Perception, Attribution, Personality & Motivation: The Basics of Perception & Perception Process

Chapter 3: Perception, Attribution, Personality & Motivation1
Perception, Attribution, Personality

& Motivation
The Basics of Perception & Perception Process
What Is Perception, and Why Is It Important?
Definition: Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions
in order to give meaning to their environment.
Why is this important to the study of OB?
• Because people’s behavior is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself?
A. Factors Influencing Perception
1. Factors that shape (and can distort perception):
• Perceiver
• Target
• Situation
2. When an individual looks at a target and attempts to interpret what he or she sees, that
interpretation is heavily influenced by personal characteristics of the individual perceiver.
3. The more relevant personal characteristics affecting perception of the perceiver are attitudes,
motives, interests, past experiences, and expectations.
4. Characteristics of the target can also affect what is being perceived. This would include
attractiveness, gregariousness, and our tendency to group similar things together. For example,
members of a group with clearly distinguishable features or color are often perceived as alike in
other, unrelated characteristics as well.
5. The context in which we see objects or events also influences our attention. This could include
time, heat, light, or other situational factors.
Person Perception: Making Judgments about Others
A. Attribution Theory
1. Our perceptions of people differ from our perceptions of inanimate objects.
• We make inferences about the actions of people that we do not make about inanimate objects.
• Nonliving objects are subject to the laws of nature.
• People have beliefs, motives, or intentions.
2. Our perception and judgment of a person’s actions are influenced by these assumptions.
3. Attribution theory suggests that when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to determine
whether it was internally or externally caused. That determination depends largely on three factors:
• Distinctiveness
• Consensus
• Consistency
4. Clarification of the differences between internal and external causation:
• Internally caused behaviors are those that are believed to be under the personal control of the
individual.
• Externally caused behavior is seen as resulting from outside causes; that is, the person is seen
as having been forced into the behavior by the situation.
5. Distinctiveness refers to whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations.
What we want to know is whether the observed behavior is unusual.
• If it is, the observer is likely to give the behavior an external attribution.

• If this action is not unusual, it will probably be judged as internal.
6. Consensus occurs if everyone who is faced with a similar situation responds in the same way. If
consensus is high, you would be expected to give an external attribution to the employee’s tardiness,
whereas if other employees who took the same route made it to work on time, your conclusion as to
causation would be internal.
7. Consistency in a person’s actions. Does the person respond the same way over time? The more
consistent the behavior, the more the observer is inclined to attribute it to internal causes.
8. Fundamental Attribution Error
• There is substantial evidence that we have a tendency to underestimate the influence of

external factors and overestimate the influence of internal or personal factors.
• There is also a tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors
such as ability or effort while putting the blame for failure on external factors such as luck.
This is called the “self-serving bias” and suggests that feedback provided to employees will
be distorted by recipients.
9. Are these errors or biases that distort attribution universal across different cultures? While there is no
definitive answer there is some preliminary evidence that indicates cultural differences:
• Korean managers found that, contrary to the self-serving bias, they tended to accept
responsibility for group failure.
• Attribution theory was developed largely based on experiments with Americans and Western
Europeans.
• The Korean study suggests caution in making attribution theory predictions in non-Western
societies, especially in countries with strong collectivist traditions.
B. Frequently Used Shortcuts in Judging Others
i. We use a number of shortcuts when we judge others. An understanding of these

shortcuts can be helpful toward recognizing when they can result in significant distortions.
ii. Selective Perception
• Any characteristic that makes a person, object, or event stand out will increase
the probability that it will be perceived.
• It is impossible for us to assimilate everything we see—only certain stimuli

can be taken in.
• A classic example:
a. Dearborn and Simon performed a perceptual study in which 23 business

executives read a comprehensive case describing the organization and activities of a steel
company.
b. The results along with other results of the study, led the researchers to
conclude that the participants perceived aspects of a situation that were specifically related to the
activities and goals of the unit to which they were attached.
c. A group’s perception of organizational activities is selectively altered to align

with the vested interests they represent.
d. Selectivity works as a shortcut in judging other people by allowing us to

“speed-read” others, but not without the risk of drawing an inaccurate picture. Because we see
what we want to see, we can draw unwarranted conclusions from an ambiguous situation.
3. Halo Effect
a. The halo effect occurs when we draw a general impression on the basis of a single
characteristic:
a. This phenomenon frequently occurs when students appraise their classroom instructor.
b. Students may give prominence to a single trait such as enthusiasm and allow their entire
evaluation to be tainted by how they judge the instructor on that one trait.
• The reality of the halo effect was confirmed in a classic study.
a) Subjects were given a list of traits such as intelligent, skillful, practical, industrious, determined, and
warm, and were asked to evaluate the person to whom those traits applied. When the word “warm”
was substituted with “cold” the subjects changed their evaluation of the person.
b) The experiment showed that subjects were allowing a single trait to influence their overall impression
of the person being judged.
c) Research suggests that it is likely to be most extreme when the traits to be perceived are ambiguous
in behavioral terms, when the traits have moral overtones, and when the perceiver is judging traits
with which he or she has had limited experience.
4. Contrast Effects
• We do not evaluate a person in isolation. Our reaction to one person is influenced by other persons
we have recently encountered.
• For example, an interview situation in which one sees a pool of job applicants can distort perception.
Distortions in any given candidate’s evaluation can occur as a result of his or her place in the
interview schedule.
5. Projection
• This tendency to attribute one’s own characteristics to other people—which is called projection—can
distort perceptions made about others.
• When managers engage in projection, they compromise their ability to respond to individual
differences. They tend to see people as more homogeneous than they really are.
6. Stereotyping
• Stereotyping—judging someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which he or she
belongs
• Generalization is not without advantages. It ius a means of simplifying a complex world, and it
permits us to maintain consistency. The problem, of course, is when we inaccurately stereotype.
• In organizations, we frequently hear comments that represent stereotypes based on gender, age, race,
ethnicity, and even weight.
• From a perceptual standpoint, if people expect to see these stereotypes, that is what they will
perceive, whether or not they are accurate.
C. Specific Applications in Organizations
1. Employment Interview
• Evidence indicates that interviewers make perceptual judgments that are often inaccurate.
• In addition, agreement among interviewers is often poor. Different interviewers see different things in
the same candidate and thus arrive at different conclusions about the applicant.
• Interviewers generally draw early impressions that become very quickly entrenched. Studies indicate
that most interviewers’ decisions change very little after the first four or five minutes of the
interview.
• Because interviews usually have so little consistent structure and interviewers vary in terms of what
they are looking for in a candidate, judgments of the same candidate can vary widely.
2. Performance Expectations
• Evidence demonstrates that people will attempt to validate their perceptions of reality, even when
those perceptions are faulty.
• Self-fulfilling prophecy or Pygmalion effect characterizes the fact that people’s expectations
determine their behavior. Expectations become reality.
• A study was undertaken with 105 soldiers in the American Defense Forces who were taking a fifteen-
week combat command course. Soldiers were randomly divided and identified as having high
potential, normal potential, and potential not known. Instructors got better results from the high
potential group because they expected it confirming the effect of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
3. Performance Evaluation
• An employee’s performance appraisal is very much dependent on the perceptual process.
• Although the appraisal can be objective, many jobs are evaluated in subjective terms. Subjective
measures are, by definition, judgmental.
• To the degree that managers use subjective measures in appraising employees, what the evaluator
perceives to be good or bad employee characteristics or behaviors will significantly influence the
outcome of the appraisal.
4. Employee Effort
• An individual’s future in an organization is usually not dependent on performance alone. An

assessment of an individual’s effort is a subjective judgment susceptible to perceptual distortions and
bias.
Attribution
What is attribution theory?
A. Background on attribution theory and the importance of attributions.
1. Attribution theory aids in perceptual interpretation by focusing on how people attempt to do

the following:
a. Understand the cause(s) of a certain event.
b. Assess responsibility for the outcomes of the event.
c. Evaluate the personal qualities of the people involved in the event.
2. Attribution theory is concerned with the question of whether one’s behavior has been
internally or externally caused. Internal causes are believed to under an individual’s control,
whereas external causes are seen as outside a person’s control.
3. Three factors influence whether a person’s behavior is attributed to internal or external

causes. These factors are: distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency.
a. Distinctiveness considers how consistent a person’s behavior is across different situations.
b. Consensus takes into account how likely all those facing a similar situation are to respond
in the same way.
c. Consistency concerns whether an individual responds the same way across time.
B. Attribution errors.
1. The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to underestimate the influence of situational
factors and to overestimate the influence of personal factors in evaluating someone else’s
behavior.
2. A self-serving bias is the tendency to deny personal responsibility for performance problems
but to accept personal responsibility for performance success
C. Attributions Across Cultures
1. Research on the self-serving bias and fundamental attribution error has been done in cultures
outside the United States with unexpected results.
2. Differing cultural values appear to play a role in attributions of internal and external causes.
Certain cultures, such as the United States, tend to overemphasize internal causes and
underestimate external causes.
3. Perceptions and attributions can be managed effectively by doing the following

a. Be self-aware.
b. Seek a wide range of differing information.
c. Try to see a situation as others would.

Personality
A. What Is Personality?
1. Personality is a dynamic concept describing the growth and development of a person’s whole
psychological system--it looks at some aggregate whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.
2. Gordon Allport coined the most frequent used definition:
1. Personality—“the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems

that determine his unique adjustments to his environment”
3. Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others.
4. It is most often described in terms of measurable traits that a person exhibits.
B. Personality Determinants
1. An early argument centered on whether or not personality was the result of heredity or of
environment.
• Personality appears to be a result of both influences.
• Today, we recognize a third factor—the situation.
2. Heredity
• Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception.
• The heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual’s personality
is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes.
• Three different streams of research lend some credibility to the heredity argument:
a. The genetic underpinnings of human behavior and temperament among

young children. Evidence demonstrates that traits such as shyness, fear, and distress are most
likely caused by inherited genetic characteristics.
b. The study of twins who were separated at birth. Genetics accounts for
about 50 percent of the variation in personality differences and over 30 percent of occupational
and leisure interest variation.
c. The consistency in job satisfaction over time and across situations.

Individual job satisfaction is remarkably stable over time. This is indicates that satisfaction is
determined by something inherent in the person.
• Personality characteristics are not completely dictated by heredity. If they were, they would
be fixed at birth and no amount of experience could alter them.
3. Environment
• Factors that exert pressures on our personality formation:
a. The culture in which we are raised

b. Early conditioning
c. Norms among our family
d. Friends and social groups
• The environment we are exposed to plays a substantial role in shaping our personalities.
• Culture establishes the norms, attitudes, and values passed from one generation to the next
and create consistencies over time.
• The arguments for heredity or environment as the primary determinant of personality are both
important.
• Heredity sets the parameters or outer limits, but an individual’s full potential will be
determined by how well he or she adjusts to the demands and requirements of the
environment.
4. Situation
• Influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality
• The different demands of different situations call forth different aspects of one’s personality.
• There is no classification scheme that tells the impact of various types of situations.
• Situations seem to differ substantially in the constraints they impose on behavior.
Personality Traits
1) Early work revolved around attempts to identify and label enduring characteristics.
• Popular characteristics include shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, ambitious, loyal, and timid.
These are personality traits.
• The more consistent the characteristic, the more frequently it occurs, the more important it is.
2) Early research on personality traits resulted in isolating large numbers of traits—17,953 in one study
alone—that made it impossible to predict behavior.
3) One researcher reduced a set of 171 traits to sixteen personality factors, or primary, traits.
4) The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
• One of the most widely used personality frameworks is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI).
• It is 100-question personality test that asks people how they usually feel or act in particular
situations.
• Individuals are classified as:
a. Extroverted or introverted (E or I).

b. Sensing or intuitive (S or N).
c. Thinking or feeling (T or F).
d. Perceiving or judging (P or J).
• These classifications are then combined into sixteen personality types. For example:
a. INTJs are visionaries. They usually have original minds and great drive for their
own ideas and purposes. They are characterized as skeptical, critical, independent,
determined, and often stubborn.
b. ESTJs are organizers. They are realistic, logical, analytical, decisive, and have a
natural head for business or mechanics. They like to organize and run activities.
c. The ENTP type is a conceptualizer. He or she is innovative, individualistic,

versatile, and attracted to entrepreneurial ideas. This person tends to be resourceful in solving
challenging problems but may neglect routine assignments.
• •More than 2 million people a year take the MBTI in the United States alone, however, there is no hard
evidence that the MBTI is a valid measure of personality.
D. The Big Five Model
1. An impressive body of research supports that five basic dimensions underlie all other personality
dimensions. The five basic dimensions are:
• Extraversion. Comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive,

and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet.
• Agreeableness. Individual’s propensity to defer to others. High agreeableness people—

cooperative, warm, and trusting. Low agreeableness people—cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic.
• Conscientiousness. A measure of reliability. A high conscientious person is responsible,

organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily
distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.
• Emotional stability. A person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional
stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be
nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.
• Openness to experience. The range of interests and fascination with novelty. Extremely open
people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Those at the other end of the openness
category are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.
2. Research found important relationships between these personality dimensions and job performance.
• A broad spectrum of occupations was examined in addition to job performance ratings, training
proficiency (performance during training programs), and personnel data such as salary level.
• The results showed that conscientiousness predicted job performance for all occupational groups.
• Individuals who are dependable, reliable, careful, thorough, able to plan, organized, hardworking,
persistent, and achievement-oriented tend to have higher job performance.
• Employees higher in conscientiousness develop higher levels of job knowledge.
• For the other personality dimensions, predictability depended upon both the performance criterion
and the occupational group.
• Extraversion predicted performance in managerial and sales positions.
• Openness to experience is important in predicting training proficiency.
E. Major Personality Attributes Influencing OB
1. Locus of control
• A person’s perception of the source of his/her fate is termed locus of control.
• Internals: People who believe that they are masters of their own fate.
• Externals: People who believe they are pawns of fate.

• Individuals who rate high in externality are less satisfied with their jobs, have higher absenteeism
rates, are more alienated from the work setting, and are less involved on their jobs than are internals.
• Internals, facing the same situation, attribute organizational outcomes to their own actions. Internals
believe that health is substantially under their own control through proper habits; their incidences of
sickness and, hence, of absenteeism, are lower.
2. There is not a clear relationship between locus of control and turnover because there are
opposing forces at work.
3. Internals generally perform better on their jobs, but one should consider differences in jobs.
• Internals search more actively for information before making a decision, are more motivated
to achieve, and make a greater attempt to control their environment, therefore, internals do
well on sophisticated tasks.
• Internals are more suited to jobs that require initiative and independence of action.
• Externals are more compliant and willing to follow directions, and do well on jobs that are
well structured and routine and in which success depends heavily on complying with the
direction of others.
4. Machiavellianism
• Named after Niccolo Machiavelli, who wrote in the sixteenth century on how to gain and use power.
• An individual high in Machiavellianism is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that
ends can justify means.
• High Machs manipulate more, win more, are persuaded less, and persuade others more.
• High Mach outcomes are moderated by situational factors and flourish when they interact face to face
with others, rather than indirectly, and when the situation has a minimum number of rules and
regulations, thus allowing latitude for improvisation.
• High Machs make good employees in jobs that require bargaining skills or that offer substantial
rewards for winning.
5. Self-esteem
• Self-esteem—the degree to which people like or dislike themselves.
• (SE) is directly related to expectations for success.
• Individuals with high self-esteem will take more risks in job selection and are more likely to choose
unconventional jobs than people with low self-esteem.
• The most generalizable finding is that low SEs are more susceptible to external influence than are
high SEs. Low SEs are dependent on the receipt of positive evaluations from others.
• In managerial positions, low SEs will tend to be concerned with pleasing others.
• High SEs are more satisfied with their jobs than are low SEs.
6. Self-monitoring
• It refers to an individual’s ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors.
• Individuals high in self-monitoring show considerable adaptability. They are highly sensitive to
external cues, can behave differently in different situations, and are capable of presenting striking
contradictions between their public persona and their private self.
• Low self-monitors cannot disguise themselves in that way. They tend to display their true
dispositions and attitudes in every situation resulting in a high behavioral consistency between who
they are and what they do.
• The research on self-monitoring is in its infancy, so predictions must be guarded. Preliminary

evidence suggests:
a. High self-monitors tend to pay closer attention to the behavior of others.
b. High self-monitoring managers tend to be more mobile in their careers and receive
more promotions.
c. High self-monitor is capable of putting on different “faces” for different audiences.
7. Risk taking
• The propensity to assume or avoid risk has been shown to have an impact on how long it takes
managers to make a decision and how much information they require before making their choice.
• High risk-taking managers made more rapid decisions and used less information in making their
choices.
• While managers in organizations are generally risk-aversive, there are still individual differences on
this dimension. As a result, it makes sense to recognize these differences and even to consider
aligning risk-taking propensity with specific job demands.
8. Type A
• A Type A personality is “aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and
more in less and less time, and, if required to do so, against the opposing efforts of other things or
other persons.’’
• They are always moving, walking, and eating rapidly, are impatient with the rate at which most
events take place, are doing do two or more things at once and cannot cope with leisure time. They
are obsessed with numbers, measuring their success in terms of how many or how much of
everything they acquire.
9. Type B
• Type Bs never suffers from a sense of time urgency with its accompanying impatience and feels no
need to display or discuss either their achievements or accomplishments unless such exposure is
demanded by the situation.
• Play for fun and relaxation, rather than to exhibit their superiority at any cost and can relax without
guilt.
10. Type A’s operate under moderate to high levels of stress.
• They subject themselves to continuous time pressure, are fast workers, quantity over quality, work
long hours, and are also rarely creative.
• Their behavior is easier to predict than that of Type Bs.
11. Are Type As or Type Bs more successful?
• Type Bs are the ones who appear to make it to the top.
• Great salespersons are usually Type As; senior executives are usually Type Bs.
The Basic of Motiavtion

A. What is Motivation?
1. Many people incorrectly view motivation as a personal trait—that is, some have it and others do not.
Motivation is the result of the interaction of the individual and the situation.
2. Definition: Motivation is “the processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and
persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.”
3. We will narrow the focus to organizational goals in order to reflect our singular interest in work-
related behavior.
4. The three key elements of our definition are intensity, direction, and persistence:
• Intensity is concerned with how hard a person tries. This is the element most of us focus on
when we talk about motivation.
• Direction is the orientation that benefits the organization.

• Persistence is a measure of how long a person can maintain his/her effort. Motivated
individuals stay with a task long enough to achieve their goal
B. Early Theories of Motivation

1. In the 1950s three specific theories were formulated and are the best known: hierarch of needs
theory, Theories X and Y, and the two-factor theory.
2. These early theories are important to understand because they represent a foundation from which
contemporary theories have grown. Practicing managers still regularly use these theories and their
terminology in explaining employee motivation.
C. Hierarchy of Needs Theory

1. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is the most well-known theory of motivation. He hypothesized
that within every human being there exists a hierarchy of five needs: .
• Physiological: Includes hunger, thirst, shelter, sex, and other bodily needs
• Safety: Includes security and protection from physical and emotional harm
• Social: Includes affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship
• Esteem: Includes internal esteem factors such as self-respect, autonomy, and achievement; and
external esteem factors such as status, recognition, and attention
• Self-actualization: The drive to become what one is capable of becoming; includes growth,
achieving one’s potential, and self-fulfillment
2. As a need becomes substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant. No need is ever fully
gratified; a substantially satisfied need no longer motivates.
3. Maslow separated the five needs into higher and lower orders.
• Physiological and safety needs are described as lower-order.

• Social, esteem, and self-actualization are as higher-order needs
• Higher-order needs are satisfied internally.
• Lower-order needs are predominantly satisfied externally.
3. Maslow’s need theory has received wide recognition, particularly among practicing managers. Research
does not generally validate the theory.
4. Maslow provided no empirical substantiation, and several studies that sought to validate the theory
found no support for it.
D. Theory X and Theory Y
1. Douglas McGregor concluded that a manager’s view of the nature of human beings is
based on a certain grouping of assumptions and he or she tends to mold his or her behavior toward
employees according to these assumptions.
2. Theory X assumptions are basically negative.
• Employees inherently dislike work and, whenever possible, will attempt to avoid it.
• Since employees dislike work, they must be coerced, controlled, or threatened with punishment.
• Employees will avoid responsibilities and seek formal direction whenever possible.
• Most workers place security above all other factors and will display little ambition.
3. Theory Y assumptions are basically positive.
1. Employees can view work as being as natural as rest or play.
2. People will exercise self-direction and self-control if they are committed to the objectives.
3. The average person can learn to accept, even seek, responsibility.
4. The ability to make innovative decisions is widely dispersed throughout the population.
4. What are the implications for managers? This is best explained by using Maslow’s
framework:
• Theory X assumes that lower-order needs dominate individuals.
• Theory Y assumes that higher-order needs dominate individuals.
• McGregor himself held to the belief that Theory Y assumptions were more valid
than Theory X.
• There is no evidence to confirm that either set of assumptions is valid.
• Either Theory X or Theory Y assumptions may be appropriate in a particular

situation.
E. Two-Factor Theory
1. The Two-Factor Theory is sometimes also called motivation-hygiene theory.
2. Proposed by psychologist Frederick Herzberg when he investigated the question, “What do

people want from their jobs?” He asked people to describe, in detail, situations in which they felt
exceptionally good or bad about their jobs. These responses were then tabulated and categorized.
3. From the categorized responses, Herzberg concluded:
• Intrinsic factors, such as advancement, recognition, responsibility, and achievement seem to be

related to job satisfaction.
• Dissatisfied respondents tended to cite extrinsic factors, such as supervision, pay, company policies,
and working conditions.
• The opposite of satisfaction is not dissatisfaction.
• Removing dissatisfying characteristics from a job does not necessarily make the job satisfying.
4. Job satisfaction factors are separate and distinct from job dissatisfaction factors. Managers
who eliminate job dissatisfaction factors may not necessarily bring about motivation.
5. When hygiene factors are adequate, people will not be dissatisfied; neither will they be
satisfied. To motivate people, emphasize factors intrinsically rewarding that are associated with the
work itself or to outcomes directly derived from it.
6. Criticisms of the theory:
1. The procedure that Herzberg used is limited by its methodology.

2. The reliability of Herzberg’s methodology is questioned.
3. No overall measure of satisfaction was utilized.
4. Herzberg assumed a relationship between satisfaction and productivity, but the research methodology
he used looked only at satisfaction, not at productivity.
7. Regardless of criticisms, Herzberg’s theory has been widely read, and few managers are
unfamiliar with his recommendations.
• The popularity of vertically expanding jobs to allow workers greater responsibility can probably be
attributed to Herzberg’s findings.
• Contemporary Theories of Motivation
Contemporary Theories of Motivation
The following theories are considered contemporary not because they necessarily were developed recently,
but because they represent the current state of the art in explaining employee motivation.
A. ERG Theory
1. Clayton Alderfer reworked Maslow’s need hierarchy to align it with the empirical research.
His revised need hierarchy is labeled ERG theory.
2. Alderfer argues that there are three groups of core needs: existence, relatedness, and growth.
3. The existence group
• Provides our basic material existence requirements

• They include Maslow’s physiological and safety needs.
4. Relatedness
• The desire we have for maintaining important interpersonal relationships
• These social and status desires require interaction with others.
• They align with Maslow’s social need and the external component.
5. Growth needs
• An intrinsic desire for personal development

• These include the intrinsic component from Maslow’s esteem category and the characteristics
included under self-actualization.
6. In addition to collapsing Maslow’s five into three, Alderfer’s ERG theory also differs from
Maslow’s in that:
• More than one need may be operative at the same time.
• If the gratification of a higher-level need is stifled, the desire to satisfy a lower-level need increases.
• ERG theory does not assume that there exists a rigid hierarchy. A person can be working on growth
even though existence or relatedness needs are unsatisfied, or all three need categories could be
operating at the same time.
7. ERG theory also contains a frustration-regression dimension.
• Maslow argued that an individual would stay at a certain need level until that need was satisfied.
ERG argues that multiple needs can be operating as motivators at the same time.
• ERG theory notes that when a higher-order need level is frustrated, the individual’s desire to increase
a lower-level need takes place.
8. ERG theory is more consistent with our knowledge of individual differences among people.
1. Variables such as education, family background, and cultural environment can alter the importance
or driving force that a group of needs holds for a particular individual.
2. The evidence demonstrating that people in other cultures rank the need categories differently would
be consistent with ERG theory.
B. McClelland’s Theory of Needs

1. The theory focuses on three needs: achievement, power, and affiliation.
• Need for achievement: The drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a set of standards, to strive to
succeed
• Need for power: The need to make others behave in a way that they would not have behaved
otherwise
• Need for affiliation: The desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships
2. Some people have a compelling drive to succeed. They are striving for personal achievement rather than
the rewards of success per se. This drive is the achievement need (nAch).
3. McClelland found that high achievers differentiate themselves from others by their desire to do things
better.
• They seek personal responsibility for finding solutions to problems.

• They want to receive rapid feedback on their performance so they can tell easily whether they are
improving or not.
• They can set moderately challenging goals. High achievers are not gamblers; they dislike succeeding
by chance.
• High achievers perform best when they perceive their probability of success as 50-50.
• They like to set goals that require stretching themselves a little.
4. The need for power (nPow) is the desire to have impact, to be influential, and to control others.
• Individuals high in nPow enjoy being “in charge.”

• Strive for influence over others
• Prefer to be placed into competitive and status-oriented situations
• Tend to be more concerned with prestige and gaining influence over others than with effective
performance
5. The third need isolated by McClelland is affiliation (nAfl).
• This need has received the least attention from researchers.

• Individuals with a high affiliation motive strive for friendship.
• Prefer cooperative situations rather than competitive ones
• Desire relationships involving a high degree of mutual understanding
6. Relying on an extensive amount of research, some reasonably well-supported predictions can be made
based on the relationship between achievement need and job performance.
• First, as shown in Exhibit 6-4, individuals with a high need to achieve prefer job situations with
personal responsibility, feedback, and an intermediate degree of risk. When these characteristics are
prevalent, high achievers will be strongly motivated.
• Second, a high need to achieve does not necessarily lead to being a good manager, especially in large
organizations. People with a high achievement need are interested in how well they do personally and
not in influencing others to do well.
• Third, the needs for affiliation and power tend to be closely related to managerial success. The best
managers are high in their need for power and low in their need for affiliation.
• Finally, employees have been successfully trained to stimulate their achievement need. Trainers have
been effective in teaching individuals to think in terms of accomplishments, winning, and success,
and then helping them to learn how to act in a high achievement way by preferring situations where
they have personal responsibility, feedback, and moderate risks.
C. Cognitive Evaluation Theory
1. In the late 1960s, one researcher proposed that the introduction of extrinsic rewards, such as pay, for
work effort that had been previously intrinsically rewarding due to the pleasure associated with the
content of the work itself, would tend to decrease the overall level of motivation.
2. This has come to be called the cognitive evaluation theory. Well researched and supported theorists have
assumed that intrinsic motivations, such as achievement, etc., are independent of extrinsic motivators
such as high pay, promotions, etc.
3. Cognitive evaluation theory suggests otherwise. When extrinsic rewards are used by organizations as
payoffs for superior performance, the intrinsic rewards, which are derived from individuals doing what
they like, are reduced.
4. The popular explanation is that the individual experiences a loss of control over his or her own behavior
so that the previous intrinsic motivation diminishes.
5. Furthermore, the elimination of extrinsic rewards can produce a shift—from an external to an internal
explanation—in an individual’s perception of causation of why he or she works on a task.
6. If the cognitive evaluation theory is valid, it should have major implications for managerial practices.
• If pay or other extrinsic rewards are to be effective motivators, they should be made contingent on
an individual’s performance.
• Cognitive evaluation theorists would argue that this will tend only to decrease the internal
satisfaction that the individual receives from doing the job.
• If correct, it would make sense to make an individual’s pay non-contingent on performance in

order to avoid decreasing intrinsic motivation.
7. While supported in a number of studies, cognitive evaluation theory has also met with attacks,
specifically on the methodology used and in the interpretation of the findings.
8. Further research is needed to clarify some of the current ambiguity. The evidence does lead us to
conclude that the interdependence of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards is a real phenomenon.
9. Its impact on employee motivation at work may be considerably less than originally thought.
• First, many of the studies testing the theory were done with students.
• Second, evidence indicates that very high intrinsic motivation levels are strongly resistant to the
detrimental impacts of extrinsic rewards.
• The theory may have limited applicability to work organizations because most low-level jobs are not
inherently satisfying enough to foster high intrinsic interest, and many managerial and professional
positions offer intrinsic rewards.
D. Goal-Setting Theory
1. In the late 1960s, Edwin Locke proposed that intentions to work toward a goal are a
major source of work motivation.
2. Goals tell an employee what needs to be done and how much effort is needed. The
evidence strongly supports the value of goals.
3. Specific hard goals produce a higher level of output than do the generalized goals.
4. If factors like ability and acceptance of the goals are held constant, we can also state
that the more difficult the goal, the higher the level of performance.
5. People will do better when they get feedback on how well they are progressing toward
their goals. Self-generated feedback is more powerful a motivator than externally generated feedback.
6. The evidence is mixed regarding the superiority of participative over assigned goals. If
employees have the opportunity to participate in the setting of their own goals, will they try harder?
• A major advantage of participation may be in increasing acceptance.

• If people participate in goal setting, they are more likely to accept even a difficult goal than if
they are arbitrarily assigned it by their boss.
7. There are contingencies in goal-setting theory. In addition to feedback, four other factors influence the
goals-performance relationship.
1. Goal commitment: Goal-setting theory presupposes that an individual is committed to the goal.
2. Adequate self-efficacy: Self-efficacy refers to an individual’s belief that he or she is capable of

performing a task. The higher your self-efficacy, the more confidence you have in your ability to
succeed in a task.
3. Task characteristics: Individual goal setting does not work equally well on all tasks. Goals seem to
have a more substantial effect on performance when tasks are simple, well-learned, and independent.
4. National culture: Goal-setting theory is culture bound and it is well adapted to North American
cultures.
8. Intentions, as articulated in terms of hard and specific goals, are a potent motivating force. However,
there is no evidence that such goals are associated with increased job satisfaction.
E. Reinforcement Theory
1. In contrast to Goal-Setting theory, which is a cognitive approach, Reinforcement theory is behavioristic
approach. It argues that reinforcement conditions behavior.
• Reinforcement theorists see behavior as being environmentally caused.
• Reinforcement theory ignores the inner state of the individual and concentrates solely on what
happens to a person when he or she takes some action.
2. The two theories are clearly at odds philosophically. Reinforcement is undoubtedly an important
influence on behavior, but few scholars are prepared to argue that it is the only influence.
F. Flow and Intrinsic Motivation Theory
1. A state of absolute concentration that occurs when doing a favorite activity. You lose yourself in the task
and often lose track of time. Athletes call this being “in the zone.”
2. A key element of the flow experience is that its motivation is unrelated to end goals.
• When a person experiences the flow he or she is completely intrinsically motivated.
• There is extreme concentration during the activity. It is when the individual looks back on the
experience he or she is flooded with feelings of gratitude for the experience.
• It is the desire to repeat the experience that creates continued motivation.
3. Conditions likely to produce a flow state:
• Task is challenging and require high level of skill

• They were goal directed and received feedback on how they were doing.
• Task demanded total concentration and creativity.
• More often to occur at work than home (flow is not associated with leisure.
4. A Model of Intrinsic Motivation, as described by Ken Thomas, is an extension of the flow concept. He
identifies the key elements that create intrinsic motivation as:
• Choice: The ability to select task activities that make sense to you and perform them as you think
appropriate.
• Competence: The accomplishment you feel in skillfully performing task activities you have
chosen.
• Meaningfulness: The opportunity to pursue a worthy task purpose, that matters in the larger
scheme of things.
• Progress: Feeling you are making significant advancement in achieving the task’s purpose.
5. Studies with managerial staff demonstrate that these four components are significantly related to
improved job satisfaction and increased performance.
G. Equity Theory
1. What role does equity play in motivation? An employee with several years experience can be frustrated
to find out that a recent college grad hired at a salary level higher than he or she is currently earnings,
causing motivation levels to drop. Why?
2. Employees make comparisons of their job inputs and outcomes relative to those of others.
• If we perceive our ratio to be equal to that of the relevant others with whom we compare ourselves, a
state of equity is said to exist. We perceive our situation as fair.
• When we see the ratio as unequal, we experience equity tension.
3. Additionally, the referent that an employee selects adds to the complexity of equity theory. There are
four referent comparisons that an employee can use:
• Self-inside: An employee’s experiences in a different position inside his or her current organization
• Self-outside: An employee’s experiences in a situation or position outside his or her current

organization
• Other-inside: Another individual or group of individuals inside the employee’s organization
• Other-outside: Another individual or group of individuals outside the employee’s organization
4. Which referent an employee chooses will be influenced by the information the employee holds about
referents, as well as by the attractiveness of the referent.
• There are four moderating variables: gender, length of tenure, level in the organization, and amount
of education or professionalism.
• Men and women prefer same-sex comparisons. This also suggests that if women are tolerant of lower
pay, it may be due to the comparative standard they use.
• Employees in jobs that are not sex-segregated will make more cross-sex comparisons than those in
jobs that are either male- or female-dominated.
6. Employees with short tenure in their current organizations tend to have little information about others.
7. Employees with long tenure rely more heavily on coworkers for comparison.
8. Upper-level employees tend to be more cosmopolitan and have better information about people in other
organizations. Therefore, these types of employees will make more other-outside comparisons.
9. When employees perceive an inequity, they can be predicted to make one of six choices:
• Change their inputs.

• Change their outcomes.
• Distort perceptions of self.
• Distort perceptions of others.
• Choose a different referent.
• Leave the field.
10. The theory establishes the following propositions relating to inequitable pay:
• Given payment by time, over-rewarded employees will produce more than will equitably paid
employees.
• Given payment by quantity of production, over-rewarded employees will produce fewer, but
higher quality, units than will equitably paid employees.
• Given payment by time, under-rewarded employees will produce less or poorer quality of output.
• Given payment by quantity of production, under-rewarded employees will produce a large

number of low-quality units in comparison with equitably paid employees.
11. These propositions have generally been supported with a few minor qualifications.
• Inequities created by overpayment do not seem to have a very significant impact on behavior in
most work situations.
• Not all people are equity sensitive.
12. Employees also seem to look for equity in the distribution of other organizational rewards.
13. Finally, recent research has been directed at expanding what is meant by equity or fairness.
• Historically, equity theory focused on distributive justice or the perceived fairness of the amount
and allocation of rewards among individuals.
• Equity should also consider procedural justice, the perceived fairness of the process used to
determine the distribution of rewards.
• The evidence indicates that distributive justice has a greater influence on employee satisfaction
than procedural justice.
• Procedural justice tends to affect an employee’s organizational commitment, trust in his or her
boss, and intention to quit.
• By increasing the perception of procedural fairness, employees are likely to view their bosses and
the organization as positive even if they are dissatisfied with pay, promotions, and other personal
outcomes.
14. Equity theory demonstrates that, for most employees, motivation is influenced significantly by relative
rewards as well as by absolute rewards, but some key issues are still unclear.
I. Expectancy Theory
1. Expectancy theory is one of the most widely accepted explanations of motivation. Victor Vroom’s
expectancy theory has its critics but most of the research is supportive.
2. Expectancy theory argues that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength
of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that
outcome to the individual.
3. It says that an employee will be motivated to exert a high level of effort when he/she believes that:
• Effort will lead to a good performance appraisal.

• That a good appraisal will lead to organizational rewards.
• That the rewards will satisfy his/her personal goals.
4. Three key relationships.
• Effort-performance relationship: the probability perceived by the individual that exerting a given
amount of effort will lead to performance
• Performance-reward relationship: the degree to which the individual believes that performing at a
particular level will lead to the attainment of a desired outcome
• Rewards-personal goals relationship: the degree to which organizational rewards satisfy an

individual’s personal goals or needs and the attractiveness of those potential rewards for the
individual
5. Expectancy theory helps explain why a lot of workers merely do the minimum necessary to get by. For
example:
• If I give a maximum effort, will it be recognized in my performance appraisal?

• No, if the organization’s performance appraisal assesses nonperformance factors. The employee,
rightly or wrongly, perceives that his/her boss does not like him/her.
• If I get a good performance appraisal, will it lead to organizational rewards?

• Typically many employees see the performance-reward relationship in their job as weak.
• If I am rewarded, are the rewards ones that I find personally attractive?

• It is important the rewards being tailored to individual employee needs
6. The key to expectancy theory is the understanding of an individual’s goals and the linkage between effort
and performance, between performance and rewards, and finally, between the rewards and individual
goal satisfaction.
7. As a contingency model, expectancy theory recognizes that there is no universal principle for explaining
everyone’s motivations.
8. Attempts to validate the theory have been complicated by methodological criterion and measurement
problems.
• Published studies that purport to support or negate the theory must be viewed with caution.
• Importantly, most studies have failed to replicate the methodology as it was originally proposed.
• Some critics suggest that the theory has only limited use, arguing that it tends to be more valid for
predicting in situations where effort-performance and performance-reward linkages are clearly
perceived by the individual.
J. Don’t Forget Ability and Opportunity
1. Success on a job is facilitated or hindered by the existence or absence of support resources.

2. A popular although arguably simplistic way of thinking about employee performance is as a

function of the interaction of ability and motivation; that is, performance = f(A  M).
3. If either is inadequate, performance will be negatively affected. We need to add opportunity

to perform to our equation—performance = f(A  M  O).
4. When you attempt to assess why an employee may not be performing to the level that you
believe he or she is capable of, look to the environment to see if it is supportive.
Integrating Contemporary Theories of Motivation
1. Expectancy theory predicts that an employee will exert a high level of effort if he/she perceives that
there is a strong relationship between effort and performance, performance and rewards, and rewards and
satisfaction of personal goals.
2. Each of these relationships, in turn, is influenced by certain factors. For effort to lead to good
performance, the individual must have the requisite ability to perform, and the performance appraisal
system must be perceived as being fair and objective.
3. The final link in expectancy theory is the rewards-goals relationship.
4. ERG theory would come into play at this point. Motivation would be high to the degree that the
rewards an individual received for his or her high performance satisfied the dominant needs consistent
with his or her individual goals.
5. The model considers the achievement, need, reinforcement, and equity theories. High achievers are
internally driven as long as the jobs they are doing provide them with personal responsibility, feedback,
and moderate risks.
6. Reinforcement theory recognizes that the organization’s rewards reinforce the individual’s
performance.
7. Individuals will compare the rewards (outcomes) they receive from the inputs they make with the
outcome-input ratio of relevant others and inequities may influence the effort expended.
2. Maslow’s need hierarchy
• People start at the physiological level and then move progressively up the hierarchy in this order:
physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization. This hierarchy aligns with American
culture.
• In countries where uncertainty avoidance characteristics are strong, Japan, Greece and Mexico,
security needs would be on top of the need hierarchy. Countries like the Netherlands and Denmark
who score high on quality of life characteristics would have social needs at the top.
• The view that a high achievement need acts as an internal motivator presupposes two cultural
characteristics—a willingness to accept a moderate degree of risk and a concern with performance.
3. Equity theory
• It is based on the assumption that workers are highly sensitive to equity in reward allocations. In the
United States, equity is meant to be closely tying pay to performance.
• However, in collectivist cultures such as the former socialist countries, employees expect rewards to
reflect their individual needs as well as their performance. Moreover, consistent with a legacy of
communism and centrally planned economies, employees exhibited an entitlement attitude.
• There are cross-cultural consistencies.
• The desire for interesting work seems important to almost all workers.
• Growth, achievement, and responsibility were rated the top three and had identical rankings in
another study of several countries.
D. Alternative Development
1. Since decision makers seek a satisficing solution, there is a minimal use of creativity in the
search for alternatives. Efforts tend to be confined to the neighborhood of the current alternative.
2. Evidence indicates that decision-making is incremental rather than comprehensive. Decision

makers make successive limited comparisons. The picture that emerges is one of a decision maker who
takes small steps toward his or her objective.
E. Making Choices
1. In order to avoid information overload, decision makers rely on heuristics or judgmental shortcuts in
decision making.
• There are two common categories of heuristics—availability and representativeness. Each creates
biases in judgment.
• Another bias is the tendency to escalate commitment to a failing course of action.
2. Availability heuristic
• The availability heuristic is “the tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is
readily available to them.”
• Events that evoke emotions, that are particularly vivid, or that have occurred more recently tend to be
more available in our memory. Fore example, many more people suffer from fear of flying than fear
of driving in a car.
3. Representative heuristic
• To assess the likelihood of an occurrence by trying to match it with a preexisting category, managers
frequently predict the performance of a new product by relating it to a previous product’s success.
4. Escalation of commitment
• Escalation of commitment is an increased commitment to a previous decision in spite of negative

information.
• It has been well documented that individuals escalate commitment to a failing course of action when
they view themselves as responsible for the failure.
• Implications for the organizations:
a. An organization can suffer large losses when a manager continues to invest in a failed plan just to
prove his or her original decision was correct.
b. Consistency is a characteristic often associated with effective leaders. Managers might be

reluctant to change a failed course of action to appear consistent.

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Chapter 3: Perception, Attribution, Personality & Motivation1

Perception, Attribution, Personality

The Basics of Perception & Perception Process

What Is Perception, and Why Is It Important?

Why is this important to the study of OB?

A. Factors Influencing Perception

1. Factors that shape (and can distort perception):

Person Perception: Making Judgments about Others

1. Our perceptions of people differ from our perceptions of inanimate objects.

4. Clarification of the differences between internal and external causation:

• If it is, the observer is likely to give the behavior an external attribution.

8. Fundamental Attribution Error

• There is substantial evidence that we have a tendency to underestimate the influence of

B. Frequently Used Shortcuts in Judging Others

i. We use a number of shortcuts when we judge others. An understanding of these

ii. Selective Perception

• It is impossible for us to assimilate everything we see—only certain stimuli

a. Dearborn and Simon performed a perceptual study in which 23 business

c. A group’s perception of organizational activities is selectively altered to align

d. Selectivity works as a shortcut in judging other people by allowing us to

• The reality of the halo effect was confirmed in a classic study.

C. Specific Applications in Organizations

• An employee’s performance appraisal is very much dependent on the perceptual process.

• An individual’s future in an organization is usually not dependent on performance alone. An

A. Background on attribution theory and the importance of attributions.

1. Attribution theory aids in perceptual interpretation by focusing on how people attempt to do

a. Understand the cause(s) of a certain event.

b. Assess responsibility for the outcomes of the event.

c. Evaluate the personal qualities of the people involved in the event.

3. Three factors influence whether a person’s behavior is attributed to internal or external

a. Distinctiveness considers how consistent a person’s behavior is across different situations.

C. Attributions Across Cultures

3. Perceptions and attributions can be managed effectively by doing the following

b. Seek a wide range of differing information.

c. Try to see a situation as others would.

2. Gordon Allport coined the most frequent used definition:

1. Personality—“the dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems

4. It is most often described in terms of measurable traits that a person exhibits.

• Personality appears to be a result of both influences.

• Today, we recognize a third factor—the situation.

• Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception.

a. The genetic underpinnings of human behavior and temperament among

c. The consistency in job satisfaction over time and across situations.

• Factors that exert pressures on our personality formation:

a. The culture in which we are raised

• Influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality

• Situations seem to differ substantially in the constraints they impose on behavior.

4) The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

• Individuals are classified as:

a. Extroverted or introverted (E or I).

c. The ENTP type is a conceptualizer. He or she is innovative, individualistic,

D. The Big Five Model

• Extraversion. Comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive,

• Agreeableness. Individual’s propensity to defer to others. High agreeableness people—

• Conscientiousness. A measure of reliability. A high conscientious person is responsible,

• Employees higher in conscientiousness develop higher levels of job knowledge.

• Extraversion predicted performance in managerial and sales positions.

• Openness to experience is important in predicting training proficiency.

E. Major Personality Attributes Influencing OB