SELF-CONCEPT,

PERCEPTIONS, AND
ATTRIBUTIONS
Chapter 4
Self-concept, perceptions and
attributions are important factors
that impact an employee’s view of
his work environment.
Understanding these individual
characteristics will surely aid
managers and non-managers in
performing their respective roles
and jobs more efficiently and
effectively.
SELF-CONCEPT
Self-concept
Self-concept refers to how a person thinks
about, evaluates or perceives himself. It is
an important and useful way to understand
and improve performance and welfare.

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Self-concept
There are three conceptual dimensions of
self-concept which influences a person’s
adaptability and well-being. They are:

1. Complexity – a person’s self-concept

has higher complexity when it consists of
many categories.

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Self-concept
2. Consistency – a person has high
consistency when similar personality traits
and values are required across all aspects
of self-concept.

3. Clarity – this means the level of a

person’s self-conceptions are clearly and
confidently described, internally consistent
and stable across time.

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Self-concept
So people perform better when their self-
concepts have many elements (high
complexity) that are well-matched with each
other (high consistency) and are relatively
clear.

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Self-Enhancement
Self-enhancement is a desire to magnify
positive aspects of self-conceptions while
isolating oneself from negative feedback
and information.

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Self-Enhancement
Most often people desires to rate
themselves as above average, selectively
recall positive feedback while forgetting
negative ones, attribute their success to
personal inspiration or ability while pointing
to others for mistakes and believe that they
have a great possibility of being successful.

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Self-Enhancement
Positively when people see their self-
concept in a positive light, they have better
mental and physical health. On the negative
side, self-enhancement can result in bad
decisions such as overestimation of the
success in investment decisions by
managers.

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Self-Verification
Self-verification assumes that people work
to preserve their self-views by seeking to
confirm them. It stabilizes a person’s self-
concept which helps guide his thought and
actions.

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Self-Verification
Self-verification has numerous implications
in organizational behavior, which are:

1. It affects the perceptual process because

employees are likely to remember
information that is consistent with their self-
concepts

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Self-Verification
2. The more confident employees are in
their self-concepts, the less they accept
feedbacks whether positive or negative, that
is at odds with their self-concepts

3. Employees are motivated to interact with

others who affirm their self-concepts and
this affect how will they get along with their
boss and with co-employees in teams

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Self-Evaluation
Self-evaluation is an individual’s honest and
objective assessment of himself. The self-
evaluation is usually defined by three
concepts which are self-esteem, self-
efficacy and locus of control.

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Self-Evaluation
1. Self-Esteem is the extent to which a person has generally
positive feelings about himself.
• People with high self-esteem • People with low self-esteem
view themselves in a positive experience high levels of self-
light, are confident, and doubt and have less self-worth.
respect themselves. • People with low self-esteem are
• High self-esteem is linked to fascinated to situations in which
higher levels of satisfaction they will be comparatively
with one’s job and higher indistinguishable, like large
levels of performance on the companies.
job.
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Self-Evaluation
It may be challenging to manage
employees with low self-esteem because
negative feedback given with the intention
to develop performance may be regarded
as a judgement on their value as an
employee. As a result, effectively managing
employees with quite low self-esteem
needs diplomacy and presenting many
positive feedback when conversing
performance incidents.
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Self-Evaluation
2. Self-Efficacy is a personal belief on
competencies and abilities. In other words,
it is a person’s belief of his ability to do a
definite task fruitfully. Self-efficacy differs
from other personality traits in that it is job
specific.

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Self-Evaluation
A person may have high self-efficacy in being
successful academically, but low self-efficacy in
relation to his ability to fix his own car. At the same
time, people have a certain level of generalized
self-efficacy and they have the belief that whatever
task or hobby they tackle, they are likely to be
successful in it.

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Self-Evaluation
This relationship is most likely a result of people
with high self-efficacy setting higher goals for
themselves and being more obligated to these
goals, whereas people with low self-efficacy
tend to procrastinate.
Giving people opportunities to test their skills so
that they can see what they are capable of doing
(or empowering them) is also a good way of
increasing self-efficacy.

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Self-Evaluation
3. Locus of control deals with the degree to which people feel
answerable for their own behaviors.

• People with high internal • Those individuals with high

locus of control or external locus of control or
internals believe that they externals suppose that
can influence their own things happen to them
destiny and what happens because of other people,
luck, or a powerful being.
to them is caused by their
own doing.
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Self-Evaluation
• Internals feel greater control over their own lives and so they act in ways
that will add to their chances of success.

• They demonstrate higher levels of motivation and have more positive

experiences at work.

• Interestingly, internal locus is also related to one’s subjective well-being

and happiness in life, while being high in external locus is related to a
higher rate of depression.

• Internals thrive in contexts in which they have the ability to influence their 21
own behavior.
Self-Evaluation
• Externals on the other hand, believe that what happens to them is the
result of luck or fate.

• They perceive modest association between their own behavior and

success or failure.

• They are more conforming, less argumentative and easier to

supervise.

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Self-monitoring
Self-monitoring refers to the level which a
person is able of checking his actions and
appearance in social situations. In other
words, people who are social monitors
understand what the situation demands and
act accordingly.

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Self-monitoring
• Their greater ability to modify their behavior according
to the demands of the situation and to manage their
impressions effectively is a great advantage for them.

• In general, they tend to be more successful in their

careers. They are rated as higher performers, and
emerge as leaders.

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Self-monitoring
This personality trait has some disadvantages.
• First, when evaluating the performance of other employees,
they tend to be less precise. They may avoid giving correct
feedback to their subordinates to shun from confrontations.

• Second, high social monitors are likely to experience high

incidence of stress, probably due to behaving in ways that
disagree with their true feelings.

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Self-monitoring

• Finally, high social monitors are inclined to be less

committed to their companies. They may see their jobs as
a way for greater things, which may avoid them from
forming string connections and loyalty to their present
employer.

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PERCEPTIONS
Perception
Perception is an intellectual process by
which an individual, selects organizes and
provides meaning to the world around him.

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Perception
Interestingly, people do not solely respond to
the stimuli in their environment. They go
beyond the information that is present in their
environment, pay selective attention to some
aspects of the environment, and ignore other
elements that may be immediately apparent to
other people. Therefore, perception of the
environment is not entirely rational.

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Perceptual Process
The perceptual process consists of six
steps: the presence of objects,
observation, selection, organization,
interpretation and response. The
perceptual process is the sequence of
psychological steps that a person uses to
organize and interpret information from the
outside world.

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Perceptual Process
The perceptual process is the sequence of
psychological steps that a person uses to
organize and interpret information from the
outside world. The steps are:

1. Objects are present in the world.

2. A person observes.

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Perceptual Process
3. The person uses perception to select objects.
4. The person organizes the perception of objects.
5. The person interprets the perception.
6. The person responds.

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Perceptual Process
The selection, organization, and interpretation of
perceptions can differ among different people.

Therefore, when people react differently in a situation,

part of their behavior can be explained by examining
their perceptual process, and how their perceptions
are leading to their responses.

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Perceptual Selection
Perceptual selection is the choice of the
stimuli that would depend on what people
feel is pertinent for them and or appropriate
for them. It is driven by internal and external
factors.

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Perceptual Selection
Internal factors include:

1. Personality - Personality traits influence how a person selects

perceptions.
2. Motivation- People will choose perceptions based on what they
need in the moment. They will support selections that they think will
aid them with their present needs, and be more likely to disregard
what is immaterial to their needs.
3. Experience – The patterns of incidences or associations one has
learned in the past affect current perceptions. The person will choose
perceptions in a way that matched with what they found in the past.
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Perceptual Selection
External factors include:
1. Size - A larger size makes it more likely an object will be selected. The
larger the size of the stimuli, the more likely it is to be perceived like
headlines in the newspaper, brand name on the packaging of a product.

2. Intensity – Greater intensity, in brightness, for example also increases

perceptual selection. The larger the force or power of a stimuli, the
greater the chances of it getting perceived like strong smell or a loud
noise, flashy colors on the packaging or in the advertisement, strong
aroma of food.

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Perceptual Selection
3. Contrast – When a perception stands clearly out against a
background, there is a greater likelihood of selection. Any
stimuli that stands out from the rest of the environment is more
likely to be noticed.

4. Motion – A moving perception is more likely to be selected.

Anything that moves has greater chances of being perceived
like a scroll advertisement.

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Perceptual Selection
5. Repetition - Repetition increases perceptual selection. A
repeated stimuli is more likely to be noticed.

6. Novelty and Familiarity – Both of these increase selection.

When a perception is new, it stands out in a person’s experience.
When it is familiar, it is likely to be selected because of this
familiarity. A new stimulus in a familiar setting or a familiar stimulus
in a new setting increase the chances of perceptual selectivity.

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Perceptual Selection
There are certain other concepts that relate
to perceptual selection like selective
exposure, selective attention, perceptual
defense and perceptual blocking.

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​Table 1. Concepts in Perceptual
Selection
Concept Description
Selective Exposure While people are exposed to various stimuli at
the same time, they have a tendency to seek out
messages that they find pleasant, are
comfortable with, and confirm their beliefs and
preconceived notions and expectations. They
avoid messages and block themselves from
messages that they find to be unpleasant, are
uncomfortable with, and are contrary to their
beliefs and expectations.

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​Table 1. Concepts in Perceptual
Selection
Concept Description
Selective Attention Of the many stimuli that people are exposed to,
people are attracted to those stimuli that they
consider to be relevant in terms of a match with
their needs. They are attentive to those stimuli
that match and avoid those that are irrelevant.
People are also selective about the message and
the channel through which this information
would be transmitted; it could relate this to the
split-brain theory, the right side processing and
the left side processing.
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​Table 1. Concepts in Perceptual
Selection
Concept Description
Perceptual Defense Sometimes people may select stimuli which
they later find as psychologically threatening
and uncomfortable. In such cases, they have a
tendency to filter out that stimuli, although
initial exposure that has taken place. The
threatening stimuli is consciously filtered
away. This is called perceptual defense. Often
people may also distort the stimuli as per their
desire and give meaning to their advantage.

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​Table 1. Concepts in Perceptual
Selection
Concept Description
Perceptual blocking When exposed to a large number of
stimuli simultaneously, people may
often block the various stimuli, as
they get stressed out. This is because
the body cannot cope up with so
many stimuli at the same time. The
people thus, blocks out the various
stimuli from their conscious
awareness. This is called perceptual
blocking.
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Perceptual Organization
When exposed to a large number of stimuli
simultaneously, people may often block the various
stimuli, as they get stressed out. This is because
the body cannot cope up with so many stimuli at
the same time. The people thus, blocks out the
various stimuli from their conscious
awareness. ​This is called perceptual blocking.

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Perceptual Organization
The following factors are those that determine perceptual
organization.

1. Figure-Ground - Once perceived, objects stand out against

their background. This can mean, for instance, that perceptions
of something as new can stand out against the background of
everything of the same type that is old.

2. Perceptual Grouping – Grouping is when perceptions are

brought together into a pattern.

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Perceptual Organization
3. Closure – This is the tendency to try to create wholes out
of perceived parts. Sometimes this can result in error,
though, when the perceiver fills in unperceived information to
complete the whole.

4. Proximity – Perceptions that are physically close to each

other are easier to organize into a pattern or whole.

5. Similarity – Similarity between perceptions promotes a

tendency to group them together.

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Perceptual Organization
6. Perceptual Constancy – This means that if an
object is perceived always to be or act a certain
way, the person will tend to infer that it actually is
always that way.

7. Perceptual Context – People will tend to

organize perceptions in relation to other pertinent
perceptions, and create a context out of those
connections.

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Visual Perception
Visual perception is the ability to interpret the surrounding
environment by processing information that is contained in
visible light. The resulting perception is also known as
eyesight, sight or vision (adjectival form: visual, optical, or
ocular).

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Visual Perception
Visual perceptual processing is subdivided into
categories including visual discrimination, visual
figure ground, visual closure, visual memory, visual
sequential memory, visual from constancy, visual
spatial relationships, and visual-motor integration.

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Visual Perception
1. Visual discrimination is the ability of the child to be
aware of the distinctive features of forms including shape,
orientation, size and color. Visual discrimination, figure
ground, and closure problems may result in a person
confusing words with similar beginnings or endings and
even entire words.

2. Visual figure ground is the ability to distinguish an

object from irrelevant background information.

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Visual Perception
3. Visual closure is the ability to recognize a complete feature
from fragmented information.

4. Visual memory is the ability to retain information over an

adequate period of time. Obtaining maximum information in
the shortest possible time provides for optimal performance
and is essential for reading comprehension and spelling.
Dysfunctions in visual memory may cause prolonged time in
copying assignments, difficulty recognizing the same word on
the next page, and difficulty retaining what is seen or heard.

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Visual Perception
5. Visual sequential memory is the ability to perceive and
remember a sequence of objects, letters, words and other
symbols in the same order as originally seen.

6. Visual form constancy is the ability to recognize objects

as they change size, shape or orientation.

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Visual Perception
7. Visual spatial skills refer to the ability to understand directional
concepts that organize external visual space. These skills allow an
individual to develop spatial concepts, such as right and left, front and
back, and up and down as they relate to their body and to objects in
space.

A visual spatial deficit may contribute to poor athletic performance,

difficulties with rhythmic activities, lack of coordination and balance,
clumsiness, reversals of forms and letters, such as ‘b’ and ‘d’ and
words such as ‘on’ and ‘no’ and ‘was’ and ‘saw’ and a tendency to
work with one side of body while the other side does not participate.
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Social Perception
Social perception is the study of how people form
impressions of and make inferences about other
people. People learn about other’s feelings and
emotions by picking up on information gathered
from physical appearance, and verbal and non-
verbal communication.

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Social Perception
1. Knowing that other people have thoughts,
beliefs, emotions, intentions, desires and the like

2. Being able to “read” other people’s inner states

based on their words, behavior, facial expression
and the like

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Social Perception
3. Adjusting one’s actions based on those
“readings”. That is, a socially competent person
can make note of other people’s facial expressions,
tone of voice, posture, gestures, words, and the
like, and on the basis of these clues, make
reasonably accurate judgments about that person’s
state of mind, emotions, and intentions.

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Social Perception
Social perception is one important component of social competence
and social success (including peer acceptance and friendship).

In addition to social perception, socially competent people must have

knowledge of social rules, roles, routines and scripts in their social
lives. Furthermore, they must make use of this knowledge in their
decision making and acting. They also have a concern for other
people and make it a habit to adjust their behavior based on the
needs of others. Finally they have the confidence needed to interact
socially and accept the vulnerability associated with potential
rejection.
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Social Perception
Furthermore, they must make use of this
knowledge in their decision making and acting.
They also have a concern for other people and
make it a habit to adjust their behavior based on
the needs of others.

Finally they have the confidence needed to interact

socially and accept the vulnerability associated with
potential rejection.

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Perceptual Errors
In the workplace the process of making evaluations, judgments or
ratings of the performance of employees is subject to a number of
systematic perception errors. They are the following:

1. Central tendency – Appraising everyone at the middle of the

rating scale.

2. Contrast error - Basing an appraisal on comparison with other

employees rather than on established performance criteria.

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Perceptual Errors
3. Different from me - Giving a poor appraisal because the
person has qualities or characteristics not possessed by the
appraiser.

4. Halo effect - Appraising an employee undeservedly on one

quality (performance, for example) because s/he is perceived
highly by the appraiser on another quality (attractiveness).

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Perceptual Errors
5. Horn effect - The opposite of the halo effect. Giving someone a
poor appraisal on one quality (attractiveness) influences poor rating
on other qualities. (performance).

6. Initial impression - Basing an appraisal on first impressions

rather than on how the person has behaved throughout the period to
which appraisal relates.

7. Latest behavior – Basing an appraisal on the person’s recent

behavior.

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Perceptual Errors
8. Lenient or generous rating – Perhaps the most common
error, being consistently generous in appraisal mostly to avoid
conflict.

9. Performance dimension error – Giving someone a similar

appraisal on two distinct but similar qualities, because they
happen to follow each other on the appraisal form.

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Perceptual Errors
10. Same as me – Giving a good appraisal because the person has
the qualities or characteristics possessed by the appraiser. Spillover
effect: Basing this appraisal, good or bad, on the results of the
previous appraisal rather than on how the person has behaved during
the appraisal period.

11. Status effect – Giving those in higher level positions consistently

better appraisals than those in lower level jobs.

12. String rating – Being consistently harsh in appraising

performance.
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ATTRIBUTIONS
Attribution
Attribution is the process through which individuals
link behavior to its causes to the intentions,
dispositions and events that explain why people
act the way they do. It is simply the process of
attaching or attributing causes or reasons to the
actions and events people see.

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Attribution
• Attribution theory can be divided up into two different
sections, internal and external attributes. Internal
attributes means that the behavior is being caused by
something inside the person. Conversely, external
attributes point to the cause of the behavior to be the
situation, not the person.

• There are two significant models of attribution namely

that of Kelley’s and Weiner’s.

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Kelley’s Attribution Theory
The best known work on attribution is Kelley’s theoretical approach that is
based on two important contributions to the understanding of cognitive
processes associated with forming casual beliefs.

• First, the principle of covariance states that a behavior will be attributed to

a cause with which it covaries over time.
• Second, he identified three sources of information people can use in
analyzing covariance and thus arriving at a casual judgment.
• More specifically, he suggested that individuals form casual beliefs by
analyzing the consistency, consensus, and distinctiveness of a response
or behavior.
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Kelley’s Attribution Theory
1. Distinctiveness – This is the degree in which a person behave the
same way across different situations. If Angie only smokes when she is
out with friends, her behavior is high in distinctiveness. If she smokes at
any time or place, distinctiveness is low.

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Kelley’s Attribution Theory
2. Consistency – This is the degree in which a person behave the same
way in different occasions in the same situations. If Angie only smokes
when she is out with friends, consistency is high. If she only smokes on
one special occasion, consistency is low.

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Kelley’s Attribution Theory
3. Consensus – This is the degree in which other people behave the
same way. If Angie smokes a cigarette when she goes out for a meal with
her friend. If her friend smokes, her behavior is high in consensus. If only
Angie smokes it is low.

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Table 2. Casual Beliefs through Consistency,
Consensus, and Distinctiveness
Information Predicted Example
Combination Attribution
High Consistency Personal Cause Situation: Orly Imperial expresses
Low Consensus dissatisfaction every time he is assigned the
Low Distinctiveness task of proofreading. Other employees are not
dissatisfied when asked to proofread. Steve
expresses dissatisfaction on just about every
task he is assigned.

Perceived cause: Most likely cause of Orly’s

dissatisfaction is something to do with his
personal characteristics(e.g., he is a chronic
complainer.)
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Table 2. Casual Beliefs through Consistency,
Consensus, and Distinctiveness
Information Predicted Example
Combination Attribution
High Consistency Environmental Situation: Orly Imperial expresses
High Consensus Cause dissatisfaction every time he is assigned
High Distinctiveness the task of proofreading. Other employees
also express dissatisfaction when asked to
proofread. Steve is not dissatisfied with
other tasks to which he is assigned.

Perceived cause: Most likely cause of

Orly’s dissatisfaction is something to do
with the task itself (e.,g proofreading is
sboring). 72
 Table 2. Casual Beliefs through Consistency,
Consensus, and Distinctiveness
Information Combination Predicted Example
Attribution
Low Consistency Circumstantial Situation: Orly Imperial expresses
Low Consensus Cause dissatisfaction when he is assigned the task
High Distinctiveness of proofreading. Other employees are not
dissatisfied when asked to proofread. Steve
has not expressed dissatisfaction when
assigned to proofread in the past.

Perceived cause: Most likely cause of Orly’s

dissatisfaction is something related to the
momentary circumstances surrounding his
task assignment(e,g. he does not feel well,
does not like the way he was asked to do the 73
job by his supervisor, etc.)
Kelley’s Attribution Theory
According to Kelley people fall back on past experience and look for
either.

• Multiple necessary causes – For instance, people see an athlete win a

marathon and they reason that she must be very fit, highly motivated,
have trained hard etc. and that she must have all those to win.
• Multiple sufficient causes – To illustration, people see an athlete fail a
drug test and they reason that she may be trying to cheat, or have taken
a banned substance by accident or been tricked into taking it her by her
coach. Any one reason would be sufficient.

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Bernard Weiner’s Model of Attribution
Bernard Weiner proposed a theory that looked at how people interpret
success and failure. According to Weiner, humans feel the need to explain
both success and failure, although this need is more prevalent in
situations in which the outcome was not unexpected. People attribute
their success and failures to four things.

• Ability i.e. “I have always been a good teacher”

• Effort i.e. “I worked hard and studied those lessons for hours”
• Task difficulty i.e. “Those lessons were really easy”
• Luck i.e. “I was lucky I was already familiar with those lessons before”
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Bernard Weiner’s Model of Attribution
In addition he categorized attribution characteristics into three casual
dimensions which are locus, stability and controllability.

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Bernard Weiner’s Model of Attribution
1. Locus – This refers to whether the cause of the event is perceived as
internal to the individual or external.
If a learner believes that she failed an exam because she lacks ability,
she is choosing an internal cause because ability is internal to the learner.
In contrast, if a learner believes that he failed an exam because the
teacher is incompetent, he is choosing an external cause because
teacher incompetence is external to the student.

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Bernard Weiner’s Model of Attribution
2. Stability – This refers to whether the cause is stable or unstable
across time and situations.

If a learner believes that he failed a science exam because he lacks

ability in science, then his cause is stable, particularly if he believes that
of ability in science is a permanent quality.

In contrast, if a learner believes that he failed the exam because he was ill
at the time of the exam, then the cause is unstable in cases in which the
illness is a temporary factor. When a student experiences success,
attributions to stable causes lead to positive expectations for success in
the future. In the face of failure, however, attributions to stable causes can 78
result in low expectations for the future.
Bernard Weiner’s Model of Attribution
3. Controllability – refers to whether the cause of the event is perceived
as being under the control of the individual.

If a runner believes that he lost a race because he did not get enough
practice before the event, the cause is controllable because he could
have decided to spend more time practicing;
in contrast, if he feels that he lost the race because he simply lacks ability
as a runner, then the cause is uncontrollable.

By definition, only internal attributions can be considered controllable.

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Attribution Biases
Attribution bias is when individuals make an assumption about others
without having all the data they need to be accurate. In the business
environment, this is a challenge because this would lead to a great deal
of confusion and miscommunication, which would impact how the
company rates. It would also cause or support politics when individuals
would take what they assumed and act on it without taking the time to
think through the issue and get the real facts.

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Attribution Biases
There are two different types of bias errors.

First is self-serving bias, where individuals attributes positive dealings to

their own character and negative dealings to external factors. It’s easy to
see why this is viewed as self-serving.

The other one is the fundamental attribution error when a person assign
blame or a cause of something to the person themselves and does not
take into account external issues.

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thank you