Individuals & Groups in
Organizations
Perception and Communication
Attitudes, Values, Ethics, and Emotions
GF4 2004
Frances Jørgensen
frances@plan.aau.dk
Agenda
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What is perception? Why is it relevant to us?
What (mis)shapes our perceptions?
Personality & Personality Types
Values at Work
Culturally-based values: Where are the Danes?
Ethics
Emotions
Communication
Defining Perception
(and the reason we need to understand it)
• Perception: a process of receiving
information about and making sense of the
world around us; how we view and
interpret what happens around us.
• Peoples’ behavior is based on their
perceptions of what reality is, not on reality
itself.
Optical Illusions: Perceptual
“Tricks”
Are the black lines
parallel?
How many legs?
What do YOU see?
Selective Attention/Perception
• What are we to do with all of the stimuli
bombarding us all the time?
• We sort out what we will pay attention
to/remember according to our own interests,
background, experiences, and attitudes as well as
characteristics of the stimuli, such as size,
intensity, motion, repetition, and novelty of the
stimulus.
• Thus, the characteristics of the perceiver, the
situation/context, and the target object (stimulus)
all factor into what we pay attention to…
Attribution Theory
(Kelly, 1973)
• Attributions: the perceived causes of our
own behavior or the behavior of others. As
humans, we need to be able to understand
and explain why we and those around us
act the way we do.
• Attributions may be internal (we have
some control) or external (forces in the
environment for which we can’t control).
Attribution Theory (cont’d)
• Whether we attribute others’ behavior as
being caused by internal or external
factors is based on 3 factors:
– Consensus: was he the only employee late
today?
– Distinctiveness: is he known as a slacker or
usually very hard working?
– Consistency: is he often late or rarely ever?
Biases or Distortions of
Perceptions
• Fundamental attribution error: when making
judgments of others behavior, we tend to
underestimate the influence of external factors
and to overestimate the influence of internal
factors.
• Self-serving bias: we tend to attribute our own
successes to internal factors and to attribute lack
of success to external factors.
Other perceptions gone wrong…
• Primacy
– Remember 1st impressions!
• Recency
– Gosh it’s hard to remember so far back!
• Halo
– One good (or bad) trait is all it takes.
• Projection
– If I’m hard-working (lazy, (dis)honest, etc) then you
probably are too!
• Stereotyping
– You (Plural) are all alike!
Talk it over
How can perceptions influence
us at work?
• As managers?
• As employees?
• 5.5 min. mini-discussion. I WANT EXAMPLES!!!
(Very) Short overview of
Personality
•Relatively stable pattern of behaviors
and consistent internal states that
explain a person's behavioral tendencies
•“Relationship” between personality and
job performance.
•Type A and Type B Personalities: which
are you?
Big Five Personality Dimensions
Conscientiousness
Caring, dependable
Emotional Stability
Poised, secure
Openness to Experience
Agreeableness
Extroversion
Sensitive, flexible
Courteous, empathic
Outgoing, talkative
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• Extroversion versus introversion
• Sensing versus intuition
• Thinking versus feeling
Courtesy of Thompson Doyle Hennessey & Everest
• Judging versus perceiving
What do we mean by values?
• What we generally believe is important
in our relationships, work…life.
• Our values help us “know” what is right
or wrong and good or bad and serve as
the basis for our decisions
• Values come in all shapes and forms,
including cultural values, ethical values,
and organizational culture values.
Individualism- Collectivism
Individualism
United
States
Germany
Japan
China
Collectivism
Where is Denmark?
The degree that
people value and
focus on the
individual (“I”) versus
focus on the group
(“we”)
Power Distance
High Power Distance
Malaysia
France
Japan
The degree that
people accept an
unequal distribution
of power in society
United
States
Germany
Low Power Distance
Where is Denmark?
Uncertainty Avoidance
High U. A.
Japan
Germany
United
States
The degree that
people tolerate
ambiguity (e.g. less
rigid rules) or feel the
need for systematic
rules and structure.
Singapore
Low U. A.
Where is Denmark?
Achievement-Nurturing
Achievement
Japan
United
States
South
Korea
Sweden
Nurturing
The degree that people
value assertiveness,
competitiveness, and
achievement
(masculine) versus
relationships and
nurturing for the wellbeing of others
(feminine)
Where is Denmark?
Long/Short-Term Orientation
Long-Term Orientation
China
Japan
The degree that people
save and plan for the
future versus living in the
here and now.
Netherlands
United
States
Russia
Short-Term Orientation
Where is Denmark?
Factors influencing ethical
conduct
• Moral intensity
– How much we are guided by deep,
general ethics
• Ethical sensitivity
– How aware are we of ethical issues and
how important are they?
• Situational influences
Model of Attitudes and Behavior
Beliefs
Attitude
Feelings
Behavioral
Intentions
Behavior
Emotional
Episodes
Emotions & Attitudes
• Emotions = experiences, something we feel, relatively
brief; Attitudes =judgments, something we think,
relatively enduring, have strong influence on our
behaviors.
• Cognitive Dissonance: We feel tension when do
something that goes against our feelings, beliefs or
attitudes. To feel better, we generally change our attitude
(rather than our behavior).
• Emotional Intelligence: being able to assess own and
others’ emotions to direct own behavior; related to
personality, but can (partly) be developed.
Emotional Intelligence
Dimensions
SelfAwareness
Social
Skill
Empathy
Emotional
Intelligence
SelfRegulation
SelfMotivation
Job Satisfaction and Behavior
• Job satisfaction is a general attitude toward the
job; high job satisfaction builds loyalty and
commitment to the work place, reducing theft,
(sometimes) absenteeism, turnover.
• Are satisfied employees good performers?
– When rewarded, performance leads to job
satisfaction (not vice versa, at least at the
individual level)
– Satisfied workers make for satisfied
customers
What does it take to create
job satisfaction?
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Mentally challenging work
Equitable rewards & benefits
Supportive Work Conditions
Supportive Colleagues
Personality-Job Fit
The right genes (not jeans!)
Communication
• Definition: the transfer and understanding
of meaning.
• Poor communication is the #1 source of
interpersonal conflict.
• We spend about 70% of our working hours
involved in some kind of communication.
Communication Process Model
Sender
Form
message
Transmit
Message
Encode
message
Receiver
Receive
encoded
message
Decode
message
Encode
feedback
Form
feedback
Noise
Decode
feedback
Receive
feedback
Transmit
Feedback
Nonverbal Communication
• Actions, gestures, facial expressions, etc.
• Emphasizes our verbal communication
• Provides subtle clues to non-spoken
messages
• Remember: Actions often speak louder (and
more accurately) than words!
Communication Barriers
• Perceptions: selective attention, attributions, biases,
errors—were you paying attention?!
• Filtering: Don’t kill the messenger!
• Defensiveness: If I feel threatened, I will create
communication barriers
• Language
– Jargon (how we show “them” we’re experts)
– Ambiguity (harder to pin them down)
• Information Overload
Information Overload
Episodes of
information
overload
Employee’s
information
processing
capacity
Information Load
Time
Communication in the workplace
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Old fashioned face-to-face & open designs
Shift meetings
Team meetings
Management “walk arounds”
Email
Newsletters
Intranet
Surveys
The Grapevine
Communicating Through E-mail
Advantages of E-mail
–It’s (usually) efficient
–“Conversation” can take place at different times
–Can purposefully scan and sort
–Fewer social status barriers
Problems with E-mail
–Information overload
–Interpreting emotions
–Flaming (no sleep on it strategy)
–Lacks empathy or social support
I heard it on the grapevine…
• What the research says…
– Information travels quickly in all directions
– Few people spread rumors to many
– The more alike we are, the more we use
the grapevine
– Usually includes more than a grain of truth
• The power of the world wide web
– Email becomes the fastest way to spread
rumors
– Our rumors know no boundaries
– Who’s checked out vault.com???
Cross-Cultural Communication
• Verbal differences
– Language: be careful of translations!
– Voice intonation
– The woes of humor
• Nonverbal differences
– Interpreting nonverbal meaning
• Physical distancing (also male/female)
– Importance of verbal versus nonverbal
– Silence and conversational overlaps
Active Listening Process and
Strategies
SENSING
• Postpone evaluation
• Avoid interruptions
• Maintain interest
ACTIVE
LISTENING
RESPONDING
EVALUATING
• Show interest
• Clarify the message
• Empathize
• Organize information