MGT 377 QUIZ 3

Perception: a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions to give meaning to their environment

Attribution Theory: suggests that when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to determine whether to was internally or externally caused

Determination depends on three factors: distinctiveness, consensus, consistency

 Internally Caused: those that are believed to be under the personal control of the individual

Externally Caused: resulting from outside causes

Fundamental Attribution Error: we have a tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal or personal factors

Self-Serving bias: individuals attribute their own success to internal factors

Selective Perception: any characteristic that makes a person, object, or event stand out will increase the probability that it will be perceived

Halo Effect: occurs when we draw a positive general impression based in a single characteristic

Horns Effect: the tendency to draw a negative general impression about an individual based on a single characteristic

Contrast Effects: We do not evaluate a person in isolation; our reaction to one person is influenced by other persons we have already encountered

Stereotyping: judging someone based on one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs

Self-fulfilling Prophecy (Pygmalion effect): characterizes the fact that people’s expectations determine their behavior; expectations become reality

Performance Evaluation: An employee’s performance appraisal is very much dependent upon the perceptual process

Social media: About four in ten organizations use social media or online searches to screen applicants for jobs; research supports the social media decision-making bias link

Potential Remedies: AI-assisted performance assessments; Other decision-support systems

Decision Making: occurs as a reaction to a problem

Steps in the Rational Decision-Making Model

1.     Define the problem

2.     Identify the decision criteria

3.     Allocate weights to the criteria

4.     Develop the alternatives

5.     Evaluate the alternatives

6.     Select the best alternative

Decision Maker: has complete information; is able to identify all the relevant options in an unbiased manner

Bound Rationality: Most people respond to a complex problem by reducing it to a level at which it can be readily understood

Intractable problem: a problem that may change entirely or become irrelevant before we finish the process of organizing our thoughts, gathering information, analyzing the information, and making judgments or decisions

Intuitive decision making: occurs outside conscious thought; it relies on holistic associations, or links between disparate pieces of information, is fast, and is affectively charged, meaning it usually engages the emotions

Overconfidence Bias: individuals whose intellectual and interpersonal abilities are weakest are most likely to overestimate their performance and ability

Anchoring Bias: fixating on initial information as a starting point and failing to adequately adjust for subsequent information

Confirmation Bias: type of selective perception.

-              Seek out information that reaffirms past choices, and discount information that contradicts past judgments

Availability Bias: tendency for people to base judgments on information that is readily available

Escalation of Commitment: staying with a decision even when there is clear evidence that it’s wrong

Randomness Error: our tendency to believe we can predict the outcome of random events

Risk Aversion: the tendency to prefer a sure thing instead of a risky outcome

Hindsight Bias: the tendency to believe falsely that one has accurately predicted the outcome of an event, after that outcome is actually known

Organizational Constraints: Performance evaluation systems, reward systems, formal regulations, time constraints, historical precedents, decision-making in times of crisis

Utilitarianism: decisions are made solely on the basis of their outcomes or consequences (the greatest good for the greatest number)

Focus on rights: calls on individuals to make decisions consistent with fundamental liberties and privileges as set forth in documents such as the Bill of Rights

Behavioral ethics: an area of study that analyzes how people behave when confronted with ethical dilemmas.

Whistleblowers: someone who recognizes a problem and source and speaks up about it

Creativity: the ability to produce novel and useful ideas

Motivation: the processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal

Three Key Elements of Motivation:

-              Intensity: concerned with how hard a person tries

-              Direction: the orientation that benefits the organization

-              Persistence: a measure of how long a person can maintain their effort

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Physiological, Safety-Security, Social-Belongingness, Estem, Self-Actualization

McClelland’s Theory of Needs:

-              Need for Achievement (nAch): drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a set of standards, to strive to succeed

-              Need for Power (nPow) : need to make others behave in a way that they would not have behaved otherwise

-              Need for Affiliation (nAfl): desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships

Self-determination Theory (SDT): employees’ well-being and performance are influenced by the nature of their motivation for certain job activities

Cognitive Evaluation Theory: when people are paid for work, it feels less like something they want to do and more like something they have to do

Self-concordance theory: considers how strongly people’s reasons for pursuing goals are consistent with their interests and core values

Regulatory focus theory: people differ in the way they regulate their thoughts and behaviors during goal pursuit

Two Categories of Regulatory Focus Theory: Promotion focus, Prevention focus

Job Engagement: the investment of an employee’s physical, cognitive, and emotional energies into job performance

Reinforcement theory: behavior is a function of its consequences

Operant conditioning theory: people learn to behave to get something they want or to avoid something they don’t want

Social-learning theory: we can learn through both observation and direct experience

Expectancy theory: a tendency to act in a certain way depends on an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual

Three Relationships: Effort-performance relationship, performance-reward relationship, rewards-personal goals relationship

Goal-setting theory: intentions to work toward a goal are considered a major source of work motivation

Goals: direct attention, mobilize effort, encourage persistence, facilitate the development of strategy

Goal Origins: Self-set goals can lead to greater employee enthusiasm, whereas supervisor-set goals may lead to heightened anxiety and perceptions of uncertainty and threat

Goal Characteristics: Specific goals increase performance; Difficult goals, when accepted, result in higher performance than easy goals

Factors influencing the goals-performance relationship: Goal commitment, task characteristics, feedback, goal orientation, goal conflict

Management by objectives (M BO): a program that encompasses specific goals, participative set, for an explicit time period, with feedback on goal progress

Self-efficacy theory: an individual’s belief that he or she is capable of performing a task

Increasing Self-Efficacy: enactive mastery, vicarious modeling, verbal persuasion, arousal

Pygmalion effect: A form of self-fulfilling prophecy—believing in something can make it true

Six Choices in Perceiving Inequity: Change inputs, Change outcomes, Distort perceptions of self, distort perceptions of others, choose a different referent, leave the field

Justice Outcomes:  All the types of justice discussed have been linked to higher levels of task performance and citizenship

Promoting Justice: Adopting strong justice guidelines in an attempt to mandate certain managerial behavior isn’t likely to be universally effective

Culture and Justice: Inputs and outcomes are valued differently in various cultures