Chapter 4 – Attitudes and Perceptions

Vocabulary flashcards cover key terms from Chapter 4 on Attitudes and Perceptions, providing concise definitions to aid exam review.

Attitude

A learned mind-set or tendency to act toward an object, person, or situation based on feelings, thoughts, and past experience.

Tricomponent Model of Attitudes

States that every attitude contains three parts: affect (feelings), cognition (beliefs/thoughts), and behavior (actions).

Cognitive Dissonance

Psychological discomfort felt when behavior and attitudes (or two attitudes) are inconsistent, motivating people to reduce the conflict.

Cognitive Dissonance Reduction Strategies

Changing attitudes, changing behavior, denying or minimizing the issue, or seeking consonant information to restore balance.

Equity Theory (link to dissonance)

Motivational theory proposing employees seek balance between their work inputs and rewards; imbalance creates dissonance-driven corrective behavior.

Attitude Formation

Development of attitudes through learning, imitation (modeling), and direct experience with people or situations.

Employee Attitude Survey

A Likert-type questionnaire used by organizations to measure workers’ opinions about pay, supervision, workload, etc., for managerial decision making.

Perception

The process of selecting, organizing, and interpreting sensory information to create a meaningful picture of the world.

Perception Process Stages

Stimulation → Registration → Organization → Interpretation.

Perceptual Vigilance

Tendency to notice stimuli that satisfy current needs or goals.

Perceptual Defense

Tendency to block or distort stimuli that cause anxiety or conflict.

Selective Perception

Filtering external information so that only data consistent with existing beliefs, attitudes, or experience are processed.

Broadbent’s Filter Model

Early theory arguing that limited processing capacity forces people to attend selectively to one channel of information.

Selection-for-Action View

Updated idea that perceptual filtering is driven by goal-directed action as well as capacity limits.

Attribution Theory

Framework explaining how people assign causes to behavior, distinguishing internal versus external, controllable versus uncontrollable, and stable versus unstable factors.

Internal Attribution

Causal explanation that assigns behavior to personal factors such as ability, effort, or personality.

External Attribution

Causal explanation that assigns behavior to situational factors beyond the person’s control.

Controllability (in attribution)

Whether the actor could influence or regulate the outcome or event.

Stability (in attribution)

Whether the presumed cause of behavior is consistent over time.

Fundamental Attribution Error

Bias of overestimating internal causes and underestimating external causes when judging others’ behavior.

Self-Serving Bias

Tendency to credit personal successes to internal factors and blame failures on external factors.

Kelley’s Attribution Model

Uses consensus, consistency, and distinctiveness information to decide whether behavior stems from internal or external causes.

Consensus (Kelley)

Extent to which other people behave the same way in the same situation.

Consistency (Kelley)

Extent to which the person behaves the same way over time on the same task.

Distinctiveness (Kelley)

Extent to which the person behaves differently across various situations or tasks.

Social Perception

How we form impressions of and make inferences about other people.

Halo Effect

Overall evaluation of a person is shaped by one favorable trait, leading to inflated ratings on other traits.

Horn Effect

Opposite of halo; a single negative trait leads to generally unfavorable judgments of the person.

Contrast Effect

Evaluation of a person’s characteristics is affected by comparisons with others who rank higher or lower on the same traits.

Projection

Attributing one’s own feelings, motives, or traits to others, often as a defense mechanism.

Stereotyping

Assigning generalized, often oversimplified traits or behaviors to members of a group, which can bias judgment and treatment.

Pygmalion Effect (Self-Fulfillment)

Phenomenon where people behave in ways that confirm others’ expectations of them—high expectations raise performance, low expectations depress it.

Impression Management

Conscious or unconscious efforts to shape how others perceive us by controlling information and behavior we present.

Toxic Behavior (Counterproductive Work Behavior)

Vocal, persistent negative attitudes or actions that harm morale, teamwork, and organizational performance.