LESSON
2
Managers and
Group Behavior
Perception
Quick Write
Think of an experience in
which someone got you to
change your usual behavior.
How did they accomplish
it?
B
Learn About . . .
• perception
• how people learn
• foundations of group
behavior
Have you ever experienced something with another person,
and afterward realized that the two of you understood the
experience completely differently? Maybe it’s happened at the
movies, when you figured out who the villain was, and your
friend had no idea—even though you were sitting together in
the same movie!
Or imagine in the business world that a certain manager’s
assistant takes several days to make an important decision.
Does she take so long because she’s slow, disorganized, and
reluctant to make up her mind? Or is she thorough,
thoughtful, and deliberate? Two different managers may have
two different ideas about her.
These two different interpretations are examples of different
perceptions. Perception is the way people make sense of their
world. Or, to put it a little more formally, perception is the
process of organizing and interpreting sensory impressions to give
meaning to the environment.
What Influences Perception
Consider another example of different perceptions. Bill shows
up for a job interview at a large petroleum products firm—and
he has a nose ring. Cathy, who is 45, is a marketing supervisor
for the company. She’s likely to be Bill’s supervisor if he’s
hired. But he may not get the job, because she’s not impressed
with the nose ring.
She checks in afterward with Sean. He is 22 and is the human
resources recruiter who first brought Bill in to talk about a job.
Sean gets an earful from Cathy: “That guy had a nose ring!
What made you’d think he’d fit in around here?”
Sean is puzzled. He can’t remember whether he even saw the
nose ring when he first met Bill. He certainly didn’t think it
was anything he needed to warn Cathy about.
200
CHAPTER 7 | Foundations of Individual and Group Behavior
As you see, people’s perceptions are affected by their
own attitudes, background, and life experience. Your
assessment of another is also affected by where and
how you both meet. And a person’s characteristics can
also influence your interpretation of him or her.
Someone who’s large and loud will stand out, and you
will see that person differently than you will a quiet,
unassuming individual at the edge of a crowd.
Think how your impressions of people are shaped by
the context in which you meet. Someone you meet for
the first time in the school library working on a report
may always seem studious to you, for instance.
Someone you first meet at a party where everyone is all
dressed up may seem rather glamorous and exciting.
Someone you meet on a Saturday afternoon when
everyone in the group is just goofing off at the
neighborhood pizza place may seem hard to take
seriously later on. And if someone you trust and admire
introduces another person to you, that introduction will
make you think well of the new person. “If she’s a friend
of Bill’s, she must be OK,” you are likely to think.
Vocabulary
B
• perception
• attribution theory
• fundamental
attribution error
• self-serving bias
• learning
• operant conditioning
• social learning
theory
• shaping behavior
• group
• role
• norms
• status
• social loafing
• group cohesiveness
How Managers Judge Employees
Much research into perception has focused on studies of
how people see inanimate objects. The pictures in Figure 2.1
are good examples of how your eyes can play tricks on you. But
managers have to be most concerned with how people perceive
other people. When people look at other human beings, they
draw conclusions and make assumptions about them. They try
to explain other people’s behavior—often based on incomplete
information. Suppose you see a young woman wearing a jacket
with the logo of a particular baseball team. Does the jacket
mean she’s a fan? Or does it just mean that she was chilly, and
her boyfriend gave her his jacket to keep her warm?
Attribution Theory
Your perceptions and judgments about a person, then, are
based on assumptions you make about them. Many of the
assumptions have led researchers to develop attribution
theory. Attribution theory is based on the premise that people
judge other people differently depending on the meaning they
attribute to a given behavior.
When you look at another’s behavior, you try to decide
whether the behavior is internally or externally caused.
Internal causation has to do with intents and motives that the
What do you think of this man?
If you were interviewing him for
a job in your company, what
would be your first reaction?
Positive? Think again. This is a
photo of Ted Bundy, one of
America’s most notorious serial
killers.
Corbis/Bettmann
LESSON 2 | Managers and Group Behavior
201
Old woman or young wom
an?
Two faces or an urn?
A knight on a horse?
F I G U R E 2.1
Perceptual Challenges: What Do You See?
person can control. It’s the things someone does “on purpose.” Externally caused
behavior gets into things beyond the individual’s control. If an employee is late to
work on the new boss’s first day, the new boss may think that employee just has a bad
habit of often being late. But in fact, the tardiness may be externally caused—there
may be a transit strike, for instance, or perhaps the employee had to take his car to the
shop after being rear-ended in traffic.
A manager trying to decide whether another person’s behavior has internal or external
causes usually looks at three factors:
1. distinctiveness
2. consensus
3. consistency.
The first factor, distinctiveness here refers to whether the behavior shows up everywhere
in someone’s life, or just under certain circumstances. Take an employee’s tardiness,
for example. A manager may judge in one way an employee who is always running
late. But the same manager may judge in another way another employee who is late
just once, and for a specific reason such as unexpected construction on the road.
Consensus, the second factor, refers to problems that everyone has. If all the employees
who took that route in to the office got tangled up with the same construction
project, their managers will judge their lateness less harshly. If one employee is the
only person who has a problem, the manager’s judgment against him or her will be
harsher. The manager will think the problem behavior has an internal cause.
Consistency is the third factor. If a person is late every morning, the boss is likely to
think the behavior has an internal cause—something the employee should be able to
get a grip on.
Figure 2.2 illustrates how managers look at individual behavior in light of the three
factors in attribution theory.
202
CHAPTER 7 | Foundations of Individual and Group Behavior
Observation
Attribution
of Cause
Interpretation
High
External
Distinctiveness
Low
Internal
Individual
behavior
High
External
Consensus
Low
Internal
High
Internal
Consistency
Low
External
F I G U R E 2.2
The Process of Attribution Theory
How Attributions Can Be Distorted
Researchers have learned from their study of attribution theory that errors or biases
distort attributions, or people’s judgment of others’ behavior. The researchers have
found that when most people judge others, they tend to assume more behavior has
internal causes than is the case. The boss worried about the late employee may see an
internal cause of laziness but be unaware of the employee’s problems with irregular
bus service.
There’s a special term for these distortions: fundamental attribution error, the tendency
to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal or
personal factors when making judgments about others’ behavior.
This works in reverse, too. Individuals tend to regard their own success as the result of
their hard work and other internal factors, but tend to ascribe others’ success to
external factors, such as luck. Researchers use the term self-serving bias to refer to the
tendency for individuals to attribute their own success to internal factors while blaming
external factors for their failures.
Shortcuts Managers Use in Judging Others
As you may have gathered, managers must keep an eye on many different things and
people in the workplace. All this observing and interpreting takes time and effort, so
managers often turn to shortcuts to help them. These often do save time and help
them make accurate assessments quickly. The shortcuts aren’t foolproof, though. A
manager who tries to “speed read” his or her staff runs the risk of misreading someone
completely (see Figure 2.3).
LESSON 2 | Managers and Group Behavior
203
Here are some of these shortcuts:
• Selectivity, meaning that a manager decides to look at only certain indicators
before judging someone. (“If he went to my old school, he’s probably pretty
good.”)
• Assumed similarity, or the “like me” effect, in which the observer sees himself or
herself in the person he’s observing. A manager may want challenge and
responsibility in her work—and may assume, incorrectly, that everyone else
does, too. This misperception is likely to get in the way of good communication
in the workplace.
• Stereotyping is another shortcut. A manager may believe “All older workers are
just waiting to retire,” or “The younger generation can’t be trusted to handle
customer service calls.”
• The halo effect is another shortcut—a tendency to let one fact about someone
govern one’s entire picture of that person. For a young person who was bored
last year with a tired-sounding English teacher, the enthusiasm of a young new
teacher may be very appealing. But a good teacher needs to bring more to the
classroom than just enthusiasm, and the halo effect may keep students from
noticing the new teacher’s shortcomings.
• In the self-fulfilling prophecy, an employee ends up acting out the manager’s
prediction for him or her. It starts when the manager develops a perception of
an employee, including a prediction of how well (or not) that employee will do.
A manager who believes he is in charge of a group of overachievers will be
pleased at how well they do. But if the manager thinks she’s supervising a group
of people who can’t quite cut it, she will find that this group, too, will act out
the script that’s been written for them. (Something similar often goes on in
schools between teachers and students.)
SHORTCUT
Selectivity
Assumed similarity
Stereotyping
Halo effect
Self-fulfilling prophecy
WHAT IT IS
DISTORTION
People assimilate certain
bits and pieces
of what they observe dep
ending on their
interests, background, exp
erience, and attitudes
People assume that others
are like them
People judge others on the
basis of their
perception of a group to whi
ch the others belong
People form an impression
of others on
the basis of a single trait
People perceive others in
a certain way,
and, in turn, those others
behave in
ways that are consistent
with the perception
F I G U R E 2.3
Distortions in Shortcut Methods in Judging Others
204
CHAPTER 7 | Foundations of Individual and Group Behavior
“Speed reading” others may
result in an
inaccurate picture of them
May fail to take into accoun
t individual
differences, resulting in inco
rrect similarities
May result in distorted judg
ments because
many stereotypes have no
factual foundation
Fails to take into account
the total picture
of what an individual has
done
May result in getting the
behavior
expected, not the true beh
avior of individuals
How Understanding Perceptions Helps Managers Be More Effective
In any event, managers must recognize that their employees respond to perceptions,
not necessarily to reality. An employee’s performance review may be a model of
objectivity and fairness. But if the employee thinks it’s unfair, that’s the perception he
or she will act on. The company may end up losing an employee it would prefer to
keep. Managers need to pay close attention to how employees perceive both their jobs
and the company’s management practices.
How People Learn
To explain and predict behavior, a manager also must understand how people learn.
Almost all complex behavior is learned. Learning is any relatively permanent change in
behavior that occurs because of experience.
In this sense, learning goes well beyond things you study in school. You are learning
from your experiences all the time.
How do people learn, though? Psychologists have two popular theories to explain the
way people pick up new patterns of behavior: operant conditioning and social
learning theory.
Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning is a behavioral theory that argues that voluntary, or learned, behavior
is a function of its consequences. People learn to behave so that they get what they want
and avoid what they don’t want. This principle covers all kinds of situations. It covers
students studying to get good grades on exams. And it applies to suburban office
workers figuring out how early to leave for work to avoid rush-hour traffic.
The late Harvard psychologist B.F. Skinner is linked with this theory. He didn’t invent
it, but built on a foundation of earlier work in the field. He has his critics, but even
the staunchest among them admit that his principles work.
Skinner argued that creating pleasing consequences for a particular behavior would
result in more of that behavior. Behavior that is not rewarded, or is even punished, is
less likely to be repeated.
Once you understand this principle, you’ll see it in action everywhere. You’ll also
understand that some of the reinforcements—the positive or negative consequences
intended to affect behavior—are implied, rather than openly stated. A real estate
agent, for instance, finds that having a high income depends on generating many
listings and sales in his or her territory. Probably no one had to tell the agent that,
though. The agent just figured it out and started hustling.
Sometimes even when linkages are made explicit, they encourage behavior that’s not
otherwise a good idea. A supervisor facing a crunch on a big project may encourage
employees to put in lots of overtime during the weeks of the project, and may tell
them they’ll be rewarded accordingly during their next performance appraisal. But if
LESSON 2 | Managers and Group Behavior
205
the appraisal arrives and includes no rewards for the overtime during the big project,
the employees may decide not to push so hard the next time a project comes up.
Social Learning Theory
Social learning theory is another concept about how people learn. Social learning
theory is the theory that people can learn through observation and direct experience.
You observe what happens to other people, and you hear about their experiences, in
addition to paying attention to your own. Among the models you learn from is the
behavior of parents, teachers, brothers and sisters, friends, and other adults such as
relatives and neighbors—and even movie and TV stars.
Social learning theory is an extension of operant conditioning. It assumes that
consequences shape behavior. But this theory also acknowledges that people learn by
watching others. It acknowledges, too, the importance of perception in learning.
People respond to the way they perceive and define consequences. They don’t
necessarily respond to the consequences themselves.
Central to social learning theory is the notion that different models influence an
individual differently. The kind of influence a model has on you reflects four specific
processes:
1. Attentional processes: To learn from a model, you have to recognize and pay
attention to that model’s critical features. The models that influence you most are
repeatedly available ones you consider attractive, important, or similar to you.
2. Retention processes: A model’s influence will depend on how well you remember
the model’s action, even when the model is no longer available.
3. Motor reproduction processes: After you have observed a model in action, you still
have to perform the actual physical activities.
4. Reinforcement processes: You will be motivated to follow the model’s cues if you get
positive incentives or rewards for doing so. Reinforced behaviors will get more
attention. Besides, you will learn them better and perform them more often than
you will behaviors that don’t get attention.
How Managers Shape Behavior
Managers must focus on how to teach employees to behave in ways that benefit the
organization. A manager will often attempt to mold employees by guiding their
learning in graduated steps. Shaping behavior is the term for systematically reinforcing
each successive step that moves someone closer to a desired behavior.
If employees are already “with the program,” managers may not have to teach them
much. But if the workers are far from the goal, their managers may have to get them
there by “baby steps,” with reinforcement all along the way. Suppose a company is
trying to get an employee who is always half an hour late to arrive at work on time. If
the employee manages to come in only 20 minutes late, that’s an improvement—
which the boss should reinforce with praise.
206
CHAPTER 7 | Foundations of Individual and Group Behavior
There are four ways to shape behavior:
1. positive reinforcement
2. negative reinforcement
3. punishment
4. extinction.
Positive reinforcement you have already met: The boss who praises the tardy employee
for being “only” 20 minutes late is giving positive reinforcement.
Negative reinforcement involves issuing rebukes or criticisms in response to bad
behavior. If a group of employees keeps taking too long for their morning coffee break,
the boss can decide to complain to them directly every day until the problem stops.
That would be negative reinforcement.
Punishment is probably a familiar concept to you. An employee who shows up for work
drunk, for instance, might be suspended without pay for a couple of days and sent home.
Extinction is the fourth tool. You can use it in situations like this: An employee keeps
raising his hand to speak at the weekly staff meetings and then asks irrelevant
questions. This wastes everyone’s time—but it may not be worth it to the manager to
use negative reinforcement. Instead, the manager may simply stop calling on the
employee during the weekly meetings. This saves time right away, and eventually the
employee will stop trying to ask the irrelevant questions.
How Understanding Learning Helps Managers Be More Effective
Managers can benefit from understanding the learning process, including the four
ways to change behavior and the four processes that determine how people learn from
their models.
Managers should also think about how actively they will manage their employees’
learning, through the rewards they allocate and the examples they set. If managers
want a certain type of behavior, but reward another type, they shouldn’t be surprised
if they get what they reward, rather than what they want.
Foundations of Group Behavior
In the last lesson, you read about the sources of individual behavior. The behavior of
individuals in groups, however, is not the same as the sum total of all their individual
behavior. People act differently in groups. To understand organizational behavior
better, you have to study groups.
Groups
A group is two or more interacting and interdependent individuals who come together to
achieve particular objectives. Groups can be formal or informal. A group set up by a
company’s managers to prepare the staff for an office move is a good example of a
LESSON 2 | Managers and Group Behavior
207
formal group. The five or six people who meet in the lobby every morning at 10:30 to
go out for coffee are an example of an informal group. So is the group of four or five
friends you get together with regularly on Saturday nights.
Why do people join groups? For many different reasons. And people belong to a
number of different groups, each of which provides different benefits to their
members. Figure 2.4 details some important reasons for joining groups.
The Basic Concepts of Group Behavior
The foundation for understanding group behavior consists of roles, norms and
conformity, status systems, and group cohesiveness.
Roles
A role is a set of expected behavior patterns attributed to someone who occupies a given
position in a social unit. Even in a group as informal as your Saturday night pals, there
are probably a number of roles. If you think about it, for instance, you may realize
that one of your friends usually takes the initiative to suggest which movies to see.
In an organization, employees try to figure out their roles and learn what they are
supposed to do. They take their cues from the boss and their coworkers, and maybe
even from their job descriptions. And they may find themselves in conflict from
different roles. A newly hired professor, for instance, may face pressure from colleagues
to grade strictly to hold up standards—and from students to grade generously and
keep everyone’s average in good shape.
REASON
Security
Status
Self-esteem
Affiliation
Power
Goal achievement
PERCEIVED BENEFIT
Gaining strength in number
s; reducing the insecurity
of standing alone
Achieving some level of pre
stige from belonging to a
particular group
Enhancing one’s feeling of
self-worth—especially me
mbership
in a highly valued group
Satisfying one’s social nee
ds through social interaction
Achieving something throug
h a group action not possib
le
individually; protecting gro
up members from unreas
onable
demands of others
Providing an opportunity
to accomplish a particular
task
when it takes more than
one person’s talents, kno
wledge,
or power to complete the
job
F I G U R E 2.4
Reasons People Join Groups
208
CHAPTER 7 | Foundations of Individual and Group Behavior
Why do people join the Rotary Club, a service organization, in their community?
Research says that they do so in search of security, status, self-esteem, affiliation,
power, or goal achievement.
Eric S. Lesser/Getty Images, Inc.
How Norms and Conformity Affect Group Behavior
All groups have norms—acceptable standards shared by the members of a group. Norms
govern the way people dress at most companies, for instance. Most places don’t have
uniforms or written standards for attire. But they do have an informal standard, and you
would know if you fell short or dressed too formally. Sometimes a new employee may
continue to wear a suit until coworkers tease and pressure him into more-casual attire.
The area of effort and performance is another part of work life generally governed by
norms rather than explicit rules. A company may have an official start of 8 a.m.—but
does the workday really start on the dot of eight? Do people cut out right at the
official quitting time? Or do some stay later because they came in later? Norms around
such questions can be powerful predictors of employee performance.
Loyalty to an organization is another area where norms, rather than formal rules,
govern. Few managers would tolerate employees who ridicule the organization, and
employees at any rank who are unhappy and seeking new employment elsewhere know
they should be discreet about their searches. On the other side of the coin, the desire to
show loyalty often leads people to carry home briefcases full of work, come in on
weekends, and even accept transfers to cities they wouldn’t otherwise choose to live in.
Solomon Asch studied group norms and the way they push people toward conformity
(see “A Management Classic,”). People want to belong to the group and to avoid being
visibly different. And when an individual’s opinion of objective data differs
significantly from that of others in the group, the person feels pressure to align his or
her opinion to conform to those of the others.
LESSON 2 | Managers and Group Behavior
209
Status, and Why It Matters
Status is a prestige grading, position, or rank within a group. People have been thinking
about status for about as long as human beings have been on the earth, it appears.
Concerns about status can affect people’s behavior when they feel a difference
between the way they see their status and the way others perceive it to be.
Status may be informally conferred, based on education, age, skill, or experience.
“Informal” here doesn’t mean “unimportant”—or “unclear,” either. Anything can be a
source of status. And members of groups are pretty clear on who in the group has
status and who doesn’t.
Within organizations, it’s important that employees believe the organization’s formal
status system aligns with its informal system. If the organization makes much of
assigning prestige parking spaces to top officials, and one of the top spots is given to
someone who wouldn’t have had a job at the company except that he was the general
manager’s brother-in-law, that will cause a problem for the employees. And conversely,
if a senior executive has a less desirable office than someone else farther down the
organizational chart, that will send a message of confusion through the company.
A Management Classic
Solomon Asch and Group Conformity
Can pressure to fit in with a group be strong enough to change a member’s attitude
and behavior? According to some classic research by Solomon Asch (1907-1996), the
answer is Yes.
Asch’s study involved groups of seven or eight people in a classroom. An investigator
asked each of them to compare two cards. One card had one line. The other card had
three lines of varying length. As you see in Figure 2.5, one of the lines on the threeline card was identical to the line on the one-line card. The difference in line length
was obvious. The test subject was to announce aloud which of the three lines matched
the single line on the card. Under ordinary conditions, the error rate was under
1 percent.
But what if all the members of the group began to give incorrect answers? Would the
unsuspecting subject (USS) change his or her answer to match the others’? That was
what Asch wanted to find out. He arranged the group so that the USS was unaware
that the experiment was fixed. The chairs were set up so that the USS went last to
announce his or her decision.
The experiment began with two sets of matching exercises. All the subjects gave the
right answer. On the third set, however, the subject gave an obviously wrong answer.
For the cards in Figure 2.5, for instance, the subject would say “C” when the obvious
answer was “B.”
Then it was the turn of the USS. This person faced a decision: whether to publicly state
a perception that differed from that of the others in the group. The USS had to
210
CHAPTER 7 | Foundations of Individual and Group Behavior
consider, “Am I willing to disagree publicly? Or will I change my answer to fit in with
the group?”
Asch ran the experiment time and again, and he
found that his subjects conformed about 35
percent of the time. That is, they gave an obviously
wrong answer because they preferred to agree with
the group than to be correct but out on their own.
The Asch study has a lot to say to managers
concerned with how groups behave. Individuals
tend to go with the pack. That’s why managers
should encourage a climate of openness so that
employees can discuss problems without feeling
that there are “right” or “wrong” answers—and
they will be punished for giving the wrong answer.
X
A
B
C
F I G U R E 2.5
Examples of Cards Used in the Asch Study
How Group Size Affects Group Behavior
The size of a group affects its behavior—but just how depends on different criteria.
Small groups complete tasks faster than larger ones do. But for solving problems, larger
groups are better, because of their potential for diversity and for reaching out to more
sources to gather facts. This advantage kicks in with groups starting with a dozen
members. A good size for a group set up to do something with the facts already in
hand is from five to seven members.
Researchers have studied a phenomenon known as social loafing—the tendency of
an individual in a group to decrease his or her effort because responsibility and individual
achievement cannot be measured. For example, a group of four tends to get more done
than a group of three—but at an individual level, the group of four, per person, is less
productive than the trio.
Are Cohesive Groups More Effective?
It makes sense that groups with a lot of internal disagreement and lack of cooperation
should be less effective than are groups whose members generally agree, generally like
each other, and generally cooperate with each other. Researchers use the term group
cohesiveness—to refer to the degree to which members of a group are attracted to each
other and share goals. The more the members of the group are attracted to one another
and the more group goals align with individual goals, the greater their cohesiveness.
But there’s a little more to this question of cohesiveness than that. What counts in
making a group effective is not only cohesiveness, but also attitudes. A group may stick
together very well, but if the members’ attitudes toward their goals aren’t positive, they
won’t achieve them. You’ve no doubt seen this in school. There may be a group of
students at the back of the classroom who regularly disrupt things, for instance. They’re
a cohesive group, all right—they’re all good buddies who laugh at each other’s jokes.
But they’re not “with the program,” and they aren’t helping anyone meet the teacher’s
goals for the class.
LESSON 2 | Managers and Group Behavior
211
Figure 2.6 shows the findings of scholarly research
into the question of cohesiveness, goals, and
productivity. A cohesive group aligned with
organizational goals will be highly productive. A
less cohesive group that still is aligned with
organizational goals will be moderately productive.
A cohesive group that’s not in alignment with
organizational goals will be less productive than its
members would be on their own—that’s where the
group of classroom cut-ups fits in. And when a
group is not particularly cohesive and or well
aligned with organizational goals, being in a group
has no particular effect on productivity.
So it’s very important that managers know how to
get groups to work together. The next chapter will
discuss how to do that.
Air Force special forces units are such close-knit
groups that each member knows what the
others are thinking and how they will react in
certain circumstances.
Courtesy of US Air Force
Cohesiveness
Alignment of Group and
Organizational Goals
High
High
Low
Strong increase
in productivity
Decrease in
productivity
Low
Moderate increase
in productivity
No significant effect
on productivity
F I G U R E 2.6
The Relationship Between Group Cohesiveness and Productivity
212
CHAPTER 7 | Foundations of Individual and Group Behavior
CHECKPOINTS
Lesson 2 Review
Using complete sentences, answer the following questions on a sheet of
paper.
1. What three things does a manager trying to decide whether
another person’s behavior has internal or external causes usually
look at?
2. What is fundamental attribution error? Give an example.
3. What five shortcuts do managers use to “speed read” their
employees?
4. What four processes determine the influence a model has on
someone’s behavior?
5. What is “shaping behavior”? Give an example.
6. What are four ways to shape other people’s behavior?
7. What are six reasons that move people to join groups?
8. In Solomon Asch’s experiment, what percentage of the time did
people conform? Why did they conform?
Applying Your Learning
9. Describe an experience in which you or someone close to you was
assigned to a group to achieve some specific goals.Was the group
cohesive? Did the group’s cohesiveness, or lack of it, help or hinder
the achievement of its goals?
LESSON 2 | Managers and Group Behavior
213