Chapter 3: Perceiving Ourselves and Others in Organizations Flashcards
self-concept
individual’s self-beliefs and self-evaluations
self-enhancement
person’s inherent motivation to have a positive self-concept (and to have others perceive him or her favorably), such as being competent, attractive, lucky, ethical, and important
self-verification
person’s inherent motivation to confirm and maintain his or her existing self-concept
self-efficacy
person’s belief that he or she has the ability, motivation, correct role perceptions, and favorable situation to complete a task successfully
locus of control
person’s general belief about the amount of control he or she has over personal life events
social identity theory
theory stating that people define themselves by the groups to which they belong or have an emotional attachment
perception
process of receiving information about and making sense of the world around us
selective attention
process of attending to some information received by our senses and ignoring other information
confirmation bias
processing of screening out information that is contrary to our values and assumptions, and to more readily accept confirming information
categorical thinking
organizing people and objects into preconceived categories that are stored in our long term memory
mental models
knowledge structures that we develop to describe, explain, and predict the world around us
stereotyping
process of assigning traits to people based on their membership in a social category
stereotype threat
individual’s concern about confirming a negative stereotype about his or
her group
attribution process
perceptual process of deciding whether an observed behavior or event is caused largely by internal or external factors
self-serving bias
tendency to attribute our favorable outcomes to internal factors and our failures to external factors
fundamental attribution error
tendency to see the person rather than the situation as the main cause of the person’s behaviour
self-fulfilling prophecy
perceptual process in which our expectations about another person cause that person to act more consistently with those expectations
positive organizational behavior
a perspective of organizational behavior that focuses on building positive qualities and traits within
individuals or institutions as opposed to focusing on what is wrong with them
halo effect
perceptual error whereby our general impression of a person, usually based on one prominent characteristic, colors our perception of other characteristics of that person
false-consensus effect
perceptual error in which we overestimate the extent to which others have beliefs
and characteristics similar to our own
recency effect
perceptual error in which the most recent information dominates our perception of others
primacy effect
perceptual error in which we quickly form an opinion of people based on the first information we receive
about them
Johari Window
model of mutual understanding that encourages disclosure and feedback to increase our own open area and reduce the blind, hidden, and unknown areas
contact hypothesis
theory stating that the more we interact with someone, the less prejudiced or perceptually biased we will be against
that person
