). Throughout our life we will construct our own, naive reasons for other peoples’ behaviour in order to gain a stable and predictive view of the world around us. While they are prone to...
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...of the attitudes and feelings of workers Quantitative approach- includes applications of statistics, models System approach – provides useful framework for understanding how the elements of an organization interact among themselves Contingency approach – fit between organizational processes and characteristics of the situation. Three levels of analyses – individual processes (work attitudes), group processes (communication), and organizational processes (structure) Perception – set of processes by which an individual becomes aware of and interprets information about the environment. Perception influences – interpretation, spoken words, and visual images Perceptual biases (errors) – similar tone, harshness leniency, average tendency Schemas – abstract knowledge structures that are stored in memory and make possible the organization and interpretation of information about targets of perception. Schemas – make sense of confusing situations, choose what info to pay attention to, and guide their perception to information they confront. Work values – a...
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...ATTRIBUTION THEORY (Attribution - to explain by indicating a cause) ATTRIBUTION THEORY - motivational theory looking at how the average person constructs the meaning of an event based on his /her motives to find a cause and his/her knowledge of the environment. Att. Theory basically looks at how people make sense of their world; what cause and effect inferences they make about the behaviors of others and of themselves. Heider states that there is a strong need in individuals to understand transient events by attributing them to the actor's disposition or to stable characteristics of the environment. The purpose behind making attributions is to achieve COGNITIVE CONTROL over one's environment by explaining and understanding the causes behind behaviors and environmental occurrences. Making attributions gives order and predictability to our lives; helps us to cope. Imagine what it would be like if you felt that you had no control over the world. (talk about later) When you make attributions you analyze the situation by making inferences (going beyond the information given) about the dispositions of others and yourself as well as inferences about the environment and how it may be causing a person to behave. Two basic kinds of attributions made: INTERNAL and EXTERNAL INTERNAL - dispositional EXTERNAL - situational Consequences of making inferences: 1) gives order and predictability; 2) inferences lead to behavior - you will...
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...The story is about a ski instructor named Miranda who is having several issues with her new boss, Hank because he has done and said many things over the course of the time that he has been there to show that he may be sexist. This scenario has a lot to do with perception. Perception is defined as “a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment” (Robbins & Judge, 166). This paper will discuss what perception is and how much of an impact in can have in the work place. Miranda’s perception of her boss Hank is that he is a sexist. The initial problem that is discussed is the fact that she did not like the fact that as one of the most experienced ski instructors at the resort but she was only being assigned to teach the children instead of the adults, the same for all the other female instructors. She sees how Hank separates the men and the women instructor to have a meeting about work procedure, “After introducing himself and Harika, he took the men to one room, and Harika took the women to another,” (Cohan, Fink,Gadon, Willits & Josefowitz, 2013). That was the first thing that bothered her because she could not understand what it is that had to be said to only the male instructors that could not also be said to the female. Although this bothered her initially, she decided to find a positive side to the situation, and went along with it. The more she went along with what was going around the job place...
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...negativity. As a student, my perspective on the situation is that the father is over reacting (Jim selects his father overreacting as what he notices) but means well. Jim then organizes that and attributes meaning to it by thinking that it was very easy for his father but things have changed since his father was in school. Finally, interpretation comes into effect, when Jim states that no matter how much he studies he cannot make an A, he is attributing an external factor for his failure. One tip that Jim’s father can use to help improve not only his perception of Jim but also the communication he has with his is by “Distinguishing Between Facts and Interferences.” Jim’s father is making the assumption that Jim is out there partying instead of studying but in actuality, this is a perception Jim’s father is making because of the grades. Another tip that could help Jim’s father is to “Guard against the Fundamental Attribution Error.” By doing this, Jim’s father would actually question the reason of the low grades instead of making an...
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...Salationo the President of Great Northern American, and his employees and how the employees need to understand how to importance how that people perform their perceptions and make attributions. Joe Salatino also believe that his employees that they have established sold relationship with their customer, and the different technique’s that the employees use. We will also discuss the different learning theory that will fit Joe Salatino situation, and how Joe Salatino will apply some of the learning theory by using the operant conditioning, social learning theory. How people form perceptions and make attributions How we need to make Joe Salatino employees to understand that people form perceptions and make attributions because perception is the process by which the individual selects, organizes, interprets, and responds to information. Employees are constantly exposed to a variety of information. They know when leaders are being phony. This information is processed in a person’s, mind and organized to form concepts pertaining to what is sensed or experienced. Different people often perceive a situation differently, both in terms of what they selectively perceive and how they organize and interpret what is perceived, by the employee and their manger (Hellriegel and Slocum, 2011. Pp. 104). The attributions that employees and managers make concerning the causes of behavior are important for understanding behavior. For example, a leader who attributes poor performance...
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