Exam 7: Social Perception and Attributions

According to Kelley's model of attribution, distinctiveness a comparison of an individual's behavior with that of his or her peers.

Explain how managers can reduce the extent to which stereotypes influence decision making and interpersonal processes within the organization.

John, a mid-level manager, noticed that all his subordinates were filling out their monthly reports incorrectly. He concluded that the report forms were too complicated and needed to be revised. On which type of attributional information is John's decision based?

"Quality" interpersonal contact among mixed groups often leads to reinforced gender, racial, and age stereotypes.

_____ is a perceptual error that represents the tendency to avoid all extreme judgments and rate people and objects as average or neutral.

Recognition of objects is one of the major functions of perception.

The fundamental attribution bias represents one's tendency to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure.

Culture does not affect the type of information stored in semantic memory.

Racial and ethnic stereotypes are automatically triggered and lead to micro aggressions.

Implicit cognitions can lead people to make biased decisions.

According to Kelley's attribution model, consensus involves _____.

Chris has studied for his math test and his English test. He expects to do moderately well in both subjects. He gets an "A" in English but fails in math. While Chris feels that the grade he got for English was well-deserved, he blames his failure in mathematics on the fact that his teacher Mr. Wallace does not like him. In this situation, Chris is exhibiting _____.

People with disabilities are more likely to be unemployed than others.

Employees can usually be taught to attribute their failures to a lack of effort rather than to a lack of ability.

Samantha has been asked to rate the two students who have joined her class recently. One of them is extremely diligent, submits her assignments on time and makes very clear presentations, while the other one puts in just enough efforts to get a passing grade, and is often not prepared for the presentations. Samantha, who avoids extreme judgments, rates both of them as near-average students. Which of the following perceptual errors is Samantha making in her rating?

The recency effect is the tendency to remember old contacts, and then evaluate them by comparing them with characteristics of recently observed people or objects.

Linda received the highest grade on her mid-term in her history class. She attributed her success to studying harder for the history mid-term than she had for any other examination. She contributed her failure to do well in the other subjects to unfair examinations or to bad luck. Which of the following biases influenced her perception of the situation-the fundamental attribution bias or the self-serving bias? Explain.

_____ refers to general knowledge about the world.

High consistency implies that a person performs a certain task better than others.

_____ is necessary because people do not have the mental capacity to fully comprehend all the physical and social stimuli bombarding them from the environment.