Perception, attribution and personality Perception • Perception is a ...

MGF2111: Lecture notes Week 2: Perception, attribution and personality  Perception  Perception is a process by which individuals organise and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.  Perception is different to reality.  We interpret what we see and call it reality  Because people’s behaviour is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself  Factors that influence perception  Perceiver  schemas, motivational state, mood  Target  ambiguity, social status  Perceptual biases: stereotyping  Is one way to form a consistent impression of other people by assuming that they have certain characteristics by virtue of some group that they belong to  Stereotyping process: 1. Distinguish a category of people 2. Assume that the individual in this category has certain traits 3. Perceive that everyone in this category possess these traits  Perceptual biases: halo effect  Drawing a general impression about an individual, based on a single characteristic  Perceptual biases: projection  Attributing one’s own characteristics to another person  Perception biases: primacy/recency  The first and the most recent are the most easily remembered  Attribution  The process by which causes or motivate are assigned to explain people’s behaviour  We study this topic to better understand how people make attributions about events  The attribution process guides out behaviour, regardless of the truth of the attribution  Cues in the attribution process  Consistency: does the person engage in the same behaviour regularly and consistently?  Consensus: do most people engage in the behaviour, or is it unique to this person?  Distinctiveness: does the person engage in the behaviour in many situations, or is it distinctive to on situation?  Attribution errors: fundamental attribution error  Tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and to overestimate the influence of internal factor sin evaluating someone else’s behaviour

 Attribution errors: self-serving bias  Tendency to deny personal responsibility for failures but to accept the credit for performance success  Personality  An individual’s personality is considered to be the set of characteristics which are reasonably enduring and consistent in his/her behaviour.  The trait approach  Focusses on individual traits and personality  Individuals possess stable traits or characteristics that influence their attitudes and behaviours  Individuals are predisposed to behave in certain ways  Big 5 personality dimensions 1. Conscientiousness: reflects dependability, being careful, thorough, responsible, organised and achievement-oriented. 2. Agreeableness: being courteous, trusting, cooperative, empathetic 3. Emotional stability: calm, unemotional, secure, not angry 4. Openness to experience: imaginative, cultured, broad minded and flexible 5. Extraversion: related to being sociable, talkative, active and ambitious  The situational approach  Personality has the strongest effect in weak situations  In weak situations, roles are loosely defined, there are few rules and weak reinforcement and punishment contingencies  Personality has less of an impact in strong situations  In strong situations, the roles, rules and contingencies are more defined Week 3: Values, attitudes and work related behaviours  Human values  Enduring beliefs that a specific mode of conduct is personally or socially preferable to an opposite mode of conduct  Terminal – end goals such as happiness, freedom, pleasure, love and self-respect  Instrumental – means to ends such as ambition, honesty, self-sufficiency and courage  Cultural values  Power distance  Uncertainty avoidance  Achievement orientation  Individualism/collectivism  Long term/short term orientation  Intrinsic and extrinsic work values  Intrinsic  Work values that are related to the nature of the work itself. Eg: challenging work, being creative

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Extrinsic  Work values that are related to the consequences of work. Eg: high pay, job security, benefits The values associated with work can change over the course of our work life

 Attitudes  A cluster of fairly stable beliefs, assessed feelings and behavioural intention toward a person, object or event