Impacts of Perceptions, Beliefs, and Attitudes on Organizational BehaviorOrganizational Behavior – Session 3

Dr. S. B. Alavi, 2009.

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Table of Contents• Beliefs and Attitudes about Others

Stereotyping, Entity/Incremental Theorists,

Self-Fulfilling Prophecy, Halo Effect, Contrast Effect, Fundamental Attribution Error

• How evaluate our beliefs about others

• Beliefs and Attitudes about SelfSelf-Efficacy, Self-Esteem, Narcissisms,

Self-Independence/Interdependence

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Others

• Stereotyping

– Judge someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which he or she belongs

– Examples:• “older employees can’t learn new skills”

• “Overweight employees lack discipline”

• “Asian employees are hardworking and conscientious”

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Others (cont.)

• Entity theorist and incremental theorists:

– Entity theory refers to a view that

human characteristics are fixed and don’t change much with experience

– Incremental theory refers to a view that

human characteristics are malleable and can be changed with experience and can be developed

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Others (cont.)

• Self-fulfilling prophecy

– is that

people’s expectations or beliefs determine their behavior and performance,

thus

serving to make their expectations come true

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. اقدام و تصمیم گیری 2بر اساس پیش فرض: تفویض اختیار به وی

اقدامی معقول نیست. پس اختیار زیادی نباید در تصمیم گیری داشته باشد

. ایجاد واکنش در 3ایجاد بی فرد مقابل:

انگیزگی و بی تفاوتی در زمان اجرای

تصمیمات سازمانی

. بروز رفتارهایی 4همراستا با پیش فرض

رفتارهای اولیه: غیرکارکردی و افت

عملکرد

. پیش فرض 1مدیر درباره

وی کارشناس: فردی ناتوان است

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Others (cont.)

• Halo Effect– General impression about an individual on the

basis of a single characteristic such as

Intelligence, Sociability, Appearance

– For example:• An interviewer may make incorrect image about a well

dressing marketing applicant which causes making positive judgment about his/her abilities and responsibilities.

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Others (cont.)

• Contrast Effect– Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that are

affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics with a contrast.

– For example:• An interviewee may be overestimated if be compared

with a moderate person if there is a contrast between their abilities.

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Others (cont.)

• Fundamental Attribution Error– The tendency to underestimate the influence of

external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about behavior of others

– For example:• We may attribute the failures of others to their

indiscipline while attribute our failure to system troubles and/or environmental problems

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How Evaluate our Beliefs

• Identifying Ladder of Inference in our mind

• Improving our dialogue skills

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Identifying Ladder of Inference in our mind

These conclusions may not be examined and may be false

?

?

?

?

?

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Identifying Ladder of Inference in our Mind

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Strengthen of Dialog Skills

• Reflection: slowing down our thinking process and perception process;

• Inquiry: Asking questions in order to suspend our assumptions and examine the truth.

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Self

• Self-Efficacy

– Beliefs in one’s capabilities to organize and execute the courses of action required to produce given attainments

(Bandura, 1997, p. 3)

– individuals with high self-efficacy work harder and longer

(Wood & Bandura, 1989)

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A self-efficacious cat!

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Self (cont.)• Self-Esteem

– Refers to the extent to which a person feels self-worth in a domain

– It indicates the degree to which an individual likes herself/himself

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Self (cont.)• Some consequences of Self-Esteem:

Low Self-Esteem

Seek approval from others

HighSelf-Esteem

Take more risks in job selection

choose unconventional jobs

More likely

to

More likely

to

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Narcissism

• The tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose sense of self-importance, require excessive admiration, and have a sense of entitlement.

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Self (cont.)• Self-Interdependence

– the extent to which an individual perceives him/herself to be interdependent with other group members

(Markus & Kitayama, 1991)

• Self-Independence– the extent to which an individual perceives

her/himself to be independent from other group members

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Beliefs and Attitudes about Self (cont.)• Some consequences of Independence:

Independent Self-Construal

Openly express their ideas

Interdependent Self-Construal

Give help to their colleagues

cooperate with their in-group members than out-group

members

More likely

to

More likely

to

More likely

to