PERCEPTION AND PERSONALITY

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CHAPTER 2

• PERCEPTION AND PERSONALITY

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What is Perception?

• Perception The process of recognizing and
  understanding others
• By understanding perception, managers can deal
  with others effectively

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Accuracy in Perceiving Others

• Being able to observe anothers particular
  emotion can help us watch the effects of our
  words.
• Ways to read others
• Facial Expressions
• Other Nonverbal Cues
• Appearance and physical attractiveness

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Facial Expressions

• Convey universal cues of internal emotions yet
  can be distorted
• Research has identified clues that can help
  determine the sincerity of someones facial
  expressions
• Time between event and reaction is too great the
  reaction is probably dishonest

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Facial Expressions (cont.)

• If all aspects of expressions dont agree deceit
  may be involved
• Very brief expressions convey genuine feelings
• Shifts in tone or pitch of voice often denotes
  deception

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Other Nonverbal Cues

• Important in situations where people are formally
  evaluated
• Have a real affect on perceptions of job
  interviewers
• Examples posture shifts, scratching, licking of
  lips denotes nervousness

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Other Nonverbal Cues (cont.)

• Two important nonverbal cues
• Eye contact
• Appearance and physical attractiveness

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Eye Contact

• Most important nonverbal cue
• Too much eye contact is perceived to be rude
• Too little suggests that people may be trying to
  hide something

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Appearance and Physical Attractiveness

• Contribute to perceptual judgments
• Different attributes associated
• Physically attractive people are perceived as
  sociable, intelligent, socially skilled, mentally
  healthy, and less lonely than unattractive people
• Physical beauty is also beneficial in generating
  higher initial salary offers

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Appearance and Physical Attractiveness (cont.)

• Practical implications
• One should be properly groomed and dressed to
  maximize ones attractiveness to benefit from
  this perceiver tendency

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Good Judges of the Personalities of Others

• Such individuals, according to research,
  typically possess high intelligence, interests,
  emotional adjustment, and specialization in
  physical sciences
• People interested in social sciences may be
  overly sensitive to small differences among people

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Obstacles to Accurate Perception

• Common obstacles to perception include
• Stereotyping
• Halo Effect
• Projection
• Perceptual distortion
• Subliminal Influences
• Selective Perception

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Stereotyping

• Judgments of others that are based on group
  membership
• Can provide a short cut for evaluation, but may
  be dangerous due to potential for error
• The kernel of truth notion of stereotypes
• Hold true for groups, not individuals

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Halo Effect

• Occurs when a perceiver uses a general impression
  of favorableness or un-favorableness as basis for
  judgments about more specific traits
• Perceivers evaluation is influenced by an
  overall impression

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Halo Effect (cont.)

• Implicit personality
• Type of halo
• Traits are linked
• Example
• An aggressive person energetic

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Projection

• Occurs when a perceiver ascribes own feelings and
  attributes to others
• Defense mechanism that protects people from
  unpleasant realities

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Perceptual Distortion

• Occurs when a perceiver simply denies that
  something occurred or that s/he witnessed
  something

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Subliminal Influences

• Are below our threshold of awareness
• Existence of subliminal influences demonstrated
  by successful use of posthypnotic suggestions

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Selective Perception

• Tendency to be influenced by our own interests
• Interpret problem situation in light of our own
  background and interest

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Understanding Attributions

• Attribution Theory
• Focuses on the inference process used to deduce
  anothers dispositions or traits from
  observations of behavior
• People perceive behavior as being caused,
  distinguishing between internal or external
  causality

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Understanding Attributions (cont.)

• Outcomes are perceived as a result of
  environmental and personal forces and personal
  power and effort

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Tendencies to Distort Behavior

• Fundamental Attribution Theory
• Attribute behaviors of others to internal factors
• Leads people to blame the victims of misfortune
• Self Serving Bias
• Take credit for success and blame failure on
  external factors

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Tendencies to Distort Behavior (cont.)

• Manifest when people compare themselves to others
  on subjective and socially desirable dimensions

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Kelleys Theory of Causal Attribution

• Judgments influenced by three sources
• Agreement
• Consistency
• Distinctiveness

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Personality

• The relatively enduring individual traits and
  dispositions that form a pattern distinguishing
  one person from all others
• Represents stylistic differences in behavior of
  people

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What Determines Personality?

• Heredity
• Personality is determined at conception by
  individuals genes
• Situations
• Situations that a person is exposed to can
  shape/alter personality traits

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What Determines Personality? (cont.)

• Environmental Influences
• Birth order
• Results of experience shape and alter personality
• Integrated View
• Heredity may predispose a person to certain
  patterns of behavior

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What Determines Personality?(cont.)

• Environmental forces may precipitate more
  specific patterns of action

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Assessing Personality Traits

• Personality Ratings
• Situational Tests
• Personality Inventories
• Projective Techniques

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Personality Ratings

• Typically involve the use of five or seven-point
  scales containing a list of adjectives acting as
  anchors for the scales
• Approach is open to various interpretations of
  users
• Improvement is seen when scales are tied to
  specific behavioral dimensions e.g.
  competitiveness

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Personality Ratings (cont.)

• Observations of rater can distort results

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Situational Tests

• Involve the direct observation of an individuals
  behavior in a setting designed to provide
  information about personality
• Very expensive
• Less subjective than rating scales
• Assessment in natural settings

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Situational Tests (cont.)

• Certain traits dont lend to this

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Personality Inventories

• The most widely used method of assessing
  personality characteristics
• Ease of administration
• Social Desirability is a potential problem, where
  people answer as they perceive they should and
  not according to their actual feelings

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Projective Techniques

• Designed to probe subtle aspects of personality
• Based on belief of individualistic interpretation
• Types of Projective Techniques
• Story Telling
• Sentence Completion

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Story Telling

• Good in standardized interpretation, reliability,
  and usefulness
• Most widely used is TAT, Thematic Apperception
  Test
• 20 Pictures, each portraying a social setting of
  ambiguous meaning

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Sentence Completion

• Asks respondents to supply endings for a series
  of partial sentences
• Best used when respondents have little to gain by
  faking answers
• Team building exercises may appropriately use
  this technique

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Dimensions of Personality

• Locus of Control
• The Work Ethic
• Cognitive Style
• Moral Maturity
• The Big Five Model

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Locus of Control

• Extent to which individuals believe that control
  over their lives lies either internally or
  externally

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Internal Locus of Control

• Belief by people that they do have control over
  their own destinies
• These individuals have higher incomes, hold
  higher status jobs, and advance more rapidly in
  their careers

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External Locus of Control

• Belief by people that their fate is determined by
  external forces
• Americans are becoming more externally oriented
• Prefer extrinsic rewards e.g. pay
• Managers should understand loci of control to
  better tailor their reward systems to individual
  needs

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Work Ethic

• Belief in dignity of all work, contempt for
  idleness and self-indulgence
• Belief that if you work hard, you will be
  rewarded
• Stable disposition
• Those who believe in strong work ethic tend to be
  more accepting of authoritarian leadership

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Work Ethic (cont.)

• These individuals will perform dull tasks without
  incentives
• Work ethic in U.S. may be waning

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Cognitive Style

• Carl Jungs proposal modes of problem solving
• Four Dimensions
• Introvert vs. Extrovert
• (inner v. outer world)
• Thinking vs. Feeling
• (logic v. subjective view)

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Cognitive Style (cont.)

• Sensing vs. Intuiting
• (detail v. broad focus)
• Judging vs. Perceiving
• (resolution v. flexibility)
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Measurement of four dimensions giving the 16
  cognitive styles
• Aid for improving work team functioning

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Moral Maturity

• Model of moral judgement by Kohlberg
• Emphasizes cognitive processes which characterize
  individuals making ethical decisions
• Three levels with six stages
• Preconvention level
• Conventional level
• Principled level

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Moral Maturity (cont.)

• Moral maturity tests

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The Big Five Model of Personality

• Directed at the work place
• Five dimensions of personality
• Agreeableness
• Conscientiousness
• Emotional Adjustment
• Extroversion
• Inquisitiveness