Chapter 5: Perception and Attribution

CHAPTER 5

PERCEPTION AN ATTRIBUTION

STUDY QUESTIONS

1. / What is the perceptual process?
2. / What are common perceptual distortions?
3. / How can the perceptual process be managed?
4. / What is attribution theory?

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After completing this chapter students should be able to:

1. / Describe the perceptual process.
2. / Discuss the factors influencing the perceptual process, including the perceiver, the setting, and the perceived.
3. / Discuss the stages of the perceptual process, including attention and selection, organization, and interpretation.
4. / Describe the roles of schemas, prototypes, script schemas, and person-in-situations in the perceptual process.
5. / Discuss the common perceptual distortions, including stereotypes, halo effects, selection perception, projection, contrast effects, and self-fulfilling prophecy.
6. / Explain why it is important for managers to be familiar with the perceptual process.
7. / Discuss with a is meant by the term “impression management.”
8. / Describe the concept of distortion management.
9. / Discuss the fundamentals of attribution theory.
10. / Describe the fundamental attribution error.
11. / Discuss the role of self-servicing bias in the attribution process.
12. / Describe some of the cultural aspects of attribution theory.

MATERIAL IN THE OB SKILLS WORKBOOK AND WEB SITE SUPPORTING THE CHAPTER

Fast Company Articles / The Company of the Future
Danger: Toxic Company
Cases for Critical Thinking / Case 5: Magrec, Inc.
On-Line Case / There is no on-line case assigned for Chapter 5.
Experiential Exercises / Exercise 9: How We View Differences
Exercise 10: Alligator River Story
Self-Assessment Inventories / Assessment 6: Intolerance for Ambiguity

CHAPTER OVERVIEW

This chapter focuses on perception and attribution. The chapter begins with a discussion of the perceptual process, and the factors that influence the process. The role of the perceiver, the setting, and the perceived in the perceptual process is discussed. The specific stages of the perceptual process are also discussed, which include attention and selection, organization, interpretation, and retrieval. The chapter moves on to review common perceptual distortions. This section should be of particular interest to your students because it is easy to see these distortions at work in our own lives and the lives of others. The discussion on common perceptual distortions includes stereotypes or prototypes, halo effects, selective perception, projection, contrast effects, and self-fulfilling prophecy. The first half of the chapter concludes with a discussion of the management of the perceptual process.

The second half of the chapter focuses on attribution theory, which is an insightful approach to understanding human behavior. Two attribution errors are discussed, including the fundamental attribution error and self-serving bias. The chapter concludes with a discussion of cultural effects on the attribution process.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

  1. The Perceptual Process
  2. Factors Influencing the Perceptual Process
  3. Stages of the Perceptual Process
  4. Response to the Perceptual Process
  1. Common Perceptual Distortions
  2. Stereotypes or Prototypes
  3. Halo Effects
  4. Selective Perception
  5. Projection
  6. Contrast Effects
  7. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
  1. Managing the Perceptual Process
  2. Impression Management
  3. Distortion Management
  1. Attribution Theory
  2. Attribution Errors
  3. Attributions Across Cultures

CHAPTER NOTES

  1. The Perceptual Process
  1. Introduction
  1. Perception is the process through which people receive, organize, and interpret information from their environment.
  1. Through perception, people process information inputs into responses involving feeling and action. Perception is a way of forming impressions about oneself, other people, and daily life experiences. It also serves as a screen or filter through which information passes before it has an effect on people. The quality of accuracy of a person’s perceptions, therefore, has a major impact on his or her responses to a given situation.
  1. Factors Influencing the Perceptual Process
  1. The factors that contribute to perceptual differences and the perceptual process among people at work are summarized in Figure 5.2 in the textbook. The factors include characteristics of the perceiver, the setting, and the perceived.

a.The perceiver. A person’s past experiences, needs or motives, personality, and values and attitudes may all influence the perceptual process. For example, a person with a strong achievement need tends to perceive a situation in terms of that need.

b.The setting. The physical, social, and organizational context of the perceptual setting also can influence the perceptual process.

c.The perceived. Characteristics of the perceived person, object, or event, such as contrast, intensity, figure-ground separation, size, motion, and repetition or novelty, are also important in the perceptual process.

  • For example, in the matter of size, very small or very large people tend to be perceived differently and more readily than average-sized people. Similarly, in terms of motion, moving objects are perceived differently from stationary objects.

Teaching Tip: Students who drive red sports cars, or other “flashy” cars can probably relate to the concept of figure-ground separation. A red sports car stands out from other cars. Discuss.

  1. Stages of the Perceptual Process
  1. Attention and Selection. Our senses are constantly bombarded with so much information that if we don’t screen it, we quickly become incapacitated with information overload. Selective screening lets in only a tiny portion of all the information available.

Teaching Tip: In order to illustrate selective screening, while in the middle of your lecture for the day insert a sentence stating that the next exam or paper has been cancelled. Discuss the student reaction.

  1. Organization. Even though selective screening takes place in the attention stage, it is still necessary to find ways to organize the information efficiently.

a.Schemas help us do this. Schemas are cognitive frameworks that represent organized knowledge about a given concept or stimulus developed through experience.

  • Personal schemas. Personal schemas refer to the way individuals sort others into categories, such as types or groups, in terms of similar perceived features.
  • Prototype or stereotype. The term prototype, or stereotype, is often used to represent these categories; it is an abstract set of features commonly associated with members of that category. Once the prototype is formed, it is stored in long-term memory; it is retrieved when it is needed for a comparison of how well a person matches the prototype’s feature.

Teaching Tip: Are all stereotypes inaccurate? Are stereotypes ever useful? Have students discuss and debate those questions.

  • Script schema. A script schema is defined as a knowledge framework that describes the appropriate sequence of events in a given situation. For example, an experienced manager would use a script schema to think about the appropriate steps involved in running a meeting.
  • Person-in situation schemas. Finally, person-in-situation schemas combine schemas build around persons (self and person schemas) and events (script schemas). Thus, a manager might organize his or her perceived information in a meeting around a decisiveness schema for both himself or herself and a key participant in the meeting.

b.Interpretation. Once your attention has been drawn to certain stimuli and you have grouped or organized this information, the next step is to uncover the reasons behind the actions. That is, even if your attention is called to the same information and you organize it in the same way your friend does, you may interpret it differently or make different attributions about the reasons behind what you have perceived.

c.Retrieval. So far, we have discussed the stages of the perceptual process as if they all occurred at the same time. However, to do so ignores the important components of memory. Each of the previous stages forms part of that memory and contributes to the stimuli or information stored there. The information stored in our memory must be retrieved if it is to be used. This leads us to the retrieval stage of the perceptual process which is summarized in Figure 5.4 in the textbook.

  1. Responses to the Perceptual Process
  1. Throughout this chapter, we have shown how the perceptual process influences numerous OB responses. Figure 5.4 in the textbook classifies such responses into thoughts and feelings and actions.
  1. For example, in countries such as Mexico, bosses routinely greet their secretaries with a kiss, and that is expected behavior. In contrast, in this country your thoughts and feeling might be quite different about such behavior.
  1. Common Perceptual Distortions
  1. Stereotypes or Prototypes
  1. Earlier, when discussing person schemas, we described stereotypes, or prototypes, as useful ways of combining information in order to deal with information overload. At the same time, we pointed out how stereotypes can cause inaccuracies in retrieving information, along with some further problems. In particular, stereotypes obscure individual differences; that is, they can prevent managers from getting to know people as individuals and from accurately assessing their needs, preferences, and abilities.
  1. Both managers and employees need to be sensitive to stereotypes; they also must attempt to overcome them and recognize that an increasingly diverse workforce can be a truly competitive advantage.
  1. Stereotyping is most likely to occur in the organization stage of perception.
  1. Halo Effects
  1. A halo effect occurs when one attribute of a person or situation is used to develop an overall impression of the individual or situation, and is most likely to occur in the organization stage of perception. Halo effects are common in our everyday lives. When meeting a new person, for example, a pleasant smile can lead to a positive first impression of an overall “warm” and “honest” person.

Teaching Tip: Many students work while attending college. Encourage students to identify examples of the halo effect at work, or in the classroom.

  1. Halo effects are particularly important in the performance appraisal process because they can influence a manager’s evaluation of subordinates’ work performance.
  1. Selective Perception
  1. Selective perception is the tendency to single out for attention those aspects of a situation or person that reinforce or emerge and are consistent with existing beliefs, values, and needs. Its strongest impact occurs in the attention stage of the perceptual process.
  1. According to research results, selective perception is more important at some times than at others. Managers should be aware of this characteristic and test whether or not situations, events, or individuals are being selectively perceived. The easiest way to do this is to gather additional opinions from other people. When these opinions contradict a manager’s own, an effort should be made to check the original impression.
  1. Projection
  1. Projection is the assignment of one’s personal attributes to other individuals; it is especially likely to occur in the interpretation stage or perception. A classical projection error is illustrated by managers who assume that the needs of their subordinates and their own coincide.
  1. Suppose, for example, that you enjoy responsibility and achievement in your work. Suppose, too, that you are the newly appointed manager of a group whose jobs seem dull and routine. You may move quickly to expand these jobs to help the workers achieve increased satisfaction from more challenging tasks because you want them to experience things that you, personally, value in work. But this may not be a good decision. If you project your needs onto the subordinates, individual differences are lost. Instead of designing the subordinates’ jobs to fit their needs best, you have designed their jobs to fit your needs.

Teaching Tip: As cultural diversity increases in the workplace, projection is often not appropriate. Discuss.

  1. Contrast Effects
  1. Contrast effects occur when an individual’s characteristics are contrasted with those of others recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.
  1. Clearly, both managers and employees need to be aware of the possible perceptual distortion the contrast effect may create in many work settings.
  1. Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
  1. A final perceptual distortion that we consider is the self-fulfilling prophecy – the tendency to create or find in another situation or individual that which you expected to find in the first place.
  1. Self-fulfilling prophecy can have both positive and negative results for you as a manager. For example, on the negative side, if you assume that your employees are not committed to their jobs and want minimal involvement, you might give them high structured, rigid jobs. What this types of jobs often produces is employees who are not committed and want minimal involvement, which is exactly what you expected in the first place. On the positive side, students introduced to their teachers as “intellectual boomers” do better on achievement tests than do their counterparts who lack such a positive introduction.
  1. Self-fulfilling prophecy is sometimes referred to as the “Pygmalion effect,” named for a mythical Greek sculptor who created a statue of his ideal mate (which he named “Galatea”) and then made her come to life.

Teaching Tip: An interesting website, entitled “Self-Fulfilling Prophecies in the Classroom,” is available at { The site provides several interesting short stories (which are short enough to be read or distributed in class) that illustrate how the self-fulfilling prophecy works in the classroom.

  1. Managing the Perceptual Process
  1. Impression Management
  1. Impression management is a person’s systematic attempt to behave in ways that will create and maintain desired impressions in the eyes of others.
  1. Impression management is influenced by such activities as associating with the “right people,” doing favors to gain approval, flattering others to make oneself look better, taking credit for a favorable event, apologizing for a negative event while seeking a pardon, agreeing with the opinions of others, downplaying the severity of a negative event, and doing favors for others.

Teaching Tip: A supplement to the material on impression management is available at {

Teaching Tip: Impression management can be extremely powerful as students make the transition from high school to the college atmosphere. Have students provide examples of impression management. Discuss.

  1. Distortion Management
  1. During the attention and selection stage, managers should be alert to balancing automatic and controlled information processing. Most of their responsibilities, such as performance assessment and clear communication, will involve controlled processing, which will take away from other job responsibilities.
  1. Attribution Theory
  1. Introduction
  1. Attribution theory. Earlier in the chapter we mentioned attribution theory in the context of perceptual interpretation. Attribution theory aids in this interpretation by focusing on how people attempt to:

a.Understand the cause of a certain event.

b.Assess responsibility for the outcomes of the event.

c.Evaluate the personal qualities of the people involved in the event.

  1. In applying attribution theory, we are especially concerned with whether one’s behavior has been internally or externally caused. Internal causes are believed to under an individual’s control – you believe Jake’s performance is poor because he is lazy. External causes are seen as outside a person – you believe Kellie’s performance is poor because her machine is old.
  1. According to attribution theory, three factors influence this internal or external determination: distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency.

a.Distinctiveness considers how consistent a person’s behavior is across different situations.

b.Consensus takes into account how likely all those facing a similar situation are to respond in the same way.

c.Consistency concerns whether an individual responds the same way across time.

  1. Attribution Error
  1. Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to underestimate the influence of situational factors and to overestimate the influence of personal factors in evaluating someone else’s behavior.
  1. Self-serving bias is the tendency to deny personal responsibility for performance problems but to accept personal responsibility for performance success.

Teaching Tip: Students can probably relate to the self-serving bias. Have students provide examples of this bias that they have observed.

  1. Attributions Across Cultures
  1. Research on the self-serving bias and fundamental attribution error has been done in cultures outside the United States with unexpected results. In Korea, for example, the self-serving bias was found to be negative; that is, Korean managers attribute work group failure to themselves – “I was not a capable leader” rather than to external causes.
  1. Certain cultures, such as the United States, tend to overemphasize internal causes and underestimate external causes.

Teaching Tip: A nice overview of attribution theory, which supplements the material in the text, is provided online by the University of South Florida’s Department of Community and Family Health. The overview is available at {

Teaching Tip: Another overview of attribution theory is provided by West Virginia University. The overview includes many insightful examples and is available at {

KEY TERMS

Attribution theory – Is the attempt to understand the cause of an event, assess

responsibility for outcomes of the event, and assess the personal qualities

of the people involved.

Contrast effects – Occur when an individual’s characteristics are contrasted with

those of others recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same

characteristics.

Fundamental attribution error – Is the tendency to underestimate the influence

of situational factors and to overestimate the influence of personal factors

in evaluating someone else’s behavior.

Halo effect – Occurs when one attribute of a person or situation is used to develop

an overall impression of the person or situation.

Perception – The process through which people receive, organize, and interpret

information from their environment.

Projection – The assignment of personal attributes to other individuals.

Schemas – Cognitive frameworks that represent organized knowledge about a

given concept or stimulus developed through experience.

Selective perception – The tendency to signal out for attention those aspects of

a situation or person that reinforce or emerge and are consistent with