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Contemporary Organizational Behavior (Elsbach)
Topic Summary 4 Perception
1) You have just finished presenting your development plan for an innovative new product to
your management team. You wanted to make sure that everything was communicated clearly so
you used PowerPoint on the projector, distributed hard copies of the presentation to everyone,
and made sure you included all critical numeric information on the slides instead of reporting
some stats orally. You really think you have done a good job catering to the different learning
and attention styles of your management team, so it is likely that management will approve your
plan. Given your extensive preparations, which of the following should you expect after your
presentation?
A) The managers will understand what you have conveyed but not approve your plan
B) The managers will understand what you have conveyed and approve your plan
C) The managers will understand what you have conveyed and approve your plan after some
changes are made
D) Everyone who attended the presentation, yourself and each manager included, will understand
2) What is the similarity between perceptions and heuristics?
A) Their underlying purpose
B) They rely on incomplete information
C) They can be improved through training
D) They can be used interchangeably
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3) Why should a manager work to understand perceptions?
A) Improve decision making
B) Reduce conflict
C) Create normative perspectives
Difficulty: Medium
4) What would you perceive as novel and distinct?
A) Your 75-year-old OB teacher driving a yellow Hummer
B) Someone carrying an umbrella on a rainy day
C) Cars that are the same color as yours
D) The perception of distinctiveness is based on behavioral factors
5) What do our perceptions consist of?
A) Our experience combined with current stimuli
B) Our current reality
C) The stimuli that surrounds us
6) How quickly will someone you first encounter make multiple judgments about you?
A) Less than a second
B) One minute
C) Five minutes
D) It depends on the context
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7) What is a benefit of not perceiving all stimuli in your environment?
A) You can think about other things while listening to your manager speak
B) You can interpret relevant things and only perceive them
C) You would be overwhelmed by perceiving everything
D) You can always focus your attention on the most important things
8) How long has research found first impressions last?
A) Less than an hour of interaction
B) Until new perceptions conflict with the initial judgments
C) Until the person joins your in-group
9) Which is not part of the process of perception?
A) Organize and interpret information
B) Create response to stimuli
C) Identify and/or create patterns in information
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10) What concept describes overestimating bias in others’ decisions and underestimating the bias
in our own decisions?
A) Self-serving bias
B) Hindsight bias
C) Selective perception
11) During the annual company picnic, a “friendly” debate erupts over who performed best in the
ultimate Frisbee game played at last year’s picnic. The battle lines are drawn between
departments, and everyone insists the best performance was demonstrated by those in their own
departments. What might be the root cause of this debate?
A) Selective perception
B) Halo effect
C) Performance bias
12) A stereotype is a type of ________.
A) Threat
B) Error
C) Shortcut
D) Discrimination
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13) What would result from a manager expecting high performance from his subordinates using
the self-fulfilling prophecy?
A) Performance is objectively higher
B) Decision making is improved
C) The impact of perceptual biases is reduced
14) What type of bias could occur if an HR manager hires the candidate who attended the same
university they did?
A) Stereotyping
B) In-group favoritism
C) Halo effect
D) Horns effect
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15) What is the first step to using the self-fulfilling prophecy to improve your mentee’s sales
performance?
A) Attend training about sales and perceptions and tell your mentee about it
B) Dedicate more time to develop your mentee’s professional image, focusing on their behavior
and attire
C) You can’t start a self-fulfilling prophecy to improve someone else’s sales performance
D) Since your expectations of your mentee’s sales skills will form your behavior toward them,
you should increase your expectations about their sales capabilities and skills
16) What are the dimensions of attribution?
A) Internal, external
B) Intrapersonal, interpersonal, intergroup, organizational
C) Individual, group, organizational
17) What does the process of attribution describe?
A) Behavior of others
B) Behavior of self
C) Assigning credit or blame
D) Categorizing by level and dimension
Difficulty: Medium
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18) Which is not one of the three categories of attribution?
A) Consensus
B) Congruency
C) Distinctiveness
Difficulty: Easy
19) One of your coworkers is chronically late arriving at work, returning from lunch, and coming
to meetings, but interestingly they are never late to leave at the end of the workday. What
attribution will you make?
A) Internal
B) External
C) Consistency
20) You attribute a subordinate’s chronic tardiness to internal factors. What category describes
their behavior?
A) Consensus
B) Poor time management
C) Consistency
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21) What should you do if you want to manage your process of perception?
A) Critical reflection
B) Engage in the self-fulfilling prophecy
C) Explain to others that all perceptions are biased
D) Improve your decision making
22) Which of the following is not a stage in the critical reflection process?
A) Identifying the influence of values and beliefs
B) Aligning new behaviors with values
C) Determining different possibilities
D) Considering behaviors needed to achieve future goals
23) What process in the second stage of the critical reflection process helps you to evaluate the
validity of your perceptions?
A) Self-analysis
B) Self-reflection
C) Experiential analysis
D) Consultation
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24) Which of the following can be used to more effectively manage the perceptual process?
A) Critical reflection process
B) Perception and attribution
C) Selective attention and perception
D) Self-serving bias
Difficulty: Medium
25) As a manager, could you use the self-fulfilling prophecy to improve your subordinate’s
performance? Why or why not?