Perception and Decision Making

Person Perception: Making judgment about others

Attribution Theory:

While observing people’s behavior such as getting an overseas assignment or promotion to top management position or failed miserably in university examination or fired from the employer etc, we attempt to determine whether it was internally caused or external caused.  If those factors  such as knowledge,  skill, effort,  talent,  hard work,  positive attitude are responsible for the occurrence of behavior, it is labeled as internally caused. Internally caused behaviors are those that are believed to be under the personal control of the individual. If those factors such as situational factors such as location advantage, non availability  of material,  contacts  with  influential  others,  etc are responsible  for the occurrence of behavior, it is labeled as externally caused. Externally caused behavior is seen as resulting  from outside  causes;  that is, the person  is seen as forced  into the behavior by the situation.

If an employee is late for work, one can attribute his late coming due to laziness or lack of interest  in the job of over  sleeping.  This  would  be internal  interpretation.  If an employee late coming is due to traffic jam or road accident or his wife sickness, then he is making external attribution.

There are three factors which are used to determine whether the behavior is caused by internal factors or due to external  factors. They are: Distinctiveness,  Consensus  and Consistency.

Distinctiveness:

It refers to whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations. If a person is coming late not only to office but also to  picnic party or to  birth day party or to attending  meeting etc. If his late coming behavior  is not unique, it will probably  be judged as internal. (Low Distinctiveness)   If his late coming behavior is unusual, that is, only  to office  work,  his late coming  behavior  is due to external  attribution.  (High Distinctiveness)

Consensus:

It refers to whether all the people who are facing with a similar situation respond in the same way or not. If all the people  are responding  the same way, then there is high consensus. If consensus is high, then his late coming behavior is due to external factors. If only this worker is late and all others are punctual, then there is low consensus. If consensus is low, then his late coming is due to internal factor

Consistency:

It refers whether a person responds the same all the time, that is, whether his late coming is common in all the days or once in a blue moon. If his late coming is reported in all the days, then there is high consistency. If there is high consistency, his late coming behavior is due to internal factor. If his late coming is reported only one time, then there is low consistency. If there is low consistency, then his late coming is due to external factors. The more consistent  the behavior,  the more the observer is inclined to attribute it to internal factors.

Errors in Attribution:

While attributing the causes for the behavior of individuals, people tend to commit two types of errors.

Fundamental Attribution Error:

There is tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgment about the behavior of others particularly  with reference  to the victims of accidents  or failures.   This is called the fundamental attribution errors. For example, a sales manager is likely to attribute the poor performance of his sales agents to laziness rather than to the new product line introduced by the competitor or current recession prevailing in the society etc

Self-Serving Bias:

There is also a tendency for individuals to attribute their own success to internal factors such as ability or effort, while putting the blame for failure on external factors such as luck or fate. This is called the self-serving bias. While assessing the performance of subordinates,   the  managers  are  likely  to  provide  feedback  in  a  distorted  manner depending on whether it is positive or negative.