CHAPTER 4

SELF- CONCEPT,
PERCEPTIONS AND
ATTRIBUTIONS
SELF-CONCEPT
 People do not have common 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.
 THREE CONCEPTUAL
DIMENSIONS OF SELF –
CONCEPT WHICH INFLUENCES A
PERSON’S ADAPTABILITY AND
WELL BEING
1. Complexity
2. Consistency
3. Clarity
1. Complexity
-a person’s self-concept has higher complexity
when it consist of many categories
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 persons self
conceptions are clearly and confidently described,
internally consistent and stable across time.
SELF-ENHANCEMENT
 Is a desire to magnify positive aspects of self-
conceptions while isolating oneself from negative
feedback and information.
 Positively when people see their self concept in a
positive light, they have better mental health. On
the negative side, self-enhancement can result in
bad decisions such as overestimation of the
success in investments decisions by manager.
SELF-VERIFICATION
 It assumes that people work to preserve
their self-views by seeking to confirm them.
Its stabilizes a person’s self-concept which
helps guide his thought and actions.
SELF-VERIFICATIONS HAS NUMEROUS
IMPLICATIONS IN ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOR WHICH ARE:

1. It affects the perceptual process because

employee’s are likely to remember information that
is consistent with their self-concept.
 2. The more confident employee’s are in their
self-concept, the less they accept feedback
whether positive or negative, that is odds with
their self-concepts.
 3. Employee’s are motivated to interact with others
who affirm their self-concepts and this affect how
well they get along with their boss and with the co-
employee’s in teams.
SELF-EVALUATION
 is an individual’s honest and objectives
assessment of himself. The self-evaluation is
usually defined by three concepts which are self-
esteem, self-efficacy and locus of control.
SELF ESTEEM
 Is the extent to which a person has generally
positive feeling about himself. People with high
self-esteem view themselves in a positive light,
self-confident and respect themselves.
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. 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.
LOCUS OF CONTROL

-deals with the degree to which people feel

answerable for their own behaviors. People with
high internal locus of control or internals believe
that they can influence their own destiny and what
happens to them is caused by their own doing.
 Internals feel greater control over their own lives
and so they act in ways that will add to their
chances of success. Externals on the other hand,
believes that what happens to them is the result of
luck or fate.
SELF- MONITORING
-refers to the level to which a person is able of
checking his actions and appearance in social
situations. In other words, people who are social
monitoring understand what the situation
demands and act accordingly.
-their greater ability modify their behavior
according to the demands of the situation and to
manage their impressions effectively is a great
advantage for them.
PERCEPTIONS
-it is an intellectual process by which an
individual selects, organizes and provides
meaning to the world around him.
Interestingly, people do not solely respond to
the stimuli in their environment, they go
beyond the information that is present in their
environment.
PERCEPTUAL PROCESS
 It is consists of six steps: the presence of
objects, observation, selection, organization,
and response.
 It is the sequence of psychological steps that
a person uses to organize and interpret
information from the outside world.
STEPS OF PERCEPTUAL PROCESS
1. Objects are present in the world.
2. A person observes
3. The person uses perception to select objects.
4. The person organizes the perception of objects.
5. The person interprets the perceptions.
6. The person responds.
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.
INTERNAL FACTORS

[Link]
it is a traits that influence how a person selects
perceptions.
[Link]
people will choose perceptions based on what
they need in the moment. They will support
selections that they think will aid them with their
needs.
[Link]
-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.
EXTERNAL FACTORS

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.
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 .
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.
5. Repetition
-it increase perceptual selection. A repeated
stimuli is more likely to be noticed.
[Link] and Familiarity
-both of this 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.
 4 CONCEPTS IN
PERCEPTUAL SELECTION
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.
SELECTIVE ATTENTION
-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 their needs and avoid those that
irrelevant.
PERCEPTUAL DEFENSE
-sometimes people may select stimuli
which they later find as psychologically
threatening and uncomfortable. They
have a tendency to filter out that stimuli,
although initial exposure has taken place.
The threatening stimuli is consciously
filtered away.
PERCEPTUAL BLOCKING
-when exposed 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
may stimuli at the same time. The people
thus, blocks out the various stimuli from their
conscious awareness.
PERCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION
-when exposed to a large number of
stimuli simultaneously, people may
block the various stimuli, as they get
stressed out. The people thus, blocks
out the view of stimuli from their
conscious awareness.
 FACTORS THAT DETERMINE
PERCEPTUAL ORGANIZATION
Figure-Ground
-once perceived, objects stand out against
their background. That perceptions of
something as new can out against the
background of everything of the same type
that is old.
Perceptual Grouping
- grouping is when perceptions are brought
together as a pattern
Closure
-a tendency to try to create wholes out of
perceived part. This can result error, when
perceiver fills unperceived information to
complete the whole.
Proximity
-perceptions that are physically close to
each other are easier to organize into a pattern
or whole.
Similarity
-similarity between perceptions promotes a
tendency to group them together.
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
way.
Perceptual Context
-people will tend to organize perceptions in
relation to other pertinent perceptions, and
create a context out of those connections.
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.
VISUAL PERCEPTUAL
PROCESSING IS
SUBDIVIDED INTO 7
CATEGORIES
Visual discrimination
-is the ability of the child to be aware of the
distinctive features of forms including shape,
orientation, size and color.
Visual figure ground
-is the ability to distinguish an object from
irrelevant background information.
Visual closure
- is the ability to recognize a complete
feature from fragmented information.
Visual memory
- is the ability to retain information over an
adequate period of time.
-dysfunction in visual memory may cause
prolonged time in copying assignments,
difficulty in recognizing the words and
difficulty retaining what is seen or heard.
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.
Visual form constancy
- is the ability to recognize objects as they
change size, shape or orientation.
Visual Spatial Skills
- refer to the ability to understand
directional concepts that recognize external
visual space. It allow an individual to develop
spatial concepts (right and left, front and
back, up and back).
SOCIAL PERCEPTION
-is the study of how people form
impressions of and make inferences about
other people.
-People learn about others’ feeling and
emotions by picking up on information
gathered from their physical appearance, and
verbal and non verbal communication.
 THREE DOMAINS OF
COMPETENCE ON BEING
COMPONENT IN SOCIAL
PERCEPTION
 1. Knowing that other people have thoughts,
belief, emotions, intentions, decisions and like.
2. Being able to “read” other people’s inner
states based on their words, behavior, facial
expression and like.
3. adjusting one’s actions based on those
“readings”. That is, a socially competent
person can make note of other peoples’ facial
expression, tone of voice, posture, gestures,
words and like.
PERCEPTUAL ERRORS
-the process of making evaluations,
judgments or ratings of the performance
of employees is subject to a number of
systematic perceptual error.
THE PERCEPTUAL ERRORS
Central Tendency
-appraising everyone at the middle of the
rating skills.
Contrast Error
-basing an appraisal on comparison with
other employees rather than on established
performance criteria.
Different From Me
-giving a poor appraisal because the person
has qualities or characteristics not possessed
by the appraiser.
Halo Effect
-appraising an employee undeservedly on
one quality (performance) because she is
perceived highly by the appraiser on another
quality (attractiveness).
Horn Effect
-the opposite of halo effect. Giving
someone a poor appraisal on one quality
(attractiveness) influences poor rating on
other qualities (performance).
Initial Impressions
-basing on appraisal on first impressions
rather than on how the person has behaved
throughout the period to which appraisal
relatives.
Latest Behavior
-basin an appraisal on the person’s recent
behavior.

Lenient and Generous Rating

- perhaps the common error, being
consistently generous in appraisal mostly
avoid conflict.
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.
Same as Me
-giving a good appraisal because the person
has 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.
Status Effect
-giving those in higher level positions
consistently better appraisals than those in
lower level jobs.
Strict Rating
-being consistently harsh in appraising
performance.
ATTRIBUTIONS
-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.
-the process of attaching or attributing
causes or reasons to the actions and events
people see.
2 DIFFERENT SECTIONS OF
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
Internal theories – means that the behavior
is being caused by something inside the
person.
External attributes – point to the cause of
the behavior to be the situation, not the
person.
 TWO SIGNIFICANT
MODELS OF
ATTRIBUTION THEORY
KELLEY’S ATTRIBUTION THEORY
-it 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.
INDIVIDUALS FORM CAUSAL
BELIEFS BY ANALYZING
CONSISTENCY, CONSENSUS,
DISTINCTIVENESS
Distinctiveness
- this is the degree in which a person behave the
same way across different situations.
Consistency
-this is the degree in which a person behave the
same way in different occasions in the same
situation.
Consensus
-this is the degree in which other people behave
the same way.
 ACCORDING TO KELLEY
PEOPLES FALL BACK ON PAST
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 of these 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 by her coach. Any one reason would
be sufficient.
BERNARD WEINER’S MODEL OF
ATTRIBUTION
-how people interpret success and failure.
- human feel the need to explain both
success and failure, although this need is more
prevalent in situations in which the outcome
not unexpected.
PEOPLE ATTRIBUTE THEIR
SUCCESSES AND FAILURE
TO FOUR THINGS:
1. Ability “I have always been a good
teacher.”
2. Effort “I worked hard and studied those
lessons for hours.”
3. Task difficulty “Those lessons were really
easy.”
4. Luck “I was lucky that I was already
familiar with those lessons before.”
THREE CAUSAL DIMENSIONS

1. LOCUS
-this refers to whether the cause of the
event is perceived as internal to the individual
or external.
2. STABILTY
-this refers to whether the cause is stable or
unstable across time and situations.
[Link]
-refers whether the cause of the event is
perceived as being under the control of the
individual.
ATTRIBUTION BIASES

Attribution Bias
-when individuals make an assumption
about others without having all the data
they need to be accurate.
2 DIFFERENT TYPES OF BIAS ERRORS

[Link]-Serving Bias
-where individuals attribute positive
dealings to their own character and negative
dealings to external factors.
2. Fundamental Attribution Error
-when a person assign blames or a cause of
something to the person themselves and does
not take into account external issues.