Management Organizational Behavior

True or False

1. The information-processing stages of the perceptual process are divided into information attention and selection, organization of information, information interpretation, and information retrieval.
2. Selective screening lets in only a tiny portion of all of the information available.
3. Controlled processing occurs when a person consciously decides what information to pay attention to and what information to ignore.
4. Selective screening occurs only through conscious awareness.
5. Schemas are cognitive frameworks that represent organized knowledge about a given concept or stimulus developed through experience.
6. A self schema contains information about a person’s own appearance, behavior, and personality.
7. Impersonal schemas refer to the way individuals divide others into categories, such as types or groups, in terms of similar perceived features.
8. The term prototype, or stereotype, is often used to represent the categories formed by person schemas.
9. A prototype, or stereotype, is an abstract set of features commonly associated with members of a particular category.
10. A script schema is defined as a knowledge framework that describes the appropriate sequence of events in a given situation.
11. A person-in-situation schema is defined as a knowledge framework that describes the appropriate sequence of events in a given situation.
12. Script schemas combine schemas built around persons and events.
13. Schemas rely heavily on automatic processing for freeing people up to use controlled processing as necessary.
14. Once your attention has been drawn to certain stimuli and you have grouped or organized this information, the next stage in the perceptual process is to uncover the reasons behind these actions. This is known as interpretation.
15. The perceptual process influences thoughts and feelings but not actions.
16. The common perceptual distortions include stereotypes or prototypes, halo effects, selective perception, projection, contrast effects, and the self-fulfilling prophecy.
17. Stereotypes, or prototypes, are useful ways of combining information in order to deal with information overload.
18. Stereotypes obscure individual differences; that is, they can prevent managers from getting to know people as individuals and from accurately assessing their needs, preferences, and abilities.
19. Both managers and employees need to be sensitive to stereotypes; they must also attempt to overcome them and recognize that an increasingly diverse workforce can be a truly competitive advantage.
20. A halo effect occurs when one attribute of a person or situation is used to develop an overall impression of the individual or situation.
21. Like stereotypes, halo effects are most likely to occur in the interpretation stage of the perceptual process.
22. Halo effects are particularly important in the performance appraisal process because they can influence a manger’s evaluations of subordinates’ work performance.
23. Selective perception is the tendency to single out those aspects of a situation, person, or object that are consistent with one’s own needs, values, or attitudes.
24. The strongest impact of selective perception occurs during the organization stage of the perceptual process.
25. Managers should be aware of selective perception and test whether or not situations, events, or individuals are being selectively perceived.
26. Projection is the assignment of one’s personal attributes to other individuals.
27. Projection is especially likely to occur in the retrieval stage of perception.
28. When managers assume that the subordinates’ needs coincide with their own needs, the managers are committing the perceptual error of selective perception.
29. Projection can be controlled through a high degree of self-awareness and empathy.
30. A contrast effect occurs when an individual’s characteristics are compared with those of others who have been recently encountered and who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.
31. When a manager comparatively ranks all his/her subordinates on their oral communication skills, the contrast effect may creep in as a perceptual bias.
32. A self-fulfilling prophecy is the tendency to create or find in another situation or individual that which you expected to find in the first place.
33. Impression management is sometimes referred to as the “Pygmalion effect.”
34. Self-fulfilling prophecies can have both positive and negative effects for a manager.
35. The effects of the self-fulfilling prophecy argue strongly for managers to adopt negative and pessimistic approaches to people at work.
36. To create positive self-fulfilling prophecies for employees, managers should spend more time helping subordinates learn job skills and provide more opportunities for subordinates to ask questions.
37.  Impression management is a person’s systematic attempt to behave in ways that will create and maintain desired impressions in the eyes of others.
38. First impressions are not particularly important in influencing how people respond to one another.
39. Impression management is reflected in such activities as associating with the “right people,” doing favors to gain approval, and flattering others to favorably impress them.
40. People seldom take credit for a favorable event or downplay the severity of a negative event when they are engaging in impression management.
41. Apologizing for a negative event while seeking a pardon, agreeing with the opinions of others, and doing favors for others are seldom used in impression management.
42. During the information interpretation stage of information processing, managers should be alert to balancing automatic and controlled information processing in order to address distortion management.
43. In terms of distortion management, the various kinds of schemas and prototypes and stereotypes are particularly important at the information retrieval stage of information processing.
44. In dealing with distortion management, managers need to be especially attuned to the impact of attribution on information that occurs in the interpretation stage of information processing.
45. Throughout the entire perception process, managers should be sensitive to the information distortions caused by stereotypes and prototypes, halo effects, selective perception, projection, contrast effects, and the self-fulfilling prophecy.
46. Assimilation theory is the attempt to understand the causes of a certain event, assess responsibility for outcomes of the event, and evaluate the personal qualities of the people involved in the event.
47. Attribution theory aids in the process of perception interpretation by focusing on how people attempt to understand the causes of a certain event, assess responsibility for the outcomes of the event, and evaluate the personal qualities of the people involved in the event.
48. In attribution theory, external causes are seen as outside a person’s control.
49. According to attribution theory, internal causes are believed to be under an individual’s control.
50. According to attribution theory, three factors influence whether an event is attributed to an internal cause or an external cause. These three factors are: distinctiveness, consensus, and aptitude.
51. In the context of attribution theory, distinctiveness considers how consistent a person’s behavior is across different situations.
52. If a person’s performance is poor regardless of the equipment he/she is using, the tendency is to attribute the person’s poor performance to internal causes; but if the person performs poorly only when using a specific piece of equipment, the tendency is to attribute the person’s poor performance to external causes.
53. In the context of attribution theory, consistency takes into account how likely all those facing a similar situation are to respond in the same way.
54. If everyone using the same equipment performs poorly, the tendency is to attribute any one person’s poor performance to internal causes; but if other people using the equipment perform well while one person performs poorly, the tendency is to attribute that individual’s poor performance to external causes.
55. In the context of attribution theory, consensus concerns whether an individual responds the same way across time.
56. If a person performs poorly in many different situations, the tendency is to attribute the person’s poor performance to external causes; but if the person performs poorly only occasionally, the tendency is to attribute the person’s poor performance to internal causes. 57. 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.
57. A self-serving bias is the tendency to deny personal responsibility for performance problems but to accept personal responsibility for performance success.
58. In the context of attribution theory, we tend to underemphasize internal personal factors in other people’s behavior and to overemphasize external factors in other people’s behavior.
59. In the context of attribution theory, we tend to attribute our own successes to our own internal factors and to attribute our own failures to external factors.
60. In Korea, managers attribute workgroup failures to themselves, thereby indicating a negative effect for the self-serving bias.
61. In India, the fundamental attribution error overemphasizes external rather than internal causes for failure
62. Certain cultures, such as the United States, tend to underemphasize internal cues and overemphasize external cues.
63. Reinforcement is the administration of a consequence as a result of behavior.
64. Classical conditioning is a form of learning through association that involves the manipulation of stimuli to influence behavior.
65. A stimulus is something that incites action and draws forth a response
66. Operant conditioning is a form of learning through association that involves the manipulation of stimuli to influence behavior.
67. A conditioned stimulus refers to a once-neutral stimulus that is paired with an original stimulus and becomes capable of affecting behavior in the same way as the initial stimulus.
68. Operant conditioning is the process of controlling behavior by manipulating its consequences.
69. Classical and operant conditioning differ in two important ways. First, control in classical conditioning is via manipulation of consequences. Second, classical conditioning calls for examining antecedents, behavior, and consequences.
70. The law of effect states that behavior resulting in an unpleasant outcome is likely to be repeated whereas behavior resulting in a pleasant outcome is not likely to be repeated.
71. According to the law of effect, a supervisor who wants to increase the incidence of a specific employee behavior should make sure that the behavior results in positive outcomes.
72. Organizational behavior modification (OB Mod) is the systematic reinforcement of desirable work behavior and the non-reinforcement or punishment of unwanted work behavior
73. Positive reinforcement is the administration of positive consequences that tend to increase the likelihood of repeating the behavior in similar settings.
74. The law of contingent reinforcement states that the reward must be given as soon as possible after the occurrence of the desirable behavior.
75. Shaping is the creation of a new behavior by the positive reinforcement of successive approximations to the desired behavior.
76. Continuous reinforcement administers a reward each time a desired behavior occurs.
77. Negative reinforcement is the withdrawal of negative consequences, which tends to increase the likelihood of repeating the behavior in similar settings
78. Punishment is the administration of negative consequences or the withdrawal of positive consequences that tend to reduce the likelihood of repeating the behavior in similar settings.
79. Extinction is the withdrawal of the reinforcing consequences for a given behavior.
80. Both positive and negative reinforcement are used to strengthen desirable behavior.
81. Both punishment and extinction are used to weaken undesirable behavior.
82. OB Mod has been criticized for creating values dilemmas regarding the use of reinforcement to influence human behavior at work.
83. OB Mod has been criticized for the systematic use of reinforcement strategies that lead to a demeaning and dehumanizing view of people, which, in turn, stunts human growth and development.
84. Critics of OB Mod say that managers abuse the power of their position and knowledge by exerting external control over individual behavior.
85. Proponents of OB Mod argue that behavior control is an irrevocable part of every manager’s job.
86. Proponents of OB Mod say that the real ethical issue is how to ensure that any manipulation of consequences is done in a positive and constructive fashion.

Fill-in-the-Blank

1.  __________ is the process through which people select, organize,
   interpret, retrieve, and respond to information from their environment.

Multiple Choice

1. Perceptual information is gained through __________.
   a) sight only.
   b) hearing only.
   c) sight and hearing but not touch, taste, and smell.
   d) touch, taste, and smell but not sight and hearing.
   e) sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell.
2. Which of the following statements about perception is NOT accurate

• a) although important, perceptions have only a minor impact on the way people respond to various situations
• b) through perception, people process information inputs into responses involving feelings
• c) perception is a way of forming impressions about oneself, other people, and daily life experiences.
• d) perceptions serve as a screen or filter through which information passes before it has an effect on people.
• e) through perception, people process information inputs into responses involving action.

1. The factors that influence the perceptual process among people at work include characteristics regarding the __________.

• a) inputs, throughputs, and outputs
• b) information, facts, and data.
• c) perceiver, setting, and perceived.
• d) perceiver, intention, and consequence.
• e) intention, meaning, and result.

1. One of the factors that influence the perceptual process is the “perceiver.” Which of the following sets of items influence (or relate to) this portion of the perceptual process?

• a) physical, social, and organizational contexts.
• b) past experiences, needs or motives, personality, values, and attitudes.
• c) contrast, intensity, figure-ground separation, size, motion, andrepetition/novelty.
• d) attitudes, physical characteristics, contrast, and size.
• e) values, organizational norms, motion, and repetition/novelty.

1. The stages involved in processing the information that determines a person’s perceptions and reactions include all of the following EXCEPT:

• a) information attention and selection.
• b) information organization.
• c) information interpretation.
• d) information sending.
• e) information retrieval.

 Which of the following statements reflect the correct order of the stages of the perceptual process?

• a) organization, attention/selection, retrieval, and interpretation.
• b) attention/selection, interpretation, organization, and retrieval.
• c) attention/selection, organization, interpretation, and retrieval.
• d) interpretation, retrieval, organization, and attention/selection.
• e) interpretation, attention/selection, retrieval, and organization.

 Selective screening __________.

• a) lets in only a tiny proportion of all of the information available.
• b) should only be used sparingly because it is rarely effective.
• c) is typically used in the “information retrieval” step of information processing.
• d) is typically used in the “information interpretation” step of information processing.
• e) is typically used in the “information organization” step of information processing.

96. William Walker works in a very busy and noisy environment. As a result, he frequently has to consciously decide what information to pay attention to and what information to ignore. Walker is using __________ as a mechanism for information attention and selection.

• a) judicious screening.
• b) selective sorting.
• c) controlled processing.
• d) discriminate screening.
• e) discerning processing.

97. __________ are cognitive frameworks that represent organized knowledge about a given concept or stimulus that is developed through experience.

Multiple Choice

98. A __________ contains information about a person’s own appearance, behavior, and personality.

• a) script schema.
• b) self schema.
• c) domestic schema.
• d) person-in-situation schema.
• e) indigenous schema.

99. __________ schemas refer to the way individuals sort others into categories ? such as types or groups ? in terms of similar perceived features.

• a) ordered.
• b) person.
• c) self.
• d) person-in situation.
• e) indigenous.