I. WHAT IS PERCEPTION AND WHAT INFLUENCES IT?
A. Introduction
1. Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory
impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.
2. Research demonstrates that individuals may look at the same thing yet perceive it
differently.
a) We interpret what we see and call it reality.
b) We act according to our perceptions.
B. What Influences Perception?
1. A number of factors operate to shape and sometimes distort perception.
2. They reside in the perceiver, in the object or target being perceived, or in the
context of the situation in which the perception is made.
3. The individual’s personal characteristics will heavily influence the interpretation.
a) Personal characteristics include attitudes, personality, motives, interests, past
experiences, and expectations.
4. Targets are not looked at in isolation; background also influences perception as
does our tendency to group close things and similar things together. (See Exhibit
9-3.)
5. The context in which we see objects or events is also important.
a) Time of perception as well as location, lighting, temperature, and other
situational factors can influence attention.
C. How Do Managers Judge Employees?
1. Much of the research on perception is directed at inanimate objects.
2. Our perceptions of people differ from our perceptions of inanimate objects because
we make inferences about the actions of people that we don’t make about
inanimate objects.
3. When we observe people, we attempt to develop explanations of why they behave
in certain ways.
4. These assumptions have led researchers to develop attribution theory.
5. What is attribution theory?
a) Proposed to develop explanations of how we judge people differently
depending on what meaning we attribute to a given behavior.
b) Suggests that when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to
determine whether it was internally or externally caused.
(1) Internally caused behaviors are under individual control.
(2) Externally caused behavior results from outside causes.
6. The determination of whether an individual’s behavior is internally or externally
caused depends on three factors: distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency.
a) Distinctiveness—whether an individual displays a behavior in many situations
or just one.
(1) What we want to know is whether this behavior is unusual.
(2) If it is unusual, the observer likely gives the behavior an external
attribution.
(3) If this action is not unique, it will probably be judged as internal.
b) Everyone faced with a similar situation responds in the same way, we say that
behavior shows consensus.
(1) If consensus is high, an external attribution is often assumed.
(2) If not, the reason would be internal.
c) A manager looks for consistency in an employee’s actions.
(1) Does the individual engage in the behaviors regularly and consistently?
(2) The more consistent the behavior, the more inclination to attribute it to
internal causes.
7. Exhibit 9-4 summarizes the key elements in attribution theory.
8. Can attributions be distorted?
a) Errors or biases distort attributions.
b) When we make judgments about the behavior of other people, we have a
tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate
the influence of internal or personal factors.
(1) This is the fundamental attribution error.
(2) Can explain why a sales manager may be prone to attribute the poor
performance of sales agents to laziness rather than to the innovative
product line introduced by a competitor.
c) There is also a tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to
internal factors such as ability or effort, while putting the blame for failure on
external factors such as luck.
(1) This is called the self-serving bias.
d) Individuals also use perceptual shortcuts to judge others. (See Exhibit 9-5.)
(1) Selective perception allows us to “speed read” others but not without the risk
of an inaccurate perception.
(2) We also assume people are like ourselves—assumed similarity. The
observer’s perception of others is influences more by their own experiences
than those of the person being observed.
(3) We also engage in stereotyping, judging people on the perception of a group
to which others belong.
(4) Halo effect occurs when people form an impression of others on the basis of a
single trait.
D. How Can an Understanding of Perceptions Help Managers Be More Effective?
1. Managers need to recognize that their employees react to perceptions, not to
reality.
a) Whether a manager’s appraisal of an employee is actually objective and
unbiased or whether the organization’s wage levels are actually among the
highest in the industry is less relevant than what employees perceive.
b) Employees behave as if the conditions they perceive actually exist.
c) Managers should pay close attention to how employees perceive both their jobs
and management practices.
II. HOW DO LEARNING THEORIES EXPLAIN BEHAVIOR?
A. Introduction
1. The average person’s view—“it’s what we did when we went to school.”
2. A psychologist’s definition of learning is any relatively permanent change in
behavior that occurs as a result of experience.
3. Two popular theories—operant conditioning and social learning theory.
B. What Is Operant Conditioning?
1. Operant conditioning behavior is a function of its consequences.
2. People behave to get something they want or to avoid something they don’t want.
a) Operant behavior is voluntary or learned rather than reflexive or unlearned
behavior.
b) Reinforcement strengthens a behavior and increases the likelihood that it will
be repeated.
c) Rewards are most effective if they immediately follow the desired response.
d) Behavior that is not rewarded, or is punished, is less likely to be repeated.
3. Any situation in which it is either explicitly stated or implicitly suggested that
reinforcements are contingent on some action on your part involves operant
learning.
C. What Is the Social Learning Theory?
1. Social learning theory is learning through both observation and direct experience
is social learning theory.
2. The influence of models is central to the social learning viewpoint.
3. Four processes determine the influence that a model will have on an individual.
a) Attentional processes—people learn when they recognize and pay attention to
a model’s critical features.
b) Retention processes—a model’s influence depends on how well the individual
remembers the model’s action.
c) Motor reproduction processes—the watching must be converted to doing.
d) Reinforcement processes—individuals will be motivated to exhibit the
modeled behavior if positive incentives or rewards are provided.
From the Past to the Present
Classical conditioning is a passive theory. As such, it can explain simple reflexive behavior, but
most behavior by people at work is voluntary rather than reflexive; that is, employees choose to
arrive at work on time, ask their boss for help with some problem, or “goof off” when no one is
watching. A better explanation for behavior is operant conditioning. Operant conditioning says
that people behave the way they do so they can get something they want or avoid something they
don’t want. It’s voluntary or learned behavior. Harvard psychologist B. F. Skinner first identified
the process of operant conditioning and he argued that creating pleasing consequences to follow
specific forms of behavior would increase the frequency of that behavior. Skinner demonstrated
that people will most likely engage in desired behaviors if they’re positively reinforced. Operant
conditioning can be seen in work settings as well and smart managers quickly recognize that they
can use operant conditioning to shape employees’ behaviors to get work done in the most
effective and efficient manner possible.
Discuss This:
How do classical conditioning and operant conditioning differ?
What ethical concerns might arise in “shaping” someone’s behavior?
Teaching Tips:
Have students give their own examples of classical and operant conditioning. As a humorous
way to do this, suggest that each student who gives an example will get five bonus points. After
students start to give examples then inform them that the offer of bonus points for examples was
merely a suggested example of classical conditioning.
D. Shaping Behavior
1. Managers should be concerned with how they can teach employees to behave in
ways that most benefit the organization.
2. Managers often attempt to mold individuals by guiding their learning in graduated
steps.
a) This is shaping behavior.
3. We shape behavior by systematically reinforcing each successive step that moves
the individual closer to the desired response.
4. There are four ways in which to shape behavior.
a) Positive reinforcement—when a response is followed with something
pleasant.
b) Negative reinforcement—rewarding a response with the termination or
withdrawal of something pleasant.
c) Punishment—penalizes undesirable behavior.
d) Extinction—eliminating any reinforcement that is maintaining a behavior.
5. Both positive and negative reinforcement result in learning; they strengthen a
desired response and increase the probability of repetition.
6. Both punishment and extinction also result in learning; however, they weaken
behavior and tend to decrease its subsequent frequency.
E. How Can an Understanding of Learning Help Managers Be More Effective?
1. Employees must continually learn on the job.
a) Managers need to decide whether they are going to let employee learning occur
randomly or whether they are going to manage learning through rewards they
allocate and examples they set.
III. WHAT CONTEMPROARY ISSUES DO OB MANAGERS FACE?
A. Introduction
1. It is clear at this point that managers need to understand how and why employees
behave the way they do.
B. How Do Generational Differences Affect the Workplace?
1. Generation Y are embarking on their careers, bringing new attitudes to the
workplace.
2. Gen Y comprises those individuals born from about 1982 to 1997.
3. They’re very independent and tech savvy. (See Exhibit 9-6.)
4. Managerial challenges include:
a) Appropriate office attire.
b) Technology—they have grown up with it vs. their older colleagues in the
workplace.
c) They want bosses who are open minded; experts in their field; organized;
teachers, trainers, and mentors; not authoritarian or paternalistic; respectful of
their generation; understanding of their need for work/life balance; providing
constant feedback; communicating in vivid and compelling ways; and
providing stimulating and novel learning experiences.
5. Managers have to recognize and understand the behaviors of this group in order to
create an environment in which work can be accomplished efficiently, effectively,
and without disruptive conflict.
C. How Do Managers Deal with Negative Behavior in the Workplace?
1. Rudeness, hostility, aggression, and other forms of workplace negativity have
become all too common in today’s organizations.
2. In a U.S. research study, 10 percent of employees said they witnessed rudeness
daily within their workplaces and 20 percent said that they personally were direct
targets of incivility at work at least once a week.
3. Managers cannot ignore this behavior.
4. Preventing negative behaviors by carefully screening potential employees for
certain personality traits and responding immediately and decisively to
unacceptable negative behaviors can go a long way toward managing negative
workplace behaviors.