Deck 4: Perception Attribution and the Management of Diversity

Question 1

Heightened awareness has eliminated all forms of discrimination.

Answer 1

False
Unfortunately, discrimination is not a thing of the past. Class-action discrimination lawsuits are still being settled every day to the tune of millions of dollars.

Question 2

Perception is the process by which individuals select, organize, and interpret the input from their senses to give meaning and order to the world around them.

Answer 2

True

Question 3

Attracting and retaining a global workforce requires management to accurately perceive the contributions, accomplishments, and capabilities of employees.

Answer 3

True

Question 4

Perception is equivalent to objective reality.

Question 5

Schemas are resistant to change.

Question 6

Perception is influenced by schemas, moods, and motivational states.

Question 7

The three components of perception are the perceiver, the target of perception, and the situation.

Question 8

The perceptual process does not always yield accurate perceptions.

Question 9

Accurate perceptions are as close as possible to the true or objective nature of the target.

Question 10

Perception does not influence ethical action in the workplace.

Question 11

The more accurately managers can perceive subordinates, the better they can motivate them.

Question 12

Accurate perceptions are the prerequisite for good decisions.

Question 13

Stereotyping can be minimized if organizational members are encouraged to think about characteristics that really affect job performance, rather than irrelevant characteristics such as age, race, or gender.

Question 14

Schemas are always functional for perceivers.

Question 15

Through intuition, people try to make sense of their environment and the objects, events, and other people in it.

Question 16

The processing of information by perceivers is a passive activity.

Question 17

Our experiences are organized into targets of perception.

Question 18

The target of perception is the context in which perception takes place.

Question 19

Stereotypes are dysfunctional schemas because they are often based on inaccurate information about the interests, beliefs, capabilities, or behaviors of individuals.

Question 20

When managers become aware of potential discrimination, they need to act proactively to address the potential problem and review the organization's policies and practices to determine if changes are needed.

Question 21

Affirmative action programs ALWAYS fix perception problems and stereotypes.

Question 22

In the minds of many people, targets with a relatively high status are perceived to be less responsible for their actions than lower-status targets.

Question 23

People who are high on self-monitoring are more likely to engage in impression management than individuals who are low on self-monitoring.

Question 24

Impression management is a two-way street engaged in by people at all organizational levels.

Question 25

As the ambiguity of the target increases, it becomes more likely that different perceivers will differ in their perceptions of the target.

Question 26

Motivational states can result in inaccurate perceptions and faulty decision making.

Question 27

Lying is a common form of impression management.

Question 28

Conformity to situational norms is easy when doing business internationally.

Question 29

Perceivers see what they want to see, hear what they want to hear, and believe what they want to believe because of their motivational states.

Question 30

As the ambiguity of a target increases, it becomes increasingly difficult for perceivers to form accurate perceptions.

Question 31

Salient individuals are often perceived in more extreme terms (positive or negative) than inconspicuous members of a group are perceived.

Question 32

The salience of the target in a given situation is the extent to which the target stands out in a group of people or things.

Question 33

A perceiver's motivational state does not influence his or her perception of the target.

Question 34

The situation provides the perceiver with information to use in interpreting the target.

Question 35

A target of perception does NOT play a role in managing the perceptions that others have of him or her.

Question 36

Subordinates use impression management tactics on supervisors to a greater extent than supervisors use them on subordinates.

Question 37

When an organization must make an important announcement to the public, they often use a high-status member to make the announcement since the audience is likely to perceive this person as credible.

Question 38

The characteristics of a target of perception cannot influence perceptions held by others.

Question 39

One of the consequences of being salient is stereotyping.

Question 40

The salience of a target of perception does not affect how it is perceived.

Question 41

The primacy effect enables us to see other people as they really are.

Question 42

Due to the contrast effect, a manager's perception of an average subordinate is likely to be lower if that subordinate is in a group with very high performers rather than in a group with very low performers.

Question 43

The similar-to-me bias can be a problem today, given the increasing diversity in organizational membership.

Question 44

External attributions assign the cause of behavior to factors within the individual.

Question 45

Self-fulfilling prophecies only have an effect on individual employees.

Question 46

Military test pilots generally believe that a pilot who crashes a plane did not possess the "right stuff"-- the skill or strength necessary to fly the airplane. This is an example of an internal attribution.

Question 47

A halo effect happens because people tend to like others who are similar to themselves.

Question 48

A prediction that comes true because a perceiver expects it to come true is known as the attribution theory.

Question 49

Primacy effects do not influence the perception and evaluation of long-time members of an organization.

Question 50

Attribution theory describes how people explain the causes of the behavior of themselves and others.

Question 51

John Andrews believes that fate determines whether an individual will be a successful professional poker player. John has made an internal attribution.

Question 52

A bias is a systematic tendency to use or interpret information about a target in a way that results in inaccurate perceptions.

Question 53

Primacy effects are common problems in interviews.

Question 54

The halo effect can cause a supervisor to evaluate subordinates, who are similar to him or her, more positively than they deserve.

Question 55

Employees who perceive that they are respected by their company are less likely to be absent or quit.

Question 56

Whether internal or external attributions are made for behavior is an important determinant of how people in an organization respond to the behavior.

Question 57

A contrast effect is the biased perception that results when the perceiver's perception of others in the situation distorts his or her perceptions of a target person.

Question 58

Being salient and stereotyped in a situation usually has a positive effect on a target's performance.

Question 59

One step organizations are taking to reduce the negative effects of salience and stereotyping on minority employees is linking managers' bonuses to diversity goals and initiatives.

Question 60

Stereotyping will occur if others in the organization become biased, simply because they know how a person stands on a predictor of performance.

Question 61

The tendency to take credit for success and avoid blame for failures is known as self-serving attribution.

Question 62

Situational factors can be the sole determinants of behavior in certain circumstances.

Question 63

Only managers within an organization need to be aware that the similar-to-me bias might predispose them to help members who are similar to them.

Question 64

When managers become aware of evidence of potential discrimination, they should do all of the following EXCEPT ________.

A) pay immediate attention to the problem
B) act proactively to address the potential problem
C) review the organization's policies and practices
D) treat the potential discriminator unfairly

Question 65

Sexual harassment is a "victimless crime."

Question 66

Military test pilots are displaying the actor-observer effect when they attribute other pilots' errors to a lack of the "right stuff" and attribute their own errors to equipment or test-engineer failures.

Question 67

Despite the fact that external factors often determine behavior, people have a very strong tendency to attribute other people's behavior to internal factors.

Question 68

An important way to demonstrate top management commitment to diversity is the creation of an active and influential chief diversity officer.

Question 69

Diversity training is MOST LIKELY to be successful when it is delivered in a single session.

Question 70

Diversity training can facilitate the management of a diverse workforce.

Question 71

The actor-observer effect is the tendency to attribute the behavior of others to external causes and to attribute one's own behavior to internal causes.

Question 72

When supervisors support diversity, subordinates are more likely to be committed to it.

Question 73

The tendency to overattribute other people's behavior to internal rather than to external causes is called the fundamental attribution error.

Question 74

Training programs where individuals act out inappropriate ways of dealing with diverse employees is one method used in diversity training.

Question 75

Individuals are more likely to accept the blame for failure when it is due to something that they can control in the future, such as working harder or planning better.

Question 76

To combat the sexual harassment problem, one of the key steps that an organization can take is to develop a sexual harassment policy supported by top management.

Question 77

Hostile work environment sexual harassment is created by unwanted touching and being called sexually-explicit names in the workplace.

Question 78

Telling a sexual joke is an example of quid pro quo sexual harassment.

Question 79

Due to the similar-to-me effect and stereotyping, mixed-race mentor-protégé relationships are rare.

Question 80

Hostile work environment sexual harassment exists when organizational members are faced with a workplace that is offensive, intimidating, or hostile because of their sex.