Exam 4: Perceptions and Attributions

Individuals often attribute their own and others' success or failure to three causal factors: competency,effort,and task difficulty.

The tendency for someone's actions to cause that individual to think in a manner consistent with those actions is referred to as self-fulfilling prophecy.

All of the following are common types of perceptual errors except:

Which of the following is not one of the categories of factors that influence how a person perceives another?

Personality has a large effect on how an individual perceives other people.

According to the Communication Competency: Hand Gestures,waving the full arm side to side can mean "no" in Japan,Europe,and Latin America.

When a man's voice quality is high in breathiness,the personality judgment made is usually that the man is younger and artistic.

Personality,learning,and motivation are external factors that influence perceptual selection.

According to Ethics Competency: The Gap,Dan Henkle,The Gap's Vice President for Social Responsibility,took which of the following actions to improve their factory practices and working conditions:

A study of supervisors showed that they were more likely to attribute effective performance to internal causes for high-status employees.The supervisors were less likely to attribute success to internal causes for low-status employees.This is an example of the fundamental attribution error.

Teva made three mistakes in her first progress report.These mistakes lead her boss to closely watch Teva more than ever,constantly looking for her next error.Teva's performance declined steadily.This is an example of:

A perceptual set is an expectation of a particular interpretation based on the person's past experience with the same or a similar object.

All of the following are among the major factors used to explain how people make causal attributions of internal versus external behavior except:

The Pollyanna principle influences which factor of perceptual selection?

A manager is less likely to give the subordinate the freedom to choose their own approach to problem solving if the manager perceives the worker as a strong performer,because the manager knows that the subordinate will follow directions.

Explain the nature of perceptual selection, and comment on how the factors that influence it may have been involved in affecting Patricia's fears for her job in the following scenario: Patricia is a 63-year-old administrative manager in the Training and Development Department of a mid-sized federal agency, known for its highly political climate and unexpected employee turnover. Her supervisor of 10 years, Austin (also age 63, the previous director of Training and Development), has just accepted a transfer to become Director of Procurement for the same agency. Austin had always been very protective of Patricia, since she occasionally had personal conflicts with other members of the agency staff. For years, Patricia has experienced significant stress and anxiety relating to her job, but felt very comfortable working with Austin. Austin' replacement was Jeff, an enthusiastic, 20-year veteran of the agency in his mid-forties, who in the past had been on opposite sides of several political battles with Austin. Jeff wanted to develop a new direction for the Training and Development Department in order to boost productivity and staff member satisfaction throughout the agency, a goal endorsed by his boss, the Agency Director. During his first few months on the job, Jeff found considerable reluctance on the part of Patricia to take on new tasks as assigned, since she was already overloaded with existing work. Budget shortfalls had left the department understaffed, and Jeff knew that he would need to add staff if the planned revamping of the Department was to be effective. Six months after taking over the department, he scheduled a meeting with the agency's Director of Human Resources and his boss (the Agency Director), along with Patricia, to outline his plans for the future and make an argument for bringing on an additional staff member to provide assistance to Patricia immediately. However, when Patricia heard about the meeting, she refused to attend unless Austin accompanied her. She apparently feared that she was going to be fired. Jeff had no intention of replacing Patricia, since her knowledge of agency processes was unavailable anywhere else, and her ability to perform her job with minimal supervision was excellent. However, Patricia had consistently felt that Jeff was not satisfied with her work, in spite of being told otherwise on many occasions.

The primacy effect in interviews causes first-impression errors to occur.

The Golem effect refers to the loss in performance resulting from low expectations on the boss's part.

All of the following are circumstances in which causal attributions are common except:

Andy has been particularly impressed with the creative problem solving skills demonstrated on the job by Dan,whom he hired six months ago.While Andy is aware that Dan has had a few minor disagreements with his team members and has missed a few meetings,he feels that his overall performance nevertheless warrants the highest possible rating on the performance appraisal required at the conclusion of the company's probationary employment period.Andy may be experiencing the perceptual error of: