Chapter 7: Social Perception and Attributes

cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings

• 1)Selective Attention/Comprehension(ppl,events,objects)
• 2)Encoding+Simplification (Interpretation)
• 3)Storage+Retention (memory)
• 4)Retrieval+Response (judgements,decisions)

• process of becoming consciously aware of something or someone
• -ppl pay attention to salient stimuli

something that stands out from context

Represents a person's mental picture or summary of a particular event or type of stimulus

information about both specific and general events

general knowledge about the world, mental dictionary of concepts

information about a single individual or groups of people

• 1)Process of drawing on, interpreting, and integrating categorical information stored in long-term memory
• 2)Retrieving a summary judgement that was already made

represents any thoughts or beliefs that are automatically activated from memory without our conscious awareness

• 1)important for managers to accurately identify the behavioral characteristics and results indicative of good performance
• 2)characteristics serve as the benchmarks for evaluating employee performance

• 1)assigning specific tasks to group members
• 2)telling others they had done well
• 3)setting specific goals for the group

• an individual's set of beliefs about the characteristics or attributes of a group
• -not always negative
• -may or may not be accurate
• -not immoral or bad to possess stereotypes
• -inappropriate use of these lead to poor decisions

• 1)Categorize people into groups according to various criteria
• 2)Infer that all ppl within a category possess same traits
• 3)Form expectations of others and interpret their behavior according to our stereotypes
• 4)They are maintained by: overestimating frequency of stereotypical behavior, incorrectly explaining expected/unexpected behaviors, differentiating minority individuals from oneself

• 1)Halo
• 2)Leniency
• 3)Central Tendency
• 4)Recency Effects
• 5)Contrast Efforts

Belief that differing traits and abilities make men and women particularly well suited to different roles

• 1)Ppl often prefer male bosses
• 2)women have hard time being perceived as an effective leader
• 3)women of color are more negatively affected by sex-role stereotypes than white women or men in general

• 1)reinforce age discrimination b/c of negative orientation
• 2)long-standing age stereotypes depict older workers as less satisfied, not as involved, less motivated, not as committed
• -research shows as age increases, so does job satisfaction, involvement, motivation, and org. commitment
• -older workers are NOT more accident prone

"biases thoughts, attitudes, and feelings" that exist at an unconscious level

predicament in which members of a social group must deal with the possibility of being judges or treated stereotypically, or of doing something that would confirm the stereotype

• 1)org. first needs to inform its workforce about the problem through education and training
• 2)managers need to identify valid individual differences that differentiate between successful and unsuccessful performers
• 3)remove promotional barriers for men and women, ppl of color, and persons with disabilities

someone's high expectations for another person result in high performance for that person

• 1)Supervisor Expectancy
• 2)Leadership
• 3)Subordinate Self Expectancy
• 4)Motivation
• 5)Performance

occurs when an individuals high self expectations for him lead to high performance

loss in performance resulting from low leader expectations

• 1)Recognize that everyone has potential to increase performance
• 2)set high performance goals
• 3)positively reinforce employees for a job well done
• 4)provide frequent feedback that conveys a belief in employees' ability to compete their tasks
• 5)give employees opportunity to experience increasingly challenging tasks and projects

• 6)communicate using facial expressions, voice intonations, body language, encouraging comments
• 7)provide input, information, and resources needed to achieve goals
• 8)introduce new employees as if they have outstanding potential
• 9)encourage them to stay focused on present moment and not worry about past negative events
• 10)help employees master key skills

suspected or inferred causes of behavior

• Behavior attributed either to:
• 1)Internal Factors:within a person (ability)
• 2)External Factors: within environment (difficult task)

involves a comparison of an individuals behavior with that of his peers

involves comparing a person's behavior on one task with the behavior from other tasks

determined by judging if the individuals performance on a given task is consistent over time

Reflects one's tendency to attribute another person's behavior to his personal characteristics, as opposed to situational factors

represents one's tendency to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure