Perceptions and Attributions

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AbstractMotivation in organization management entails the psychological forces inside a person that establish the bearing of the individual’s behavior in the organization, the individual’s level of initiative, and the individual’s degree of determination in the event of obstacles. In this perspective, perception should be considered in regard to organizational behavior. This is because, perception bears extreme influence on management decisions, whether in making a decision to hire new employees, executing performance reviews, or in making major decisions in regard to the direction the organization should take. Perception also influences an employee’s degree of performance and job satisfaction (Mullins, 2008).

Table of Contents

TOC o “1-3” h z u Abstract PAGEREF _Toc315362032 h 2Introduction PAGEREF _Toc315362033 h 4Importance of Understanding How People Form Perceptions and Make Attributions PAGEREF _Toc315362034 h 5How Perception influences the Decision Making Process PAGEREF _Toc315362035 h 5Operant Conditioning Would Be Most Appropriate For Joe to Apply In This Situation PAGEREF _Toc315362036 h 7Understanding of the Value of Self-Efficacy in Hiring Successful Salespeople PAGEREF _Toc315362040 h 10Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc315362041 h 10References PAGEREF _Toc315362042 h 11

IntroductionIn any organization, employers as well as the employees continuously face the challenge of making the balanced decisions in order to reach a most favorable outcome for the organization. However, research frequently demonstrates that, in the actual world the majority of decision making processes in many organizations, are not entirely rational. In this regard, person perception is the key issue in organizational decision making and behavior for the fact that based on the incomplete information or instantaneous impressions of workers’ performance may result in an erroneous perceptual opinion made by employers (Karl, 2006).

Importance of Understanding How People Form Perceptions and Make AttributionsPeople’s judgment and behavior are founded on their perception. Individuals do not perceive reality itself, but, on the contrary, they construe what they perceive and regard it as reality. Perception is a mental function of granting importance to stimuli like colors, shapes, movement, sounds, taste, touch, pain, smells, feeling, and pressures. Perception induces individual behavioral response to explicit situations. While a group would physically see similar things, they all have their individual versions of what they see. This is referred to as their perceived observation of reality (Mullins, 2008).

The perceptual process entails a characteristics aspect of behavior, which should be of particularly significance to Joe as a manager. As a manager, Joe requires to understand the attribution theory which is encompasses how persons perceive and deduce causality. The attribution theory involves an attempt whereby individuals scrutinize behavior in order to establish if the behavior is externally or internally caused. Behaviors that are externally caused are the consequence of outside sources. The behaviors that are internally caused are those that are regarded as under an individual’s control. Joe ought to distinguish if the behavior of an employee is theirs, or due to the actions of others (Karl, 2006).

How Perception influences the Decision Making ProcessIn regard to how perception influences the decision making process, it does not matter what may be regarded as reality if an individual views it in a different way. It is essential that, Joe realizes that, an individual’s behavior is an express consequence of the manner in which he sees things. An example to illustrate this point is that, two individuals may experience an incident together, but when interviewed, it would be highly probable to obtain similarities in their reports, but each individual will have a distinctive analysis of the details. In this perspective, it is essential to identify the major factors that contribute to an individual’s perceptions. Factors that influence a person’s perception are threefold. These are the situation, the perceiver, and lastly, the subject or target. An individual interprets information or situations taking into consideration their own experiences and attitudes. If an individual has gone through positive experiences in a comparable situation, or with a parallel sort of employee or manager, he may perceive this new experience taking into consideration the past and get pre-conceived opinions, expectations, and ideas to their construal. This would lead to a negative or positive perception. Habitually the perceiver might not assess new information because he will not consider beyond his initial evaluation. An organization may lose a prospect of an innovative proposal because it was on no account considered (Mullins, 2008).

Individuals make attributions daily. Nevertheless, these attributions might not always be accurate. One widespread predicament in assigning causes is referred to as the fundamental attribution error. It entails the tendency of an individual to overrate the impact of personal factors plus underrate the impact of situational factors in the assessment of another person’s behavior. This means that, when scrutinizing behavior, an individual is more liable to presuppose that the behavior of another person is principally not caused by the situation, but by the person. In the workplace, managers are likely to presume that the dismal performance of employees’ is as a result of lack of aptitude or endeavors rather than the task’s complexity or luck. In normal circumstances, when an individual perceives their personal failure or success versus perceiving the failure or success of other people, they assign one or several causes. These causes include luck, effort, task complexity, or ability. Ability and effort are internal causes, while luck and task complexity are regarded as external causes.

A number of researchers posit that, it is within human nature to embrace a self-serving prejudice. This is the propensity to attribute one’s personal successes or accomplishments to internal factors, while on the other hand, attribute one’s personal failures to external factors. Thus, together with the fundamental attribution error, the self-serving prejudice indicates that individuals are inclined to make dissimilar attributions in relation to their personal failures and successes than the failures and successes of other people (Quick & Nelson, 2006).

Managers frequently act on the basis of their attributions and might act inappropriately in the event that the attributions are invalid. Managers who understand the types of external and internal attributions, the attributional process, and the incidence of the fundamental attribution error as well as the self-serving prejudice would better understand their individual as well as other people’s behavior (Karl, 2006).

Operant Conditioning Would Be Most Appropriate For Joe to Apply In This SituationIn simple terms, operant conditioning is a methodical program of punishments and rewards that is implemented in order to produce the desired behavior, or to influence behavior. This learning theory relies on two fundamental postulations in relation to psychology and human experience. Firstly, a specific act may result in an incident that is an outcome of that act. Secondly, the perceived worth of an act’s outcome impinges on future behavior. Additionally, a fundamental idea of operant conditioning posits that the chief influences on human behavior are external. This means that, it is in an individual’s external environment that his behavior is normally programmed. Operant conditioning is a key concept of psychology. Operant conditioning, embraces learned, rather than reflexive behavior. Operant conditioning works by rewarding (reinforcing) and punishing behavior on the basis of the results it produces. Rewarding is utilized to increase the likelihood that behavior might happen in the future, while punishment endeavors to decrease that likelihood. Additionally, the process of removing rewarding from an act is referred to as extinction. Operant conditioning is referred to in organizational management as a component of reinforcement theory as well as work behavior modification (Quick & Nelson, 2006).

It would be appropriate for Joe to adopt this leaning theory since, in contrast to other motivation and management theories, operant conditioning theory does not hinge on beliefs, attitudes, motivation, and intentions in order to predict and influence behavior. Consequently, theorists in organizational management who implement this approach consider external factors, particularly the environment, in explaining and influencing behavior in the work place. The major reason as to why this would be the most appropriate approach for Joe is obvious. In the operant conditioning approach to management, it perceives motivation as a result of workplace environment, rather than as an internal quality of every individual employee’s psychological structure. For that reason, employees are extremely motivated when quality is rewarded with promotions, pay increases, and related conditions that employees regard as advantageous (Karl, 2006).Application of Operant Conditioning in Improving Employees’ PerformanceSince for the most part, the behavior that occurs in an organization is learned, but not reflexive, operant conditioning may be applicable to organizational management. Joe must understand that employees learn diverse types of behavior prior to and subsequent to joining an organization. They also come across diverse stimuli in an organizational setting that may lead them to behave in particular ways with specific consequences. These types of behaviors are punished and rewarded depending on their significance to the organization. The workplace stimuli include schedules, telephone calls, company policies, corporate structures, managers, to mention a few. The outcomes of workplace behavior comprise of, disapproval or approval from managers as well as co-workers, demotions, promotions, and pay increases. When the consequences are expressly associated with certain types of behavior, they become contingent on these types of behavior. Nonetheless, most consequences in an organization are moderately contingent on the employee’s performance, and therefore, there are habitually complete networks of interactions between its consequences and employee behavior. These associations are referred to as schedules of reinforcement (Karl, 2006).

In application of operant conditioning to work place environment, Joe would require to control these schedules. The reinforcement schedules are intermittent (partial) or continuous. The continuous reinforcement schedules involve the situations whereby every incidence of an act is rewarded (reinforced). On the contrary, the intermittent schedules involve the situations whereby only some occurrences of an act would be rewarded. Managers who implement a tactical approach in the positive reinforcement actions provide workers with rewards that bear long–term implications. These include educational programs, training, and prizes that demonstrate acknowledgment of achievements by employees. Since some behavior is so intricate that it may not occur suddenly, Joe ought to reinforce progressive estimates of the preferred behavior. This process starts with reinforcement of behavior which resembles the preferred behavior, by use of continuous reinforcement schedules with a progressive standard. Operant conditioning is known to be successfully applicable in diverse settings in management, for the purposes of modification of organizational behavior (Quick & Nelson, 2006).

Understanding of the Value of Self-Efficacy in Hiring Successful SalespeopleThe significance of the consequence of self-efficacy as well as, the adaptability on a salesperson orientation is an issue of primary importance. Self-efficacy, as a situation-specific type of self-confidence, is improved when the perception of self is augmented. However, this condition is rather unsteady, fluctuating and changing quickly depending on the circumstances. As the levels of self-perceptions and self-efficacy build, so does the overall self-confidence. Research has demonstrated that observed sentiments of greater self-efficacy is linked with higher degrees of performance, thus supporting the concept that leaders may change things by increasing their self-efficacy levels. In order to hire the appropriate salespeople, Joe should realize that higher self-efficacy results to a higher degree of salesperson orientation as supposed by the salespersons. The justification of this postulation is that self-efficacy is based in self-concept as well as salesperson orientation (Karl, 2006).

ConclusionEmployee motivation entails comprehending the psychology on the factors that motivate employees as persons. Joe needs to aspire to encourage impetus into his employees with the anticipation of enhancing their contribution towards the organization. He needs to understand the requisite mechanisms to realize a well motivated workplace atmosphere. It is evident that persons with a high sense of professed self-efficacy regarding a specific task or objective sense, think, and operate differently from individuals who view themselves as being inefficacious. The salespeople who have a resilient efficacy sense tend to scrutinize difficult tasks as problems to be prevailed over instead of challenges that need to be evaded. Highly efficacious salespeople are more liable to perceive failure and success in a different way from the salespeople with lower levels of self-efficacy. ReferencesKarl, K. A. (2006). The Impact of Self-Efficacy & Feedback on Performance in Training. Organizational Behavior Journal, 14(2), 94.

Mullins, L., J. (2008) ‘The Perception Process. London: Pitman publishing.

Quick., J.C. & Nelson, D. (2010). Organizational Behavior. New York: McGraw Hill.