Understanding
Social
Perception and
Managing
Diversity
Chapter Four
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
© 2012 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
After reading the material in this chapter,
you should be able to:
LO4.1 Describe perception in terms of the
social information processing model.
LO4.2 Explain seven managerial implications
of social perception.
LO4.3 Explain, according to Kelley’s model,
how external and internal causal
attributions are formulated.
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After reading the material in this chapter,
you should be able to:
LO4.4 Demonstrate your familiarity with the
demographic trends that are creating an
increasingly diverse workforce.
LO4.5 Identify the barriers and challenges to
managing diversity.
LO4.6 Discuss organizational practices used to
manage diversity
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A Social Information Processing
Model of Perception
Perception
 cognitive process that
enables us to
interpret and
understand our
surroundings
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Social Perception: A Social
Information Processing Model
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Stage 1: Selective
Attention/Comprehension
Attention
 Process of becoming consciously aware of
something or someone
People pay attention to salient stimuli
Salient
 something that stands out from context
4-6
Question?
Beverly has $11,000 for investment. She speaks
with various friends and neighbors to find out what
stocks they have invested in. Beverly can be
described as being on which stage of the social
information processing model?
A.Selective attention; comprehension
B.Encoding
C.Simplification
D.Storage and Retention
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Stage 2: Encoding and
Simplification
Schema
 Represents a person’s mental picture or
summary of a particular event or type of
stimulus
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Stage 2: Encoding and
Simplification
Stereotype
 An individual’s set of beliefs about the
characteristics or attributes of a group
Not always negative
May or may
not be accurate
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Stereotyping Process
1. Categorize people into groups according
to various criteria
2. Infer that all people within a category
possess the same traits
3. Form expectations of others and interpret
their behavior according to our stereotypes
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Stereotyping Process
4. Stereotypes are maintained by:
– Overestimating the frequency of stereotypic
behavior exhibited by others
– Incorrectly explaining expected and
unexpected behaviors
– Differentiating minority individuals from oneself
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Commonly Found Perceptual Errors
Table 4-1
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Stage 3: Storage and Retention
Event memory
 information about both specific and general
events
Semantic memory
 general knowledge about the world, mental
dictionary of concepts
Person memory
 information about a single individual or groups
of people
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Stage 4: Retrieval and Response
Decisions are based on:
 The process of drawing on, interpreting, and
integrating categorical information stored in
long-term memory
 Retrieving a summary judgment that was
already made
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Managerial Implications: Hiring
Interviewers make hiring decisions based
on their impression of how an applicant fits
the perceived requirements of a job and on
the basis of implicit cognition
Implicit cognition
 represents any thoughts or beliefs that are
automatically activated from memory without our
conscious awareness.
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Managerial Implications:
Performance Appraisal
Important for managers to accurately
identify the behavioral characteristics and
results indicative of good performance
Characteristics serve as the benchmarks for
evaluating employee performance
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Managerial Implications:
Leadership
Good leaders exhibit the following
behaviors:
 Assigning specific tasks to group members
 Telling others they had done well
 Setting specific goals for the group
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Question?
Which of these is (are) managerial implication(s) of
perception?
A. Interviewers with racist and sexist schemata can
undermine the accuracy and legality of hiring decisions.
B. Faulty schemata about what constitutes good versus poor
performance can lead to inaccurate performance
appraisal, which can erode work motivation, commitment,
and loyalty.
C. Research demonstrates that employees' evaluations of
leader effectiveness are influenced strongly by their
schemata of good and poor leaders.
D. All of these.
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Causal Attributions
Causal Attributions
 suspected or inferred
causes of behavior
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Performance Charts
4-20
Kelley’s Model of Attribution
Behavior can be attributed either to:
Internal factors within a person (such as
ability) or to:
External behavior within the environment
(such as a difficult task)
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Kelley’s Model of Attribution
Consensus
 involves a comparison of an individual’s
behavior with that of his peers.
Distinctiveness
 involves comparing a person’s behavior on one
task with the behavior from other tasks.
Consistency
 determined by judging if the individual’s
performance on a given task is consistent over
time.
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Question?
Francesca has had stable performance and
high quality from one task to another. This
refers to:
A.Low consensus.
B.High distinctiveness.
C.High consensus
D.Low distinctiveness.
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Attributional Tendencies
Fundamental attribution bias
 Reflects one’s tendency to attribute another
person’s behavior to his or her personal
characteristics, as opposed to situational
factors.
Self-serving bias
 Represents one’s tendency to take more
personal responsibility for success than for
failure.
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Managerial Implications
Managers tend to disproportionately
attribute behavior to internal causes
An employee’s attributions for his own
performance have dramatic effects on
subsequent motivation, performance, and
self-esteem
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Defining and Managing Diversity
Diversity
 represents the multitude of individual
differences and similarities that exist among
people
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Four Layers of Diversity
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Defining and Managing Diversity
Affirmative action
 an artificial intervention aimed at giving
management a chance to correct an
imbalance, an injustice, a mistake, or outright
discrimination that occurred in the past.
Managing diversity
 Enables people to perform up to their maximum
potential
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Increasing Diversity in the
Workforce: Demographic Trends
1. Women navigate a labyrinth after breaking
the glass ceiling
2. Racial groups are encountering a glass
ceiling and perceived discrimination
3. Mismatch between workers’ educational
attainment and occupational requirements
4. Generational differences in an aging
workforce
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Increasing Diversity in the
Workforce
Glass ceiling
 represents an
absolute barrier or
solid roadblock that
prevented women
from advancing to
higher level
positions.
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Generational Differences
Table 4-2
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Ways Organizations Can Motivate and
Retain an Aging Workforce
1. Provide challenging work assignments that
make a difference to the firm.
2. Give the employee considerable autonomy
and latitude in completing a task.
3. Provide equal access to training and
learning opportunities when it comes to
new technology.
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Ways Organizations Can Motivate and
Retain an Aging Workforce
4. Provide frequent recognition for skills,
experience, and wisdom gained over the years.
5. Provide mentoring opportunities whereby older
workers can pass on accumulated knowledge to
younger employees.
6. Ensure that older workers receive sensitive, highquality supervision.
7. Design a work environment that is both
stimulating and fun.
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Barriers and Challenges to
Managing Diversity
1.
2.
3.
4.
Inaccurate stereotypes and prejudice
Ethnocentrism
Poor career planning
An unsupportive and hostile working
environment for diverse employees
5. Lack of political savvy on the part of
diverse employees
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Barriers and Challenges to
Managing Diversity
6. Difficulty in balancing career and family
issues
7. Fears of reverse discrimination
8. Diversity is not seen as an organizational
priority
9. The need to revamp the organization’s
performance appraisal and reward system
10. Resistance to change
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Question?
Jacques, a French national, is the CEO of French Global
Empire with significant operations in Japan and the United
States. Jacques recently announced that all employees of
the company, no matter which part of the world they may
be in, must learn French and communicate in French only.
Which challenge to diversity does this represent?
A. Cultural flexibility
B. Polychronic time
C. Cultural relativism
D. Ethnocentrism
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Organizational Practices Used to
Effectively Manage Diversity
Option 1: Include/Exclude
Option 2: Deny
Option 3: Assimilate
Option 4: Suppress
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Organizational Practices Used to
Effectively Manage Diversity (cont.)
Option 5: Isolate
Option 6: Tolerate
Option 7: Build Relationships
Option 8: Foster Mutual Adaptation
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Question?
A group of minority employees complained
about alleged discriminatory practices to
their manager. She told them to quit whining
and get back to work. This is the use of
_________ to manage diversity.
A.Denial
B.Suppression
C.Isolation
D.Building relationships
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Video Case: Andre Thornton
What attributes or experiences help Andre
Thornton in being successful at GPI?
In what ways can Thornton serve as an example
for all minority individuals?
Does GPI’s size help or hinder them in serving the
needs of their clients?
Can you draw correlations between sports and
business? What are they?
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